Ceres threw herself back from the bars then, but there must have been men waiting on the other side of the door, because the chains at her wrists and ankles went tight, dragging her back to the wall and spreading her out so that she couldn’t move more than an inch or two in any direction. She certainly couldn’t look away from the window, through which she could see one of the executioners checking the sharpness of an axe.
“No,” she said, trying to fill herself with a confidence she didn’t feel right then. “No, I won’t let this happen. I’ll find a way to stop it.”
She didn’t just reach into herself then, looking for her power. She dove down into the space where she would normally have found the energy waiting for her. Ceres forced herself to go after the state of mind she’d learned from the Forest Folk. She hunted after the power that she’d gained as surely as if she were chasing after some hidden animal.
Yet it remained as elusive as one. Ceres tried everything she could think of. She tried to calm herself. She tried to remember the sensations that had been there before when she had used her power. She tried forcing it to flow through her with an effort of will. In desperation, Ceres even tried pleading with it, coaxing it as though it were truly some separate being, rather than just a fragment of herself.
None of it worked, and Ceres threw herself against the chains holding her. She felt them bite into her wrists and ankles as she threw herself forward, but she couldn’t succeed in gaining so much as an arm’s length of space.
Ceres should have been able to snap the steel easily. She should have been able to break free and save all of those there. She should have, but right then, she couldn’t, and the worst part was that she didn’t even know why. Why had powers she’d already used so much abandoned her so suddenly? Why had it come to this?
Why couldn’t she make it do what she wanted? Ceres felt tears touch the edges of her eyes as she fought desperately to be able to do something. To be able to help.
Outside, the executions began, and Ceres couldn’t do anything to stop them.
Worse, she knew that when Lucious was done with those outside, it would be her turn next.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sartes woke, ready to fight. He tried to stand, thrashed when he couldn’t, and found himself shoved back down by the boot of a rough-looking figure opposite.
“Think there’s room for you moving about in here?” he snapped.
The man was shaven-headed and tattooed, missing a finger from some brawl or other. There was a time when Sartes would probably have felt a thrill of fear at seeing a man like that. That was before the army, though, and the rebellion that had followed. It was before he’d seen what real evil looked like.
There were other men there, crammed into a wooden walled space, with light let in only through a few cracks. It was enough for Sartes to see them by, and what he saw was a long way from encouraging. The man opposite him was probably one of the least rough looking there, and the sheer number of them meant that for a moment, Sartes did feel fear, and not just because of what they could do to him. What could be in store if he was stuck in a space with men like this?
He could feel the sensation of movement, and Sartes risked turning his back on the crowd of thugs so that he could look out through one of the cracks in the wooden walls. Outside, he saw a dusty, rocky landscape going past. He didn’t recognize the area, but how far away from Delos could he be?
“A cart,” he said. “We’re in a cart.”
“Listen to the boy,” the shaven-headed man said. He performed a rough approximation of Sartes’s voice, twisted out of all recognition. “We’re on a cart. Regular genius this boy is. Well, genius, how about you keep your mouth shut? Bad enough we’re on our way to the tar pits without you going on.”
“The tar pits?” Sartes said, and he saw a flash of anger cross the other man’s face.
“Thought I told you to be quiet,” the thug snapped. “Maybe if I shove a few of your teeth down your throat, it will remind you.”
Another man stretched. The confined space seemed barely big enough to hold him. “Only one I hear talking is you. How about you both shut up?”
The speed with which the shaven-headed man did it told Sartes a lot about how dangerous this other man was. Sartes doubted that it was a moment that had made him any friends, but he knew from the army that men like this didn’t have friends: they had hangers-on and they had victims.
It was hard to be quiet now that he knew where they were going. The tar pits were one of the worst punishments the Empire had; so dangerous and unpleasant that those sent there would be lucky to live out a year. They were hot, deadly places, where the bones of dead dragons could be seen sticking from the ground, and the guards thought nothing of throwing a sick or collapsing prisoner into the tar.
Sartes tried to remember how he’d gotten there. He’d been scouting for the rebellion, trying to find a gate that would let Ceres into the city with Lord West’s men. He’d found it. Sartes could remember the elation that he’d felt then, because it had been perfect. He’d raced back to try to tell the others.
He’d been so close when the cloaked figure had grabbed him; close enough that he’d felt as though he could reach out and touch the entrance to the rebellion’s hideaway. He’d felt as though he was finally safe, and they’d snatched it away from him.
“Lady Stephania sends her regards.”
The words echoed in Sartes’s memory. They’d been the last words he heard before they’d struck him unconscious. They’d simultaneously told him who was doing this and that he had failed. They’d let him get that close and then taken it away.
They’d left Ceres and the others without the information Sartes had been able to find. He found himself worrying about his sister, his father, Anka, and the rebellion, not knowing what would happen to them without the gate he’d been able to find for them. Would they be able to get into the city without his help?
Had they been able to do it, Sartes corrected himself, because by now, one way or another, it would be done. They would have found another gate, or an alternative way into the city, wouldn’t they? They had to have done, because what was the alternative?
Sartes didn’t want to think about that, but it was impossible to avoid. The alternative was that they might have failed. At best, they might have realized that there was no way in without taking a gate, and found themselves trapped there while the army advanced. At worst… at worst, they might already be dead.
Sartes shook his head. He wouldn’t believe that. He couldn’t. Ceres would find a way to come through it all, and to win. Anka was as resourceful as anyone he’d met. His father was strong and solid, while the other rebels had the determination that came with knowing that their cause was a righteous one. They would find a way to prevail.
Sartes had to think that what was happening to him would be temporary too. The rebels would win, which meant that they would capture Stephania and she would tell them what she’d done. They would come for him, the way his father and Anka had come when he’d been stuck in the army camp.
But what a place they’d have to come to. Sartes looked out as the cart jolted its way across the landscape, and saw the flatness of it give way to pits and rocky surrounds, bubbling ponds of blackness and heat. Even from where he was, he could smell the sharp, bitter smell of the tar.
There were people there, working in lines. Sartes could see the chains connecting them in pairs as they dredged the tar with buckets and collected it so that others could use it. He could see the guards standing over them with whips, and as Sartes watched, a man collapsed under the beating he was receiving. The guards cut him loose from his chains and kicked him into the nearest tar pit. The tar took a long time to swallow his screams.
Sartes wanted to look away then, but couldn’t. He couldn’t take his eyes from the horror of it all. From the cages in the open air that were obviously the prisoners’ homes. From the guards who treated them as nothing more than animals.
He wa
tched until the cart drew to a halt, and soldiers opened it with weapons in one hand and chains in the other.
“Prisoners out,” one called. “Out, or we’ll set fire to that cart with you inside, you scum!”
Sartes shuffled out into the light with the others, and now he could take in the full horror of it. The fumes of the place were almost overwhelming. The tar pits around them bubbled in strange, unpredictable combinations. Even as Sartes watched, a patch of ground near one of the pits gave way, tumbling into the tar.
“These are the tar pits,” the soldier who’d spoken announced. “Don’t bother trying to get used to them. You’ll all be dead long before that happens.”
The worst part, Sartes suspected as they fitted a manacle to his ankle, was that they might be right.
CHAPTER FIVE
Thanos slid his small boat up the shale of the beach, looking away from the manacles set there below the tide line. He made his way up off the beach, feeling exposed with every step across the gray rock of the place. It would be far too easy to be seen there, and Thanos definitely didn’t want to be spotted on a place like this.
He scrambled up a path and stopped, feeling anger join his disgust as he saw what lay along either side of the path. There were devices there, gibbets and spikes, breaking wheels and gallows, all obviously intended to give an unpleasant death to those within. Thanos had heard of the Isle of Prisoners, but even so, the evil of this place made him want to wipe it away.
He kept on up the path, thinking about how it would be for anyone led down there, hemmed in by rocky walls and knowing that only death awaited. Had Ceres really ended up in this place? Just the thought of it was enough to make Thanos’s gut clench.
Ahead, Thanos heard shouts, whoops, and cries that sounded almost as much animal as human. There was something about the sound that made him freeze, his body telling him to be ready for violence. He hurried off the path, lifting his head over the level of the rocks that blocked his view.
What he saw beyond made him stare. A man was running, his bare feet leaving bloody smears on the stony ground. He wore clothes that were ripped and torn, one sleeve hanging loose from the shoulder, a great rent at his back showing a wound beneath. He had wild hair and a wilder beard. Only the fact that his torn clothes were silk showed that he hadn’t lived wild all his life.
The man chasing him looked, if anything, even wilder, and there was something about him that made Thanos feel like the prey of some great animal just looking at him. He wore a mixture of leathers that looked as though they’d been stolen from a dozen different sources, and had features streaked with mud in a pattern that Thanos suspected was designed to let him blend in with the forest. He held a club and a short dagger, and the whoops he emitted while chasing the other man made Thanos’s hair stand on end.
On instinct, Thanos started forward. He couldn’t just stand by and watch someone be murdered, even here, where everyone had committed some crime to be sent here. He hurried over the rise, sprinting down to a spot the two would run past. The first of the men dodged around him. The second paused with a sharp-toothed grin.
“Looks like another one to hunt,” he said, and lunged at Thanos.
Thanos reacted with the speed of long training, swaying out of the way of the first knife thrust. The club caught him on the shoulder, but he ignored the pain. He swung his fist around sharply, feeling the impact as he connected with the other man’s jaw. The wild man fell, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Thanos looked round, and saw the first man staring at him.
“Don’t worry,” Thanos said, “I won’t hurt you. I’m Thanos.”
“Herek,” the other man said. To Thanos, his voice sounded rusty, as though he hadn’t spoken to anyone for a long time. “I—”
Another cry came from back toward the wooded section of the island. This one seemed to be many voices joined together into something that even Thanos found terrifying.
“Quick, this way.”
The other man grabbed Thanos’s arm, pulling him toward a series of higher rocks. Thanos followed, ducking down into a space that couldn’t be seen from the main path, but where they could still watch for signs of danger. Thanos could feel the fear of the other man as they crouched there, and he tried to stay as still as possible.
Thanos wished he’d thought to grab the knife from the man he’d knocked down, but it was too late for that now. Instead, he could only stay there while they waited for the other hunters to descend on the spot where they’d been.
He saw them approach in a group, and no two of them were alike. They all held weapons that had obviously been crafted from whatever had been near to hand, while those who still wore more than the barest scraps of clothing wore an odd mix of obviously stolen things. There were men and women there, looking hungry and dangerous, half-starved and vicious.
Thanos saw one of the women there prod the unconscious man with her foot. He felt a thrill of fear then, because if the man woke, he would be able to tell the others what had happened, and that would set them searching.
Yet he didn’t wake, because the woman knelt and cut his throat.
Thanos tensed at that. Beside him, Herek put a hand on his arm.
“The Abandoned have no time for weakness of any kind,” he whispered. “They prey on anyone they can, because the ones up at the fortress don’t give them anything.”
“They’re prisoners?” Thanos asked.
“We’re all prisoners here,” Herek replied. “Even the guards are just prisoners who rose to the top, and who enjoy the cruelty enough to do the Empire’s work. Except you’re not a prisoner, are you? You don’t have the look of someone who’s been through the fortress.”
“I’m not,” Thanos admitted. “This place… it’s prisoners doing it to other prisoners?”
The worst part was that he could imagine it. It was the kind of thing the king, his father, might think of. Put prisoners into a kind of hell and then give them the chance to avoid more pain only if they ran it.
“The Abandoned are the worst,” Herek said. “If prisoners won’t submit, if they’re too mad or too stubborn, if they won’t work or they fight back too much, they’re thrown out here with nothing. The wardens hunt them. Most beg to be brought back.”
Thanos didn’t want to think about it, but he had to, because Ceres might be here. He kept his eyes on the group of feral prisoners while he continued to whisper to Herek.
“I’m looking for someone,” Thanos said. “She might have been brought here. Her name is Ceres. She fought in the Stade.”
“The princess combatlord,” Herek whispered back. “I saw her fight in the Stade. But no, I would have known if she’d been brought here. They liked to parade the new arrivals in front of us, so that they could see what was waiting for them. I would have remembered her.”
Thanos’s heart plunged like a stone thrown into a pool. He’d been so sure that Ceres would be here. He’d put everything he had into getting here, simply because it was the only clue he had to her whereabouts. If she wasn’t there… where could he go?
The hope he’d had started to drip away, as surely as the blood from Herek’s feet, where the rocks had cut them.
The blood that the Abandoned were staring at even now, following the trail of it…
“Run!” Thanos yelled, urgency overcoming his heartbreak as he dragged Herek with him.
He scrambled over the broken ground of the rocks, heading in the direction of the fortress simply because he guessed it was a direction those following wouldn’t want to go. Yet they did follow, and Thanos had to pull Herek along to keep him running.
A spear flashed past his head, and Thanos flinched, but he didn’t stop. He dared a glance back, and the lean forms of the prisoners were closing, hunting them as surely as a pack of wolves. Thanos knew he had to turn and fight, but he had no weapons. At best, he could grab a rock.
Figures in dark leathers and chain shirts rose from the rocks ahead, holding bows. Thanos reacte
d on instinct, dragging himself and Herek to the ground.
Arrows flew overhead, and Thanos saw the group of feral prisoners fall like cut corn. One turned to run, and an arrow took her in the back.
Thanos stood, as a trio of men walked toward them. The one at their head was silver-haired and angular, putting his bow across his back as he approached and drawing a long knife.
“You are Prince Thanos?” he demanded as he got closer.
In that moment, Thanos knew he’d been betrayed. The smuggling captain had given up his presence, either for gold or because he simply didn’t want the trouble.
He forced himself to stand tall. “Yes, I’m Thanos,” he said. “And you are?”
“I am Elsius, warden of this place. Once they called me Elsius the Butcher. Elsius the Killer. Now those I kill deserve their fate.”
Thanos had heard that name. It had been a name that the children he’d grown up with had used to try to frighten one another, that of a nobleman who had killed and killed until even the Empire had thought of him as too evil to allow to stay free. They’d made up stories of the things he’d done to those he caught. At least, Thanos had hoped they’d been made up.
“Are you going to try to kill me now?”
Thanos tried to sound defiant, even though he had no weapons.
“Oh no, my prince, we have much better plans for you. Your companion, though…”
Thanos saw Herek try to stand, but he wasn’t quick enough. The leader stepped forward and stabbed with brisk efficiency, the blade sliding in and out of the other man again and again. He held Herek up, as though to stop him dying before he was ready.
Finally, he let the prisoner’s corpse fall. When he turned to Thanos, his face was a rictus that had almost nothing human about it.