Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 45

From inside the dusty shack where he, Jed, and Brock were held, Bannon listened to the distant pounding on the walls of Ildakar. He didn’t know how much damage the ancient warriors were causing, but the monotonous drumbeat would set the city on edge. Imprisoned here, Bannon had more important things to worry about.

“How soon do you think they’ll kill us?” Jed asked. “I expected they would torture us by now.”

“Are you in a hurry? Keeper’s crotch!” Brock huddled against the rickety wooden wall.

“I don’t think it will be quick,” Jed groaned. “They want to make a spectacle of us. They’ll probably cut us to pieces in front of the city gates where everyone can watch.”

Brock knotted his fingers together. “My father had no business forcing me to fight like a common foot soldier. I’m a noble!”

“You are a captive,” Bannon corrected him, “and your time would be better served if you considered ways to escape instead of how painful it’ll be when you die.”

“Escape?” Brock squawked.

Bannon shushed him for his outburst. “Be quiet! The soldiers out there will hear you.”

The young man didn’t lower his voice at all. “Yes, thousands of soldiers! Who cares if they hear us? How are we supposed to fight our way through them?”

“Think of some way to break free that does not involve fighting.” Pressing his face against the wall, Bannon peered through the crack in the boards. It was late afternoon and the sun had already set behind the mountains. Long shadows crept across the plain. “Wouldn’t you rather die trying to escape than be murdered as a showpiece? Remember how you wanted me to die in front of an audience, for your entertainment?” Bitterness edged his voice. “I’m done with that.”

He turned away from the wall and looked at the other two young men. “I was never your slave, yet you and Amos arranged for me to be sent to the combat pits. I am free now.” He pounded on the wooden wall, and the boards rattled. “Even here, I’m free. And if you want to be free, you’d better start thinking about how we can get out of here.”

He knew that Jed and Brock would be useless. It was going to be up to him.

He expected Utros to use them as hostages, hauling the three in front of the gates and threatening to execute them unless the city surrendered. Even though Jed and Brock were the sons of powerful nobles, he knew they weren’t that important. And Bannon didn’t believe for a minute that Nicci, or even Nathan, would sacrifice Ildakar to save him.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” he muttered to himself. Jed and Brock still weren’t his friends, and he knew who they really were in their hearts, but Bannon was better than that. The two young men were human beings and fellow captives, and they were all in the same dire situation. He would at least try to help.

He pressed his eye against the crack, trying to see details in the shadows as twilight fell over the camp. Fires were lit, comrades gathered together. Like soldiers in every army far from home, they talked and boasted with one another. Some sang, while others gambled. Because of their invincible numbers, the warriors wouldn’t be overly worried about their prisoners. Only a fool would attempt to escape.

Bannon had no choice but to do the foolish thing, though. What other option did he have? He stared through the crack in the shack’s wall and pondered, struggling to find ideas. His heart leaped as he saw a flash of tawny fur just barely flickering into his view, far from the fires. He spotted the movement again. Yes, it was Mrra!

Two of the ancient warriors walked past, blocking Bannon’s view. The sand panther ducked into the darkness, and when the chalky-gray soldiers were gone, Bannon couldn’t see her anymore. He whispered through the crack. “Mrra! I’m here! It’s me.”

He didn’t know what the big cat could do to help, but knowing she was out there gave him hope. He rattled the wall boards, testing them. This confinement structure had been built quickly with makeshift tools and rough-sawn lumber. The boards had been sunk into the ground, but they were loose. Bannon pushed on them and managed to get his fingers through the crack. Splinters dug into his knuckles when he pulled.

Neither Jed nor Brock bothered to help him. “They’ll probably interrogate us before they kill us,” Jed said. “General Utros will want to know all details about Ildakar.”

“I’m not going to tell him anything,” Brock said.

Bannon kept working at the boards, wiggling the gap wider.

“Yes, you will, and you know it,” Jed said. “Once they shatter your knees and peel off your nails with tongs, you’ll talk. You saw those two sorceresses. What if they ignite your fingers like candles, one at a time, until your flesh drips like wax off your finger bones, down to the knuckle?”

Brock began to whimper.

Gritting his teeth, Bannon wobbled the board back and forth. He would have demanded their help, but there wasn’t room for more than one set of hands anyway. He had to do this himself. When the wood creaked, grinding against the adjacent board, Bannon froze at the noise. The gap was wider now, and he could see better out into the camp.

None of the soldiers paid attention to them. The nearest campfire was at least sixty feet away, and Bannon saw shadows beyond. That was where Mrra had vanished. Maybe if he and the other two captives could get out of the shack unseen, they could slip away into the darkness. He had noticed that the ancient soldiers had difficulty seeing in the darkness, so maybe they had a better chance than he had at first thought. How he wished he had his sword!

Even the slimmest chance was better than no chance at all. As he wiggled the board, it squeaked again, much looser now. The camp was settling down for the night, and the moon rose over the hills. He saw the silvery light as a disadvantage, washing away some of their cover.

The squeaky board moved more freely now. With a hard shove he could knock it loose and probably fit his body through the gap, when the time was right. Bannon nodded to himself. “We’ll wait until midnight, and then we run.”

“We’ll be caught,” Jed said. “And killed.”

“Or you can stay here and be killed. I’m trying to help you! Sweet Sea Mother, have you never had to do anything for yourselves in your entire lives?”

The two indignant young men didn’t answer.

The hours crawled by as he listened to the movement in the camp, the activity slowing. The soldiers did not bed down, because unlike normal men, they didn’t need to sleep or eat. He wondered if they ever let down their guard. He had to hope so.

Gradually, much later, the night grew quieter. He kept staring into the darkness, searching for Mrra, just to build his confidence. He got ready to make his move one way or another.

He was surprised to see a flicker of gray and black, a shadow that moved and rippled. He realized it was a human figure, a woman covered in a mottled silk cloak the color of shifting shadows. As the figure trotted on light footsteps toward the shack, Bannon pressed the loose board sideways, widening the gap. She approached, using the painted shadows of her silk cloak for cover. Reaching the wall, the cloaked figure pulled back the camouflage.

“Lila!” he gasped in a whisper.

She held a short sword in her left hand and a full-length sword in her right. It was Sturdy! She had retrieved it somehow. “Come, boy. I’ll get you out of here.”

He wiggled the board and uprooted it like a rotten tooth. He called over his shoulder to the other two, “Come on, we’ve got to go now.”

“You are insane, farm boy,” said Jed.

Brock lunged to his feet. “I’m going to run.”

Lila helped pull the board away and set it aside. Bannon thrust his shoulder into the opening, scraping his chest as he wriggled through the narrow gap. She grabbed his arm, and as he emerged, she handed him the sword. “I found this in the debris outside the camp. I thought you might want it back.”

He gripped the leather-wrapped hilt with a shiver of excitement. “Thank you.”

Brock worked his way through the gap, making the boards groan with his stockier chest. At his side, Jed pulled on the board, and with a loud snap the wood split, creating a greater opening. The sound, though, attracted attention.

“Now!” Lila whispered, tugging Bannon’s arm. “We have to go.”

Jed stumbled after Brock, and they were all outside the shack. The morazeth was already sprinting away, and Bannon followed her, calling to his companions, “Faster!” He could barely see the flickers of Lila beneath her special shadowy cloak. The other two ran after, heaving great breaths.

Then shouts resounded through the ancient army. “Prisoners escaping!” Soldiers ran to the fires, grabbed their weapons and firebrands. Their heavy footfalls thundered louder than their shouts. Three enemy warriors came in from different directions to cut off the escape.

Lila sprang forward with a hard kick, planting her foot in the center of one soldier’s chest, knocking him back. More shouts erupted in the night. Torches came closer as warriors hurried to intercept the captives.

Jed and Brock saw the oncoming soldiers and panicked. “They’ll catch us again,” Brock said. “Split up! We’ve got to get away.”

“No, we can all fight together,” Bannon shouted. “Follow Lila.”

The other two tore off in different directions, dodging the soldiers. Bannon kept up with the morazeth, ready with Sturdy to do as much damage as possible. The sword’s edge was dulled and notched from his fighting during the nighttime battle. He couldn’t remember his blood frenzy, but knew he must have killed dozens of Utros’s soldiers. He would have to do that again tonight.

Hardened warriors closed in from opposite directions, and Bannon’s heart sank. Lila threw off her cloak for greater freedom of movement. “At my side, Bannon. Show me how I taught you to fight.”

“But Jed and Brock…” he said.

“They’re lost. For now this is my fight and yours.”

Two soldiers blocked Lila, and more came from other directions. He and the morazeth would have to battle their way through, but Bannon feared he would be captured again, and this time they’d have Lila, too.

A feline blur crashed into the soldiers from the side, knocking two of them flat. Mrra raked her claws across the face of an ancient warrior, tearing the man’s jaw loose, then sprang away from him to attack another soldier.

Lila took advantage of the surprise and pounced on the next fighter, stabbing and hacking with such force that she killed him. Bannon saw his chance, too, and chopped down on the hard armor and stony skin of a fourth opponent. Their unexpected fury cleared a gap.

“Run, boy!” Lila sprang between the fallen soldiers as Mrra continued to attack. The morazeth raced into the shadows toward the charred hills, and Bannon fled after her, burning all the energy he had left, running for his very life. Mrra knocked down another pursuing soldier and crushed his throat in her jaws. Bannon and Lila ran without looking back, although the young man could think only of Jed and Brock still trapped. Maybe they had gotten away. Maybe …

Lila’s voice was rough and raw. “To the wall. There’s a low side door we can use to get back in.”

Bannon didn’t waste breath answering her, just kept up.

Because they were fleet and the half-petrified army was sluggish, they put distance between themselves and the rallying enemy forces. When they were safe, Mrra bounded off on her own, heading into the hills, where she could hide. When Lila slowed her frantic pace to a trot, she flashed Bannon a smile. “I am pleased to see that you survived, boy. It would have been a disappointment to me if you had been killed.”

“To me as well.” Bannon felt a rush of relief as they ran toward the high walls under the moonlight. He didn’t even criticize her for not using his name.

After the clamor died down, General Utros learned that one of the three prisoners had escaped, although the other two—the weak ones—were recaptured. He was disappointed to lose the young swordsman who had so impressed him with his fighting abilities.

First Commander Enoch reported, “They had assistance, General. Someone slipped in and helped them break free.”

“And there was a sand panther,” reported another soldier. His armor had been mangled, and one gray-white arm showed raked furrows from where the claws had injured him. “One of the combat animals from the Ildakar arenas.”

Utros was not impressed. “And we had hundreds of thousands of soldiers, who somehow couldn’t stop them.”

He ordered the two prisoners to be brought forward among the ranks. The young men, both bloodied, were dragged closer, weeping. Their wrists had been broken, intentionally, and they moaned in pain. Their bloodstained silken robes were tattered, and both reeked of urine from soaked patches on their pantaloons. Helpless, they looked at their broken wrists, lifting up their arms in disbelief to see their hands flop uselessly.

“We surrendered,” said Brock. “We won’t try to get away again.”

“The problem is, you are worthless to me,” Utros said, “and we have no food for captives.”

The two young men stood shivering as Utros paced before them. “But you can serve another purpose. You can pay for the damage you did, the malicious harm you inflicted upon my army when we were helpless.”

The captives looked up in pain-fogged confusion.

Utros said, “You were so brave when we could not move to defend ourselves or see who was attacking us. Do you even think about the horrors you have done? Do you understand the conditions in which you left some of my loyal soldiers? What you did was … evil.”

Utros issued a command, and shuffling figures were led forward, some of them guided by soldiers, others carried on blankets. The two captives, swimming in a sea of their own pain, looked up in horror as the mutilated ones came to face them. One man’s face was a slab of pounded meat, without a nose or eyes, just ripped skin and a smashed mouth. Others had limbs broken off completely, ears torn away, fingers snapped off to leave only chalky, meaty stumps. Several had no faces at all, and they made wet sucking sounds when they inhaled through holes in the battered ruins of their heads.

“No!” cried Jed.

“Behold what you did. These are the mangled ones, but they are my soldiers. They still want to fight the enemy.” He glanced from one whimpering captive to the other. The second boy pissed himself again. “You are both helpless now, just as they were helpless. You mutilated them when they could not fight back. Now, I will give them the same opportunity.” Utros turned to the mangled soldiers. “You can have them.”

The intact warriors stood in a great circle, crowding closer to watch while the two young men wept and wailed for mercy.

The mangled ones closed in on them and practiced mutilation of their own.