The man looked at me with hard eyes. “And in return?”
“I’ll tell you what you want to know,” I lied. There is no way that I am going to tell you anything, I promised myself. But Ymmen would be hunting for me even now—all I had to was to play for time.
And if I managed to get at least some of my people free, then all the better!
“I don’t want to hear what I want to hear.” The man rolled his shoulders and tapped the stubble of his chin with the flat of his knife. “Really. Do you take me for a fool?”
I was about to open my mouth to tell him that I had no idea how to take him, given the fact that he hadn’t told me anything about what he was doing out here—but for once in my life, my caution proved stronger than my tongue. I said nothing.
The man pointed at me with the blade once again. “You really have no idea who I am, do you? You don’t even recognize us?”
“Should I?” I asked. There was only so long that I could hold my tongue, after all.
The man gave a half-smile at my sarcasm. “You’ve a fine spirit,” he congratulated me. “You’re brave. I like that.”
Oh what—am I supposed to be grateful for the compliment, while you have me tied up? His attempt at mirth only made me even angrier. But the man carried on talking.
“I am Captain Nol Baggar, of the Red Hounds.” He said, grinning at me with a mouth that was missing at least two teeth.
“So?” I glared at him. Were those names that were supposed scare or intimidate me? I had never heard of either ‘Captain’ Nol Baggar or his Red Hounds before.
The captain blinked for a moment at my nonchalance, his grin fading a little before he recovered his composure with a growl. “No matter. All someone like you needs to know is that I’ve led my men through half a hundred battles already, and I have a reputation for getting the job done. Are we clear?”
Having no way of verifying his claims, or of being at all impressed by them, I shrugged. “I guess, but just what is your job, ‘Captain’ Baggar—kidnapping young women? What a worthy battle!” I said. This seemed to infuriate Captain Nol Baggar even more, as he stood up, pulled our canvas wall to one side and shouted tersely.
“Pincher! Someone get Pincher in here. With his tools.” he said, before turning back to me, not even bothering to crouch at my level this time. “It would be unwise for you to cross me, Daza,” he growled. “I’ve seen tougher warriors than you—even a Duke, once—crack.”
“I told you that I would tell you everything,” I pointed out, wondering if my ploy of trying to buy myself some more time was actually working, or whether it was just buying me a quicker demise…
“I am still searching! I am coming!” Ymmen said in my mind. Damn, I thought—he hadn’t found us yet.
“If I agree to release the other captives, who were already destined for an early death in Inyene’s slave-mines?” Nol Baggar seemed to regard my suggestion as ludicrous. “I’m afraid that you really have no idea how this is going to work, do you?” he said with a heavy growl. “You don’t get to make demands. I do.”
“Captain, sir?” There was a cough from the canvas-blanket door, and a rangy-looking, older man stepped into the room. I presumed that he must be the one called ‘Pincher’.
He looked to be older than any of the other raiders I had seen so far and wore the same close-fit studded-leather ensemble, only, his chest and thighs were covered with what looked to be a heavily stained work-apron. The Pincher was balding, what hair he had dry, and he had sharp, hungry eyes. The sort of eyes that I had seen on hyenas.
In one hand he held a simple leather hold-all that jumbled and clanked with metal as he thumped it heavily to the floor in front of me. In his other was a roll of leather like we Daza might use to secure fishhooks or arrow-points.
“Pincher! Always a pleasure to see you,” Nol Baggar said, nodding in my direction.
“Very good, Captain, sir.” The man licked his lips as he quietly knelt down on the cave floor next to his pack and unrolled the fold of leather on the sandy dirt in front of him.
I saw a variety of shining steel instruments. Long-handled, with a variety of curving or pointed blades in their end. My heart threatened to hammer its way out of my chest as the Pincher’s hand hovered over the instruments, his long fingers teasing and tickling the air as he frowned in concentration. In the end, I saw him move his hand to the extreme left of the leather and pull out not one of the bladed instrument, but a pair of dull workman’s pliers—the sort I had seen used in Inyene’s forges.
Nol must have seen my horror as he slowly grinned once again and this time nodded as well. “Yup. This is how this thing works, now. I am sure that a woman as brave as you will understand that.” He cocked his head to one side. “I tell you what, I’m not a monster—If you don’t start talking, we’re going to start by taking the ears off of your friends out there—I’ll start with that old one. The one with braids in his hair, as he can’t have that much longer left in him yet anyway, right?”
Elid! I felt my muscles tensing all through my body as I wanted to attack them both right now. Despite what he was trying to tell me, he sounded every bit like he really was a monster.
“No.” I murmured, as the horror of my situation fell upon me. But not just this situation—it was everything, all the days of feeling scared and exhausted and trying to hold my head high. The last four years of being cuffed, kicked, shouted at—of being mocked and even branded swam into my mind. And what good have I done? I thought of the people I had left behind in the mines: of stocky and good-hearted Oleer and even sharp-tongued Rebbec…
At the end of the day, they’re the ones who are going to suffer, I castigated myself, who have already suffered. And I was the Imanu’s daughter. I was supposed to make their lives better.
I couldn’t let one more Daza get hurt for my actions—no matter how fierce or proud I might feel.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Show me the map, I’ll tell you what I already know.”
“Good girl,” Nol Baggar said condescendingly, raising one hand to pause Pincher.
“Very good, Captain, sir,” the torturer repeated quietly. The fact that he didn’t show any emotion about what he was doing was all the more terrifying. He had none of the sick glee or vindictive joy that I had seen in the faces of Inyene’s overseers—the kind of emotions that made it easier to hate them, the anger making it easier to bear up under whatever tortures they inflicted—but Pincher just had a calm professionalism.
“This,” the captain drew from his belt pouch a folded envelope of paper, from which he opened to draw forth one half of the map that he had stolen from me, and laid in on the floor, next to the Pincher’s instruments. I then watched as the captain of the Red Hounds drew from behind the breast of his leather jerkin the recognizable vellum half of the map that I had been carrying. He placed them side by side on the gritty floor, slowly pushing them together so that their torn edges met.
“I can see that this is the World’s Edge Mountains—”
Sunset Mountains, I corrected internally.
“And this thing here,” he tapped my bit of map where the Broken Thumb—or Crow standing rock stood, “is that rock about a day’s ride from here…” he said, pleased with himself, before clearing his throat and sweeping his hand to the other side of the map, around where the smudged circle and the word ‘Vault’ had been written.