David Dalglish - Blood of the Underworld

“None at the door,” Vrashka said, eyes closed against the blood that ran down into them. “There’s only one exit from the prison, up the hall. That’s where the guards are. I did not lie, little doll, I swear.”

“My name is Zusa, not doll,” she said, cutting across his eyebrows. “How many guards at the exit?”

It took a moment for the old man to gather his breath.

“Five,” he said. “There are always five.”

“Is it night or day?”

“The sun has just set. The temple is settling down for bed, my…Zusa.”

Zusa clasped a hand over his mouth, tried to think. If it were night, then her escape would be far easier. Her prison was deep underground, she knew, with no other exit besides the one with the guards. Five armored men would be difficult, especially with how weak she felt, but perhaps she might catch them off guard…

But escape was not the only thing on her mind.

“Where is Daverik?” she asked. “Is he in his room?”

The old man shook his head.

“I passed him on my way down. He said he felt unwell, and needed fresh air. He was hiding something, I could sense it. Looked troubled. Did you say something to him, little doll? Did you make him doubt himself?”

She tried to cut across both his eyes, but her dagger caught on the bridge of his nose so only one was split in half. When she pulled it free, Vrashka screamed, and her hand did little to muffle the noise. Knowing time was short, Zusa hoped that the scream, if heard, would be mistaken as hers instead of his. Blood was pouring from his face now, and Vrashka’s strength drained with it. Despite all the pain he must have felt, he bore a smile on his face.

“You…you make me sad,” he said when she flung him to the floor. “You could have withstood so much. Breaking you would have been my greatest accomplishment. Even the gentle touchers would be proud.”

He stared up at her with his lone eye, and she could tell he expected her to take his life. She almost obliged, but something about the sick satisfaction on his face turned her stomach. It was as if he viewed dying to her as a privilege.

“You’d never have broken me,” she said, grabbing the handle of her cell door. “But I broke you in seconds.”

“You’ll be back,” Vrashka said, laughing as she left. “You’ll still be mine, little…”

She flung a dagger through the air, straight through his remaining eye. Walking over to it, she yanked it out and shook off the eyeball.

“Stupid bastard,” she said. “You could have lived.”

With the door open, there was no way her escape had gone unnoticed. Taking a deep breath, she ran out the cell, hooked a right, and then charged straight down the corridor. There were only four total cells, with each door on her left. She’d been put in the furthest from the stairs, from what she could tell. At the far edge of the stone corridor was the exit Vrashka had spoken of. Five men stood guard, all with a lion painted across the front of their armor. They wielded a combination of short spears and swords, and four scrambled at the sight of her to form a defensive line. A fifth rushed up the stairs, no doubt to signal an alarm. Zusa sprinted faster, her breaths blasting in and out of her lungs.

“Halt!” one screamed.

Laughing at his cluelessness, she launched into the air, her body twisting like a dancer. Spears and swords pierced through the gaps in her arms and legs, catching nothing. Zusa jammed one dagger through a neck, and the other she rammed into the stomach of the man she slammed into. Together they fell, a heap of arms and legs. She rolled free in a heartbeat, spinning so that the nearest guard’s downward stab hit stone instead of flesh. Her heel caught his jaw, her left arm parried a desperate thrust, and then she was running up the stairs after the fifth, leaving the confused rest behind.

Him in his heavy armor, her in her wrappings, there was no chance, not for him. Her daggers pierced his back before he could finish opening the thick door at the top. Pushing the body behind her, she let it roll and tumble as an obstacle to the others chasing after. The door was not locked, and she flew through it. Beside the door was a heavy bar, and she wedged it into the nailed handles on either side of the entrance. The dungeon sealed, she had time now, perhaps enough to escape.

For a moment she forced her exhausted mind to think of the layout, to piece together where she was. The dungeon was located near the back of the temple. She stood in a short hallway, one way leading toward storage for various supplies and dried foods. The other was toward the barracks. Fists pounded on the opposite side of the door behind her, but she laughed at their helplessness. The temple was dark, quiet. Getting in might have proved difficult, especially with a trap laid for her. But getting out?

She ran, nothing but a shadow. She slipped through the barracks, with only a single young priest walking the halls. He never saw her coming. Her dagger cut his throat, and her hand muffled his dying gasp. On she ran, until reaching the grand worship hall. Peeking out from a door, she saw three men kneeling in prayer at the statue of Karak, his enormous presence bathed in purple fire. Zusa thought to kill them, but escape was her priority now, not vengeance. Crawling along the floor, she slipped through the pews, careful to make not a sound.

Two guards watched the door, spears in hand. When she reached the final pew, she sprinted out, deriving sick pleasure at the stunned look on the guards’ faces at her sudden appearance. In such close quarters, the spears were useless against her daggers. She cut them down, kicked open the door, and then rolled to avoid the bolts of shadow that leapt from the hands of the three priests who had been in prayer.

Now in open air, nothing would stop her. She ran across the courtyard, vaulted over the gates, and then left the temple far behind.

Zusa wanted to return to Alyssa, ached to be in a place she could call home, but did not. Vrashka had said Daverik felt unwell, and sought fresh air. Zusa knew there was more to it than that. With her balance teetering, she ran, her path weaving side to side through the street as if she were intoxicated. Her stomach ached, her tongue thirst for water, but on she went, until at last she reached the secluded gap by the wall where they’d first met.

Just as she thought, Daverik was there, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Instead of his robes, he wore the plain clothes he’d had when first meeting her.

“I hope you didn’t kill too many,” he said, smiling at her arrival.

“Why?” she asked. “Why tell me how to escape?”

Daverik shook his head.

“It saddens me you have to ask. Do you think I lie to you, Zusa? That my feelings are false? I traveled across the entire continent to see you once again. I have slept with nightmares of our last moments together for ten long years. To see you beaten, humiliated, tortured into submission…”

He sighed.

“You know I can’t do that. No matter the blasphemy you might speak. No matter how hardened your heart is against me. And you were right, Zusa. Even if you came back, they’d have killed you. I can’t accept that. I won’t. They’re wrong about that, wrong about you, and I will stop them.”

Zusa bit back her retort, unwilling to spit in the face of the man who had helped her escape.

“What is going on?” she asked. “What role does the temple play in all this?”

“That I cannot say, for I do not know.”

“Then what do you know?”

“That you have a choice, one I’m not sure you’ll be willing to make.”

Something about the sudden shift of his tone made her throat clench.

“What do you mean?”

Daverik crossed his arms, and he looked to the sky so he might stare at the stars when he spoke.