“Bind him,” the speaker ordered, walking away.
Rolling onto his side, Kirisin caught just a glimpse of the other, a thin, gnarled figure, limbs and body all twisted, head hunched deep into shoulders so bony they were defined mostly by the blades that jutted against the fabric of an old tunic like ax heads.
Then the skrails were on him once more, bearing him to the ground, forcing his arms behind his back. He tried to create some slack in the cords that were wrapped about him, but the skrails just hissed and yanked his bonds tighter. They secured his ankles, as well, crossing them and wrapping them in another set of cords, leaving him thoroughly trussed. Their fingers were long and thin but very strong. Struggling was pointless.
When they were finished, they left him lying on the ground by himself in the dark, unable to do much more than wriggle, unable to stand or even to sit up. The minutes crawled past and no one came to check on him. He could sense the skrails watching him from the darkness. Maybe they were afraid of what he could do if they got too close. The idea came and went in the blink of an eye. If they had caught and bound him when he was still free, they weren’t likely to be afraid of him now. It was more reasonable to assume that their minder was keeping them away.
He lay quietly for a time, miserable and frightened. His wounds throbbed, but the bleeding had stopped. He tried to ignore the pain, but it was an insistent presence. He wished he could have a look at the punctures to see how bad they were. He wished he could have something to eat and drink. He wished he had dropped to the ground when Praxia shouted at him instead of trying to reach the AV. He wished he were smarter and stronger and quicker and a whole lot of other things that might have allowed him to escape.
In the end, he just wished he weren’t so alone–that Simralin would come for him.
His wishes surfaced like ghosts and fled into the night.
He dozed for a time, lying on his side in the dark, hearing the skrails moving about nearby with a soft skittering and muted squawks. He woke often from his uneasy rest, and each time the pain from his wounds and his bindings felt worse than the time before. He tried to think of a way to escape, but with his hands and feet so securely bound there was little hope.
He had just fallen asleep when talons grasped his shoulders roughly and pulled him to his feet. A pair of skrails stood one on either side, and a third knelt to release his ankles. They shoved him ahead, and he tried to walk, but they had to hold him up for a dozen paces before the feeling returned to his feet. He stumbled ahead after that with the skrails guiding him, their leathery wings flapping softly as they walked, their reptilian faces bent close to his own. He could smell the swamp on them, fetid and raw, and he could feel the coldness of their talons where they gripped him.
Ahead, a fire was visible through gaps in a cluster of skeletal trees that were silhouetted against its glow like the bones of the dead. Shadowy forms moved through the firelight, winged and hunched. More skrails. Kirisin wondered what was happening. His stomach knotted and his throat tightened.
The minder was waiting, all bent and bony, looking like a smaller version of the trees. At the boy’s appearance, he wheeled back from where he knelt before the fire, and then rose and walked over to greet him. Without a word, he struck Kirisin across the face with one callused hand, the blow sharp and hard and painful. Kirisin cried out and tried to pull away. The minder struck him again, harder.
“Now, then, boy,” he hissed, “where is the Elfstone?”
Kirisin shook his head, tears running down his face. “I don’t have it.”
The minder struck him again. “Tell me something I don’t know, you little fool! Where is it?”
Kirisin gritted his teeth in rage. “The Knight of the Word has it.”
The gnarled creature hissed at him like a snake and struck him again. “You lie! Where is it?”
Kirisin thrashed in the grip of the skrails and almost succeeded in tearing free. He spat at the minder. “I told you!”
He met the other’s gaze and held it, taking in the weathered face that was all collapsed hollows and jutting bones beneath wrinkled skin. The strange green eyes were lidded and bright, the nose flatted to little more than nostrils, and the mouth a sucking hole devoid of teeth. His stench was almost unbearable, but the boy refused to flinch from it.
“Well, maybe so, maybe not.” The mouth twisted. “We’ll ask another for advice on this.”
He motioned, and the skrails holding Kirisin marched him to the edge of the fire and forced him to his knees. For a single terrifying instant, the boy thought they were going to throw him in. But then the minder stepped to the very edge of the fire and tossed something else into the flames. The fire exploded in a shower of sparks and changed to a wicked green color that spread to everything around it–the minder, the skrails, the boy, and the closest of the trees. Even the night itself seemed changed.
Then the minder began to gesture, chanting something in a language Kirisin had never heard. The skrails fell back, even the ones that had been holding his arms, and their squawking took on a new urgency. Kirisin was suddenly free, but he stayed where he was on his knees. He was surrounded by his captors, weakened to the point of collapse, wounded, and somewhere in the middle of country with which he was only marginally familiar. He might think of trying to flee, but such an attempt at this point seemed completely unrealistic.
He felt a presence at his shoulder. One of the skrails had moved closer again, perhaps sensing what he was thinking. His chance to escape, however slim, was gone.
His eyes shifted back to the fire. Something very strange was happening within its heart. A figure was taking shape, growing in size and rising out of the flames. At first it appeared to be a spirit formed of smoke and fire, peppered with ash and steaming from the heat. But then it began to take on definition, assuming the shape and visage of an old man cloaked in gray robes. Eyes as cold and implacable as a snake’s peered out of the haze of smoke and flames, shifting from the minder to Kirisin and back again.
This is the one, the boy thought with a shiver that ran from his neck down to the base of his spine. This is the demon that leads all the others, the one that hunts the Elves and the Loden.
The demon in the flames hissed softly.
— Is this the boy-
“Yes, Master,” the minder answered, inclining his head slightly in deference.
— Did you take the Elfstone from him-The minder shuddered. “He didn’t have it on him.”
— Has he told you what he did with it — “No, Master.”
A long silence left the air stark and empty of life. The specter never moved as it regarded the minder carefully.
— Has he told you of the fate of our spies within the Elven city- The minder shook his head.
— Of Delloreen and her hunt for the Knight of the Word- The minder shook his head again, but less certainly this time.
— Of anything at all, you fool — “Master, I tried to—”
The other cut him off with a wave of his arm. A fresh column of steam rose from his ethereal form, a white cloud against the darkness.
— Tried, did you? How very fortunate for me that you didn’t try too hard. You do try too hard sometimes, Calyx! And it causes you to do too much of what you want so much to do. Doesn’t it-