Peter Brett - The Skull Throne

She expected Jardir to be aghast at the thought of the Core calling them, but he only nodded. “Nie’s call is strong, but indeed, you must resist. All Ala depends upon us. Put your faith in Everam and He will keep you strong.”

Arlen shook his head. “Never been much good at putting faith anywhere but in me and mine.”

Jardir reached out gently, touching Arlen’s chest. “Everam is inside you, my friend. Whether we created Him, or He created us, is irrelevant. He is the Light inside you when all else is dark. He is the Voice that whispers right from wrong. He is the Strength you drew upon in your desert trials. He is the Hope that you carry in this mad scheme.” He smiled. “He is the Stubborn inside you that refuses to admit the truth I bring.”

Arlen smiled. “Grant you that last, at least.”

“Now that the cat’s out, might be we don’t need the prisoner.” Renna said. “There’s a shortcut to down below for all of us.”

Arlen shook his head. “Don’t trust anyone, even myself, to dissipate too close to the Core. Be like dumping a bucket into a river and expecting it to stay upstream.”

Jardir crossed his arms. “Hypocrisy or not, my warriors I will not profane our bodies with alagai meat.”

There were enthusiastic nods from Shanvah and Shanjat, and Renna could see the relief in their eyes.

“So we do it the hard way,” Arlen agreed. “But for that, we need a way to get that ripping demon to talk.”

The Consort huddled at the center of the warding, presenting as little flesh as possible to the cursed day star.

His captors had been thorough. The chain and locks were carefully crafted from a true metal, and their warding was strong. They burned against his skin, keeping him corporeal.

His cell was circular and bereft of furnishing. Colored stones lined the floor, cemented into a mosaic of warding that would keep him trapped even if he escaped the chain. The warding pulled at his magic with such strength the Consort needed to keep his power buried deep, lest it be drained.

There would be no restoring lost energy, for the demon prince’s cell was high above the surface, with no vents to Draw from. The Consort powered his own prison, and was determined to give it as little as possible. He sipped at the store carefully.

There were wards outside the walls, as well. Wards to keep his prison hidden from prying eyes, both human and the drones that no doubt combed the surface, seeking sign of him. The Consort had tried to reach out to them, but the forbiddance was too strong. For the first time, his mind was cut off from both the base impulses of his drones and the beautiful complexity of his brethren’s thoughts. The silence was maddening.

But worse than even that indignity was the day star. Thick curtains had been pulled over the windows of the cell, overlapping and lashed tight. The darkness was so complete the surface stock were blind, but to the demon prince, even the barest light filtering in through the weaves was agony, sapping his strength and burning his skin. It was all the demon could do to squeeze his lidless eyes tight and curl on the floor until darkness returned.

At last, the star set, and the demon made a few quick, efficient motions to sit himself upright despite the unevenly wrapped lengths of chain that bound him. Slowly, the Consort Drew a bit of power, healing the flesh beneath an ever-thickening armor of burned and dead flesh.

Again he Drew, a spark for sustenance. His captors wisely did not get close enough to feed him.

Last, he shifted, pulling a particular lock against his flesh as he focused a last bit of power into it, slowly eroding the metal. Too much, and the chain would pull the power away, but just a touch could wear it like water dripping on stone.

The demon had studied his chains for half a cycle now, and knew them intimately. Shatter three locks at the shackle, and much of his mobility would be restored. Break two more links, and he could slip the chain.

Once free of the chain, he would need to disable the mosaic to dissipate out of the prison. That would go more quickly, but the patterns suggested he would not progress far enough before one of his captors noticed the attempt. Even the weakest of them could pull the curtain with a flick of the wrist, and sunrise mark his end.

The Consort could afford to be patient. It would be many cycles before he was ready to shatter the chain, and much could change in that time. The human minds wanted him alive, and it was a good opportunity to study and probe their weaknesses.

It was a delightful irony that the very shackles they used to keep him corporeal prevented the Consort from reshaping his throat and mouth to allow him to replicate the crude grunting that passed for speech among the surface stock. He could understand their questions, but not answer them.

This frustrated the minds, deepening the rifts between them. Unifiers they might be, but like any human, they were stupid. Emotional. Barely more intelligent that mimics.

Most of all, they were mortal. The time would come when their vigilance failed, and he would be free.

“Corespawned if I’m letting you put your oily desert hands on my little girl!”

Leesha looked up, her hands full of a man’s intestine, to see a thick-armed Laktonian man and his teenage son looming with balled fists over tiny Amanvah. The apprentices assisting her were all frozen with fear. Jizell, too, had paused in her surgery, but she could no more stop and involve herself than Leesha.

Amanvah did not seem perturbed. “If I do not, she will die.”

“Ay, whose ripping fault is that?” the boy cried. “You desert rats killed Mum and ran us out into the night!”

“Do not blame me for your cowardice and inability to protect your sister,” Amanvah said. “Stand aside.”

“Core I will,” the man said, grabbing her arm. Sikvah took a step forward, but the man’s son sidestepped to block her path.

Amanvah looked down as if he had rubbed shit on her white robe, pristine despite the hours she had spent in the surgery with Leesha. Then her hand shot up, snaking around the man’s giant biceps and into his armpit. She stepped back in a half turn, bringing the man’s arm out straight until the elbow locked. She twisted slightly, and the man roared with pain.

Amanvah used the locked arm to guide the man like a puppet, swinging him away from the operating table and right into his son. A well-placed kick set the boy stumbling toward the doors, and Amanvah walked the screaming man straight back after him, sweeping both men out of the room as easily as dust into a pan.

She let the man’s arm go as the doors swung open, delivering a mule-kick into his solar plexus that sent both flying through the air, one landing heavily atop the other. Dozens of women working triage looked up in shock.

Leesha turned to Roni. “Get out there and find the biggest Cutters you can. Post them at the surgery door and tell them I will bite their ripping heads off if anyone other than patients and Gatherers is allowed in.”

“Someone’s got to carry the wounded in,” Roni said. “Most of the Cutters are out in the night.”

“I’ll find a few hands when I finish here,” Leesha said. “Go.”