Then he began to chirp, and Tesla Dart chirped right back, the two engaging in a conversation that had all the elements of a comedic parody. But apparently each understood the other, for when they had finished Tesla put the Chzyk down again and turned to Oriantha.
“This is no good, shape-shifter girl,” she said solemnly, shaking her head for emphasis. “Tael Riverine has put boy in cage at camp’s center, next to tent where he sleeps. Boy is watched closely. Guards right by him. You go in, even at night, they catch you quick.”
“How many guards around the cage?” Oriantha asked. “Exactly.”
The Ulk Bog chattered at the Chzyk once more, and the little creature responded in kind. “Four, one on each side. Goblins. But demon-wolves loose in camp near cage, too.”
Oriantha nodded, considering. “No worse than what I thought.”
“You don’t do this,” the other pleaded. “Let this be. You wait. A better chance comes later. Do this now is foolish!”
“This whole business is foolish if you stop to look at it too closely.” Oriantha sat back and regarded the Ulk Bog solemnly. “Let’s wait until it gets dark and take another look at it then.”
In fact, she stayed where she was until after midnight, sleeping several hours in between, eating a little something and staring out across the wilderness to the fires of the Straken Lord. She watched the shadows in the firelight, tracking their movements, immersing herself in the flow of the camp. She breathed in the night air and centered herself for what lay ahead. She had already decided she was going after Redden, in spite of Tesla Dart’s warnings. Her chances were far better in a crowded open place than if she were forced to enter a confined space with only one way in and out.
She looked at the sky and waited for moonrise. When the orb appeared in an overcast sky, slipping out from behind clouds and mist, it was only a small crescent and the light it shed was pale and weak.
She stood up and looked down at Tesla Dart, who was staring up at her with wide eyes and a look of disbelief.
“I’ll need Lada to show me the way. Will you allow him to do that? Just to take me as far as the cage?”
Tesla nodded mutely, her face stricken.
“Wait for me until you see the army begin to move out again. If I am not back by then, go your own way. Leave all this behind and have no regrets. This is my choice. Any consequences that attach are mine to bear.”
“This is a mistake!”
“It is my mistake to make,” Oriantha said.
The Ulk Bog gave her a desperate look. “Wait, then. I have something.” She fumbled in her pocket and finally produced a small key. “Take this. If you find boy, you will need it. Tael Riverine fits him with conjure collar to keep him from using magic. Key will open lock and release collar.”
“How do you happen to have this key?” Oriantha asked, suddenly suspicious.
“Weka gave it to me. He kept it after he was dismissed as Catcher. If he was imprisoned, he knew he would be fitted with collar, too. He would not allow such. Use it to free boy.”
Oriantha took it and tucked it into her tunic. “You are a constant source of amazement, Ulk Bog.”
“You are a fool!” the other snapped. “Please, don’t go! You will end up like the others. You will not come back!”
Oriantha bent over and kissed the little creature on the cheek. Then she was gone into the night.
Redden Ohmsford lay huddled in his cage, rolled into a ball in an effort to escape the creatures that took every opportunity to shake the iron bars of his prison or reach inside to torment him. They came in all shapes and sizes, all types and forms—things he had not only never seen but also never imagined. They screamed at him—howls and shrieks that caused his skin to prickle and his stomach to clench. He was made physically ill from the harassment, his insides roiling, bile rising to his throat, but there was little he could do about any of it. By staying in the center of the cage with his body tightly balled up, he could just avoid their grasping fingers and claws. By closing his eyes, he could almost pretend they weren’t there. But nothing really helped.
There were guards on each side to keep his tormentors at bay, but they showed little interest in doing so. The Straken Lord had come by to look at him only once since the day ended. He had not spoken a word. He had watched his minions torment the boy, then moved on.
Now, with darkness fully descended and the world around him gone fiery with torchlight, the smoke from the burning brands acrid and thick in the air, and the sounds of the camp an undiminished cacophony, Redden Ohmsford, already beyond despair, was just waiting to die. He no longer had any hope of escape or rescue or intervention on even the most basic level. His death was assured, and he had reached the point where he would welcome it.
Somehow he kept from crying out, even though the urge was so strong it threatened to break free in spite of his efforts to hold it in. But it was the one aspect of his life he could still control, and he was afraid if he gave in to it, he would be lost entirely. So he went deep into his mind and dredged up tiny scraps of memories that he had all but forgotten and tried to re-create them fully. If he worked at it hard enough, it took him away from his immediate surroundings and placed him in a softer world of better days.
It didn’t save him entirely, but it allowed him to stay reasonably sane. It gave him respite from his misery. It allowed him small moments of time in which to regroup.
But it wasn’t enough and he knew it.
The smells and sounds of the camp invaded his cage. The stink of the Straken Lord’s creatures and their animals—especially the monstrous wolves with their rangy muscular bodies, bristling hides, and glowing eyes that prowled the perimeters of his cage—as well as the stench of the raw, bloodied foods that fed the army permeated the air. Chains rattled and traces creaked; wagon wheels rumbled through the camp—great iron-rimmed wooden disks that could crush anything unfortunate enough to fall in front of them. Breath steamed in the cooling air. Raucous laughter, screams, and shouts rose and fell with the power of an ocean crashing over rocky shores.
Redden’s thoughts were of Railing and home, but they were disjointed and confused, and one memory bled into another. He could feel them re-forming—an amalgam of separate and distinctively different shards forming a larger, more cohesive creature that was false in most respects. But even realizing what was happening, he refused to let go. If he could not manage to separate out the bits and pieces that were real, he would settle for the imagined whole that wasn’t. Building on it in the darkness of his mind, with the horror all around him closing in, he could feel himself disappearing a little at a time, becoming steadily more removed from the reality of his life. In his musings, in his re-created memories, he found relief and sanctuary of a sort that demanded only that he let go of the real and embrace the imagined.
He found it to be a small trade-off.
Yet he was strangely detached from the process. He could feel his mind going, could sense the erosion of his sanity, but was too weary and too beaten down to stop it from happening.
Just let this end, he begged into the dark.
Just let it be over.
Oriantha left the shelter of the rocks running in a low crouch, not wanting to be caught silhouetted against the horizon even though the sky provided little more than a dim skein of starlight from scattered breaks in a heavy blanket of clouds and mist. She moved swiftly, keeping on a direct course as she went. She was not yet close enough to the Straken Lord’s camp to be worried that she might stumble on any of its members, but Tesla Dart had warned of prowling Furies and she sniffed the air as she went, trusting her shape-shifter instincts to warn her of the vicious little beasts.