Darkness Within

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

Rovan was alone in his shack – or cage, if you chose to look at it that way. It was in some ways no different from usual, with the darkness and solitude pressing in on him from all sides, but at the same time it was different. There was no warm food in his belly, nor a woman to warm his bed; and if he even so much as dared to look out the hole in the wall at the courtyard the guards would throw things at him.

He was hungry. All the slaves ever got was two meals a day – hardly enough to make them strong, but definitely enough to make sure they managed to work – and he hadn’t eaten since before dawn. He was used to it, however. Many a day had passed when some other fellow, bigger and stronger than he, had used his size to steal his food. On those days he’d at least had Sem’s company to cheer him up, meagre though that may have been.

Now he had nothing. After the events of earlier, his mind was far too agitated to sleep. He kept going over the events in his mind, sure that something of significance was escaping him. He had never gotten on too well with Rych – partly due to his own luck in finding gold so often – and found it odd, to say the least, that the guard hadn’t decided to kill him there and then. What could he be worth to the King, to the extent where he was more valuable alive than dead?

All he had done was escape his chains and jump on the captain, nothing extraordinary unless… Wait.

Just how on earth did I get free in the first place?

That was it. He was sure. The chains were made of iron – he was pretty sure of that. And they were heavy – yet he had escaped them in a moment of extreme ease. Thinking back on it, he couldn’t even explain that to himself. There was literally no way to escape those chains, unless you had a pick and several minutes by yourself; even so, he had done it.

Just what could it be?

His thoughts were interrupted by a guard knocking on the shack door. The novelty of the knock, as if someone were respecting his right to privacy, for a change, took him off guard. It had been years since he had had a room to himself in that sort of way. Years since he’d last been treated like a real man.

“Come in,” he replied, falling back on old customs.

It was no one other than Rych, the guard bringing him his food personally. A drop of saliva escaped from Rovan’s mouth when he saw the meal – roast meat, maybe beef, with some boiled vegetables and a soup. At lot better that the standard slave fare, that was sure.

“Dinner,” Rych said, his voice gruff. The captain put the meal on a small table – if that’s what you could call it – and backed out of the room. Was the man scared?

“Your woman will be here later – I’ll bring her personally as well.” Rych stood in the doorframe, hand on the hilt of a dagger at his belt. “Any problems?”

Rovan didn’t understand what could have made the man change so rapidly. The only thing he’d done was escape from some chains, which was hardly scary or anything like that. Unless the captain knew what was going on better than he did, which wouldn’t have surprised him. Rovan felt distinctly unknowledgeable right at that moment.

When the other man was gone, Rovan tucked into his meal, wolfing down the food without savouring it. He was far too hungry to care about what the food tasted like; the sensation wasn’t something altogether new for him. A few minutes later the plate was empty, the last drops of fat licked off the bowl before he tossed it aside.

He didn’t even feel slightly ashamed at how he ate, he realised. There used to be a time when he would have eaten in as clean a manner as possible, but now he just didn’t care. It was all about putting the food in his mouth as fast as he could, to get rid of the pang in his stomach.