Chapter 6
Alana awoke with a throbbing headache. She narrowed her eyes at the brightness and tried to determine where she was. In front of her was rough, dull stone, which made her wonder if she was even in Medora anymore. She quickly realized that the stone was actually the floor beneath her, and she was shackled face down into the corner of a room made of solid granite. Her feet were bound as well, as she discovered when she attempted to stand. She looked up to her hands and saw them bruised and bloodied where the harsh metal bit into her flesh. Her hands were only a small problem; her whole body ached, and she didn't know where she was or how she got there. But instead of worrying about things she couldn't change, she wondered why a dungeon would be so brightly lit, and why she was in this odd position on the cold stone floor.
Her head felt as if it was full of hot water, and she couldn't think straight. She was dizzy just lying there, so she was fairly sure she couldn't escape even if she weren't attached so uncomfortably to the floor. She tried to remember how she got there, but she could recall only frustrating, silent blackness. Her eyebrows drew together as she thought about the pain she felt. Since she could do nothing to change her situation, she closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep to forget the pain.
A loud clanging of metal and chains ruined her plan, and she tried to look behind her to see what the noise was. An exploding pain from some forgotten injury shot through her neck as she turned, so she gave up on that plan as well. From the sound, she assumed a guard opened the door to the room, but she couldn't be sure. Boots scuffed the uneven floor and armor clanked and clinked. All signs pointed to a guard in the room, but her skills of deduction brought her no satisfaction in this case.
"Face down. In the corner," a man said with a cold voice.
A loud slap informed her that someone had been thrown roughly to the unforgiving floor. More clinking of metal meant that the person was being shackled to the floor just as she was. She breathed in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She felt a sorrow in her heart for the person in the other corner, knowing that they probably felt all the pains she was feeling, and that they suffered the same eventual fate. The worst part was not having any idea what that fate was.
After a moment she heard sobbing. It came not from the corner with her new cellmate, but from another corner to her left. She did her best to ignore her pain and turned her head to the sound. A woman lay facedown there as well, and suddenly, some memories returned. This woman had blonde hair. This was Medora. The person behind her probably had blonde hair as well, and a hot wave of panic came over her. She had just killed the General of the Medoran Legions, and she was captured with no chance of escape. The other Vindyri in this room were probably innocent of any crime, and only there because they matched her description. Tears escaped her eyes before she could close them. She began to sob herself, not at her own pain, but at the pain she had caused these innocent people.
Her neck snapped upwards abruptly as a guard painfully pulled her hair. She had forgotten the guard was even there, but she was well aware of it now. He stepped on her hands painfully as another guard approached and clasped another set of shackles to her wrists, and then her feet. The ones chained to the floor were unlocked, and suddenly she found herself hauled to her feet. The pain made her body quake.
The first guard had not let go of her hair, and he lead her by it with his strong fist out the open doorway, dragging her backwards rather unceremoniously. The second guard locked the door as all three of them exited. She did the best she could to walk forwards to maintain an ounce of dignity, but the guard was not making it easy. They followed the narrow halls past other cells until they came to a very large, circular room. He let go of her hair a moment while he fumbled with a set of keys. She noticed that none of the walls or floors were marble, but all rough, tan stone. Everything was bare, with no decorations whatsoever. The only thing that stood out about this place was the circular room, which for some reason, was open to the sky in parts, allowing the warm sun to reach the floor. She only stared for a second before the guard had unlocked another door nearby and grabbed her painfully by the hair again, dragging her inside the small room.
He threw her to the floor where she banged her knees, elbows and chin. She saw blood on the floor where her face had met the unfriendly stone, and saw a few more drops fall before the guard clamped her leg irons to a ring on the floor. Her heart sank as she wondered how long she would be fastened there.
She waited to have her hands restrained as well, but instead the guard pulled his signature head-jerking move again. She winced at the pain, but when she opened her eyes, her expression turned to utter disbelief. There in front of her, behind a table covered in papers, was General Tannis Tirinius.
She stood silently with her mouth open, watching him as he wrote something on a scroll in front of him by candlelight. He didn't even look up. He didn't seem at all concerned with the prisoner in front of him covering his floor with little drops of blood. He grabbed another scroll as he wrote and held it across the desk. The guard let go of her hair and took the scroll, quickly exiting once he had it. He shut the door behind him, and after a moment, she heard the muffled sound of keys clattering, locking the door behind her.
She stood silently, unable to even take a step because of her leg irons being so tightly fastened to the floor. She felt that if she fell over, the shackles would snap her ankles. She watched him finish writing and place the pen in its holder. He leaned back and ran his hand down his face, then cocked his head side to side in an attempt to crack his neck.
"So we meet again," he said as he finally looked to her eyes. "Only this time there is no blade in my gut. I hope my men have been treating you well."
"Treating me well? You need not worry about that. Your men should all get medals for how well they have treated us. You can see the result of their tender care all over your floor here."
"Good, good," he said as he scratched in his ear.
She was surprised that he would tolerate that kind of snide sarcasm. Perhaps he was testing to see how rude she would get before he killed her. He would probably let her say anything, and the madder he got, the more gruesome her death would be. Outwardly, she stood tall, inside, she was sinking quickly.
"What have you done to those other Vindyri? You know that they are not who you are looking for."
"And how do I know that? I had to catch a few before I found the right one. And perhaps they are all guilty of the attempt on my life, and only you actually committed the crime."
"You would punish them for my crimes?" she said as her voice weakened a little.
"I would have all the information I could get before I went killing anyone. There's nothing harder to get than information from the dead."
Her tears stung her chin when they reached the fresh wound. This man was as cold and heartless as she had heard. Perhaps all the Medorans were exactly the monsters she had heard that they were. She swallowed hard as she tried to keep herself from crying.
"You're evil; pure, unmasked evil. You don't care about the blood of the innocent staining your hands. All you care about is yourself, and you carelessly murder anyone who stands in your way."
He laughed. "You know, you have some interesting views on murder and evil for someone who came to Medora and tried to kill a man she didn't know. Is that the kind of backward thinking you have over there in Vindyrion? What exactly makes you immune from the same judgment? And why aren't you selfish for murdering someone who stood in your way?"
He didn't understand. He didn't know who she was. This was all a mystery to him because he still had missing pieces to his puzzle. Finally she felt a little surge of power. She stood a little straighter, knowing that as long as she kept her identity a secret, he would have to keep her alive to get more pieces to fit. He probably thought there was some elaborate conspiracy to kill him, and he was totally wrong. She did all this on her own, with no help at all. She never told a soul.
"No response for any of those
questions?" he asked as he cracked a few of his knuckles.
Her instinct was to look up as she thought of a clever lie to get herself out of the situation, but she kept her eyes on his. He would know she was making things up otherwise. When no clever lie rushed into her head, she decided to flash him an angry, arrogant expression. It might boil his anger some, but giving answers was going to eventually get her killed.
Instead she asked her own question. "Why do you have guards lock this door when you have a prisoner in here with you?"
"Because if you manage to kill me, I don't want you to be able to escape. Every door you ever see again for the rest of your life will be locked behind you."
She shuddered at the thought. Either she was going to die, or she was going to be locked away in some room made of solid rock for years to come. The finality of both outcomes hit her with an oppressing, heavy weight that darkened all her hopes. She still stood tall however, not letting him know that his words could affect her.
"Now let's get some answers out of you," Tannis said as he kicked his heavy boots up on his sturdy desk, "Who sent you here to kill me?"
She defiantly turned her head away from him as she rolled her eyes slightly. Her only option was to play the silent game. She knew that it was only going to enrage him, but she needed to uphold this lie. She saw him thread his fingers together out of the corner of her eye. He seemed calm and relaxed, not angry.
"Perhaps you will be more willing to talk without one of those arms," he threatened.
She hoped he was just testing her limits. She didn't want to have to go through the gruesome ordeal of losing a limb. A morbid picture flashed through her head of tendons snapping as her arm was ripped violently from its socket. Dismissing her fear, she decided to stand her ground.
A muffled rattle of keys came again from the other side of the door, then a knock.
"Come," Tannis said. The door swung open and a guard entered.
"The Emperor wishes to see you General. He says it's urgent."
He sighed. "Very well. Stay here with the Vindyri. Do not speak to her."
"Yes sir," he said as he saluted and stood at attention beside the door.
Tannis got up and approached him. He took the guard's keys and exited, locking the door behind him.
As soon as she was sure he was out of earshot, she violently elbowed the guard in the nose. The blow to the nose wasn't that hard, but his head snapped back and hit the stone wall with a sickening thud. He fell unconscious to the floor, noisily breathing a bloody mess onto the granite. She squatted down, careful not to hurt her ankles in the process, and checked him quickly for another set of keys. She found none. She thought for a moment and realized there must be keys in this room. The guard who took her here had to unlock the door to enter. Tannis would not be locked in here without a set of keys, and he took the guard's keys when he left. There had to be another set.
The only place they could be was in the desk. There was nothing else in the room. It worried her that the desk was too far for her to reach while her feet were clamped so tightly to the floor, but it was close enough to touch, so maybe she had a shot. She stood up slowly, took a breath and reached out to the desk, laying her body over it. With her hands tightly clamped, it wasn't easy, but she reached down and felt the handle of a drawer. The guard began to stir.
As she fumbled to open the drawer, she knocked over the only candle in the tiny room, plunging it into darkness. Frustration turned to panic as she found the drawer locked. In a desperate attempt to find a solution, she felt along the desk. To her amazement, she found what she was looking for. A single key hung on a nail on the other side of the desk. She thanked the gods for her luck.
The guard made an attempt to speak, but he was still out of his wits. Her time was running out fast but she had to be careful and not rush. She could only touch the key with two fingers. If she dropped it, she would probably never have a chance like this again. She calmed herself as best she could, and lifted the key off the nail. Putting it on the desk, she switched hands and positioned the key so that she could put it in the lock without dropping it. She stretched as far as she could, which was causing the shackles to cut into her ankles. Biting her lip against the pain, she felt for the lock.
Her panic rose as she heard noises from outside the room. She didn't know what was happening, but she knew she had to hurry. To add to her problems, she felt the guard touch her leg. He was coming to. She hoped that the darkness would confuse him and make him think he was waking up in his bed at home.
With much relief, the key finally slid into the lock. It turned and clicked without trouble, and she again thanked the gods. She opened the drawer with her thumb and groped for a set of keys, finding instead papers and other small, unidentifiable objects. She threw everything to the floor, hoping to find what she was looking for.
Finally after an eternity of searching, she grasped a cold metal ring. She jiggled it and it rang with the glorious sound of brass keys. Carefully pulling them out of the drawer, she pushed herself off the desk back into the standing position. Squatting down, she tried several of the keys in her leg irons. The guard cleared his throat. She thought maybe he was awake now but unaware of his surroundings. Quietly she tried the last key. It worked. The tight irons fell off and clanked to the floor.
"What?who's there?" the guard said.
She wasted no time. She kicked at the place she thought his head would be. She got him right under his jaw, sending him right back to his unnatural slumber. She unlocked the shackles at her wrists and threw them behind the desk. Bending down in the darkness she felt for the guard's sword and pulled it free of its scabbard.
Feeling the lock on the door, she tried a key. This time it worked on her first try. She swung the door open just enough to peer out. No guards were in the immediate area, so she opened the door and exited, locking it behind her. Instead of running aimlessly, she ran back down the narrow corridor towards her cell. Finding the right key, she opened the door. This plan had to work.
She entered the room and stomped over to the corner. She lifted the chin of the woman chained there face down. This one would simply not do. Before the woman could ask what was going on, she went to the other woman in the far corner. Lifting her chin, she decided that this was a better choice. She hastily unlocked the woman's shackles.
"What's happening? How did you get the keys? Are you one of us?" she asked as she looked thankfully through teary eyes.
"Quiet. You only have this one chance. Don't ask questions," she said as she finished unlocking the irons, handing the woman the sword and dragging her over to the door. "Go on, get out of here."
"Where do I go?"
"Anywhere! Run!"
The woman left without another word. Alana locked the door and then threw the keys out through one of the high windows. She laid face down in the corner the woman was in, putting the shackles on and clasping them.
This plan had to work.