Escana (52 page)

The prisoners had all congregated
at the side of the cage but the guards in front paid them no heed.
The lead guard prodded Jimmy roughly with his spear. 'Let's hope your
friend is tasty and it settles for just him.'

If Jimmy had heard the remark he
chose not to respond. Jakob turned back to the scene unfolding before
him, climbing the front of the cage for a better view. The sound of
the door shutting and their imprisonment once more was largely
forgotten about by the other slaves. The importance of the sound
wasn't lost on Jakob, he knew that if none of the guards survived
they'd be trapped inside here until they starved.

Assuming whatever was approaching
didn't tear the cage apart first.

It slowed as this singular figure
approached, seemingly confused as the rest at The Hermit's audacity,
and in doing so it finally gave them a good chance to look at it.

It was easily twelve feet long,
with blackened scales sheathing its body like some impenetrable
armour. A dark grill of blackened teeth lay beneath piercing eyes
that seemed to face oddly forward for a reptile.

The Hermit also slowed, though
his movements didn't seem to be hampered by the thick sand
surrounding him. There now appeared to be a brief stand-off between
the two, or perhaps Jakob was reading too much into it and this was a
prelude to an inevitable meal. Yet the man had moved so quickly in
subduing Jimmy, was he really thinking he could do the same here?

The giant lizard gazed at him as
it padded forward, was it waiting for The Hermit to make a move in
response?

It got within feet of the man and
halted, tilting it's head forward and gathering breath with a strange
croaking.

The scream it let out was
ear-splitting, a white ringing noise pulsed into Jakob's ears and he
fell from the cage in shock. Some slaves cowered, others let out
screams of their own and ran to the other side of the cage as if it
would make a difference. Jimmy stood there silently, gripping the
bars and watching The Hermit, he had no eyes for the lizard at all.

Jakob picked himself up and stood
next to Jimmy, eyeing him curiously. It was almost as if the boy was
in a trance, then again with his life in the balance who could blame
him?

The lizard creature started
forward once again, picking up speed at an appalling rate. Jakob
steeled himself for the worst, waiting to see what the man had
planned.

The Hermit raised his hand and
the lizard started to slow. It let out a howl of frustration and kept
trying to push itself forward. There was a great sense of heaviness
in Jakob's head, as if he were balancing some large object inside his
own skull.

The Hermit raised his second hand
and this time the effect was profound, the creature let out a high
pitched keening noise and attempted to retreat.

He advanced on it then, matching
it step for step and clearly causing the animal a great deal of
distress. Finally he lowered his hands and stood staring at the
creature. It sniffed the air briefly, then fled with a yelp.

Jakob felt a gentle nudge on his
ribs, Jimmy's face was turned in his direction with a question on his
lips.

'Jakob, what just happened?'

He said nothing in response, this
kind of man could threaten Empires.

As The Hermit turned and made his
way back to the cage of his own volition there was complete silence
from guards and prisoners alike. Silence and fear.

A
n uneasy
truce had fallen between the two men. They both knew that their
current predicament didn't allow for conflicts of interest.

It had been a wretched journey,
not just because of their cramped conditions and near-perpetual
darkness. Neither man had been able to sleep much with the constant
grinding of the wheel beside the box they'd been forced into.

They were treated to gruel twice
a day which seemed to be watered down enough to keep them hydrated.
Aside from that they were allotted a few moments each day for
ablutions, a humiliating task when joined at the leg.

Gadtor had made several attempts
at conversation with Thom during their journey but the man was
unresponsive at best and downright ill-tempered at worst. For all his
underlying threats they both knew that it would be the death of them
if they were to fight each other in such a state.

They had just been packed into
the box again when Gadtor was met with a most unexpected sound.

'Go on then.'

Initially he thought that the
voice had come from a guard outside or that perhaps he was hearing
things.

'Well, you obviously want to
talk, so talk. I'll try to keep it civil.'

They shifted positions to avoid
limbs falling asleep and Gadtor pondered over what to say to the man
first.

'You don't like me, that much is
painfully apparent. You also know that we have to co-exist for our
own mutual benefit. Why risk my angering you now with conversation?'

Thom seemed to ponder this for a
while. 'If we're stuck here in this box for much longer in silence it
will be to our detriment. I know a lot about where we're going so why
not ask me about that?'

Gadtor shrugged, it was as good a
start as any. 'What is it they're fighting up there in Sah'kel? I
know it's a desert and I know there's some conflict but nobody ever
told me what we were conflicting with.'

Thom took a deep breath. 'Sah'kel
isn't like other deserts. It's harsh and vast but it's not
unpopulated. Everything there grows bigger than other parts of the
world and we don't know why. There are huge scorpions and spiders and
creatures that have no right to fly yet do. They all threaten to
sweep down and destroy the Empire but for the work of the men
maintaining the front line.'

Gadtor wasn't expecting that.
'You mean to say that this entire military conflict is simply pest
control?'

Thom snorted. 'I'll overlook your
belittlement of the troops because you can plead ignorance. No, there
are other forces out there that are not so mindless. The giant lizard
people of the deep desert have emerged from whatever hole they were
hiding in and appear to be making inroads, then there are the
Negroids that haven't been seen in a generation. Perhaps the lizards
got them, who knows?'

Gadtor had seen dead lizards in
the Urian markets, they looked fairly harmless. 'You make it sound
like the lizards have minds of their own. What if they're just
migratory?'

Thom had gone very quiet at that
question.

'They have minds, yes. Twisted
angry minds driven by the need for flesh, yet minds all the same.
There aren't giant iguanas or anything so docile. They are organised,
bloodthirsty and most importantly, they're winning.' He shifted
position once again, forcing Gadtor to move.

'I served on the front line once,
the conflict wasn't nearly as bad then. You try stopping a seven foot
monster clad head to foot in the best armour imaginable with tenfold
the speed and strength of your finest group of men. Then we'll see if
you still think they're migratory.'

A strange sense of futility
gripped Gadtor, it was something he'd never experienced before. 'So
Kelgrimm wasn't banishing us simply to get us out of his hair, he was
sentencing us to death?'

If Thom had nodded Gadtor missed
it. 'In so many words, yes. There's a reason the only veterans of
Sah'kel you see have no limbs. There will be no coming back from the
front line if reports are true.'

'What do reports say?' Gadtor
asked in horrified fascination.

'It's a massacre out there, we
are being carved open and overrun on all flanks, there aren't enough
men to fill the gaps that are appearing. The lizards could cross into
the Empire if they wanted, instead the defenders of Sah'kel are being
hunted down systematically to the last man.'

'So we're dead then?'

Thom shrugged. 'The most able of
the recruits may last a few weeks in the current conditions.' He
lifted up the heavy manacle. 'This is why I'm keeping it civil. No
sense in wasting our last hours fighting over shit that doesn't
matter any more.'

Gadtor lapsed into silence,
asking anything further seemed just as pointless. If they left this
box, hobbled as they were, death would soon follow.

S
haken from
their encounter with the lizard, the guards forced the Urtaka to
double their pace, causing the creatures to groan in protest.

Jimmy had no idea how long one of
these creatures could continue pulling the cage but he hoped the
increase in speed meant they were growing closer to their
destination. At this point any ending to his captivity seemed
preferable to another day spent in the sweltering heat. He stifled
the wild compulsion that had previously gripped him when he saw the
cage door swing open. Hammering at the cage and screaming in despair
was a waste of energy, he had seen one of the other prisoners do it
earlier on in their journey to no effect but his own demise.

Instead he turned his thoughts to
The Hermit, he had been expecting something spectacular from the man
as soon as he had agreed to step foot outside the cage. He had given
up all hope of an intervention on his part and freedom as a result
but he had envisioned him gliding through the sands and tearing the
beast apart with his bare hands in a symphony of violence. Instead it
was a subdued gesture that made his head throb awkwardly after being
near-deafened by the creature.

He caught himself. Was he
actually lusting for violence at the hands of the man? Sure he
initially thought himself enraptured by the form and grace of the
man's movements but was it actually the violence he desired?

He knew he had seen plenty in the
last few weeks from other hands and none of it had evoked any
particular feeling beyond a sickening dread.

His thoughts turned to his father
then, what would the old man think of him being packed out in the
desert beyond hope of redemption? He had always harped on about Jimmy
having not seen the world as if it was his one greatest regret. Jimmy
doubted he meant this particular region.

He wondered how Gooseman was
coping with his disappearance, whether he'd be disappointed or
sympathetic toward his plight. It had played heavily on his mind and
he knew he should at least keep a semblance of civility for Jakob's
sake but the futility of everything washed over him. He was going to
die out here and the one man who seemed capable of saving him from
that made no effort to do so.

He had tried being angry at the
man before, it had caused nothing but calamity. Now in its place was
a quiet acceptance as he submitted to his fate. He couldn't do
anything about the current situation and raging against it was just
as ineffectual as panicking over the captivity.

Upon cresting the latest in an
endless sea of dunes, Jimmy caught his first sight of the fort.

He found that he didn't really
feel anything, no sense of relief at the journey coming to a
conclusion nor any hope for the future. It was simply another place
of captivity.

The imposing wooden palisade grew
larger as they got closer, the surface of the fort itself seemed
smoothed down by years of sandstorms. Jimmy hated sandstorms.

As they drew alongside the main
gate he heard a groaning noise as the wooden structure was drawn
inward by a number of guards. They trundled into the main courtyard
and finally ground to a halt for the last time. Several unarmed men
dashed forward and unhooked the Urtaka, leading them away to recover
from their journey. Jimmy had no doubt that they'd be treated better
than their shipment's contents.

There was no great security
involved in their extrication from the cage, in fact the palisade
gates hadn't shut before their own door was opened. In theory a man
could sprint out to freedom. Assuming he wasn't half-starved, baked
by the sun and his idea of freedom consisted of an endless desert to
die in.

They formed a line now and
watched as the leader of their convoy spoke to a squat little man out
of earshot. He nodded repeatedly, eyeing them constantly under his
damaged nose as if they were his next meal.

Finally the guards that had
journeyed all the way to Sah'kel with them departed inside the large
stone structure, leaving them with this increasingly repugnant
fellow.

'Right maggots!' his reedy voice
croaked. 'Here's how things work around here in Sah'kel.'

He marched up and down the line
with absurd confidence considering that none of the prisoners were
bound in chains. 'You eat when we eat, shit when we shit and sleep
when we sleep. You don't like that you're free as you please to get
the fuck out of here.' He pointed at the still-open gate leading to
the desert. 'There's only one way to escape from here short of death
so if you want that you obey my orders.'

'What's the other way to escape?'
asked one of the prisoners.

The man walked up to him, eyeing
him with an almost friendly gaze. 'Are you talking to me?'