Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
FOX
F ox saw the victory in her eyes in the same moment he heard the bow string. He didn’t even have time to register what direction the sound had come from as two figures dropped from the trees above, one on either side. He shoved his captive hard in the chest, satisfied as she fell back on her ass with an indignant yelp, and he pulled his sword.
But before he could do more than step forward, cold metal pressed against the back of his neck, just beneath his hairline.
“Drop it.”
He froze, calculating his chances against three armed Dragonborn and the tied woman at his feet.
“If you prefer to keep your blood inside your body, I’d listen to her,” another voice said. An older man stepped out from behind a thick bush and moved toward where the woman was lying, bruised from her fall but smiling. He was an imposing figure, with broad shoulders and an air about him that told Fox he was used to having his commands followed. His hair was gray and curled around his covered face.
They all had matching masks to the one the woman had been wearing, blocking their faces. Not that it mattered to him. They were treasonous scum and he’d kill them whether or not he knew what they looked like.
The tip of the weapon at his neck pricked his skin once more as its wielder brought it around the side of his neck and against his throat. It was a dagger by the feel of it, sharp enough a drop of blood leaked from where it had nicked his skin.
He dropped his sword, hand spasming with reluctance.
The blade on his neck didn’t waver as unseen hands made quick work of his belt and harness, his weapons falling to the forest floor along with what he’d gotten off the Dragonborn—the apparent bait for the trap he’d fallen into.
At last, the cold bite of the dagger left his neck and he was pressed to his knees. He took the chance to examine the people who had surrounded him.
There was the older man, who had untied the young woman and was whispering sharply in her ear. There were also two younger men holding arrows on him, both with unremarkable brown locks. The person behind him finally came around once his hands were tied and he saw the long dark hair that was braided down her back. She was taller than even the woman he’d first captured, nearly his own height. Maybe they were on to something when they said these people were born from dragons.
“You two,” the older man snapped, drawing Fox’s attention. “Follow their tracks back to where he captured her. She says she left behind a boar and some more game.”
“I can lead them back,” the woman said. His captive—or now his captor, he thought bitterly—looked petulant.
“You’ll be coming with us. We need to talk.”
Fox almost smiled at the clear slight against the woman, but before he could truly appreciate it, a sack was slipped over his head. It was thin enough to see the light through it, but not much of anything else. He heart rate spiked, his predicament just beginning to set in. Ian and the others were likely a mile or more away and they had no idea what was happening.
And Fox was about to find the resistance base—his goal since joining the king’s men—trussed up as their prisoner.
* * *
As he was half-dragged through the forest, Fox was all too glad for the sack covering his face. It caused the sweat to drip down his face and sting his eyes, and his toes were starting to bruise from the number of times he’d tripped over the unseen ground. But at least his captors couldn’t see the expression on his face, shifting rapidly between anger and fear with every beat of his heart.
He still hadn’t come up with a plan beyond escape , which wasn’t so much a plan as a need at the moment. As much as he wanted to find the resistance base, he knew his chances of escape would get harder once he was there.
The sack smelled of his own sweat and stale corn flour, particles tickling his nose with every breath in and out, and he focused his mind on the sensation. He needed to think. He could tell they were walking in a relatively straight path—the small snippets of the sunlight never shifting in direction as they wove through trees. He could almost assume they were walking west, based on the flashes of sun through the coarse fabric, but it was possible he was simply disoriented. Either way, he needed to keep his head on straight for if— when —he escaped.
Three hundred and forty-two steps later, and Fox was at a loss. He tried running once, a stupid move, but a chance to see their reaction time and organization. His arm had been caught in an iron grip before he’d taken two steps. He’d also attempted screaming, but whoever was holding him had only cracked the dull end of a weapon against his skull and tied something across his mouth, tightening the sack there and making it nearly impossible to do more than grunt.
And then the group’s energy shifted. He knew, even before he was pulled to a stop, they’d reached their destination. He listened carefully, the sounds of the forest hadn’t changed. The birds were still cawing and chirping at random intervals, the leaves rustling, and insects buzzing incessantly. His captors didn’t talk, seemingly using some type of hand signal language to communicate. But then Fox noticed a new sound. An echoing hollowness in the air and he felt a cool wind through the bag on his face. It brought the smell of salt and moss.
He was so focused on trying to understand the shift in the smells around him, he nearly jumped when he heard the woman beside him, her voice almost familiar now.
“I’m just going to make a decision,” she said. He didn’t think she was talking to him. “We’re sending him down the easy way.”
With that, her hand shoved him hard between the shoulder blades and he stumbled forward, muscles straining as he tried to throw his hands out to catch himself. But he didn’t hit the ground. His foot shot forward and caught on to nothing . There was no ground beneath him.
In the same instant that he realized he was falling through the air, his body hit the icy waves below and he sank. The slap of the water wasn’t as hard as the ground might have been, but even as he gasped at the pressure in his chest, he was sucking in water as it rushed up around him, soaking through his clothes and the sack over his head.
He thrashed and choked, the rope around his wrists only tightening as he struggled. He was blind and helpless and drowning. He would die out here and Chief Commander Harlow would never even know what happened to him. His mother?—
A large hand wrapped around his upper arm, pulling him until his head broke the surface. He choked, coughing out the water he had swallowed before he managed a breath. His lungs burned at the intrusion, but he could only cough and breathe again. He was happy the strip tightening the sack to his head was at least gone.
“Get him to shore before he drowns himself,” an unfamiliar voice said. It was difficult to judge distance with the echoes that bounded around, nearly drowned out by his ongoing struggle to swim with his hands tied.
“Stop squirming,” the feminine voice said beside him. A moment later, the hood was pulled away and he blinked up at the woman who was holding him. Her hair flashed a brilliant red in the light coming down from above, her face in shadows. He might have almost smiled, but before his lips could do more than twitch, the woman dropped him and he sank back into the water.
“Stop being dramatic and stand up,” she said at the same moment he felt the sandy bottom beneath his boots. It took him a few seconds to regain his balance, arms still tied and useless, but eventually he was standing.
The fiery angel that had pulled him from the water was walking away, not even looking back at him and he saw another three people standing along the shore, watching him with wary eyes. He collapsed onto the ground the moment he hit dry land, knees shaking from his fall and too tired to stand and breathe at the same time.
No longer in fear of drowning, he was able to take in his surroundings. It wasn’t the sea he’d been tossed into, but an underground lake.
The walls of the cavern arched overhead; a small hole in the ground above showed the sky and the canopy of trees where he had just been. The bright light contrasted with the shadowy cavern and made it difficult to make out details. But it was easy enough to hear the dripping of water as it cascaded down the walls and the vines that hung over the lip of the opening.
Fox was lying at the bottom of a cenote. This might have been helpful information if this land wasn’t scattered with thousands of the natural sinkholes, which were constantly changing shape and some impossible to find. But it did explain why their people had had so much trouble locating the hub of the resistance movement.
As he watched, a rope ladder unfurled from above, two of his captors making their slow descent. He didn’t see the woman and a moment later, a zip of motion out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he looked in time to see her plunge into the water where he’d just nearly drowned. She made the jump look graceful as she easily pulled herself through the water and toward him. Of course, she actually had her hands free and hadn’t been pushed into the lake without warning.
He didn’t think. His hands were still tied behind his back, but he stumbled to his feet as best he could and ran at the woman as she pulled herself from the lake. Using his shoulder, he threw his weight against her, sending her slipping backward against the stony bottom of the lake’s edge.
“What in the gods?” she said, using her hands to push him back away from her. He stumbled, unable to balance himself with his hands tied.
“If you wanted me dead, you could have just slit my throat earlier!” He could feel the heat of his face turning red, his pale complexion always ready to show the barest trace of a flush. But he didn’t care, he wanted to strangle the woman. Screaming was the best he could do. “I almost drowned.”
“Calm down,” she said, walking past him, carefully wringing the water from her hair with barely a glance his way. “You’re clearly fine.”
“And if I couldn’t swim?”
“You’re a rich kid from the military quarter, of course you can swim.”
“How did you know—” he snapped his mouth shut. She didn’t just know him, she knew who he was.
“We caught General Ocon’s son,” she said, looking up as his other two captors made their way over to where he was lying. The older man’s eyes flashed with something that Fox did not like one bit.
“A lucky catch indeed,” he said, smiling coldly. “Go grab him dry clothes and bring them by the cell. He won’t be any use to us if he freezes to death.”
Fox watched with the smallest hint of amusement to see the woman’s eyes narrow at the command. But she didn’t argue, only marched away with a silent look of disdain. The younger man grabbed him and pulled him up and the older led them across the shore of the lake toward a crevice in the cavern’s side.
The moment they turned the corner, Fox realized that the cenote was larger than he’d first assumed. A large sitting area stretched out in a second cavern and dark tunnels led away in various directions. He was pulled down the rightmost path, a line of lanterns lighting their way. He tried to keep track of their route, but with each turn and twist he felt more disoriented than when he’d had the sack over his head. Every tunnel looked the same, dimly lit with half a dozen crudely cut wood doors lining each side.
His stomach twisted in unease wondering how many rebels were tucked away behind those doors. They’d always known they were dealing with a festering problems when it came to the resistance, but even the chief commander likely didn’t know how many there were.
After six turns that Fox was only seventy percent sure he could replicate, they finally stopped in front of a heavy wooden door. On the other side were the accommodations Fox was expecting. A chair sat in the middle of the room, a blanket draped across the back. A bucket tucked in the corner was the only other piece of furniture in the space, which was very obviously lacking even a lantern.
“Untie him and check him for weapons again,” the older man commanded.
Fox only flinched a bit as the cold blade of a dagger brushed across his wrists and a moment later his arms dropped free. He was polite enough to not punch the man who proceeded to carefully pat him down, as if his sodden clothes could have hidden anything.
“So what are you going to do with me?” he said, sneering around at the room.
“We’re just going to have a chat or two,” the older man said, blithely shrugging.
“I don’t have any important information.”
“We’ll be the judge of that. You never know what might be important to us.”
“So you think I’ll help you murder more innocent lives?” He spit on the ground between them. “I’d rather die.”
“That can be arranged.” The woman’s voice was cold as she came around the corner, holding a pile of clothes in her hands.
“Don’t,” the older man admonished and Fox smirked. He could see the muscle in her jaw tense as her mouth snapped shut. She looked at him, eyes narrowing at his expression, and her face twisted into something he recognized well. Hate and disgust.
He didn’t imagine his face looked much different.
Not breaking eye contact, she stepped forward, dropping the clothes on the ground and kicking them toward him. They dragged against the dirt floor, picking up the traces of mud scattered about from his dripping frame.
“Do you expect me to change while you watch?” He didn’t lean down to pick up the clothes. As much as he was excited to feel dry again, he didn’t want to break eye contact with the three rebels staring at him.
“No,” the old man said at the same moment the woman said. “Yes.”
The older man, clearly the boss, gave her an annoyed wave and ushered her and the other man out.
“Don’t try anything funny,” the woman said as she pulled the door closed behind them. “If you try to escape, I’ll personally cut off your ears and send one to your father and the other to Chief Commander Harlow.”
With that, the door shut and the hint of light from the lantern outside was extinguished.
He took a deep breath, keeping an image of the room in his mind as the blackness wrapped around him, constricting his chest. The room was wide, long enough to lay down twice over. It was plenty large.
Breathe .
He’d been through training on how to withstand torture and how to escape from situations such as this. This wouldn’t be how he died, not at the hands of Dragonborn and not when he’d finally found their base. He would do what no other king’s man had ever managed. He would get out of this and he’d march his brothers-in-arms right back here to kill them all.