The Venomancer

II.10 - The Wolves' Sentiment

That evening was not the first time the Fetcher had seen the inside of a cell, nor felt its residual misery.

He curled up on the musty straw in the corner and lay silent, listening to the shuffling and coughing of others contained in the wretched, subterranean prison. His abdomen screamed and throbbed with pain where he'd been beaten. His knee had become inflamed, but at least he tasted no more blood in his mouth. He couldn't help but scold himself for landing in this predicament. Why the hell did I trust that wretch?

Tan had thrived on an independent existence ever since he'd vanished from the capital, thrown into the adult world before he'd even finished puberty. He'd even lived long enough to see his nineteenth birthday, not that he'd celebrated it. He'd lost contact with his parents and siblings that dark day, too, unable to receive their letters, and he'd pondered many times during the cold equatorial nights if they so much as remembered his face anymore. Did they already think he was dead? Had they wept?

He saw his father in him every time he caught an unwelcome glimpse of his reflection; the same pink flush in their freckled cheeks, identical dark eyebrows that didn't quite match their golden hair. Minus the beard and jagged pair of horns, Tan was almost his duplicate.

Farba had lived happily accepting that little Tandei Sol died in the Wastes that same day, collapsed from exhaustion, hallucinating from dehydration. It was close to truth. He remembered the carrion birds wheeling endlessly above him as he lay on his back, sunburnt and blistered, barely able to keep his eyes open. He heard the howl of sand dunes haunting his dreams, still. To the empire nothing remained of him but a body in the desert, yet here he lay, alive beneath the palace, and no man knew how he'd survived the clutches of death in the first place.

He'd escaped prison once before, aged seventeen, and his career as the Fetcher came to an abrupt hiatus in Elamendi. That had been a by-the-book escape anyone with half his wits could have executed. The night-gaoler had let himself into Tan's cell with vulgar incentives clouding his common sense. All Tan had to do was uppercut the man's groin, and bolt. But that was a city run and inhabited by careless people who hungered for food and sex as though the end of the world hung over them.

He'd long established that Elamendi and 'Al Mar were poles apart, and High Farbans were a prude and law-abiding people, fearful, almost, of anything unfamiliar or out of routine. He knew the gaolers wouldn't visit his cell in the small hours, however long their dry-spell, and they'd confiscated his trusty coil of wire and other seemingly trivial belongings, so he'd be powerless to pick the lock in secret too.

He didn't possess the strength to have wrestled with the guard on his way through the tunnels to the Hold, though he did try, only to receive a fist to the gut and have the wind knocked out of him. Nor did he have the time to dig his way free, or any other preposterous ideas he'd heard very few people succeed with. In his state he couldn't seem to assemble any viable plans – the pain in his abdomen crippled him, body and mind. If he was to escape the Hold he'd have to rely on wits, not force. That, or luck.

And soon. The gaoler had informed him the Council, whoever they were, had arranged for his audience with Emperor Dashaan first thing in the morning. Their motives unsettled him. What could be so important six years on? Revenge? Punishment? It was all that sprang to mind. Down in spirits and chilly beneath the weight of palace overhead he threw some straw over himself.

"So you are alive," came a woman's voice in the adjacent cell. He flipped over; her proximity startled him. He saw nothing but a pair of grinning white lips suspended in the darkness a few feet away. "I've been watching to see if you'd die."

"Who's there?"

"Oh-ho, there's no need to bite."

A shiver worked its way up his body. "Come on, show yourself."

"Don't be frightened. I was worried you were hurt, that's all. You took a nasty tumble when they threw you in there, grazed your elbows at least. I saw them beat you too, those vile bastards. They'll get a piece of my mind next time I see their ugly faces, don't you worry."

"Thanks, but I'll be fine."

"It's been days since I've had somebody to talk to, you know. The last man in that cell died of a fever after they cut off his arm just. This place is that much worse when you're lonely. I like a little chat. What's your name?"

Don't tell her. My name seems to be too dangerous around here. "Ruri," he said.