Until at last he had stopped trying.
Until finally he had accepted that it was never coming off.
There was nothing left for him after that. He sat in his cell, his prison, his jail, and waited for his inevitable execution. He had no meaningful expectations left. What expectations could there be? That a miracle would happen and someone would come for him? That he could still find a way out of this madness? Impossible! Who even knew where he was? Even those who had remained behind, stranded on that ledge with the Goblins coming at them from every direction, were probably dead by now.
Even Railing.
But he didn’t believe it. Oddly, it was the one hope he clung to. Railing was still alive, still out there somewhere searching. His brother would never give up. It might be hopeless for him, but it wouldn’t be for Railing. Not now, not ever. Railing was his twin, his other half, his shadow self, and he was alive and well and hunting for Redden. Railing would never be satisfied with leaving things as they were. Even if it killed him, he would find a way to reach his brother.
Of course, he was aware of the impossibility of this happening. And the thought of Railing dying, too, brought down by his efforts to reach him, was more than he could bear.
They brought him food and water, and sometimes he ate and drank. But mostly not. Sometimes they pulled back the metal plate set in the cell door that served as a peephole and looked in on him to see what he was doing. He never bothered to look up, never cared if they were looking at him or not. He ignored them. He tried to pretend they didn’t exist.
For a while, he tried disappearing into memories, but that hurt too much. Memories were reminders of what he had lost, and what he could never have back.
So he ended up studying the floor and tried not to think of anything. He just sat there, staring at the lines of grout that connected the stone slabs of the cell flooring, fascinated by the intricacy of the workmanship.
That worked much better.
Except that without realizing it he was slowly disappearing from the real world. He was slowly treading his way down an endless spiral stairway that descended into darkness and finally insanity.
And then, unexpectedly, they came for him.
Oriantha was stretched out in the shade of an overhang among the boulders, taking a short nap while she waited for the cover of darkness, when she heard an earsplitting creaking of iron fastenings followed by two massive booms. She was up instantly, catching sight of Tesla Dart charging back into the rocks from the perimeter where she had been keeping watch.
“He’s coming out!” Fear was etched deep in her wizened features.
At first Oriantha thought the Ulk Bog was speaking of Redden Ohmsford, which made no sense at all. But then she realized Tesla meant Tael Riverine. Moving swiftly through the rocks, she reached their perimeter just as the first ranks of the Straken Lord’s army appeared through the west gates and moved out into the open in a semi-organized procession of creatures that marched, plodded, shuffled, trudged, rolled, and crawled in what soon seemed to be an endless line. There were members of all of the species imprisoned within the Forbidding save for dragons, which she assumed even Tael Riverine could not find a way to control. Even the terrifying Furies appeared at one point, a ragged cluster of them, cat faces contorted, hissing and screeching, prowling this way and that. A phalanx of Goblins, split into two ranks, bracketed them in a way that kept them from straying too far out of line. How the Goblins managed to keep them in check defied Oriantha’s understanding, though she made a mental note to ask Tesla Dart later.
The Straken Lord’s army was so huge that it was still winding its way clear of the gates of Kraal Reach an hour later. Amid the ranks of creatures were wagons of various sizes and shapes, although there was nothing to indicate what was in them. There were no siege machines or catapults or other mechanized weapons, and she presumed this was because an army comprising creatures such as this hardly needed such cumbersome tools. Even without experience of what it could do, she was sufficiently informed of the possibilities based on what she had endured while coming through the Fangs and finding herself trapped in this monstrous world. The denizens of the Forbidding, she had discovered, wasted little time on subterfuge. These were creatures that hunted and fought and killed by getting close enough to look you in the eye. These were creatures that attacked in a barely controlled frenzy, and did not stop until the last semblance of life had gone out of you or them.
“What’s Tael Riverine doing?” she asked Tesla Dart.
The Ulk Bog gave her a look. “What I said. What I warned. He takes his army into your world to destroy it.”
“Now? But how can he do that? The Forbidding isn’t down yet!”
Tesla Dart looked confused. “The wall crumbles. A place to cross will be found. No reason to wait longer. He will begin his search.”
“Search? Search for what?”
“Are you stupid? Her! His Queen! I told you. He wishes the witch Grianne. He demands her return. Give her to me, he will say. If she comes with him, he will turn around. If not, he will use his arm to grind all those who stand in his way to dust and take her anyway.”
Oriantha searched the ranks of the army as it wound its way across the countryside, but there was no sign of the Straken Lord.
“Where is Tael Riverine?” she demanded of Tesla Dart, but the Ulk Bog only shrugged and shook her head.
Then, unexpectedly, a wheeled cage rolled through the gates, surrounded by wolves and Goblins with a lean, feral creature riding in the driver’s seat. As a pair of massive bulls strained against the traces, the driver snapped his long whip and shouted at the beasts, urging them on. Alongside the cage, the wolves snarled and snapped their jaws at both the vehicle and its lone inhabitant.
Oriantha caught her breath.
Redden Ohmsford, chained and imprisoned, hunkered down in a pile of straw at the cage’s center.
“He lives!” Tesla Dart hissed in disbelief.
“Lives and breathes and waits for us to save him. And save him we will, Tesla.”
The Ulk Bog turned to look at her and then began laughing madly. “Should be easy! Only thousands stand in the way. Should not stop big strong shape-shifter you!”
She continued to chuckle, but Oriantha was already thinking of ways she could manage to even the odds, disrupt the flow, get through the sentry lines, do whatever was needed to reach the boy and free him.
The last of the procession, the final ranks of the army, cleared the gates, which immediately began to swing shut behind them. A shrieking of metal hinges, a crashing of ironbound portals slamming into place, and Kraal Reach was sealed once more.
Overhead, scores of Harpies appeared, crooked black carrion creatures flooding the skies, trailing after the army. The shape-shifter and the Ulk Bog held their places within the rocks as the half birds, half women passed, patient and watchful. When the Harpies had gone, Oriantha waited awhile longer. There was no urgency. It would be easy to keep pace with an army the size of this one.
She let it get almost a mile ahead before saying to her companion, “Now we track them.”
Tesla Dart groaned in dismay but got to her feet anyway. Together they set out, following the clouds of dust raised by the army’s passing.
“Wait!” Tesla said suddenly, hunching forward and casting about. “Can use Chzyks to track! Chzyks be anywhere, and no one sees them. Come back to tell us everything they learn. Better than us getting too close.”
“You can summon them?”
“Always.”
“Then do so tonight and let’s have them take a close look at that cage and the guards watching over it. Can you get them to do that?”