Chapter Eighteen - Caged

(Part II)

‘Cal?’

He blinked. His eyelids felt heavy, swollen. He coughed, spluttering, and dragged a long, broken breath through his cracked throat. Where was he?

‘He's waking up.’

Cal blinked again, and the pain was on him, setting fire to his skin. It raced across his back, tracing the lines of a dozen freshly opened cuts. His throat felt like it had been trampled by a horse, the back of his head ached like an old hinge, and the bruises at his jaw were swollen against his skin, fit to burst. He gasped, trying to sit up, and hands took hold of his shoulders, holding him down.

‘Slowly.’ someone whispered. Cal blinked, spluttering. Somewhere above him, a pale circle of silver light was leaking into the dark, and a new shape loomed into it, blurring.

‘Lokk?’

His friend’s hair was plastered flat on the right side of his head, and an ugly purple bruise was creeping out over his temple. The eye beside it was swollen almost shut, and dried blood coated his cheek.

‘You look like shit.’ Cal told him, wincing.

‘You don’t look so great yourself.’ Lokk replied. Cal looked past him again, and silver moonlight winked back at him from above, gleaming down a throat of a thousand black stones. The stormtower. Cal pressed his eyes shut, head aching.

‘What happened?’ he murmured.

‘You tell us.’ someone growled. Cal blinked, and another shape loomed out of the dark over Lokk’s shoulder.

‘Petr?’

‘How long have you been awake?’ Lokk asked, frowning.

‘Long enough to start wondering what got us locked in this fucking tower.’ Petr spat. His brick of a jaw was swollen even larger than usual and bruised like an old pear. He narrowed his eyes in Cal’s direction. ‘Or who.’

‘Leave it, Petr.’ Lokk hissed.

‘Fuck you, innboy. I want to hear what he has to say.’ Petr growled back, taking another step closer. ‘Shows up at the inn, wild-eyed and all cut to shit. Next day, we all get snatched in the middle of the night, and it’s not his fault? The fuck did you do?’

‘I don’t know.’ Cal murmured. His throat cracked, head ached, spun.

‘You don’t fucking know? Clever little shit like you? I’m not buying it. Always were too strange for your own good.’

‘Petr-’

‘I told you to fuck off, innboy. Afraid of another beating?’

‘I didn’t... I don’t...’ Cal stuttered, squinting. His head ached, reeled. Petr took another step forward, broad shoulders blotting out the moonlight. Then Lokk was on his feet, blocking his path.

‘He had nothing to do with this. Leave him be.’

‘Getting brave, aren’t you?’ Petr growled into his face, stooping so close their noses were almost touching. ‘You going to make me?’

‘Enough, Petr!’ a new voice interrupted. Cal blinked, and realised there was a fourth shape inside the tower, sitting with his back against the smooth wall of black stone.

‘Mind your business, goat-fucker. Don’t you want to know why we’re here, too? Or will your Makers tell you that?’

‘Look at him.’ Forley replied, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet. ‘Think you’ll get your answers by beating him to death?’

Petr scowled at him, taking a step back, and Cal squinted up at Forley. There was a smear of blood tracing an uneven line from his scalp to his cheek, and his eyes were sunk in deep hollows. Cal winced. Seemed none of them had got here unscathed. The pain in his head was fading, slowly, leaving a narrow pit of nausea in his gut. But his eyes were growing accustomed to the gloom, and the pale light of the moon filled the open throat of the ruined tower overhead, gleaming wetly. The base where they sat was a narrow circle of uneven, splintered stone. Cal hadn’t needed light to know that. He’d been here before, wandering the abandoned ruins, staring at the ancient rock for hours like it could stare back. There was only one way in, a broad arch in the bottom of the walls, empty, door long since rotted away. He blinked into the gloom again. It wasn’t empty, anymore. Something was filling the doorway, something dark and solid. No way out, that way, then.

‘You ask him, then.’ Petr told Lokk, scowling at him. Lokk stared at Petr for a moment longer, then crouched down beside his friend, putting a hand on his shoulder.

‘What happened? The night you came to the inn?’ he said softly. ‘What did you see?’

‘I don’t know. I...’ Cal winced as the pain in his skull returned, and his eyes blurred, watering. ‘Something was chasing me. I didn’t see...’

‘What about when you were taken? Did you see anything?’

Cal blinked up at him, hesitating. Shadows in the trees. He should turn back.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

‘Nothing. Just voices.’

‘What do you mean, nothing?’ Petr hissed back at him.

‘He means he didn’t fucking see!’ Lokk told him, shooting an angry look over his shoulder. ‘None of us did. Be lucky if anyone even knows we’re gone!’

‘I saw.’

They all turned to look at Forley. The goatherd stared at the ground.

‘Saw what?’

‘Got me when I was bedding down the goats for the night.’ Forley said quietly, not looking up. ‘Didn’t see them coming. Cracked me over the back of the head. Hurt like hells. Didn’t sleep me, though. Not the first one anyway. Got a glimpse before the second.’

He trailed off, still staring at the floor. They waited.

‘What did you see?’ Cal asked him.

‘A... a mask.’ Forley said slowly, not looking up. ‘A black mask.’

Silence.

‘Shit.’ Petr whispered at last.

‘Black Hand? Here?’ Lokk’s eyes had gone wide.

‘That’s what I saw.’

Cal said nothing. He was back in the trees, running from shadows. Black faces chasing him through the dark. Black Hand. What else could it have been? Strangers, asking questions. The Old Man’s cave smoked, full of ash. Filling his throat. Who else would be hunting Greycloaks this far from the plains? Godry always said it. Brothers love nothing more than fire.

‘Well, we’re fucked then, aren’t we?’ Petr was saying. ‘Locked in a fucking ruin waiting to get butchered.’

Lokk was staring at the ground. ‘We don’t know for sure-’

‘Of course we do.’ Petr cut him off. ‘You know the stories. Blood magic. Childsnatchers. Fuck!’

He rushed suddenly at the doorway, throwing his shoulder against it. The wood thudded as the youth’s considerable weight struck it, but it didn’t budge, and he cursed, pounding his meaty fists against the wood.

‘Petr, stop-’

‘Let me out you cunts!’ Petr roared, slamming his hands against the door. ‘Let me out!’

Again and again he pounded, until his voice was hoarse and blood was dripping from his fingers. No one tried to stop him. Eventually, he slumped back, sliding down the wall, and put his head in his hands, going quiet. If anyone heard them beyond the door, there was no sign of it. Silence filled the ruined tower, the empty, cold silence that follows hope as it flees into the deepest of darks. They sat there for a time, the four of them, sagging against the ancient walls, quiet as the grave. They sat, and they thought thoughts that it wouldn’t do to share. And the silence answered.

The night drew out into days, weeks. Cal’s thoughts were full of darkness. Strange, Petr had called him. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that. Cracked. Wasn’t half the truth, but it wouldn’t do to dwell on that right now. Wouldn’t help them out of this mess. So he gritted his teeth, and slid his back up against the smooth stones behind him, wincing as his ragged skin pressed against the stones. He looked up at the tower walls, frowning, and slowly, agonisingly, pushed himself to his feet, holding a hand out for support. His boot knife was gone, he knew without checking. But he wasn’t going to heal any time soon, and besides, if Forley was right about the Black Hand, it’d take more than a hunting knife to get them loose.

‘What do we do?’ Lokk asked, looking up at him hopefully, bruised face catching the moonlight.

‘Yeah, what do we do, foundling? Any clever ideas?’ Petr hissed from between his bloody hands. ‘Says he didn’t see anything, but I bet he’s the one who led them here in the first place. Should never have come to the inn. Should have done us all a favour and just kept running.’

‘This ain’t his fault any more than it’s yours.’ Lokk replied, scowling at him. ‘So shut your mouth.’

Cal ignored them. The nausea swelled up through his throat, and he retched, spluttering emptily onto the stones, then straightened, getting his feet beneath him again. He took a few weak steps, almost stumbling, and put both hands against the new door of the ruined tower. He knocked on the wood, feeling it beneath his fingers. Thick. Could batter at it for days with something a lot heavier than Petr, wouldn’t make any difference. It wasn’t going anywhere, and nothing was going out that way as long as it stayed shut.

Next, he felt his way slowly around the edge of the tower, pressing his fingers against the smooth stone. Barely a crack between them, even after all this time. In fact, there didn’t seem to be any mortar at all. Cal pursed his lips, looking up towards the little circle of sky high above. His eyes were adjusting, now, and he saw that the sides of the tower weren’t quite as smooth as he had thought. Little outcrops of stone spiralled up the walls, smoothed half-flat by centuries of rain, headed for the vanished roof. The remains of a staircase. Cal eyed them, frowning. If he wasn’t injured, he might have been able to make the climb. But he was, and anyway, how would he get down again, on the other side? That kind of jump would break more bones than he had left.

‘Cal?’

He looked down at Lokk, hesitating.

‘We wait.’

‘Brilliant.’ Petr snarled, spitting at his feet. ‘Why didn’t someone else think of that?’

‘You can break some more of your fingers instead, if you like.’ Cal replied, and got a scowl in response. ‘Right now we’ve got a better chance of being rescued by Isandur himself than getting out of here on our own. Whoever they are, they’ve locked us up good, and there isn’t one of us that isn’t beat up worse than an old brick.’

‘So we wait?’ Forley asked quietly.

‘If nothing changes, we’re fucked.’ added Petr.

‘If nothing changes.’ Cal agreed.

Silence again. Lokk looked at Cal, and Cal looked back. Forley looked at his feet. Petr glared angrily his bloody fingers. The night did nothing. After a while, Forley began to pray, murmuring softly in the dark, and Cal closed his eyes. He thought of the Blacksmith. What would he say, to see him now? That he shouldn’t have left. That he wasn’t ready. That he was careless. That the hills weren’t safe. Coal-black eyes glared at him from the dark, knowing, a thousand silent rebukes on his tongue.

Why hadn’t he turned back?

No. Fuck the Blacksmith. Without him, the Old Man would still be alive. He’d have known what to do. He always did. None of them would be locked up here. Besides, would the Blacksmith even care, if he knew what had happened? As far as he knew, Cal was gone. Halfway to Uldoroth, by now. You didn’t go looking for something that wasn’t lost. The one man that might be able to save them, this side of the Lowlands, and he wouldn’t even be looking. Cal had seen to that.

He thought of telling the others about the Old Man. But who would that help? He might’ve been why the Black Hand had come all this way, but he was gone, and there was fresher prey to be had, now they were here. Brothers were nothing if not practical.

‘Lokk.’ he murmured suddenly, looking at his friend.

‘What?’ the other boy replied, looking back at him in the dark.

‘I’m sorry.’ Cal said softly. ‘About what happened, last night.’

His friend didn’t stir. ‘I think we have bigger things to worry about, right now.’

Cal lowered his eyes. Silence crept back in around them. Forley was still praying, whispering.

‘Shut up.’ Petr growled at him. ‘No one’s listening.’

The goatherd fell silent, still looking at his feet.

No. No one was coming for them. Cal looked at the others. Beaten, bruised, bloodied. Boys. He shivered. He hadn’t realised how cold it was. His body ached, burned, stung, and his eyes were full of sand. He drew his ragged cloak about his shoulders, curling into its thick folds. Then he set his shoulder against the stone, and let his eyes fall shut.

The moon disappeared entirely not long after that, and what little light there had been was gone. There, of all places, Cal slept the first dreamless sleep he could remember. Weary to the bone. Black as the abyss. Sometime before dawn, something scraped against the tower door, and a small waterskin came sliding through a narrow slot at its base. Then the scraping came again, and the opening closed behind it, leaving them alone in the dark once more.