Finnikin of the Rock (10 page)

86

It was not her words that made him flinch, but the sound of his mother tongue. It had been some years since he had heard it spoken. Not since the ambassador of Lumatere had visited him during his early days in this prison.

"They say you are the most unguarded inmate in the mines, sir. That there is no more ideal a prisoner than one who is locked up in his own prison."

He had heard it said about him before and had marveled with bitterness at how little they knew this place. Within the caves, the thick rock and endless tunnels made it impossible to escape. If he worked outside, he was chained to at least six other inmates, usually hostile foreigners who barely understood each other.

"When they next place you on work outside the mines, you will escape and travel east until you reach the shrine to Sagrami past the last cave before the mountains. In the ravine below, you will see horses tethered."

More silence.

"From there you take the road toward Osteria, where there are two paths, one to the town of Lannon and one to Hopetoun. Take neither. You will see a tiny lane through the woods that will lead you to a stable beside an abandoned cottage. This is where you will find us. Then we move north."

He knew what north meant. So now they were sending the young. Was it a group of exiles? Why didn't they tell their children that there was nothing north but the promise of death, even after all these years?

He walked over to where she stood leaning against the cage and raised his arm. She flinched. He stared down at her, then grabbed the bars above her head and rattled them to summon the guard.

"Humor me," she said, ducking under his arms. "From here I can see the prisoner they just dragged in." She crouched on

87

the ground, straining to see to the end of the dark, stench-filled corridor.

The prisoner stayed where he was.

"I've heard a rumor," she said quietly. "Actually, I lie. Not a rumor." She beckoned him closer, and when he refused, she stood on her toes to whisper in his ear. "They say he's the son of Trevanion, captain of the Lumateran Guard."

He slammed her against the bars before either of them could take their next breath, holding her by the throat with a hand that had frequently snuffed out life. He heard a growl, low and primeval, and realized it was coming from him. Tightening his hold, he watched as her face began to change color and both her hands snaked up, trying to free herself. She shoved a knee against him, and when he stumbled back for a moment, she kicked him away from her, falling to her knees, gasping for air.

"Just the reaction I was hoping for, Captain," she whispered fiercely, looking up. "If you fail to protect him, if you fail to set him free, I will return and cut out your tongue and
then
you will have a reason for silence." She struggled to her feet. "Guard! Guard!"

"What have you done?" he asked hoarsely.

The look she gave him was pure anguish.

"What needs to be done!"

He woke the next morning having dreamed of peppermint and the wiry arms of a child wrapped around him like a monkey, refusing to let go. They would have to peel the boy off him at times, and how he would cry, this sensitive child who had not come from a line of sensitive people. "I want to fight the boy."

The two guards stared at him in surprise. Fighting for a new inmate was a tradition the dark-eyed Trevanion had never engaged in.

88

"You?"

The guards exchanged sneers, their expressions ugly. "Heard you had a visitor last night."

The shorter of the guards leaned forward, a look of sick hunger on his face. "Did she awake in you a taste for young flesh?"

He avoided their eyes so they would misinterpret his rage for shame.

"Will you share, Trevanion?" the other asked. "The boy seems feisty enough for seconds." The guards laughed, and for the first time since his exile from Lumatere, Trevanion's rage pounded a rush of blood to his head.

What needs to be done,
the girl had said.

This he knew. The piece of filth standing before him would be the first to die.

Then it would be her turn.

He watched the boy closely throughout the day. He was all arms and legs like his mother's people and seemed unaccustomed to a body that had grown too fast. Although skittish, he was coiled for action, not once buckling under the weight of the coal. But Trevanion read despair in the boy's eyes, and it chilled him to the marrow.

Later, in one of the larger caves, the inmates lined walls trickling with water that soon would be mixed with blood. Trevanion's only satisfaction was that he would pound senseless those who dared to want this boy. And he would do it easily. The Lumaterans of the River were the largest men in the land, and he towered over the rest of the inmates. In his early days they would come for him in packs until they realized the danger of encountering him alone.

There was an air of nervousness in the cave, and he watched an exchange between a guard and one of the Sorelian prisoners.

89

"They fear that your intention is to maim, Trevanion."

"Not interested in maiming." He spoke quietly, and the stare he directed at his potential opponents was enough to change the minds of half of those who had stepped forward.

The boy looked frightened, and Trevanion would have given anything to be able to send him some silent message of reassurance. But first he had this scum to fight, and then it would be the boy.

He fought five men that night. Blood was shed, and the sound of bones cracking and fists thumping bounced off the cave walls. The bets were low, the outcome too predictable. And then it was time for the boy. Trevanion allowed himself a moment to work out how to use his fists in a way that would not damage one so young and inexperienced. But they let the boy off the leash and he lunged for Trevanion, his fists flying. Trevanion felt the bones in his nose shatter, but before he could recover, there was another blow to his face and another to the stomach. He let himself fall, hoping to reveal himself to the boy, but then something hard connected with his chin. The kick sent him flying, and he knew that whether he wanted to or not, he was going to have to beat this pup into submission.

He returned to his feet, his fist connecting with the boy's cheekbone. He heard the goading of those surrounding them, both prisoners and guards. He knew he could not lose, for to do so meant that someone else would fight the boy for the right to own him in a way that made Trevanion feel sick to his stomach. And so he pounded into the boy's flesh, fighting for both their lives with an intensity that had the crowd roaring with approval. They had waited a long time to see what Trevanion of Lumatere was capable of, and they saw it this night. Yet the boy refused to yield, and Trevanion prayed to his goddess that he could hold him for a moment and let him understand.

90

What needs to be done.

He felt an elbow to his face and heard the crunch of bone, and the fires of hell danced a death march inside his head. He reached for the boy's neck and pulled him toward him, both heads colliding, blood spraying from his mouth. He tasted it on his tongue mingled with the boy's, and the taste made him roar.

But the boy would not give up. What he lacked in strength he made up for in skill and endurance. Finally Trevanion had him on the ground, a hand to his throat, his face an inch away so he could see the white fear in the boy's eyes. So he could whisper a word he had trained himself never to say again, for the sound of it brought hope and an ache so intense it could kill a man. And every lowlife who had ever entered this godsforsaken prison knew that hope had no place in the mines of Sorel.

"Finnikin."

The boy stared in shock. He was half blinded by sweat and grime and blood, but for a moment he caught a good look at his enemy. Hair knotted, the stench of the rot that lived within it, potent. A face blackened by the dirt of the earth beneath them.

"Trust me."

And with that Trevanion's fist came down on his son.

When Finnikin woke, a foul odor filled his nose and he gagged, his body heaving. He started in shock when he saw the bear of a man standing over him, and suddenly everything from the night before flooded back.

The last time he had seen his father, Trevanion had been standing on a makeshift judging post in the main square of Lumatere. He had watched as the impostor's Guard forced his father to his knees. He remembered how Trevanion's men bit their fists with rage and how it took ten of them to hold back Perri the Savage.

91

Then they cried out the punishment for Beatriss and Trevanion: "Death for the traitor! Banishment for the accomplice!"

In that moment, his father looked up and found him in the crowd, the bleakness in his expression so great that it became the blanket Finnikin placed over his face for years to come. Even as he knelt, Trevanion of the River had looked like a giant. His hair, black and cropped to his skull, his skin the color of bronzed oil, every bone in his face perfectly placed.

The man before him now was a total stranger. Hair covered his face, dark and tangled in knots, spliced with gray. Trevanion's eyes had no light or warmth. Finnikin had to remind himself that this was the same man who had carried him as a child, high and safe, on his broad shoulders. The same man who had lain beside Lady Beatriss, gently kneading her tired fingers, whispering words in her ear that softened her face.

"Father?" It felt strange to speak the word.

Trevanion nodded. "Can you stand?"

Their prison cell was a cave, cold and damp. There was little room for one body, let alone two.

"Tell me about the girl," Trevanion said.

"The girl?"

"Spawn of the devil."

The cell was dark and the flickering torch outside gave only minimal light. Finnikin moved closer to Trevanion. "How do you know about her?"

"Visited the night you arrived." There was urgency in the way Trevanion spoke, as if wary of the sudden appearance of a guard.

"Here?" Finnikin said. "In the prison?"

"Is she friend or foe?" Trevanion asked. "Who can tell? We inherited her from the cloister of Lagrami in Sendecane."

92

"You went to the end of the earth," his father muttered. "She claims to walk through the sleep of those inside."

"Lumatere?"

Finnikin nodded. "And that she has made contact with the heir. With Balthazar."

"Sweet goddess," Trevanion said. "What wickedness is she planning with such a lie?"

"And you say she visited?"

"She has horses waiting for us in a ravine beyond the shrine of Sagrami."

"Horses!" Finnikin snorted, and Trevanion quickly covered Finnikin's mouth with his hand.

"Quiet!"

"We have
one
horse," Finnikin hissed. "What does she think we will do? Walk out of here with the blessing of the prison guards?"

"I need to get you out of here. I can't look after us both."

Finnikin was already shaking his head as his father spoke. "We both need to get out of here, and I don't need looking after."

"In here you do!" Trevanion snapped.

"Don't expect me to go without you."

Trevanion did not respond.

"It's either both of us, or I stay here and you--"

Trevanion grabbed him by the cloth of his prison garb, his expression furious.
"You do what I tell you to do.
You never question me again, do you hear?"

Finnikin pulled away, shaking his head emphatically. "I go nowhere without you, sir."

Trevanion sucked in air. "I've seen them drag out the dead bodies of boys your age, and you do not want to hear what they've done to them."

Finnikin wanted something more from his father than this.

93

More for the ten years of longing. He stared at this stranger, his father, straight in the eye. "I. Go. Nowhere. Without. You."

Then he turned and curled up as far away as possible, understanding with bitterness that he had walked straight into Evanjalin's plan.

From the window of the stable loft, Sir Topher watched. The novice stood at the gate outside the dilapidated cottage. He knew she would stay there until the moon rose, as she had done each day since Finnikin's imprisonment.

"They will come," she said firmly when he joined her.

"And if they don't?" he asked. "I understand what you are trying to do, but your methods could get him killed."

"The captain will not let any harm come to his son."

"Sometimes fathers can't protect their children, Evanjalin. Did yours save you from harm?" Sir Topher asked, knowing the question was cruel.

"No," she responded fiercely. "But my father would warn, 'Be prepared for the worst, my love, for it lives next door to the best.' And for that I thank him each day of my life."

Finnikin spent his first days in prison adjusting to his surroundings. He knew that to survive, he had to think rather than just react. The inmates stared in the same way they had the day he arrived, but they kept their distance and he understood why. Trevanion was like an unleashed animal, and those around him, including the guards, feared the consequences of coming too close.

"You work outside this week," the guard told Trevanion as they were taken back to their cage. Trevanion grabbed Finnikin and pushed him in front of the guard's nose.

"He stays behind," the guard said flatly. He was the least sadistic of the guards, which made him one-quarter human.