Dragon: A Histories of Purga Novel

Chapter Twenty

Rone, Darvian and Fiona walked quickly through Judicial Hall. No one stopped them and no one questioned them. They merely looked at the group in passing, with bored, uninterested eyes. Like they'd seen things like that thousands of times before. Rone couldn't help but feel a little bitter about that.

How many people do they have imprisoned here? he asked himself. Doesn't matter. Whatever I do, I will see them safe, free, and unharmed. It's my duty. For the first time in his life, that fact didn't weigh heavily on him. That single thought burned in his mind and lent him strength he didn't know he had. To watch his people be killed or enslaved enraged him and he felt swept up by his powerful need to protect them and make things right.

They passed another group of soldiers. Rone, struck by a bout of cleverness, pushed Darvian in the back with the barrel of his rifle.

"Move it!" he shouted. "Act like your legs work for once!"

"Yeah. I'm getting tired of you lazing about. Get moving!" Fiona exclaimed with a deep throated voice, pushing Darvian with the barrel of her rifle also, albeit way more roughly than Rone had.

Darvian stumbled forward a bit and then turned his head back so he could see the both of them. He had an angry, fierce scowl on his face.

"Yes, sirs," he growled.

"Give him hell!" one of the passing soldiers commented.

"Sure will," Rone shot back.

He led them to where a door that opened onto a bare room with four Blak Soldiers inside looking bored. To the right was a metal security gate barring their progress.

"We got a straggler. Was told to put him in Detention Sector 1," Rome explained.

One of the soldiers looked up from a bank of monitors and eyed them dispassionately. He hit a button and a buzz sounded. Then there was a click as the metal gate unlocked itself.

The soldier waved them through with a blank, bored look on his face.

Rone, Darvian, and Fiona went through it and continued down a long hallway. Eventually, they came to a lift with gleaming metal doors. Fiona stepped up and pressed a button next to it. It lit up bright blue. She stepped back and the three of them waited.

It seemed to take forever and anxiety tore at them. They all felt exposed and vulnerable. However, due to the busy nature of Judicial Hall, no one gave them a second glance.

Finally, the doors opened and they stepped inside.

"Look," Darvian said as the doors closed again.

They saw what he was talking about instantly. The biometric scanner that allowed access to the prison was cracked and dark. Only authorized personnel were allowed in Detention Sector 1, but due to the massive amounts of people that were now imprisoned there, the lift's security had been bypassed. Directly over the scanner was a makeshift button. Someone had drawn DTN SEC 1 on it.

Rone pressed it.

"Here we go," he said.

The lift started its descent.

Darvian relaxed a little, although he kept the manacles on his hands.

"So, how are we going to get all of these people out of here?" he asked. "And how are we going to get to the King? I doubt they have him locked up with all the other prisoners."

Rone thought about it. He imagined all the people held captive and imprisoned for no reason except that they wouldn't bow down to rebels and remained loyal to the crown. He thought about his father. A strong, proud man that was a fierce commander and a deadly fighter and how he'd been captured and brought low. Finally, he thought about his family's crest and the hundreds of years of hard work and toil that his ancestor's had put into creating Roanoke and making her function smoothly.