Читать книгу Rebel, Pawn, King - Morgan Rice - Страница 10

Sartes woke, ready to fight. He tried to stand, thrashed when he couldn’t, and found himself shoved back down by the boot of a rough-looking figure opposite.

“Think there’s room for you moving about in here?” he snapped.

The man was shaven-headed and tattooed, missing a finger from some brawl or other. There was a time when Sartes would probably have felt a thrill of fear at seeing a man like that. That was before the army, though, and the rebellion that had followed. It was before he’d seen what real evil looked like.

There were other men there, crammed into a wooden walled space, with light let in only through a few cracks. It was enough for Sartes to see them by, and what he saw was a long way from encouraging. The man opposite him was probably one of the least rough looking there, and the sheer number of them meant that for a moment, Sartes did feel fear, and not just because of what they could do to him. What could be in store if he was stuck in a space with men like this?

He could feel the sensation of movement, and Sartes risked turning his back on the crowd of thugs so that he could look out through one of the cracks in the wooden walls. Outside, he saw a dusty, rocky landscape going past. He didn’t recognize the area, but how far away from Delos could he be?

“A cart,” he said. “We’re in a cart.”

“Listen to the boy,” the shaven-headed man said. He performed a rough approximation of Sartes’s voice, twisted out of all recognition. “We’re on a cart. Regular genius this boy is. Well, genius, how about you keep your mouth shut? Bad enough we’re on our way to the tar pits without you going on.”

“The tar pits?” Sartes said, and he saw a flash of anger cross the other man’s face.

“Thought I told you to be quiet,” the thug snapped. “Maybe if I shove a few of your teeth down your throat, it will remind you.”

Another man stretched. The confined space seemed barely big enough to hold him. “Only one I hear talking is you. How about you both shut up?”

The speed with which the shaven-headed man did it told Sartes a lot about how dangerous this other man was. Sartes doubted that it was a moment that had made him any friends, but he knew from the army that men like this didn’t have friends: they had hangers-on and they had victims.

It was hard to be quiet now that he knew where they were going. The tar pits were one of the worst punishments the Empire had; so dangerous and unpleasant that those sent there would be lucky to live out a year. They were hot, deadly places, where the bones of dead dragons could be seen sticking from the ground, and the guards thought nothing of throwing a sick or collapsing prisoner into the tar.

Sartes tried to remember how he’d gotten there. He’d been scouting for the rebellion, trying to find a gate that would let Ceres into the city with Lord West’s men. He’d found it. Sartes could remember the elation that he’d felt then, because it had been perfect. He’d raced back to try to tell the others.

He’d been so close when the cloaked figure had grabbed him; close enough that he’d felt as though he could reach out and touch the entrance to the rebellion’s hideaway. He’d felt as though he was finally safe, and they’d snatched it away from him.

“Lady Stephania sends her regards.”

The words echoed in Sartes’s memory. They’d been the last words he heard before they’d struck him unconscious. They’d simultaneously told him who was doing this and that he had failed. They’d let him get that close and then taken it away.

They’d left Ceres and the others without the information Sartes had been able to find. He found himself worrying about his sister, his father, Anka, and the rebellion, not knowing what would happen to them without the gate he’d been able to find for them. Would they be able to get into the city without his help?

Had they been able to do it, Sartes corrected himself, because by now, one way or another, it would be done. They would have found another gate, or an alternative way into the city, wouldn’t they? They had to have done, because what was the alternative?

Sartes didn’t want to think about that, but it was impossible to avoid. The alternative was that they might have failed. At best, they might have realized that there was no way in without taking a gate, and found themselves trapped there while the army advanced. At worst… at worst, they might already be dead.

Sartes shook his head. He wouldn’t believe that. He couldn’t. Ceres would find a way to come through it all, and to win. Anka was as resourceful as anyone he’d met. His father was strong and solid, while the other rebels had the determination that came with knowing that their cause was a righteous one. They would find a way to prevail.

Sartes had to think that what was happening to him would be temporary too. The rebels would win, which meant that they would capture Stephania and she would tell them what she’d done. They would come for him, the way his father and Anka had come when he’d been stuck in the army camp.

But what a place they’d have to come to. Sartes looked out as the cart jolted its way across the landscape, and saw the flatness of it give way to pits and rocky surrounds, bubbling ponds of blackness and heat. Even from where he was, he could smell the sharp, bitter smell of the tar.

There were people there, working in lines. Sartes could see the chains connecting them in pairs as they dredged the tar with buckets and collected it so that others could use it. He could see the guards standing over them with whips, and as Sartes watched, a man collapsed under the beating he was receiving. The guards cut him loose from his chains and kicked him into the nearest tar pit. The tar took a long time to swallow his screams.

Sartes wanted to look away then, but couldn’t. He couldn’t take his eyes from the horror of it all. From the cages in the open air that were obviously the prisoners’ homes. From the guards who treated them as nothing more than animals.

He watched until the cart drew to a halt, and soldiers opened it with weapons in one hand and chains in the other.

“Prisoners out,” one called. “Out, or we’ll set fire to that cart with you inside, you scum!”

Sartes shuffled out into the light with the others, and now he could take in the full horror of it. The fumes of the place were almost overwhelming. The tar pits around them bubbled in strange, unpredictable combinations. Even as Sartes watched, a patch of ground near one of the pits gave way, tumbling into the tar.

“These are the tar pits,” the soldier who’d spoken announced. “Don’t bother trying to get used to them. You’ll all be dead long before that happens.”

The worst part, Sartes suspected as they fitted a manacle to his ankle, was that they might be right.