Читать книгу Rebel, Pawn, King - Morgan Rice - Страница 11

Thanos slid his small boat up the shale of the beach, looking away from the manacles set there below the tide line. He made his way up off the beach, feeling exposed with every step across the gray rock of the place. It would be far too easy to be seen there, and Thanos definitely didn’t want to be spotted on a place like this.

He scrambled up a path and stopped, feeling anger join his disgust as he saw what lay along either side of the path. There were devices there, gibbets and spikes, breaking wheels and gallows, all obviously intended to give an unpleasant death to those within. Thanos had heard of the Isle of Prisoners, but even so, the evil of this place made him want to wipe it away.

He kept on up the path, thinking about how it would be for anyone led down there, hemmed in by rocky walls and knowing that only death awaited. Had Ceres really ended up in this place? Just the thought of it was enough to make Thanos’s gut clench.

Ahead, Thanos heard shouts, whoops, and cries that sounded almost as much animal as human. There was something about the sound that made him freeze, his body telling him to be ready for violence. He hurried off the path, lifting his head over the level of the rocks that blocked his view.

What he saw beyond made him stare. A man was running, his bare feet leaving bloody smears on the stony ground. He wore clothes that were ripped and torn, one sleeve hanging loose from the shoulder, a great rent at his back showing a wound beneath. He had wild hair and a wilder beard. Only the fact that his torn clothes were silk showed that he hadn’t lived wild all his life.

The man chasing him looked, if anything, even wilder, and there was something about him that made Thanos feel like the prey of some great animal just looking at him. He wore a mixture of leathers that looked as though they’d been stolen from a dozen different sources, and had features streaked with mud in a pattern that Thanos suspected was designed to let him blend in with the forest. He held a club and a short dagger, and the whoops he emitted while chasing the other man made Thanos’s hair stand on end.

On instinct, Thanos started forward. He couldn’t just stand by and watch someone be murdered, even here, where everyone had committed some crime to be sent here. He hurried over the rise, sprinting down to a spot the two would run past. The first of the men dodged around him. The second paused with a sharp-toothed grin.

“Looks like another one to hunt,” he said, and lunged at Thanos.

Thanos reacted with the speed of long training, swaying out of the way of the first knife thrust. The club caught him on the shoulder, but he ignored the pain. He swung his fist around sharply, feeling the impact as he connected with the other man’s jaw. The wild man fell, unconscious before he hit the ground.

Thanos looked round, and saw the first man staring at him.

“Don’t worry,” Thanos said, “I won’t hurt you. I’m Thanos.”

“Herek,” the other man said. To Thanos, his voice sounded rusty, as though he hadn’t spoken to anyone for a long time. “I – ”

Another cry came from back toward the wooded section of the island. This one seemed to be many voices joined together into something that even Thanos found terrifying.

“Quick, this way.”

The other man grabbed Thanos’s arm, pulling him toward a series of higher rocks. Thanos followed, ducking down into a space that couldn’t be seen from the main path, but where they could still watch for signs of danger. Thanos could feel the fear of the other man as they crouched there, and he tried to stay as still as possible.

Thanos wished he’d thought to grab the knife from the man he’d knocked down, but it was too late for that now. Instead, he could only stay there while they waited for the other hunters to descend on the spot where they’d been.

He saw them approach in a group, and no two of them were alike. They all held weapons that had obviously been crafted from whatever had been near to hand, while those who still wore more than the barest scraps of clothing wore an odd mix of obviously stolen things. There were men and women there, looking hungry and dangerous, half-starved and vicious.

Thanos saw one of the women there prod the unconscious man with her foot. He felt a thrill of fear then, because if the man woke, he would be able to tell the others what had happened, and that would set them searching.

Yet he didn’t wake, because the woman knelt and cut his throat.

Thanos tensed at that. Beside him, Herek put a hand on his arm.

“The Abandoned have no time for weakness of any kind,” he whispered. “They prey on anyone they can, because the ones up at the fortress don’t give them anything.”

“They’re prisoners?” Thanos asked.

“We’re all prisoners here,” Herek replied. “Even the guards are just prisoners who rose to the top, and who enjoy the cruelty enough to do the Empire’s work. Except you’re not a prisoner, are you? You don’t have the look of someone who’s been through the fortress.”

“I’m not,” Thanos admitted. “This place… it’s prisoners doing it to other prisoners?”

The worst part was that he could imagine it. It was the kind of thing the king, his father, might think of. Put prisoners into a kind of hell and then give them the chance to avoid more pain only if they ran it.

“The Abandoned are the worst,” Herek said. “If prisoners won’t submit, if they’re too mad or too stubborn, if they won’t work or they fight back too much, they’re thrown out here with nothing. The wardens hunt them. Most beg to be brought back.”

Thanos didn’t want to think about it, but he had to, because Ceres might be here. He kept his eyes on the group of feral prisoners while he continued to whisper to Herek.

“I’m looking for someone,” Thanos said. “She might have been brought here. Her name is Ceres. She fought in the Stade.”

“The princess combatlord,” Herek whispered back. “I saw her fight in the Stade. But no, I would have known if she’d been brought here. They liked to parade the new arrivals in front of us, so that they could see what was waiting for them. I would have remembered her.”

Thanos’s heart plunged like a stone thrown into a pool. He’d been so sure that Ceres would be here. He’d put everything he had into getting here, simply because it was the only clue he had to her whereabouts. If she wasn’t there… where could he go?

The hope he’d had started to drip away, as surely as the blood from Herek’s feet, where the rocks had cut them.

The blood that the Abandoned were staring at even now, following the trail of it…

“Run!” Thanos yelled, urgency overcoming his heartbreak as he dragged Herek with him.

He scrambled over the broken ground of the rocks, heading in the direction of the fortress simply because he guessed it was a direction those following wouldn’t want to go. Yet they did follow, and Thanos had to pull Herek along to keep him running.

A spear flashed past his head, and Thanos flinched, but he didn’t stop. He dared a glance back, and the lean forms of the prisoners were closing, hunting them as surely as a pack of wolves. Thanos knew he had to turn and fight, but he had no weapons. At best, he could grab a rock.

Figures in dark leathers and chain shirts rose from the rocks ahead, holding bows. Thanos reacted on instinct, dragging himself and Herek to the ground.

Arrows flew overhead, and Thanos saw the group of feral prisoners fall like cut corn. One turned to run, and an arrow took her in the back.

Thanos stood, as a trio of men walked toward them. The one at their head was silver-haired and angular, putting his bow across his back as he approached and drawing a long knife.

“You are Prince Thanos?” he demanded as he got closer.

In that moment, Thanos knew he’d been betrayed. The smuggling captain had given up his presence, either for gold or because he simply didn’t want the trouble.

He forced himself to stand tall. “Yes, I’m Thanos,” he said. “And you are?”

“I am Elsius, warden of this place. Once they called me Elsius the Butcher. Elsius the Killer. Now those I kill deserve their fate.”

Thanos had heard that name. It had been a name that the children he’d grown up with had used to try to frighten one another, that of a nobleman who had killed and killed until even the Empire had thought of him as too evil to allow to stay free. They’d made up stories of the things he’d done to those he caught. At least, Thanos had hoped they’d been made up.

“Are you going to try to kill me now?”

Thanos tried to sound defiant, even though he had no weapons.

“Oh no, my prince, we have much better plans for you. Your companion, though…”

Thanos saw Herek try to stand, but he wasn’t quick enough. The leader stepped forward and stabbed with brisk efficiency, the blade sliding in and out of the other man again and again. He held Herek up, as though to stop him dying before he was ready.

Finally, he let the prisoner’s corpse fall. When he turned to Thanos, his face was a rictus that had almost nothing human about it.

“How does it feel, Prince Thanos,” he asked, “to become a prisoner?”