they learned the truth, how many would stay? Kal didn’t know where the money came from. She didn’t know how to keep it going. She didn’t know how she would feed Rez’s secret army. She didn’t know how she could possibly convince them to stay, especially after such a stunning defeat.
Kal’s hands had clenched into tight fists, knuckles white, fingernails digging into her palms sharply. She forced herself to relax, and reached for her crutch. She had to get up, to keep moving. She had to get back to the fortress, to the hideout.
She only prayed she could find a way to convince the others once she got there.
Chapter 11 - Prisoners
They put her in a cage. When she woke up, she took in her dismal surroundings and nearly succumbed to her rising dismay. Another dungeon, thought Shel hopelessly. The fortnight she’d spent with Kal, Sanook, Rez and the rest of the gang suddenly seemed like a fleeting reprieve, nothing more than a brief stay of execution. Here she was, back in a cell.
Slumped against the wall near one corner of the claustrophobic room of cracked and pitted stone, Shel stared blankly at the diagonally cross-hatched iron bars of the tiny doorway. They must have slid her unconscious body through the aperture; if she was ever getting out of this cell, it would only be by crawling.
Shel figured that was on purpose. It was cruel, but from her perspective cowering on the filthy, straw-scattered floor within Shel knew it would be effective. The only way out of this cell was in a posture of abject supplication.
Thoughts like that one wouldn’t have occurred to her fifteen days ago, on her first experience with incarceration. That time, at least until Rez showed up, she had wasted on dark thoughts of her father and her own miserable fate. These same thoughts threatened to overwhelm her yet again, but they were tempered by something new.
Shel frowned in the darkness of her cell and wondered at the change in herself. It was an uncomfortable realization, because it highlighted how naïve and…weak she had been as recently as two weeks ago. The moment she recognized where she was, she had given in to her fear and despair. Those feelings had been the real prison, she thought now.
It was just like making a prisoner crawl to come out of the cell. Dungeons were designed to mess with your head. By frightening you, by forcing you into submission; that was how the jailers truly caged a prisoner.
Shel had been in the dungeons before. Her fortnight of freedom might seem fleeting, but she had been free. It could happen again. No, thought Shel. It would happen again.
Resolved, she got up from her corner. The ceiling was too low for Shel to stand upright, but she moved about the cramped space in a slight crouch and began examining the walls. Unlike the city dungeons in Solstice – and that reminded her, where was she anyway? – the cell she found herself in now wasn’t constructed of stone blocks. The walls were jagged and pitted, but unbroken and apparently of a piece. This cell must be a natural cavern, a pocket of air in the stone that builders had exploited. There was no way out besides the barred crawlspace.
Shel thought back to the battle on the King’s Road. She had been knocked off balance, lying atop the ruined carriage staring up into the hate-filled countenance of Archon Murdrek Thorne. She’d seen him weaving a spell. There’d been a blast of some kind, a magical fireball hurled from below. That must have been Sanook, or possibly Rez. At the last instant, Thorne had spun and released his weave in that direction instead. Shel surged to her feet, but almost before she could rise Thorne whipped an arm out toward her and light burst from his fingertips. That was the last she remembered before the cell.
She didn’t know how long she’d been out, but it couldn’t have been that long. She doubted she was more than half a day’s travel from the site of the battle. Less, most likely.
That she was in
Kal’s hands had clenched into tight fists, knuckles white, fingernails digging into her palms sharply. She forced herself to relax, and reached for her crutch. She had to get up, to keep moving. She had to get back to the fortress, to the hideout.
She only prayed she could find a way to convince the others once she got there.
Chapter 11 - Prisoners
They put her in a cage. When she woke up, she took in her dismal surroundings and nearly succumbed to her rising dismay. Another dungeon, thought Shel hopelessly. The fortnight she’d spent with Kal, Sanook, Rez and the rest of the gang suddenly seemed like a fleeting reprieve, nothing more than a brief stay of execution. Here she was, back in a cell.
Slumped against the wall near one corner of the claustrophobic room of cracked and pitted stone, Shel stared blankly at the diagonally cross-hatched iron bars of the tiny doorway. They must have slid her unconscious body through the aperture; if she was ever getting out of this cell, it would only be by crawling.
Shel figured that was on purpose. It was cruel, but from her perspective cowering on the filthy, straw-scattered floor within Shel knew it would be effective. The only way out of this cell was in a posture of abject supplication.
Thoughts like that one wouldn’t have occurred to her fifteen days ago, on her first experience with incarceration. That time, at least until Rez showed up, she had wasted on dark thoughts of her father and her own miserable fate. These same thoughts threatened to overwhelm her yet again, but they were tempered by something new.
Shel frowned in the darkness of her cell and wondered at the change in herself. It was an uncomfortable realization, because it highlighted how naïve and…weak she had been as recently as two weeks ago. The moment she recognized where she was, she had given in to her fear and despair. Those feelings had been the real prison, she thought now.
It was just like making a prisoner crawl to come out of the cell. Dungeons were designed to mess with your head. By frightening you, by forcing you into submission; that was how the jailers truly caged a prisoner.
Shel had been in the dungeons before. Her fortnight of freedom might seem fleeting, but she had been free. It could happen again. No, thought Shel. It would happen again.
Resolved, she got up from her corner. The ceiling was too low for Shel to stand upright, but she moved about the cramped space in a slight crouch and began examining the walls. Unlike the city dungeons in Solstice – and that reminded her, where was she anyway? – the cell she found herself in now wasn’t constructed of stone blocks. The walls were jagged and pitted, but unbroken and apparently of a piece. This cell must be a natural cavern, a pocket of air in the stone that builders had exploited. There was no way out besides the barred crawlspace.
Shel thought back to the battle on the King’s Road. She had been knocked off balance, lying atop the ruined carriage staring up into the hate-filled countenance of Archon Murdrek Thorne. She’d seen him weaving a spell. There’d been a blast of some kind, a magical fireball hurled from below. That must have been Sanook, or possibly Rez. At the last instant, Thorne had spun and released his weave in that direction instead. Shel surged to her feet, but almost before she could rise Thorne whipped an arm out toward her and light burst from his fingertips. That was the last she remembered before the cell.
She didn’t know how long she’d been out, but it couldn’t have been that long. She doubted she was more than half a day’s travel from the site of the battle. Less, most likely.
That she was in
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