Escana (51 page)

Closing his eyes tightly, he sent
a final thought out with all his will.

I
will help you escape.

He knew nothing but darkness
then.

The cage he woke in was crude at
best. Were he not feverish and wasted away by his time with Re'tak he
could have probably broken free of this captivity. He pictured
himself doing so, wrecking havoc upon an unsuspecting Dyson and his
cronies. Stealing his way back to the hole they had flung him and
letting loose the beast below.

He chastised himself harshly. He
could not allow his weakened physical condition to give him delusions
of grandeur as opposed to rational plans of action. Clearly they had
discovered him alive in the hole once before, Dyson had no doubt been
informed and had told them to leave him in there. Had the man now
developed a change of heart or was his stay meant to torture him?

Footsteps approached, it was the
one called Yalem, flanked by a pair of guards that seemed wary of
Hern in spite of his state.

The man approached without any
apparent fear and unlocked the cage door. He beckoned Hern out and
the guards closed in to keep a close eye on him as Yalem turned to
march away. It would seem that he wanted Hern to follow him.

He took a few doddering steps and
his legs gave way underneath him. The guards let him fall to the
floor, thinking it some ploy to get them to lay their hands upon his
person. He landed awkwardly and the world seemed to spin dizzily. He
heard a grunt and then a pair of arms lifted him and carried him
bodily as if he weighed nothing, which probably wasn't far from the
truth.

He passed in and out of
consciousness during the journey, his eyes growing more accustomed to
the light each time. Objects were becoming more solid around him and
it all seemed like less of a fever dream.

The guards let him go and he
staggered to his feet, reaching out and steadying himself on one of
the walls nearby. He retched but nothing came out save a wheezing
sound.

Yalem dismissed them with a wave
of his hand and approached Hern as he agonisingly pulled himself
upright once again.

The punch came from nowhere,
sending him careening into the wall, which somehow seemed more
yielding than Yalem's fist. Spots danced across his sight as the
familiar feeling of unconsciousness beckoned to him.

The dream-like state returned in
a cloud of pain as he was hoisted bodily by the torn rags covering
his chest. He vaguely followed the bearded man's brawny hand as he
pointed at the door ahead.

'No tricks,' Yalem said.

The punch to the gut doubled him
up, he reflexively curled on the ground as Yalem released his grip.

He caught sight of the man
walking down the corridor and leaning against the wall, apparently an
eye was still being kept on him lest he stagger in the wrong
direction.

Seeing few options remaining to
him, he agonisingly found his feet a final time and half-stumbled,
half fell toward the door swaying groggily within his sight.

He fumbled for the handle and
fell through the space as it came open, the stone floor rushed up to
greet him and darkness threatened to impose itself.

'I can't help but notice that you
don't seem quite so sure of yourself any more. Deprivation does that,
it eats away to the very spirit if one isn't careful. Please feel
free to join me, I was about to have some dinner.'

Hern crawled inexorably forward
to the table and somehow eased himself into the chair. There was a
vague scraping noise and a wooden goblet was pushed into his hands.

He looked down at it, the cup
contained a clear liquid and that was all the prompting Hern needed.

It was only after the third gulp
that he realised just who he had accepted this drink from.

As if sensing his hesitation,
Dyson laughed. 'If I had wanted you dead I'd have left you in there.
No, the water is clean, though I advise you to drink it otherwise
it'll just come right back up.'

Sipping it slower as instructed,
Hern's vision came back to something resembling normality. He took in
the spread on the table with an aching hunger, a small voice in his
head sounded warning and confusion. It wasn't anything like the
banquet that Dyson had tempted the other strangers with, this was
much more standard fare. A crusty loaf of bread and some salted
strips of beef with what looked like red wine and a small chunk of
butter.

Not that the nature of the food
mattered to Hern, in his famished state the bread could have been
mouldy and the wine vinegar and he still would have considered it a
feast.

There was a vague and distant
voice in his head warning him about accepting food from this man but
his current state necessitated immediate action.

If Dyson seemed put out by Hern
tearing a hunk off the bread and grabbing a fistful of meat strips he
didn't show it. Not that he had much time for the man's face even
when sitting in his quarters.

'I'm glad you're enjoying my meal
for me, it's doing little for your previous air of sophistication. I
didn't bring you here to eat but I know the pains of starvation too
well and will permit you this brief insubordinate streak.'

Hern finally slowed his eating,
his parched mouth now moistened and his insides full for the first
time since his indeterminable hours of darkness.

'You wished to discuss matters
with me?'

Dyson formed a steeple his
fingers, observing the remains of his dinner as if it were a scene of
carnage. 'I assumed that you had some measure of control over the
beast in order to make it perform tricks.'

Hern grimaced at the word,
remembering his treatment at the hands of Yalem, he'd never taken
blows of that magnitude before, even from a master. It marked this
Yalem as a danger he had yet to contend with should he manage to
negotiate this conversation and still live.

'So you put us in the hole
together to test that theory?'

Dyson nodded. 'You're
surprisingly perceptive even now, an admirable quality. That was not
the sole purpose of your captivity however. There was also the matter
of your survival, you're a man of resource and though you may not
have done so in style, you managed to subdue a hungry beast while
being the prime course.'

Hern knew what Dyson was asking
even though the man hadn't phrased anything as a question. He wanted
to know how he had managed to communicate with Re'tak. He knew his
life was on the line but he needed more information before deciding
what to reveal.

'Why do you keep a creature like
that locked up here if it's simply going to kill your men?'

He shrugged in response. 'The
loss of life is acceptable given the circumstances. As for the
beast's captivity, why do you ask? Are you going to try and make your
way back to the hole and inform it of what I've said?'

He rapped his fist on the table
twice and the door opened, revealing Yalem on the other side. Hern
hadn't forgotten about him.

'You really wouldn't make it
beyond this room if you attempted such a thing. Why are you so keen
to know of its purpose?'

He turned back as Dyson spoke and
searched the Corporal's eyes, seeing if the man would give any hints.
There were none whatsoever, he may as well have stared at the wall.

'You train people for the arenas
here, do they fight lizards in your capital?'

Dyson laughed, then realised that
Hern was entirely serious with his question. 'Of course not, that
would be a terrible waste of fine men.'

'Yet here you fight lizards,
you're seeking someone that can kill it, aren't you?'

The flicker on Dyson's face
indicated to Hern that he had struck gold, he continued quickly so
that he didn't risk speaking over the top of the man's potential
response.

'You've been searching for a
single man that could kill one of these lizards? There is no such man
alive.'

This was met with a bitter snort.
'My superiors have told me otherwise and task me with finding him in
this barren waste. I plan to cheat.'

Now Hern had all the answers.
'You plan to stage a fight between the creature and myself, one so
convincing that they would think I had killed him with my own hands.'

Dyson nodded. 'Perceptive once
again, that could become a very irritating quality. I don't like
being irritated. You have two choices, either you comply with my
wishes and we develop a working relationship or we kill you here and
now.

Yalem advanced into the room,
Hern saw his options rapidly dwindle. Dyson might not like being
irritated by the likes of him but Hern liked being blackmailed even
less.

'I accept your proposal,' he
said, clasping the man's outstretched hand with what little strength
he had left.

Dyson smiled back at him,
constantly looking into his eyes.

Hern was going to have to kill
this man, very soon.

I
f the cloak
The Hermit was wearing caused him any degree of suffering in the
desert, he gave no indication of it. After the dismantling of his
fellow prisoners nobody but Jimmy and Jakob went anywhere near him.

While Jakob felt a general
distrust for the man and was unconvinced by his motives, he still
didn't sense any irrational hatred as he had with Gooseman. For all
the man's mystery and power he seemed unrelated to the quest to kill
The Six.

Every time Jakob thought this
over he stopped short of questioning the motives of the stranger he
had met wanting him to kill six people. Any internal inquiry resulted
in a searing pain passing through his skull and conditions were bad
enough already in the cage without his adding to it.

The lack of cover that had
previously caused no end of complaints due to the chill of the nights
had now presented them with the agony of being cooked alive in the
desert sun.

The guards surrounding them had
removed their armour in an ordered fashion and it served to humanise
them somewhat. Not that Jakob felt like being overly personable to
the people that had ordered Jimmy's execution.

The boy was growing more
disconsolate with each passing day and Jakob didn't blame him. Being
forced to sit in silence and endure the worst conditions the land
could throw at them was an intolerable situation.

The cage ground to a halt. Jakob
heard the sounds of a whip cracking and a low keening sound that must
have come from one of the Urtakas. For some reason the guards
couldn't get them to move any further. An impasse seemed to develop
as they puzzled over their mount's refusal to continue.

The silence was broken by one of
the slaves at the front of the cage. He pointed wildly out into the
desert and started to panic, demanding the guards acknowledge
whatever it was he had seen.

At first Jakob thought the man
delusional, he had witnessed visions of a number of strange things in
the heat himself and had not thought to raise the ire of the guards
by voicing his concerns.

Then a few other men saw it and
they too started warning the guards. Initially they had ignored the
slaves, thinking this was some kind of desperate ruse but as more of
them joined in the clamour and risked their hides, one of them
finally looked to the spot they were pointing.

It was a dark speck on the
horizon, moving swiftly over the lip of a dune and approaching their
location. The pulsating heated air made it difficult to ascertain
what it was but the guards had now spotted it too.

'Oh fuck!' screamed one of the
guards, losing all composure and dropping his weapons as the shape
grew closer.

The other men formed a line in
front of the cage with spears facing outward and despite the
determined expression on their faces, they looked shaken.

The leader eyed the approaching
creature with a snarl, as if he felt put out that it had dared to
encroach upon his work. He then took a look at the cage and signalled
that the door be opened.

Sensing that the cage was more of
a protection than a prison in the current climate, none of the slaves
made any attempt to escape or waylay the man as he stepped in and
walked up to The Hermit.

'You, stranger,' the man said,
making it clear exactly who he was addressing. 'Out of the cage,
now.'

As if he had paid the previous
screams no heed, The Hermit rose and strode over to the side of the
cage, staring out through his hood at this new threat.

It was growing in size and its
movements were oddly splayed and at great speed. Jakob had never seen
anything like it, how large was it going to be when it reached them?

The guard watched the man
nervously as the creature drew nearer, it was still relatively
indistinct, aside from a distant thudding noise that grew louder.

'Stranger, out of the cage now.'
There were definitely some nerves creeping into his voice now.

With a methodical slowness The
Hermit walked to the cage door and eyed the quivering line of
defence. He then proceeded to join them, neglecting to take the
weapon offered to him. Staring out at the large creature as it
approached he proceeded to set out in its direction.