The witch struggled with greater strength than Morgain could equal-clawing at the arm that pinned her with her one free hand, and kicking frenziedly. Grimly Morgain maintained her armlock, twisting Atlas captured arm sharply behind her back. Atlas sandaled heels gored the girl’s shins. With her free hand, Atla tried to reach something beneath her slit skirt. Savagely Morgain drove a knee into the witch’s kidney-pounding her head against the iron bars, as Ada gasped in agony.
Atla slumped against the cage, her struggles growing weaker. Fearing a trick, Morgain only tightened her crushing forearm. The witch’s body grew slack, hung as dead weight against the bars.
Releasing Atlas right arm, Morgain reached around her supple waist to yank the key from the thong at her belt. The witch hung loosely, dependent from her arm. It was Morgain’s intent to strangle her, but time was more precious than revenge, so that the girl did not make certain of her kill as Bran had taught her.
Letting the motionless form drop to the stones, Morgain darted to the door of the cell and hastily worked the key into the lock. Her actions were clumsy, reaching around from behind the grating as she did, and the unfamiliar lock was rusted and resisted her efforts. The girl swore and twisted desperately.
The key slithered from her sweaty fingers and clattered onto the stones.
Almost sobbing in her urgency, Morgain threw herself to the floor and stretched her arm for the fallen key. It was just beyond her reach. The girl fell prone to the stones, grinding her shoulder against the rusty bars-stretching out her arm as far as she might. Her straining fingers grazed the key-almost tipped it farther away. Then her nails caught on a flake of rust, scraped the key into her grasp.
Still no tocsin of alarm. Again Morgain applied the key-forcing her hands to stop shaking. A twist, a sudden, wrenching snap. Morgain groaned.
But it was not the key that snapped. It was the sliding of the rusted tumblers. The bolt snicked back. The door swung open under her pressing weight.
Morgain stumbled through the opening, caught herself and stared warily about, like some wild thing at bay. She was free from her cell-but free to do what? To go where?
No matter. They would not capture her alive again. Beyond was the passage through which they had led her. She might be able to retrace their route-or find another access to the surface. She needed a torch. And a weapon.
She studied Atla’s still form. The witch might have a weapon-one she had not been able to reach in their brief struggle. A second idea came to Morgain. If she had not killed the witch, she might be able to force Atla to lead her out of this hellish maze.
Quickly Morgain knelt over the motionless body. Bran had told her of the witch’s dagger that had snapped against his mail at their first meeting. Morgain ran her hands over the limp figure. There was nothing at her waist; the low bosom of her tight gown could hide nothing. Morgain caught the spasmodic rise and fall of the witch’s breast. She lived, then.
But at the same instant her fingers brushed over a length of steel and leather along the witch’s thigh. A dagger, sheathed against her thigh beneath the slit skirt. Morgain bent to capture the weapon.
Atlas knee caught her on the point of the chin. The girl’s head snapped back, and pain blotted out her senses.
Morgain did not quite lose all consciousness, though for a space the world was a pain-shot vortex, and nausea shook her belly.
Dimly she felt the witch drag her unresisting form back into the cage, heard her spit out angry commands in the serpent-folks’ sibilant tongue. Other hands grasped her suddenly. She felt her shift torn from her body, her arms jerked sharply over her head. Pain in her wrists and shoulders, coldness on her bare skin. And vertigo-a sense of spinning, floating in the blackness of the star-shot void. It was raining…
More water dashed in her face. Morgain opened her eyes. She was floating. The cavern floor was inches below her dangling toes.
Full consciousness returned. Her wrists were lashed together over her head-the rawhide thongs looped over the iron bars overhead. Stripped of her garment, Morgain hung by her wrists in the center of the iron cage.
Slowly her body spun to face Atla. The witch’s throat was bruised, a trickle of blood traced her forehead. Her smile was a terrible thing, as she lovingly flexed the serpentine coils of a long whip.
Morgain told herself that she would not cry out.
Atla was patient, and Morgain’s resolution gave out long before her consciousness finally left her.
***
Through the pain-fogged delirium, the memories passed through her mind as Morgain groped for returning awareness. Through the vertiginous darkness she clung to the reality of her pain, tracing its reality through the phantasmagoria of memories. And as she remembered why she felt the pain, she uttered a low moan and opened her eyes.
Morgain still hung from her wrists in the cage, her naked flesh now clothed in spiralling welts. Her toes slowly revolved over a dry patch of blood.
The girl painfully raised her head between her outstretched arms. Then from her dry lips a wilder cry of agony.
In another iron cage sprawled a motionless figure. Despite the thick mask of filth and gore, she recognized Bran Mak Morn.
13
MASTER OF SHADOWS
“You’ve killed her!”
Atla shrugged. “She’ll live. The little bitch almost strangled me. She’s lucky to escape with enough whole skin for the flaying knife. What does it matter to you, Nero?”
The legate glared at her. “She is my hostage.”
“A hostage of no value,” Atla pointed out. “Now that we have Bran Mak Morn.”
Their voices seeping through the oblivion that had swallowed him, Bran slowly opened his eyes. Without moving, the Pict took stock of his surroundings.
Stripped of his weapons, he lay sprawled across the floor of an iron cage. The flesh of his limbs was crisscrossed with the tears of their fangs and talons. Dried gore caked his shirt of mail, crusted on his torn flesh. He ached in every joint and sinew, but he could not detect any disabling wound.
Gazing past the iron bars. Bran could see the bare legs of Atla and the greaves of Claudius Nero, whose quarreling tones drifted to his hearing. With a sinking of his heart, Bran realized he had fallen into their hands. Turning his gaze, Bran caught sight of the bare feet that dangled above the floor of a cage opposite. A sharp cry of pain…
With a snarl of wrath, Bran bounded to his feet-flung himself against the bars that held him from his enemies.
“What have you done to Morgain!”
Hearing his shout, the girl called his name-relief that her brother lived imparting a bizarre note of joy to her cry. At the pitiful spectacle of her tortured body, her naked flesh raw with livid and bleeding welts, Bran went mad. In helpless rage the Pict shook the iron bars, howled curses through frothing lips.
Eventually it penetrated through the crimson haze of rage that his captors only laughed at his madness. Grimly Bran mastered his fury.
“Fool!” Nero sneered. “Did you think my warning only idle threat? You should have thought of Morgain when you plotted treachery at Kestrel Scaur last night. Had you not blundered into our realm, our next message would have been written to you on Morgain’s skin.”
“I might have been willing to let you and your serpent kinsmen live in peace here in your burrows,” Bran spat. “For what you’ve done to Morgain, I’ll hunt down every last one of you, though you crawl through your burrows to the hells beneath hell!”