Authors: Stuart Meczes
The Vengeful’s horses caught up with us and they fell back into their ranks, their chests rising and falling rapidly, as they struggled to calm their adrenaline. Several of them were covered in dark Vampire blood – it dripped down from the rims of their Helmets and the arched blades of their shields, landing with light pattering sounds on the dark ground. I started to count their numbers.
“We lost three of them in the fight,” said Lightwarden Elissa, gesturing out with a hand.
“They died serving the Luminar cause, as is their duty,” added Lightwarden Udan.
I ran a hand through my hair. “Shit.”
I felt frustration at the Lightwarden’s nonchalant attitude towards three lives that had been lost, and guilt that I hadn’t done more to save them. I stared at the remaining seventeen Vengeful, who had settled their breathing and had fallen as still as statues. “Are the rest of you okay?”
They said nothing in response.
“They are fine. The Vengeful are very resilient,” said Lightwarden Udan. “They will be despondent that they were not able to see their kin through the Last Light, but they will recover.”
“I wasn’t speaking to you,” I snapped.
“You might as well be. The Vengeful are trained to be silent unless there is a desperate need for them to speak. Their silence is all the confirmation you need that they are well,” said Udan.
I had to resist an overwhelming urge to pull the Lightwarden from his Unicorn and beat him to within an inch of his life. My inner predator gave an unsubtle hiss and then I turned my attention to the dark sprawl of land ahead. “I think I saw the Lightshuttle when I was riding the Gargoyle. No more than five miles-”
A bloodcurdling scream rang out across the Darklands, reverberating as it echoed off the canyon walls. It was followed by countless more screams, coming from all around us. An icy fear swept through my veins. I had heard that hideous sound before, and it was one that I would never forget.
“What is that?” said Mikey, turning his head wildly as he struggled to control his distressed Unicorn.
“Bloodseekers,” I breathed. “Hundreds of them.”
Gabriella
I lay curled up in the corner of my prison, my head pressed against a cold wall, and surrounded by the stench of my own vomit and urine. The sinister surgeon had stopped the Banshee poison from spreading, but the residual fever had remained. I had been shivering so hard for so long, that my jaw ached from my teeth chattering together and every single bone felt like it had been beaten with a hammer. A cluster headache had started up behind my eyes at some point, spreading until it felt like someone was slowly reversing a truck over my forehead. I had cried out for water, for medication, for
anything
to help relieve my pain, but my pleas were met with nothing but silence. When I had needed to go to the toilet, I had felt around in the darkness and found nothing….not even a bucket. I had tried to move to another part of the cell, but the adamantine chains barely allowed me to turn, let alone walk anywhere. So I had been forced to pull down the rags the
bastardos
had replaced my Alliance uniform with and go, right in the same spot I had to sit in. The vomiting had started soon afterwards.
I was beyond exhausted, but no matter what I did, my body wouldn’t let me sleep. I couldn’t tell if it was the fever or my fear, or a mixture of both. So I stayed awake, shivering and listening in the darkness. Every now and again I heard the distant sound of a door being opened somewhere above and the sound of footsteps on stone. Each time, I craned my neck against the strangling hold of the adamantine chain, waiting and silently counting each step until I saw the brief sweep of a dark cloak blot out the torchlight. The guards of whatever place I’d found myself in were efficient and regimented, and without fail, their route up to my cell always totalled exactly eighty-seven steps, which took forty-four seconds.
If I escape, I could run that in under fifteen.
But escape was the problem.
Not long after being dumped semi-conscious and shivering in the pitch-black cell, I’d tried to escape. I had pulled against the chains until my wrists had threatened to snap, and strained with my neck until I had felt my right eye twitch and realised that I’d haemorrhaged it. Adamantine metal was the strongest in the two worlds, and unless I had Alex by my side, I had as much chance of breaking out as a newborn child. So I had no choice but to reluctantly accept my awful situation…until I had the opportunity to do something about it. I waited and I listened and I had feverish daydreams of Alex. In my dreams, I imagined him somewhere out there in Pandemonia, searching until he found me, his hand appearing in the darkness like a beacon of hope, reaching out to rescue me from the hell that had become my prison.
A creaking sound filled the area as the door above opened and the footsteps started – a pair this time. I shuffled around and opened my sore eyes, staring at the small wedge of light from the torch beyond my cell and counted.
Eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-six.
The footsteps stopped, and I felt fear push its way through my fever. There was a dull
clank
followed by the harsh squeal of rusting hinges. A flare of fire appeared in the cell and I shrank back into the wall, shielding my eyes from the harsh glare. I gasped as hands emerged from the darkness. They weren’t the hands of redemption. They didn’t belong to Alex. They were hard gauntlets covered in metal spikes. One of them shoved my head into the wall, whilst another unlocked the chain from around my throat. A second pair of hands stripped the chains away from my raw wrists.
“Dear Gods, it reeks in here. The filthy whore has been sick.”
“She’s got Banshee Venom poisoning. What do you expect?”
“Don’t give a shit. I ain’t carrying her.”
“Then how we getting her out?”
A dark chuckle. “I’ve got an idea.”
There was shuffling around in the darkness and I heard the dull clank of metal chains. A second later I felt hands seize me again and something hard click around my wrist. I tried to cry out, but I’d already screamed my throat dry, and nothing but a hoarse croak escaped my throat. A second later there was a click and then immense pain in my shoulder and wrist as one of the guards started to drag me along the ground.
I was hauled right out of the cell, my ragged shirt riding up and rough stone scraping at my back, until I could feel it tearing into my already-wounded skin. The light stabbed at my eyes, producing spots that made nausea rise again to my lips. I kept squeezing them shut and opening them again, forcing my eyesight to adjust, and eventually I was able to make out arching stone walls and flaming torches, mounted onto iron holders, creating deep shadows that spread across the passage. I could see hundreds of cells just like mine – hundreds of dark holes, all locked and occupied by shifting shapes that writhed around about inside like forgotten creatures. I tilted my head back and saw two of the Lamiae I had seen before, wearing their blood red armour and dark ragged cloaks. I raised my other hand above my head and took hold of the chain, trying to relieve some of the pressure from my wrist, which had started to seep blood down my forearm.
I have to get out of here. Think Gabriella. Think.
My brain fought against the fever and formulated a plan.
Pull the chain hard and knock the one dragging me off balance. Use the chain to beat them both to death, then take their keys and open as many cells as you can. Free some people and get them to help you find a way out.
I gritted my teeth and then yanked as hard as I could on the chain. The guard stumbled back a few steps and turned, his copper face narrowing in irritation.
Merda, I’m still far too weak.
He walked over to me and excruciating pain flared along my jaw, as his metal sabaton struck against my chin.
“I would advise against doing that again.”
My head lolled to the side as I skated close to unconsciousness. Through blurry vision, I saw that I was being dragged towards a set of narrow, winding stone stairs. I was vaguely aware of pain in my head and ribs as I was pulled up the steps like some kind of toy on a string. They unlocked a door at the top and then hauled me onto a stone bridge with another iron door at the end and a sheer drop at either side. The guard who had been dragging me along let go of the chain and then knelt down close to me. It was then I saw that his ear had a long bloody wound running along it, where it had been surgically reattached.
“Time to clean you up, whore,” he said between gritted teeth.
His boot smashed into my side and I winced with pain as he flipped me right over the edge of the bridge. I flailed about in the darkness, producing a weak scream as gravity snatched me down hundreds of feet. My body slammed into ice-cold water and I gasped, taking foul-tasting liquid into my mouth and nose. I tumbled through the coldness, over and over, until my back bumped against the bottom. Above me, I could hear the heavy grinding sound of stone on stone.
It took my weakened body a few seconds to get its bearings and then my instincts kicked in. I coiled my legs against the ground and pushed up with my bare feet, knifing through the water towards the surface. Except when I got to the top, I realised with horror that there was no surface to be found. I felt around for an opening, pressing upwards with my palms, but all I felt was hard stone.
They’ve sealed me in!
I tried not to panic as I spun around in the freezing water, searching. It was dark as night, but I could just about make out a pane of glass fifty yards or so yards away. I kicked out, moving as fast as my poisoned, broken body would allow. I tore through the water until I reached the window, and on the other side I saw three more of the guards, watching me with their arms folded across their chests. I shoved my hands against the glass as hard as I could. The window didn’t even budge. Coiling my hands into fists, I slammed them against the pane, over and over and over again, until the glass was smeared with my own blood. But still it didn’t budge.
Not like this! Not like this!
I screamed at the guards, the muffled sound escaping in a stream of bubbles. The evil spectators did nothing except allow smiles to appear on their hideous faces. My diaphragm started to spasm as I reached the last sliver of breath. My vision wavered and the punches weakened as the last of my fight went out of me. My head fell forward and I pressed my hand against the glass one last time as the darkness seeped in.
Something sucked me forward and I hit solid ground hard, feeling a torrent of water pour over me. I gasped like a goldfish outside a broken bowl, my abused body shivering furiously as the fingers of one hand touched damp tiles. The water level came up to my cheeks, but receded fast as it drained away. My body heaved and I turned over onto my front, vomiting a stream of dark water that splashed against the floor. A deep sob escaped my throat.
It was then that a comforting hand stroked the back of my shaved head. It was so tender and caring, it made me cry even harder. I could feel a face come close to mine – hovering just out of view – and smelled sulfur.
“Don’t give up yet, sweetheart. I hold out such hope for you.”
The coarse female voice was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. The hand gave my head one final stroke and then I felt the figure move away from me. When she spoke again, it was in Th’ail and to the guards. “She is a survivor after all. Pitguards, prepare her for this evening’s event, along with the other two.”
“Akhur drek er aghul,” said one of them.
We live to serve.
Three sets of gauntleted hands scooped me off the wet floor and dragged me dripping and heaving out of the room. Before consciousness left me, I saw a flaming figure depart through an adjacent archway, their body flickering and glowing as if they were the embodiment of fire.
*
For the next few hours I endured the preparation for whatever I was going to be forced to do in the evening. First the three guards carried my drenched body to an adjacent room, and dumped me on a metal table filled with drainage holes. Several naked Succubi entered the room a moment later – their bodies starved from energy enough that they had reverted to leather skin and hollow eyes. Under the watchful gaze of the Pitguards, they removed my sodden clothes – which I was too defeated to care about – and scrubbed my body with harsh sponges that irritated my wounds and then threw buckets of – mercifully – warm water over me, to wash away the remaining blood.
“I’m sorry,” whispered one of them as she knelt down to scrub my arm.
I didn’t have the energy to reply.
Still barely conscious, I was dumped onto a stretcher and wheeled by the Pitguards through a hallway lined with yellowing brickwork and small patches of rust coloured sand – the wheels of the stretcher grinding as it stuck to their uneven surfaces. As we moved down the hallway, we approached another cot being wheeled in the opposite direction. I turned my head as we passed and my stomach twisted as I saw the familiar face, almost unrecognizable from the swollen bruises and map of cuts that marred it. The hair was what confirmed the person to me – a shock of silver, marked with red patches from a number of terrible wounds.
“Grey!” I screamed – my voice actually connecting for the first time – and tried to reach out to him. The Pitguard moving my unconscious friend gave a smirk and then pushed the stretcher faster, until they were both out of sight. A second later a fist slammed into my mouth and I felt blood seep over my lips.
“Taken are not permitted to speak with one another unless we allow it. Do you hear me, bitch?”
I said something quietly, my words garbled by the mouthful of blood. The guard moved to the side of the stretcher and stooped down slightly.
“Careful, she’s a biter. She took Garamore’s ear.”
“Garamore is an idiot.” The guard looked down at me. “Now then, what did you say?”
I opened my mouth – no doubt revealing bloodstained teeth – and gave a smile. I waited until the guard stooped a little closer and then spat the blood all over his face.
“I said I am going to kill you all.”
The punch that knocked me into unconsciousness was as hard and painful as I expected, but most of all, it was worth it.
I woke up strapped to a dentist-style chair in the corner of the sinister operating theatre. Once again the creepy surgeon was looming over me, his bottle cap glasses exaggerating his seeping eyes. I tried to flinch away from him, but the straps kept me fixed in place. He was moving around me, carefully injecting small quantities of a blue substance into various points on my hands and neck, each prick stinging like a wasp. The surgeon glanced up and saw that I was awake. He withdrew the needle, pushing up his glasses and rubbing at the bridge of his nose with the back of a hand.
“Welcome back,” he said with a tooth-filled grin. He leaned in close and pressed his thumbs against my cheeks as he used his index fingers to widen my eyelids and check my eyes. His foul breath poured into my mouth and it was hard not to retch. “It looks like you’re recovering well from the poison,” he said. “I am quite surprised and impressed, I must say. When you were brought to me, you were very close to death.” He removed his hands from my face and stood back upright. “You still have a fever of course, but that is a small price to pay considering your injuries. You also have a nasty haemorrhage in your left eye, but nothing serious.”