Mighty Hammer Down (6 page)

Suddenly the sky turned black as
death. The grass and trees were all still lit brightly by the sun,
but the sky above looked as dark as a starless night. Terror struck
him when he beheld the sight. This was another enemy he could not
face. This was something that might steal his soul or worse. He
ran.

Pain flashed through him as he hit his
head when he tripped. He dropped his knife, and clawed at the dirt
to find it as he looked to the blackness above him. The blow to the
head must have disoriented him because the sky seemed to churn and
boil between the trees. The tormented sound was louder and grew
into a piercing shriek that deafened him. He struggled to stand,
but a great weight fell upon him, smothering him and crushing him
against the ground.

He fought to breathe. The sound had
shifted into a sick laughter echoing through the forest. He found
it difficult to keep his eyes open, and he wondered if he was about
to die. Mirra immediately came to his mind and a sadness came over
him. He would never see her again. She would never know what became
of him; no one was going to find his body out here. He hoped that
she would not feel too much pain when she realized she had lost
him. He hoped she could find happiness again.

He felt a strange tingle in his blood;
a soft, burning sensation dancing inside him. At first he thought
it was death itself, finally coming to free him from the agony, but
it somehow calmed him. It soothed his torture, growing stronger
against the oppressive horror and feeding him strength. He still
felt the overwhelming weight crushing him, but the laughter in the
skies had ceased. An angry roar is all he heard from his unseen
enemy in the heavens.

He opened his eyes and everything was
back to normal. The birds chirped merrily as the sun shone bright
again in the clear blue sky. The insects fluttered here and there
in search of food or mates. The trees and grasses turned softly in
the breeze again. Air rushed into his lungs when he remembered to
breathe, filling him with life again. He stood up clumsily, and
fell dizzily back to the soft ground. He closed his eyes and
relaxed to gather his strength and his wits. When he opened them,
he saw his knife that he had dropped. He took hold of it and slid
it into its sheath. Sitting up, he shook his head to clear it. He
wondered for a moment if he had tripped and hit his head, causing
the strange vision he had just experienced. Whatever the truth was,
he didn’t think staying there was a good idea. He finally stood up,
and awkwardly began walking back to Brinn.

Soon he was having trouble remembering
the vision at all. He tried to go over it in his head, but pieces
seemed to be missing. He assumed it must have been some kind of
dream because of the way it was slipping from his mind. Just like a
dream, the visions had faded, but a feeling remained. It was a
strong emotion, but he could not put a name to it. Eventually he
pushed the whole event to the back of his mind as he took in the
beauty of his surroundings, strolling lazily back to
Brinn.

Chapter 6

Alana awoke with a throbbing headache.
She narrowed her eyes at the brightness and tried to determine
where she was. In front of her was rough, dull stone, which made
her wonder if she was even in Medora anymore. She quickly realized
that the stone was actually the floor beneath her, and she was
shackled face down into the corner of a room made of solid granite.
Her feet were bound as well, as she discovered when she attempted
to stand. She looked up to her hands and saw them bruised and
bloodied where the harsh metal bit into her flesh. Her hands were
only a small problem; her whole body ached, and she didn’t know
where she was or how she got there. But instead of worrying about
things she couldn’t change, she wondered why a dungeon would be so
brightly lit, and why she was in this odd position on the cold
stone floor.

Her head felt as if it was full of hot
water, and she couldn’t think straight. She was dizzy just lying
there, so she was fairly sure she couldn’t escape even if she
weren’t attached so uncomfortably to the floor. She tried to
remember how she got there, but she could recall only frustrating,
silent blackness. Her eyebrows drew together as she thought about
the pain she felt. Since she could do nothing to change her
situation, she closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep to forget
the pain.

A loud clanging of metal and chains
ruined her plan, and she tried to look behind her to see what the
noise was. An exploding pain from some forgotten injury shot
through her neck as she turned, so she gave up on that plan as
well. From the sound, she assumed a guard opened the door to the
room, but she couldn’t be sure. Boots scuffed the uneven floor and
armor clanked and clinked. All signs pointed to a guard in the
room, but her skills of deduction brought her no satisfaction in
this case.

"Face down. In the corner," a man said
with a cold voice.

A loud slap informed her that someone
had been thrown roughly to the unforgiving floor. More clinking of
metal meant that the person was being shackled to the floor just as
she was. She breathed in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She
felt a sorrow in her heart for the person in the other corner,
knowing that they probably felt all the pains she was feeling, and
that they suffered the same eventual fate. The worst part was not
having any idea what that fate was.

After a moment she heard sobbing. It
came not from the corner with her new cellmate, but from another
corner to her left. She did her best to ignore her pain and turned
her head to the sound. A woman lay facedown there as well, and
suddenly, some memories returned. This woman had blonde hair. This
was Medora. The person behind her probably had blonde hair as well,
and a hot wave of panic came over her. She had just killed the
General of the Medoran Legions, and she was captured with no chance
of escape. The other Vindyri in this room were probably innocent of
any crime, and only there because they matched her description.
Tears escaped her eyes before she could close them. She began to
sob herself, not at her own pain, but at the pain she had caused
these innocent people.

Her neck snapped upwards abruptly as a
guard painfully pulled her hair. She had forgotten the guard was
even there, but she was well aware of it now. He stepped on her
hands painfully as another guard approached and clasped another set
of shackles to her wrists, and then her feet. The ones chained to
the floor were unlocked, and suddenly she found herself hauled to
her feet. The pain made her body quake.

The first guard had not let go of her
hair, and he lead her by it with his strong fist out the open
doorway, dragging her backwards rather unceremoniously. The second
guard locked the door as all three of them exited. She did the best
she could to walk forwards to maintain an ounce of dignity, but the
guard was not making it easy. They followed the narrow halls past
other cells until they came to a very large, circular room. He let
go of her hair a moment while he fumbled with a set of keys. She
noticed that none of the walls or floors were marble, but all
rough, tan stone. Everything was bare, with no decorations
whatsoever. The only thing that stood out about this place was the
circular room, which for some reason, was open to the sky in parts,
allowing the warm sun to reach the floor. She only stared for a
second before the guard had unlocked another door nearby and
grabbed her painfully by the hair again, dragging her inside the
small room.

He threw her to the floor where she
banged her knees, elbows and chin. She saw blood on the floor where
her face had met the unfriendly stone, and saw a few more drops
fall before the guard clamped her leg irons to a ring on the floor.
Her heart sank as she wondered how long she would be fastened
there.

She waited to have her hands
restrained as well, but instead the guard pulled his signature
head-jerking move again. She winced at the pain, but when she
opened her eyes, her expression turned to utter disbelief. There in
front of her, behind a table covered in papers, was General Tannis
Tirinius.

She stood silently with her mouth
open, watching him as he wrote something on a scroll in front of
him by candlelight. He didn’t even look up. He didn’t seem at all
concerned with the prisoner in front of him covering his floor with
little drops of blood. He grabbed another scroll as he wrote and
held it across the desk. The guard let go of her hair and took the
scroll, quickly exiting once he had it. He shut the door behind
him, and after a moment, she heard the muffled sound of keys
clattering, locking the door behind her.

She stood silently, unable to even
take a step because of her leg irons being so tightly fastened to
the floor. She felt that if she fell over, the shackles would snap
her ankles. She watched him finish writing and place the pen in its
holder. He leaned back and ran his hand down his face, then cocked
his head side to side in an attempt to crack his neck.

"So we meet again," he said as he
finally looked to her eyes. "Only this time there is no blade in my
gut. I hope my men have been treating you well."

"Treating me well? You need not worry
about that. Your men should all get medals for how well they have
treated us. You can see the result of their tender care all over
your floor here."

"Good, good," he said as he scratched
in his ear.

She was surprised that he would
tolerate that kind of snide sarcasm. Perhaps he was testing to see
how rude she would get before he killed her. He would probably let
her say anything, and the madder he got, the more gruesome her
death would be. Outwardly, she stood tall, inside, she was sinking
quickly.

"What have you done to those other
Vindyri? You know that they are not who you are looking
for."

"And how do I know that? I had to
catch a few before I found the right one. And perhaps they are all
guilty of the attempt on my life, and only you actually committed
the crime."

"You would punish them for my crimes?"
she said as her voice weakened a little.

"I would have all the information I
could get before I went killing anyone. There’s nothing harder to
get than information from the dead."

Her tears stung her chin when they
reached the fresh wound. This man was as cold and heartless as she
had heard. Perhaps all the Medorans were exactly the monsters she
had heard that they were. She swallowed hard as she tried to keep
herself from crying.

"You’re evil; pure, unmasked evil. You
don’t care about the blood of the innocent staining your hands. All
you care about is yourself, and you carelessly murder anyone who
stands in your way."

He laughed. "You know, you have some
interesting views on murder and evil for someone who came to Medora
and tried to kill a man she didn’t know. Is that the kind of
backward thinking you have over there in Vindyrion? What exactly
makes you immune from the same judgment? And why aren’t you selfish
for murdering someone who stood in your way?"

He didn’t understand. He didn’t know
who she was. This was all a mystery to him because he still had
missing pieces to his puzzle. Finally she felt a little surge of
power. She stood a little straighter, knowing that as long as she
kept her identity a secret, he would have to keep her alive to get
more pieces to fit. He probably thought there was some elaborate
conspiracy to kill him, and he was totally wrong. She did all this
on her own, with no help at all. She never told a soul.

"No response for any of those
questions?" he asked as he cracked a few of his
knuckles.

Her instinct was to look up as she
thought of a clever lie to get herself out of the situation, but
she kept her eyes on his. He would know she was making things up
otherwise. When no clever lie rushed into her head, she decided to
flash him an angry, arrogant expression. It might boil his anger
some, but giving answers was going to eventually get her
killed.

Instead she asked her own question.
"Why do you have guards lock this door when you have a prisoner in
here with you?"

"Because if you manage to kill me, I
don’t want you to be able to escape. Every door you ever see again
for the rest of your life will be locked behind you."

She shuddered at the thought. Either
she was going to die, or she was going to be locked away in some
room made of solid rock for years to come. The finality of both
outcomes hit her with an oppressing, heavy weight that darkened all
her hopes. She still stood tall however, not letting him know that
his words could affect her.

"Now let’s get some answers out of
you," Tannis said as he kicked his heavy boots up on his sturdy
desk, "Who sent you here to kill me?"

She defiantly turned her head away
from him as she rolled her eyes slightly. Her only option was to
play the silent game. She knew that it was only going to enrage
him, but she needed to uphold this lie. She saw him thread his
fingers together out of the corner of her eye. He seemed calm and
relaxed, not angry.

"Perhaps you will be more willing to
talk without one of those arms," he threatened.

She hoped he was just testing her
limits. She didn’t want to have to go through the gruesome ordeal
of losing a limb. A morbid picture flashed through her head of
tendons snapping as her arm was ripped violently from its socket.
Dismissing her fear, she decided to stand her ground.