'Who are you to say something like that to me?' I snap. 'You've given up! You just lie there and take it.'
'I have not given up anything,' he says. 'I am waiting. You have given up.'
I slam my hands down on the table in frustration, half-rising to my feet. 'I never fucking gave up!' I shout. And even though the prisoners next to me are staring, he's just gazing at me like a patient parent waiting for their child's tantrum to diminish. I feel stupid and embarrassed. I sit down again. Spoon some food into my mouth. Gradually conversation resumes around me. The guards relax.
I eat in silence for a time, thinking hard thoughts. Unforgiving thoughts. I've been shamed into looking at myself, and I don't like what I find.
I've been selfish. I held on to my misery for too long. I've been so wrapped up in Rynn's memory that I forgot who I was. Hiding, healing, cushioned by grief. But enough is enough.
I have responsibilities. I have duties. I have a life to get back to. I have a son who probably thinks I'm dead by now, but I'm not dead. I'm fucking Cadre. Nobody keeps me locked up.
Feyn watches me, and I know he knows what I'm thinking. Satisfied, he turns his attention to his food, leaving me brooding, burning, obsessed.
I'm going to get out of here.
27
Next turn, the guards beat me half to death.
I'm eating in the food hall when they pull me away, spilling my gruel of spores and tubers. I hear them coming and I know they're coming for me, but I don't react. I let them take me.
The punishment is conducted in full view of the other prisoners. They pull me to the floor and pound me with short, vicious clubs. There are chua-kin mantras and techniques that can block out pain or induce unconsciousness. I don't use any of them.
This is no less than I deserve. For Rynn.
The other prisoners are uneasy. Some have stood up from their benches and are being threatened by guards with swords. Angry cries are rising, abuse thrown at the Gurta. Gurta swear-words, learned for the purpose. Rough rootwood tables are pounded with stone spoons and empty bowls. The cooks have stopped stirring their cauldrons around the central fire and are watching.
The guards don't hit my face too hard, at least. I get to keep my teeth and no bones break. I'm thankful for that.
I'm mostly unconscious when they're done. I'm dragged by my arms, my heels dancing and juddering behind me. My mouth is full of the salt-metal tang of blood and my body is a blazing knot of agony. I drift in and out of awareness. Then suddenly I'm falling, there's nothing under me, and I'm shocked from my torpor by the slap and plunge of warm water. I flail, sinking, drowning… then I break surface, and my lungs find air long enough to throw up all the liquid I just swallowed.
I'm in a smooth-sided, circular pit, filled with brackish, vile water. Its stink is in my nostrils and all over the back of my throat. There's torchlight in the room above. Pale, narrow Gurta faces are watching me from the edge of the pit.
There are rusted metal rings set into the side of the pit just above the level of the water. I loop my arm through one. The torchlight disappears as the guards do. I hear a door close somewhere above me, and darkness comes. Eskarans have good eyes, able to make use of the smallest glimmer of illumination. But in the total absence of light, we're blind.
The pain settles in like damp, and swells. One eye is slowly forced shut by bruising. My cheek feels huge. The only sound I can hear is the lap of the water around me. In a moment of grim humour, I wonder if I've finally solved the mystery of where they dump all the shit from the cells. I actually smile a little, until the pain becomes too much.
Rynn always told me I had a perverse attitude. He was pretty fond of it, as I recall, even though it used to drive him mad at times. The more I'm ground down, the more defiant I become. I float, hanging loosely from the ring, and inside I'm laughing at the men who beat me. I'm scorning them for not killing me. There's nothing they can do that's worse than what's already happened. Fuck them. I'm not even close to breaking. I can still hear the faint, dolorous clang of the bell, humming through the walls of the pit. By its tolling I estimate that I've been down here two turns, although I might have slept through it once or twice so I'm not sure. Sleep isn't so easy: I have to put the ring under my armpit to support me while I doze, but soon the circulation cuts off and I wake with my arm sparkling numb. The snatches I get are more frustrating than being unable to sleep at all. But this is all part of the punishment, so I endure.
They lowered a bucket of water a while ago. Clean water, not the filth I'm floating in. I drank as much as I could, puffy lips pressed to the rim of the bucket. They pulled it away before I was done, but it was enough to keep me going.
Eventually the lock clatters and the door creaks open. Torchlight appears overhead. Weak as it is, it makes my eyes tear and run to look at it at first, so I shade them with my hand and look away. A rope splashes down next to me, with a crude harness of belts attached.
~ Put it on ~ someone urges me in Gurtan. It takes me a while to process this simple command; slowly I reach over and pull it to me.
~ Put it on ~ they say again. I pretend not to understand at first, until they make hand signs. Then I strap myself in. It's not easy with a dead arm.
I hang on as they pull me up. I'm pathetically weak. It's an effort just to keep pushing away from the side of the pit with my legs, but if I didn't, they'd just drag me up anyway. When I get to the top, I'm lifted to my feet, unstrapped and marched out of the room at swordpoint.
They take me through a series of corridors I've not seen before. Some are panelled in rootwood from ancient mycora, or flocked with shredded bark from lichen trees. Small shinestones are set into the wall. The sight triggers a stab of nostalgia for the trappings of civilisation. I've become used to the grim, sweltering world of dank caves, bare stone rooms and growling foundries. Shinestones are an unexpected luxury here.
These corridors are better cared for than those I've seen so far, and better decorated. There are even some Gurtan flourishes on the lintels and sconces. Scholars whisper past in their robes, some quite young, fresh-faced. They don't seem the least surprised to have a bruised and exhausted Eskaran woman in their midst, soaking wet and reeking.
I'm led into a room in which a single shinestone lantern of wrought iron hangs from the ceiling on a chain. Against the walls are glass-fronted cupboards, drawers, a worktop crowded with alembics and alchemical devices and complex brass ticking things. Charts and books lie open. The air smells of old blood.
In the centre of the room is an X-shaped frame, tilted at an angle, with straps at every end. Standing next to it is the Gurta chirurgeon I saw the last time I was working in the forge.
It's a chirurgery. They're going to dissect me.
No.
And suddenly I'm fighting. Thrashing in the arms of my guards. Every fibre of my body is rebelling at the sight of that frame, where they'll stretch me out and cut the flesh of my belly with their knives. I stamp out at one of them and feel their ankle break beneath my heel. The man shrills, a Gurta cry of pain. I know the sound well. Then someone clubs me round the back of my head and I sag forward. Fuck, that hurt. I struggle but someone hits me again across the head again and I stop.
It's hopeless. Lack of food and the fact that I've been floating for two turns, barely using any of my muscles, has left me unable to fight against the three remaining guards. One of them is cursing me, sitting on the ground, holding his foot. The rest pin me while the chirurgeon looms closer, carrying a long, hollow glass needle in which an amber liquid glitters. I try to avoid it, but I don't have the strength. Nothing can stop the progress of that point. It sinks into my arm and peace spreads from where it touches me. I relax and keep relaxing until everything goes black. This battlefield is scabbed with bloody pieces of men. The cavern roof presses low, shedding stalactites as it shivers with the rumble of explosions. The air is punctured with the dreadful rhythm of shard-cannon fire.