Zen leaned his tired head on the reddish dirt wall, enjoying the comparative coolness of it against the back of his damp neck. He’d been standing guard for hours, and his feet were starting to cramp. The earpiece that connected him with his commander and the other members of the guard was silent.
Boring, he thought.
The sweltering tunnels beneath Tribunal Hall were deserted, as they always were and probably always would be. Zen wasn’t sure if they had been used in the past thousand years at all. The ancient labyrinth was full of barred cells that stood empty, since prisoners awaiting trial were now housed in much newer quarters above ground. It was pointless to guard the moldering corridors, especially since the full Tribunal wasn’t even meeting tonight. Aurik was only meeting with a few of his supporters.
So, so boring.
He and Larkin used the downtime to gossip about their superior officer’s penchant for illegal alcohol and younger women.
“He’s getting the booze from the Diem tribe by the Kirsh River. You can never trust a Diem,” Larkin babbled. “And I heard he was seen with an underage Fauris tribe girl, not that I blame him. My father says that no tribe sires fairer daughters than the Fauris. I’d do the same thing if …”
Shut up, Zen thought. It’s too hot to talk or listen.
His eyes wandered up to the hovering light disk floating above them. It barely lit the dim space with a sickly yellow hue. He did his best to try to look interested in Larkin’s clattering. But as he did, he heard another type of clattering down the deep recesses of the darkened tunnel.
“Larkin!” Zen whispered. Larkin stopped mid-sentence and listened with Zen. “Do you hear that?”
“Footsteps. Two sets,” Larkin surmised.
“No one else is supposed to be down here,” Zen murmured.
Both guards stood silently, the overhead light casting strange shadows down the black hall. They listened to the footfalls coming closer. Zen’s hand came to rest on the weapon at his hip. Larkin did the same.
“Identify!” Zen yelled down the dark corridor.
“Clae of the Keeng,” a voice called. Both Zen and Larkin instantly dropped their hands from their weapons and straightened up. It was their superior officer. Zen hoped that he hadn’t heard them talking about him only seconds ago.
Clae came into view but stopped on the very edge of the shadows. He looked odd, a faint glow coming off of his skin.
A trick of the light, Zen told himself, though he was inexplicably on edge.
“Sorry, sir, we thought we heard two sets of footsteps,” Larkin said, looking into the darkness behind Clae.
“You heard wrong,” Clae said coldly. Clae had never taken that tone with them before. Zen was now positive Clae had heard them talking about him.
“I’m calling you both off duty,” Clae said in a clipped tone.
“But sir, Aurik is still meeting with—” Zen started.
“Are you questioning my orders?”
“No sir,” Zen said, bowing low toward the rust-tinged floor.
“Turn around and go back the way you came immediately. Do you understand?” Clae said, just as Zen heard a voice come through his earpiece.
“Zen, Larkin, are you there?” the voice chirped. It was unmistakably Clae’s voice, their superior officer’s; the exact same voice coming from the man who stood in front of them now. The voice from the earpiece rang so loudly through Zen’s earpiece that everyone could hear.
“Don’t say a word,” Clae warned in a low, dangerous voice, taking a step toward the guards almost directly into the pool of light. The strange glow coming off of his skin intensified.
That’s not Clae … Zen’s thoughts were cut short by a break in the silence.
“Zen, Larkin, please respond,” Clae’s voice again came clearly through the earpiece.
Zen slowly raised his foot off the floor, and stealthily kicked a small pebble toward the man standing in front of him. The pebble arched through the air, and sailed straight through Clae’s leg, hitting nothing but the ground behind him. Larkin gasped. As Zen reached up to touch his earpiece to call for help, the man in front of them dissolved into millions of twinkling stars that rained down onto the earthen floor.
As the man melted away, two dark figures, robed and hooded, rushed at the guards. Something whirred over Zen’s head, breaking the light above, leaving them in complete darkness.
“Halt, in the name of the Trib—” Zen yelled into the black, but he was knocked to the floor by one of the attackers. His hand clawed at the earth, dredging up dirt. He threw it where his attacker’s face would be. A shrill, girlish voice screamed out in shock.
Zen felt the sharp stick of a needle plunged deep in his neck. An icy cold sensation rapidly took hold of his entire body, freezing him into place.
A thin blue light pierced the blackness. It pointed right toward his eyes. He tried to dodge it, but he couldn’t move. He could barely breathe.
He heard a faint click, click, click on the side of his head, and then everything dissolved into something unimaginable. A fiery torture, a pain beyond anything he imagined could exist, overtook him. The last sound Zen heard was Clae through his earpiece ordering him to answer.