The next few days were pure hell for Mitchell, and that was saying something considering what he’d already been through. If Waterboy was giving the water Mitchell could count on it being dumped out. It didn’t matter if it was their morning serving, the afternoon when they stopped to set up camp, or before bed. He went from three servings a day to one or two. By the second day, his lips were cracked and bleeding again.
Allora tried to help in what little way she could. If it was Axe Man or one of the Dumb Fucks, she would urge them to give Mitchell her share, and it worked. Once. It looked as if she’d tried to explain that Waterboy was withholding the water and it must have had some effect because for the next couple of days Waterboy wasn’t on water duty. He found other ways of taking his anger out on Mitchell, though.
He’d “accidentally” drop his food in the sand. Or Mitchell would be shoved into his cage before his head was fully tucked in and he’d add a new bruise to his collection. If Mitchell’s cage was along one of the sides of the wagon and his fingers were in the bars when Waterboy walked by, he would smack them with his truncheon. After he lost a fingernail, he’d learned to keep his hands inside the cage at all times.
The morning after he’d been taken off water duty, Waterboy had “accidentally” tipped over Mitchell’s cage as it was moved to the lip. What’s a few more bruises added to the list, Mitchell thought as he limped over to their little tent, his muscles once again cramped after several hours in the cage. He contented himself with imagining all the ways he would kill Waterboy if he ever got the chance. As it turned out, someone else beat him to it.
*****
A shout woke Mitchell from a fitful sleep. He glanced up at the moons. Ithstasy was close to the horizon and Vish was already fully visible. They usually broke camp an hour or two after it rose. Mitchell sat up and noticed Allora and Revos already sitting and watching their guards intently. They shared a few words and Mitchell once again cursed his inability to understand.
Dumb Fuck One was running back to camp and Pony Tail Spock came out from under the tent to meet him. There was an angry and animated conversation at which point Pony Tail Spock went running over a dune after Dumb Fuck One while shouting orders behind him. Axe Man came over to stand near them, axes in hand and looking a little groggy. He stayed outside the reach of their chains, and Mitchell had learned early on that although the block they were chained to wasn’t very large, it was immensely heavy. He’d seen a single guard pick it up after they were loaded into the wagons but Mitchell could barely budge it. So even though Axe Man was just a few feet beyond the reach of their chains, all of them together couldn’t pull the block and attack him.
Dumb Fuck Two took up position on the wagon with a bow in his hand and was trying to look everywhere at once.
There had been a few random animal attacks in the time they’d traveled but it hadn’t been very serious. The ones that came into camp were these small four-legged creatures that looked like some sort of coyote, only smaller. But they moved in fairly large packs of five or ten. They seemed more like scavengers than hunters, and they appeared to be the main food source for the big lizard that pulled the wagon. Some nights, two or three of their captors would leave camp and come back a few hours later with various game animals and that served as the thing’s dinner. And while he couldn’t see their cook fires on the other side of the wagon, he was pretty sure it had been his dinner more than once as well.
Mitchell had also spotted larger things moving over the dunes from time to time, things that looked like brothers or sisters to the lizard pulling the wagons. Once he thought he saw a scorpion the size of a car, but it was only a glimpse. None of the big things came near the wagons, though. As Spock and Dumb Fuck One went off over a dune he wondered if this was the result of an animal attack or something else.
Revos said something to Axe Man but he’d replied with what Mitchell had come to understand was “shut up”. Whatever was happening they didn’t feel like sharing. Axe Man paced around their lean-to, weapons at the ready, and everyone waited in silence. They didn’t have to wait long.
Dumb Fuck Two called out to Axe Man and everyone turned to the small dune that Pony Tale Spock and Dumb Fuck One had gone over. They were coming back dragging a body. It was Waterboy. They had him by the ankles and his body was limp as they pulled him across the sand. There was a short conversation and then everyone went into action. They were breaking camp.
Allora and Revos shared a few words which ended when Revos shrugged. Allora turned her face toward Vish and placed her thumb and forefinger to her heart then to her lips, her forehead, and toward the moon’s pale yellow visage in the sky. It had the feeling of giving thanks.
Before long, it was their turn to be bundled up and there was a bit of shouting about something. As Allora was placed in her cage it turned out that none of them had the cage keys. They’d been on Waterboy and, from the frustration evident on everyone’s faces, his body had been looted. That meant it had not been an animal attack. Someone had killed him.
They settled on cutting sections of a rope and tying the cages shut. With a crack of the reins, they were off in record time, pushing the big lizard as fast as it would go.
As the wagon pulled away Mitchell caught sight of Waterboy lying on the ground. At the top of the dune behind them, he also spotted the little coyote dogs poking their heads over the ridge. As he watched, first one, then another, then six or seven more came pouring over the hill and descended on the corpse, their high-pitched whines carrying across the sand. He was glad that Waterboy was dead but he was equally glad that he couldn’t hear the sounds their needle-like teeth were surely making as they ripped into his body.
“Get fucked, Waterboy.”
Mitchell settled into his cage then and waited to see what would happen next.
*****
They pushed hard through the next day and only stopped when their beast of burden apparently refused to go any further. Mitchell heard the sounds of frustration as Pony Tail Spock worked the reins and tried to coax more movement out of the large lizard but after it bucked and almost flipped the wagon, he laid off and they set up camp. Everyone was in a foul mood.
There was a bit of an argument about what to do with them. Mitchell guessed that it was a discussion about whether or not to set up their lean-to like normal or leave them in their cages. In the end, a compromise was made. Dumb Fuck Two brought out the block and they set it on the ground at the edge of the wagon then untied the cage doors and hooked them all to the block. It wasn’t the most comfortable because they had to stay on the wagon bed to get any shade, but he supposed they wanted to be able to wrangle them quickly if they needed to leave in a hurry like they had this morning.
Dumb Fuck One and Two went out to get some food for the lizard and Spock and Axe Man stayed behind and used the lean-to which they also set up next to the wagon. Everyone was tense. Allora and Revos attempted a brief conversation but Spock wasn’t having it and told them to shut up immediately.
The late afternoon passed with agonizing slowness. The Dumb Fucks returned with some food for the lizard and tensions eased a little, but not enough that conversation was allowed. They patrolled in pairs now whereas in the past they’d felt comfortable alone
Yet again, Mitchell wished he could understand what they were talking about. By his count, he hadn’t had a conversation with anyone who could understand him in almost two weeks. He’d taken to reciting songs that he could remember out loud just to hear his own voice. He received a few looks from Allora and Revos when he’d done that but ignored them.
Sometimes he would dredge up movie monologues. A favorite was Alec Baldwin’s speech from the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. There was also Monty Python, of course. Like every college kid in the last forty years, he’d spent nights around the TV with his buddies getting high, eating pizza, and watching Holy Grail or Life of Brian. Who would have guessed at the time that he was actually training for this moment when he would be totally cut off and isolated, unable to communicate with anyone around him and with only his memories for company?
When he started reciting the scene where the knights are at the bridge being challenged with the questions three, he did the voices as well. He got a lot of looks from Allora and Revos then. No doubt they thought he was going crazy and maybe he was. The longer he sat there with no one to talk to but himself, the less sure he was about his mental state. It wasn’t true isolation, but it amounted to the same thing.
There would be no recounting of what the Romans had done for them now, though. Any noise that sounded like talking was met with immediate commands to shut the fuck up. At least that’s how Mitchell interpreted it.
That first night was uncomfortable, but there were no other attacks. They were given their food and water on schedule and set out in the pre-dawn on schedule as well.
Because of the slow speed of the lizard pulling the wagon, the guards could follow along beside it without too much difficulty. Their usual arrangement was two on the seat, one on either side and one pulling up the rear. After dawn, when the sun began to warm things up, the ones in the seat would swap out with the walkers every hour or so to give them a rest and this would repeat until noon when camp was made. Now that Waterboy was nothing more than bleached bones and coyote dog shit in the world’s hottest litter box, they were a man down. Two on the seat, one on either side of the wagon.
It was just before dawn and Mitchell was in his own world singing Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley and thinking about how hot Madison had looked in her bikini on her Tinder profile when he heard a “thwack” and a grunt. He looked up right as Axe Man fell into the side of the wagon, quickly dropping from view with the long shaft of an arrow sticking from the side of his neck.
The cry went up almost immediately as they must have been on guard. The cart lurched to a hard stop drawing a grunt of annoyance out of the lizard. From the driver’s seat, there was an explosion of light and sound that made Mitchell’s ears ring. He watched as a bolt of blue-black lighting arced over the ground striking something about fifty feet away. The sand and rocks were still falling as he blinked away the after images of the magical attack enough to see.
Mitchell craned his neck up to look back at the driver’s seat and could see Pony Tail Spock standing up, arm outstretched and his face contorted in rage. Light was glimmering on the glove he wore. It wasn’t the same kind of light that Mitchell’s manacles gave off, though. The gemstones set into the leather were flashing brightly and almost seemed to pulse.
“Confen ek bok!” shouted Spock into the night.
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Mitchell heard the sound of someone scrabbling under the wagon and then of a body being dragged. After a moment Spock glanced quickly to the other side of where Dumb Fuck Two had been stationed.
“Ui jaci nelith?”
“Axun” came Dumb Fuck Two’s response from the ground.
Spock snarled and blasted the same general area twice more.
“Bikil somati zarafar!”
Mitchell caught movement from the corner of his eye. He turned and saw Allora making the same gesture with her left hand as she had before. Touching her thumb to her heart, her lips, her forehead, and then toward where Vish hung in the sky. He could see the barest hint of a smile on her lips.
“Get fucked, Axe Man,” Mitchell said. Quietly though, so as not to draw Spock’s attention. Then he went back to Rick Astley and Madison’s bikini photos.
“We’re no strangers to love…”
*****
The camp was different that afternoon. They were let out to walk for about an hour or so, then placed back into their cages. There was also no guard set. The three remaining, Spock and the two Dumb Fucks, sat close together and Spock did something with his bracelet and a small opaque dome encircled them. It glittered faintly every time sand blew into it. If they were talking in there, the conversation was blocked by the barrier.
Rather than feeling relieved to have them walled in their magic tent, he found he was nervous. He’d seen big things moving in the desert and they were now without protection of any sort. The cages were sturdy but offered no refuge from anything that had claws or a stinger like those giant scorpions he’d seen. If something large came at them, would his captors defend them or simply look after themselves? And if whoever was picking them off succeeded, what would they do with him and the others? Spock and the Dumb Fucks were no saints but as long as no one caused trouble, they were given food and water and left alone. Would they get an even worse deal from someone else?
Mitchell shifted uncomfortably and tried to sleep. He hadn’t spent more than eight hours in the cage since that first day and wasn’t looking forward to trying to sleep now. It was going to be a long night.
*****
Allora leaned her head back into the corner of her cell and looked out across the horizon where Ithstasy would rise after sunset, followed by his sister, Vish. Feeling Vish’s light was the only comfort she’d had over this hellish trek across Iletish. It reminded her of her mother, who’d been a moon elf.
When she’d been growing up she never put much effort into learning about the goddess of her mother’s people. Theology wasn’t as interesting as the sword or her magical studies at the academy. Her mother had tried to tell her that, as she was a moon elf, Vish would be there to watch over her in her times of need and that she should show more respect. Allora had replied that she was only half moon elf and Vish had too many full-blooded members of the species to look after to waste time on her. Her mother would cluck her tongue as she often did when she thought Allora was being foolish and kiss her on the forehead.
“Do not be so dismissive of Vish or presume to know her priorities. She sees more than you might think.”
Allora had taken up praying since the coup as a last resort. She’d had no friends and no allies. Her parents were dead, as were all her mentors, and the monarch had died in her arms. As she scampered through the streets of Lorivin that first night searching for a place to hide in the chaos, she’d seen Vish peaking above the buildings of the capital city. Almost without thinking she fell to her knees, placed her forehead on the filthy cobblestones of that back alley, and prayed. It was the first time she’d prayed since she’d been a child.
“Lady Vish, goddess of my mother’s people, this humble creature begs for guidance,” she had sobbed as her tears fell to the ground.
Behind her, back toward the palace, there was fighting and death. The smell of smoke was thick in the air. The small black onyx was clutched in her hand, the thing she would need to fulfill the only true charge of an Onyx Knight.
“I know I am unworthy, having shunned the ways of your faithful and ignored the teachings of the moon elves, but I ask you … no, I beg you. Help me! Help me to find a way out so that I may protect your child and save Awenor. Please!”
She heard the sounds of shouts a few streets over and cringed involuntarily.
“Please!” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Who’s that in front of my door? Git! Shove off!”
Allora jumped and looked up. An old human woman was standing there, her head framed by Vish as her visage rose higher in the sky.
The woman jumped slightly as Allora lifted her head from the fetid alleyway. She eyed Allora’s ripped and bloody cloak, knowing immediately what it meant. No one would dare impersonate an Onyx Knight. Not in the capital itself.
“Child! What are you doing here? You have to get off the streets!”
“I…” she swallowed as the sounds of soldiers drew closer. “I do not have anywhere to go. Everyone is dead. The palace has fallen. The monarch has been slain.”
Allora’s hands were still wet with his blood.
The woman’s hand came up to her mouth and she uttered a short cry before collecting herself.
"Well, get up! A knight only bows to the monarch, and that’s not me. Come! Come with me, child. I know a place we can go. Quickly now, before they find you!”
Her hands absently rubbed on the mage catchers at her wrists as she remembered that horrible night. Maddie had indeed sheltered her through those first few days after the coup, and it had cost the poor woman her life.
The runes of the light spell flickered along the length of the manacles and she winced. The headache from the constant mana drain caused by the mage catchers had been with her for so long now she almost couldn’t remember what it felt like not to have it. She longed to feel the power in her again, but as long as the manacles were on her wrists, she couldn’t summon enough mana to light a candle.
Allora looked over at Mitchell in his cage. He was sleeping fitfully, his body wedged into the corner and his legs bent, much the same as she was. Had she failed again? She tried to have faith, but she was so very tired. All she wanted was to rest and, at this point, if death was the only rest she could get, she might just welcome it. At least then, the pain would end. She would see her parents in the forests of Kaden and be sheltered by Vish’s light for eternity. Her father had been a sun elf and it was said they went to the fields of Tirna after death, but surely Stollar would not keep them apart.
The swelling had gone down in Mitchell’s face since Balen had beaten him. Ivaran had only given him partial healing to repair his broken jaw and nose, which had cost him the final uses of the bloodstone in his sevith, and he’d been none too happy. He’d told Balen that the cost of the gem was coming out of his cut.
“Let that be a lesson to keep your hands off the prisoners,” Ivaran had told him.
While that had kept Balen from beating Mitchell to death, he had taken his anger out in other, more subtle ways.
Allora had wanted to thank Mitchell for coming to her defense but he wouldn’t have understood her. She had tried to offer comfort, but he’d rebuffed the attempt. The anger in his face had shocked her. Allora had deserved it, though. Ivaran had been right. They had him because of her. She’d dragged him away from his home and his family against his will.
Allora had wanted to convince him, to have him come of his own free will. The spell would not have chosen him if he wasn’t a viable candidate, wasn’t someone who would agree to follow her and become the ruler and protector of Awenor. But instead, they’d found her. They’d followed her to Earth and ruined everything. Now he hated her for what she’d done.
Allora’s eyes moved from Mitchell to Revos who sat staring at nothing as he usually did. He barely fit in his cage and it had to be torture for him to be confined so, but she had no sympathy for him. He was the reason Milandris’s men had found her on Earth. He was the one who sent them there after her. No doubt it was to save his own life and, if she was being honest with herself, Allora couldn’t fault him for it. It was his nature and she’d known what kind of person he was before seeking him out. Gilriel had warned her, but there’d been no other choice. Revos looked out for himself above all. Self-sacrifice was not in his vocabulary. She understood his actions but that didn’t mean she had to feel bad for him.
“Psst!” A harsh whisper snapped her from her thoughts, which were beginning to spiral as they often did these days.
Allora jerked her head back around to the side of the wagon where she saw a cloaked and masked figure standing with its head just over the lip of the wagon’s railing. Allora found that her eyes struggled to focus on the person. The edges of the reddish tan cloak it wore blurred and made it so the eye sort of slipped off as it tried to focus. It was enchanted, meant to help break up the wearer’s form and conceal them. She’d seen objects like it before. They weren’t cheap.
“Stollar’s hairy asshole, you lot smell like week-old fish guts. Don’t they let you bathe?” The voice, though low, was female.
“Who are you?” Allora asked, ignoring the question.
“Time for names later. You want out or not?”
Allora only considered for a second. This could be their chance.
“You are the one who killed Balen and Dokett?”
“Yep. Now, we don’t have time. Out or not?”
“Out.”
The figure nodded. “Thought so.”
Allora’s sharp eyes picked up the flash of green eyes beneath the cowl.
“Now, if I let you out, you need to help me deal with Ivaran. You wouldn’t be wearing those mage catchers if you didn’t have magic and he’s a warlock. I wouldn’t stand a chance in a head-on fight. Do we have a deal?”
“I accept the terms. I do not have a sevith or a krisa, though,” Allora told her.
“I figured. You’ll just have to do your best as I don’t have any, either. What about stinky in the middle? The human.”
“He has power but is untrained.”
“And the cambion?”
Allora turned her head and looked at Revos on the other side of the wagon bed. He was watching, naturally. An eager glint to his golden eyes.
“He is a powerful arcanist but his sevith has also been taken.”
“Well, you’re what we got so we’ll have to make do. Give me your wrists.”
Allora held her wrists up to the bars and the woman’s hand passed through and pressed a white stone to the center link of the chain. She’d taken it off of Belan. It was probably why she killed him first. She’d needed help.
There was a brief flash of light and the manacles broke open along a seam that hadn’t existed before. The constant drain on her mana subsided immediately and Allora couldn’t suppress a groan of relief. Almost instantly, her head stopped throbbing and she felt her mana pool begin to refill.
In the cage beside her, Mitchell started awake at the noise and blinked his eyes. He looked to Allora and then saw the hazy shape just to the side of the wagon. He looked about to speak but Allora held her finger to her lips and tried to will him to be silent. Thankfully, he understood.
“Here, take this.”
The woman passed Allora a long stiletto between the bars, then gave her the key to the mage catchers.
“We’ll have to wait until they break camp and come out of the protective shell. When they open the cage for your morning walk that’s when you make your move. Not before. But do not kill Ivaran! I want him alive. Understand?”
Allora nodded. She gripped the handle of the long-bladed weapon and felt the heft and balance of it. It was a well-made piece. It would do.
“When I see the one in the wagon go down, that will be the signal.”
The figure ducked out of sight and, with an effort, she saw the hazy form of the woman crouched low as she moved silently over the sand. Even with superior vision, she lost sight of her after only fifteen feet or so. The cloak even hid her tracks. That would explain why Ivaran and the others had found no footprints after Belan had been killed on patrol. The woman was skilled at her craft. Allora wondered what she wanted of Ivaran but it didn’t matter. Help had come.
Settling back in she handed the small stone to Mitchell and indicated to pass it to Revos. He got the message and passed it off. It was a little awkward, but Revos managed to get the stone to the center link and the manacles snapped open. He too, stifled a groan and rubbed at his wrists.
“I half expected you to leave me chained,” he whispered across to her.
“Would you blame me if I did?” she retorted.
“Probably not.” He looked at Mitchell. “What about this one?”
“I think we leave him for now. He will only get in the way. Likely, we will only get one chance.”
It pained her to say it but it was true. He had no idea how to use his magic and, from what she’d seen of his world, would be unable to wield a blade effectively, either. From images and depictions from the moving pictures they had on his world, they had some sort of small handheld weapons that spouted little bursts of flame from the tip yet still managed to punch holes into other people, even at a distance. She knew it wasn’t magical but she had no idea how it was accomplished. If his people had ever used blades as weapons, they didn’t any longer.
“We will release him after this is done. I should have enough mana soon to cast a rudimentary translation spell and explain it to him. It won’t last long without my krisa, though.”
Beside her, Mitchell was holding up his manacles and mouthing something to her that she couldn’t decipher but it wasn’t hard to guess. He wanted out too, of course. She held up a palm to him and tried to indicate patience. He glared but seemed to understand what she meant, even if he didn’t understand the reason. He settled back into his cage with a huff.
Allora settled in and pondered this new development. Everything hinged on their rescuer. Her accent pegged her as Awenorian. Low-born, if Allora had to guess, and from somewhere along the coast. Possibly Varset or one of the outlying towns and villages. But low-born or not, she was who Vish had sent. Now they waited.