Chapter Eighteen - Caged

(Part I)

Thump.

Cal woke gasping. The world rolled.

Tumbled. Spun.

His mouth was sour. Full of spit. He tried to open his eyes, but there was nothing but dark. Strong hands bore him up, and hard knuckles dug into his ribs.

‘This one’s awake.’ a voice said.

Boots tramped against the earth beneath him, and wind touched his face with icy fingers.

‘Keep him quiet!’ another voice replied.

A knuckle dug into his back between his shoulder blades, and Cal groaned. He was gagged, and coarse cloth cut at the edge of his mouth.

‘Hear that, boy?’ the first voice said, almost growling. ‘Not a sound. Or I’ll cut your throat and leave you for the wolves.’

Cal clamped his mouth shut. His heart pounded in his chest, and his head felt thick and woollen, like wading through deep water. Something wet was pressing against the back of his skull, throbbing like old joints. He tried to raise a hand to it, but rough rope bit at his wrists, pinning them to his gut. He pulled at it, shoulders straining.

This time it was something harder than a knuckle. Pain shot up his spine, and he flinched, gasping.

‘Stop wriggling!’

He gritted his teeth, eyes blurring black. His mind raced. Was he dreaming? His head felt like it had been stuffed with wax, and in the dark, moonless night he was disoriented and helpless, even without his other injuries. He had to do something. The booted feet beneath him had not slowed. He strained his ears. Panting, grunting. Leather creaking. A half-dozen, maybe. Stones underfoot, crunching softly. The foothills. He sniffed at the frigid air, keeping as still as he could manage. Pine. Not so far from Rindon yet, then. He tried to remember. The cave. Black shapes in the trees. But his mind was full of fog, and his thoughts raced away from him like shadows in the mist. Never mind what he remembered. He knew these woods. He could feel the angle of the boot steps beneath him. Heading north, across the slope, wind on their right side. No one knew these hills like he did.

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He stayed very still, waiting, and the hands beneath him bucked and tumbled, bouncing him back and forth like a sack. His head ached, and the cuts on his arms and back burned like fire. One of them had torn open, and something warm and wet was trickling down his ribs. There was a pattern to the movement of the hands that bore him. A steady roll and pitch. Looser with each step, flattening against his back. That was his chance. He took a deep breath, and his heart rung in his ears like a bell. If he was dreaming, it was time to wake.

He jerked his body upwards with all his strength, uncoiling like a spring. Someone beneath him cursed, and hands scrabbled vainly at his back for a moment, tearing at half-sealed scabs. Then he was floating, drifting through the blind-black air, feet pawing helplessly for the ground below. By the time they touched the stones, he was already moving. He spun left, lowering his shoulder blindly, barged into the first man, shoulder sinking into soft gut. The boots around him had stopped, and someone was shouting.

‘Get him!’

But he was too fast for them. He could already feel the slope dropping away beneath his feet, stones slipping against his boots. No one knew these woods like he did. He crouched as he ran, ready to leap again. Into the dark. To freedom.

Then an arm caught him across the throat, lifting him off his feet and slamming him back against the stones. He gasped emptily for air, choking on nothing.

‘Pick him up.’ a voice hissed breathlessly. Someone grabbed hold of him again, giving him a jab in the ribs for good measure, and hoisted him over a shoulder like a sack of grain. His breath was coming back, slowly. His back was on fire, his throat felt trampled by a dozen feet., and his head ached like an overstuffed skin. He groaned through the gag.

‘Quiet!’ the voice below him hissed. ‘Or one of your friends will see my knife.’

Cal’s gut knotted with ice. He bit into his gag, trying to chew it away, but it was useless. The moon appeared for a moment through its veil of cloud, glittering through the trees, tracing half-shapes against the stones. Black cloaks trickling over the rocks, grey hilts gleamed in the dark.

Then it was gone again. No time to count them. Four, five. Maybe Six. What did they want? Faceless men leered back at him from the shadows, grinning, empty-eyed and staring.

‘Hurry it up.’

The men stopped walking. Cal waited, captor’s shoulder digging into his gut, gritting his teeth at the pain spreading across through his body like fire.

‘Got another, have we?’ a voice came back from further up the path.

‘What does it look like?’

They were moving again. Every step sent fresh agony spearing across his back, spasming in his swollen head. He gritted his teeth, swallowed sour spit, and squinted. His heart beat like a drum in his ears, throbbing. Torchlight was beginning to flicker around their feet, but it wasn’t shale beneath their boots. These stones were larger, squarer, scored along their edges like jagged teeth, tangled with vines and rotting leaves. Ruins. He was starting to remember. Leaving. The stormtower. He had been taken. He should have turned back. Why hadn’t he turned back?

He could feel himself fading. His vision blurred, and his head ached. Someone was speaking beside him, but he could barely hear them. There was only his heartbeat, throbbing, whining, thudding in his blood. A black doorway opened up like a gaping mouth, leering up at him, and he stared at it, too numb to care.

Then strong hands thrust him tumbling into the dark, and stone jaws closed shut behind him, swallowing him whole.