The Skull Throne

Jardir crossed his arms. “Hypocrisy or not, my warriors I will not profane our bodies with alagai meat.”

There were enthusiastic nods from Shanvah and Shanjat, and Renna could see the relief in their eyes.

“So we do it the hard way,” Arlen agreed. “But for that, we need a way to get that ripping demon to talk.”

CHAPTER 14

THE PRISONER

333 AR AUTUMN

The Consort huddled at the center of the warding, presenting as little flesh as possible to the cursed day star.

His captors had been thorough. The chain and locks were carefully crafted from a true metal, and their warding was strong. They burned against his skin, keeping him corporeal.

His cell was circular and bereft of furnishing. Colored stones lined the floor, cemented into a mosaic of warding that would keep him trapped even if he escaped the chain. The warding pulled at his magic with such strength the Consort needed to keep his power buried deep, lest it be drained.

There would be no restoring lost energy, for the demon prince’s cell was high above the surface, with no vents to Draw from. The Consort powered his own prison, and was determined to give it as little as possible. He sipped at the store carefully.

There were wards outside the walls, as well. Wards to keep his prison hidden from prying eyes, both human and the drones that no doubt combed the surface, seeking sign of him. The Consort had tried to reach out to them, but the forbiddance was too strong. For the first time, his mind was cut off from both the base impulses of his drones and the beautiful complexity of his brethren’s thoughts. The silence was maddening.

But worse than even that indignity was the day star. Thick curtains had been pulled over the windows of the cell, overlapping and lashed tight. The darkness was so complete the surface stock were blind, but to the demon prince, even the barest light filtering in through the weaves was agony, sapping his strength and burning his skin. It was all the demon could do to squeeze his lidless eyes tight and curl on the floor until darkness returned.

At last, the star set, and the demon made a few quick, efficient motions to sit himself upright despite the unevenly wrapped lengths of chain that bound him. Slowly, the Consort Drew a bit of power, healing the flesh beneath an ever-thickening armor of burned and dead flesh.

Again he Drew, a spark for sustenance. His captors wisely did not get close enough to feed him.

Last, he shifted, pulling a particular lock against his flesh as he focused a last bit of power into it, slowly eroding the metal. Too much, and the chain would pull the power away, but just a touch could wear it like water dripping on stone.

The demon had studied his chains for half a cycle now, and knew them intimately. Shatter three locks at the shackle, and much of his mobility would be restored. Break two more links, and he could slip the chain.

Once free of the chain, he would need to disable the mosaic to dissipate out of the prison. That would go more quickly, but the patterns suggested he would not progress far enough before one of his captors noticed the attempt. Even the weakest of them could pull the curtain with a flick of the wrist, and sunrise mark his end.

The Consort could afford to be patient. It would be many cycles before he was ready to shatter the chain, and much could change in that time. The human minds wanted him alive, and it was a good opportunity to study and probe their weaknesses.

It was a delightful irony that the very shackles they used to keep him corporeal prevented the Consort from reshaping his throat and mouth to allow him to replicate the crude grunting that passed for speech among the surface stock. He could understand their questions, but not answer them.

This frustrated the minds, deepening the rifts between them. Unifiers they might be, but like any human, they were stupid. Emotional. Barely more intelligent that mimics.

Most of all, they were mortal. The time would come when their vigilance failed, and he would be free.

CHAPTER 15

THE WARDED CHILDREN

333 AR WINTER

“Corespawned if I’m letting you put your oily desert hands on my little girl!”

Leesha looked up, her hands full of a man’s intestine, to see a thick-armed Laktonian man and his teenage son looming with balled fists over tiny Amanvah. The apprentices assisting her were all frozen with fear. Jizell, too, had paused in her surgery, but she could no more stop and involve herself than Leesha.

Amanvah did not seem perturbed. “If I do not, she will die.”

“Ay, whose ripping fault is that?” the boy cried. “You desert rats killed Mum and ran us out into the night!”

“Do not blame me for your cowardice and inability to protect your sister,” Amanvah said. “Stand aside.”

“Core I will,” the man said, grabbing her arm. Sikvah took a step forward, but the man’s son sidestepped to block her path.

Amanvah looked down as if he had rubbed shit on her white robe, pristine despite the hours she had spent in the surgery with Leesha. Then her hand shot up, snaking around the man’s giant biceps and into his armpit. She stepped back in a half turn, bringing the man’s arm out straight until the elbow locked. She twisted slightly, and the man roared with pain.

Amanvah used the locked arm to guide the man like a puppet, swinging him away from the operating table and right into his son. A well-placed kick set the boy stumbling toward the doors, and Amanvah walked the screaming man straight back after him, sweeping both men out of the room as easily as dust into a pan.

She let the man’s arm go as the doors swung open, delivering a mule-kick into his solar plexus that sent both flying through the air, one landing heavily atop the other. Dozens of women working triage looked up in shock.

Leesha turned to Roni. “Get out there and find the biggest Cutters you can. Post them at the surgery door and tell them I will bite their ripping heads off if anyone other than patients and Gatherers is allowed in.”

“Someone’s got to carry the wounded in,” Roni said. “Most of the Cutters are out in the night.”

“I’ll find a few hands when I finish here,” Leesha said. “Go.”

Roni nodded and vanished. Amanvah was already at work on the girl, badly bitten by field demons. These were not the first Laktonians to lose control at the sight of Amanvah’s robes and dark skin, but folk would need to swallow it—along with a few teeth, if necessary.

Even with almost every Gatherer in the Hollow at hand, their resources were taxed. The apprentices could set a bone and stitch a gash, but there were few with the knowledge to cut into a patient, much less fix what they found. Amanvah was the best combat surgeon Leesha had ever seen. She could not afford to send the woman away.

There was a lull as they waited the next wave. Leesha finished her work, leaving Kadie to stitch. She stretched her back as she made her way out of the surgery. The extra weight she was carrying did not make hours bent over the operating table any easier.

The hospit’s main room was chaotic. It was more than a week since the refugees began to arrive but still wounded poured in as Cutter and Wooden Soldier patrols gathered groups on the road and guided them into the Hollow. Fleeing for days on end, many suffered from exhaustion and exposure; others had been wounded in the invasion, or by demons on the road.

But after the waves of refugees from Rizon and the losses at new moon, the Hollowers had gotten used to bringing order from chaos.

Off to the side, the two Laktonian men slumped on a bunch, arms on their knees as they stared at the floor. She was in desperate need of a rest, but it was a stark reminder that others had it far worse.