CHAPTER 8 #2
He grabbed me by the neck and squeezed all of the air out. Panic hit me. I wanted to claw at his hands, but I had to hang there, limp, instead.
The world was turning dark.
The upstairs door swung open, and Derog marched into the room, followed by a thickset guy who looked like he crushed bricks with his forehead for a living.
The guard let go of me and backed away with his hands in the air.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Derog snarled. “What in the honest fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“She provoked me, terr.”
I sucked in air and coughed. I was still alive somehow.
“How?”
“She was looking at me.” As soon as the words came out, the weasel-face realized that he’d made a crucial mistake.
“So you hit her because she was looking at you?” Derog asked, suddenly calm.
“She called me a shit smear.”
“She has the mind of a child, you moron.” Derog grasped my chin. “She doesn’t know what the words mean. She probably heard them for the first time today. Smile, Maggie.”
I blinked away tears and gave him a smile.
“She said it like she knew what it meant. And then she screamed.”
Derog studied my mouth. “You scared her. Of course she screamed. Your face isn’t scratched. She made no effort to fight you.”
The weasel-face stared at me.
Derog put his finger in my mouth and tested my teeth. I almost threw up in his face.
“She has teeth like a noblewoman, and she’s worth more than I pay you in a year. And you hit her in the face. What would we do if you knocked any of her teeth out? Would I pull yours out and put them into her mouth?”
The bruiser next to Derog stirred. “Apologies, terr, but his teeth aren’t pretty enough.”
The slavemonger turned his head and looked at the big guy for a long moment.
“Close your mouth, Maggie.”
I did.
“You’re not wrong, Murt,” Derog said to the big man, “but you are missing the point. The point is, if one of you touches her again, I’ll hang you by your balls off the tree in the courtyard.”
The two guards held still.
“You,” Derog pointed at the weasel-face, “come with me. You!” He pointed at Murt. “Guard. I don’t want to come down here again tonight. No more trouble, no more screams.”
Murt nodded.
The weasel-face tossed a ring with two keys to the big guard and gave me a thisisn’t-fucking-over look. He was right. It wasn’t over until all of them were dead.
Derog headed toward the stairs, weasel-face in tow, stopped, and turned. “Where is Kaiden?”
Shit.
“He has the runs, terr,” Clover said from the latrine’s doorway. She was standing with her feet together, her head slightly bowed, still keeping Derog in her view but not looking straight at him. Her arms were bent slightly at the elbows and her hands were together, right over left.
It looked like a pose a maid from a noble household might assume. Her face was serene, her expression perfectly neutral. I got the feeling that if Derog threw a bucket of blood at her right now, she’d stay just like that.
Derog’s gaze sharpened. “Does he?”
He started toward the latrine.
We were busted. It was over. I could sprint to the upstairs door, but I wouldn’t, because the kids would be left behind. And weasel-face would catch me.
Kaiden stumbled out of the latrine.
Had he gone through the hole or not? I couldn’t tell. He didn’t look like a child who had crawled through dirt.
I had failed. The escape had failed.
But the kids were alive. It would be fine. I would think of something else.
“Come here,” Derog ordered.
The boy walked over, defiance all over his face. My heart was in my throat, and it had squeezed itself into a painful rock that kept me from breathing.
Derog frowned. “Have you been drinking from the faucet?”
Kaiden looked at him. If he’d had a weapon, any weapon, he would’ve tried to stab Derog.
“I asked you a question,” Derog said.
“No.”
Derog shook his head. “If he doesn’t improve by morning, tell the guard to get a healer.”
“Yes, terr,” Clover said.
Derog turned and he and the weasel-face went up the stairs. The door clanged shut.
Murt glared at all of us and put his meaty hand on the short club hanging from his belt. “Bed. Now.” He stabbed his finger in my direction and then pointed at the nearest cot. “Maggie, sleep here.”
I walked to the bed, took off my boots, and lay down.
At the other side of the room Kaiden crawled into his bunk. Clover settled to the left of him, by the little girls. Their faces told me absolutely nothing.
Murt walked over to the lantern in the wall by my bed, stuck the key into the lock of the cage, and opened it. “Everyone goes the fuck to sleep.”
He blew the flame out and moved on to the next lantern.
“Nobody cries.”
The door at the far end of the room swung open, and Reynald slipped in.
I blinked to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.
He’d lost the cloak. He wore a dark gray shirt and dark pants, loose enough to move in but without much slack.
His sword rested in his fingers, pointing down, almost an afterthought.
“Everyone sleeps,” Murt intoned.
Reynald moved across the room, silent as a ghost.
“And then everyone gets to keep their pretty teeth in their mou—”
It was so fast, I didn’t actually see it. Reynald had moved, the big guard fell mid-word, and Reynald wiped his sword on his sleeve.
I bolted out of the bed and shoved my feet back into my boots. Kaiden was looking at Reynald like he had seen a god in the flesh. Clover sat up in her bed, her face shocked. The little girls froze, not sure whether to cry.
I had to get the kids out of here. Clover was still sitting on her bunk.
“Get the kids.” I cleared the distance to the nearest child, the smallest girl, scooped her out of her bed, turned, and saw Talpot at the bottom of the stairs with a lantern, his eyes wide.
We hadn’t heard the door open. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He had snuck in, the slimy bastard.
Reynald sprinted toward him.
“Guard!” Talpot screamed, fumbling for the knife on his belt. “Gahh!”
Reynald’s blade slid into Talpot’s chest, once, twice, so fast, like a scorpion stinging. Reynald turned his back to him and walked away.
Talpot dropped his knife. His mouth gaped open.
He struggled to say something, but no sound came.
Pink foam bubbled up on his lips. A faint hissing noise came from his chest. A collapsed lung.
The air was rushing into Talpot’s chest through his wounds with every breath, compressing his lungs and his heart. He would die slowly, in pain.
Talpot sagged to the floor. His neck veins bulged out, the skin gaining a slight blue tint. Fear squirmed in his eyes, raw and sharp, the terror of a man who knew he was dying and could do nothing to stop it. The dead boy’s face flashed before me. Good. Die, you scumbag. Be afraid and die.
Footsteps thudded, and two men charged into the room from the other door, cutting off our escape. They must’ve been in the kitchen and heard Talpot scream.
Reynald stepped toward them, his broad back to us. I backed away from him into a corner. Clover lunged for the stairs, holding two children by their hands, but I grabbed her and yanked her back, next to me and the boy.
“No! The safest place in this house is right here. Don’t distract him.”
She pulled the girls closer to her and wrapped her arms around them.
Reynald waited, his blade down.
The two guards advanced. Derog liked to hire beefy intimidating goons, the bigger the better.
Reynald was about six feet tall, and these two towered over him.
They were both larger and heavier than him by at least thirty pounds.
The guy on the left was the scarred guard who had let me and Darotha in, and his coworker on the right looked like a seasoned brawler.
No fat, just muscle, big arms, thick legs, and a mean look in his eyes.
The brawler hefted a wooden club, swung it, and roared, “He’s in the pen!”
The girl in my arms flinched. I hugged her to me and said, “Don’t be scared. This is already over.”
And once it was done, Reynald would walk us right out of here and go back in to paint the walls red.
The brawler charged, swinging the club. Reynald sidestepped as if he were floating and slashed across the brawler’s stomach.
The other guard stabbed at the blademaster from the side, aiming for his neck.
His blade pierced only air. Reynald slashed at the man’s extended arm, opening a gash above his wrist. The guard dropped his sword and howled, red drenching his hand.
The brawler fell, clutching at his gut.
It was insanely fast. They’d clashed in a blink, and now one of them moaned on the floor and the other stumbled away, clenching his arm. Clap your hands once, and the clash was over.
Another guard ran down the stairs, a giant of a man, brandishing a huge sword. He had to be close to seven feet tall, broad, with long troll arms thicker than my legs and huge shovel hands. Where the hell did Derog even find this guy? What was he feeding him?
I held my right arm out and backed a little deeper into the corner, herding the kids behind me.
The injured swordsman grabbed his sword off the floor with his left hand. His right arm hung useless, dripping blood. The giant glanced at him.
Reynald took two steps toward the stairs, his back still to us. He wasn’t maneuvering to get into a better position.
It was because of us, I realized. Reynald had a choice: to kill the slavers for his vengeance or to protect us, and he’d made protecting us his priority.
The giant roared.