James West - The God King

“Are you well?” Hazad asked, scrutinizing Ellonlef.

“Fine,” she said curtly. “I just want to find Kian and escape.” She refused to heed the voice in her head telling her that he was already dead.

Azuri’s nose wrinkled. “This place smells of the grave.”

His statement did not help Ellonlef’s resolve to ward against the living memories buried in the surrounding rock, that of doom and creeping insanity. Those sent here, if they did not die straight away, first wasted away in body, then in mind.

Azuri moved across the chamber to a door of rusted iron. “Open, in the name of the king!”

There came a jangling of keys, then the door squealed ajar to show an emaciated guard who looked to not have properly eaten, or bathed, in years. “Gods cursed fool!” the man snarled at Azuri. “No call to yell. I can hear fine.”

“Shut that rotten hole in your face,” Azuri said, “and lead me to the man brought in at dawn.”

“What?” the guard asked, bemused. “Why would you want to see that scum?”

Azuri narrowed his eyes. “I said lead me to him.”

The guard growled a curse and reached for the battered hilt of his sword. Hazad pushed by Ellonlef and Azuri, closed a great fist around the guard’s throat, and slammed his head against the wall. “When you are commanded by a captain of the City Watch, worm, you obey without question,” Hazad rumbled, and threw the groaning man to the ground.

Blinking dazedly, the guard rubbed his bleeding head. “One day you Izutarian bastards are going to pay for treating trueborn Aradaners this way!”

“Are you as witless as you look, and deaf besides?” Hazad demanded, relieving the guard of his ill-kept sword. “Perhaps I should clean your ears with steel? No? Then shut your mouth and take us to the prisoner. We have something special for him … from the king”

The fool started to mumbled another curse, but Hazad dragged him to his feet and shoved him down the passage. Having no choice, the guard led them along a low corridor, bemoaning his split scalp the entire way.

The first passage, lined with doors of rotting wood, ended at another iron door. The guard unlocked it, then faced the trio. “Beyond here, prisoners are free to do as they will. Mayhap they’ll cut out your stinking tongues and eat them! While they’re at it,” he sniveled, glancing at Ellonlef, “mayhap I’ll take that pretty piece there for myself.”

Hazad’s open-handed slap ruined his lips and knocked loose a tooth.

Azuri pointed into the waiting darkness. “Lead,” he commanded

The man looked ready to balk once more, then thought better of it. He locked the door at their backs, then did as bid with hatred in his stare. He would prove dangerous, if the opportunity arose.

The way was lit by a few flickering torches set in holes in the walls, their smoke adding to the black cones of soot that ran to the ceiling. After a sharp turn took them beyond sight of the last door and the handful of torches, all was darkness. Prisoners of the Pit did not need light.

Azuri strode back the way they had come, took a torch from its place, and held it as high as the low ceiling would allow. The wavering glow did little more than remind Ellonlef of the passage’s narrowness. As they moved deeper into the now winding passage, the fickle torchlight showed more things she did not want to see. Bones of all sizes shared ground with dried excrement. Frequent alcoves ended at blank walls, into which were set rusted manacles and chains. All of the bindings were free of living prisoners, but a few held old skeletons.

The guard did not pause, or even seem to notice the bones. As he led them deeper, the air grew closer, more oppressive. Ellonlef observed signs left from the days when the Pit had been a mine. Occasional beams and rafters, now dry-rotted, shored up the walls, but more often than not the walls had crumbled into drifts of loose rubble.

“Do you know where you are going?” Hazad demanded, after what seemed hours of shambling on.

“Indeed,” the guard responded harshly, peering into the dancing shadows. “I can smell him ahead … fresh blood.”

“If he dies before we reach him,” Azuri said, “your life also ends.”

The man hunched his shoulders and scowled. “You sound like you want him to live.” Then, as if just piecing together what was afoot, the man spun, his face a mask of fury. “You bastards mean to free him!”

Before anyone could react, he sprinted ahead, vanishing quickly into the darkness.

“Damn!” Azuri swore, and wrenched Ellonlef’s shackles off her wrists. The game was up, and there was no use keeping her bound. “We must catch him, or we will never find Kian.”

The trio ran after the fleeing guard, and moments later they halted in another circular chamber, their eyes wide with confused revulsion. Ellonlef recoiled as wasted men scrabbled, like misshapen spiders, away from the torchlight, throwing hands over sunken eyes, crying out against the glare. Most were naked, their bones pushing grotesquely against thin skin covered in running sores. Their bony feet waded through swarms of rats. Amid the living dead, the guard hid in plain sight, only the glint of a long dagger giving him away.

“You cannot have him!” the guard shouted, cowering behind two gaunt men with eyes afire with madness. “I’ll see you dead before-”

Hazad bowled aside the two prisoners and struck the guard, knocking him senseless with a huge, knotted fist. Those around Hazad and the fallen guard scattered, their overlarge eyes bulging, as Hazad took the man’s keys. The fearful prisoners muttered among themselves, creating an unpleasant droning noise.

“Quiet!” Azuri roared. Silence fell immediately, and he stood with his head cocked.

Ellonlef imitated him, even as she kept a sharp eye on the prisoners. From far away, the echoing sounds of an argument came to her. Hearing it too, Hazad plunged down another passage, with Ellonlef and Azuri hard on his heels. The passage soon led to a open chamber. Two prisoners, more robust than the others they had yet seen, were hunched over an unmoving figure. One held what looked like an blood-crusted arm in his boney hands, the posture of someone about to eat a goose leg.

“Gods good and wise!” Azuri breathed.

The second prisoner lurched to his feet, wielding a crude weapon. It took only a moment for Ellonlef to see that the weapon was a sharpened leg bone.

Hazad lunged forward, roaring like a lion. His sword swept up and down in a blurring arc, shattering the leg bone and splitting the fellow’s head like a withered gourd. With a screech of bone on metal, Hazad wrenched his sword free. The other prisoner scuttled out of range, making strange mewling noises low in his throat.

Kian lay on the floor, the few visible patches of his pale skin surrounded by layers of dried blood and caked dirt. He looked dead, but Ellonlef would not let herself believe it. Nearly overwhelmed with grief, she went to him. Gingerly, she placed a palm against his chest. His flesh was still warm, his heartbeat weak, erratic.

Joy, tempered as it was by his appearance, filled her heart. “We must leave here now ,” she urged.

Kian groaned at the sound of her voice and rolled his head toward her. A flicker of recognition lit his slitted gaze and his mouth moved, but Ellonlef hushed him with a gentle finger to his lips. Tears she had not know were there fell from her eyes, dripping over the ruin of his body.

A sharp curse drew her attention, and she twisted to see a gathering of prisoners crouched at the edge of the torchlight. The prisoner who had been about to taste Kian’s arm squinted, his cracked lips twisted into a feral curve. He murmured hungrily, his eyes black slits above a crooked nose. Slaver dribbled over his chin. As if of the same mind, other prisoners crept forward. It was impossible to discern how many there were, for they seemed to be twined about one another, all arms and legs and distended bellies. Glints from their bulging eyes reflected a madness of hunger and incomprehensible suffering. These few men were the strong, Ellonlef realized, while those in the last chamber were the weak … the prey .