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Dusk turned around to see five men in black cloaks stepping out from behind boulders, disturbing the flawless surface of the fresh snow. The one nearest pulled back his hood.
“I’m sure you thought that was very clever,” he said with a cruel smirk. “But I’m afraid it wasn’t very original.”
Dusk watched as the man looked to each of them in turn. His face was hard and gaunt, his cheekbones adding a sharpness to his features that Dusk hadn’t seen before. He had long black hair that was braided neatly down his back. Even in the gray morning light Dusk could see his cold green eyes that seemed to hold no life in them. The others kept their hoods up and their cloaks tightly closed, but he could see all of them were thin, as if they were starving for some unknown reason. But he didn’t think that could be the case if they were involved with the guard and the tower was so well-supplied. Each of them were armed with a sword and at least two of them were holding a forked cord with two heavy weights at the ends. Dusk had no idea what they were for.
“To think,” the dark haired man continued. “We needn’t have looked for you at all. Instead you came to us, being so bold as to take a room right under our very noses and think we wouldn’t notice.” He continued to step forward, pushing his way through the snow. “It didn’t take us long to find out where you’d gone after you skirted the path on the way up. And then, to our surprise, you showed up, led by this imbecile,” he gestured to Tara at that. “You might have made it if you went straight through.”
Dusk and Lex both turned to Tara. There was a look of rage upon her face. The color was rising in her skin. Whether out of embarrassment or anger, Dusk didn’t know. She took a step forward and unsheathed her great sword, slashing it down through the air as she squared herself against him.
“Come and get us then if we’re so stupid,” she barked. “I can take you all.”
“Fighting won’t be necessary.”
He snapped his fingers and one of the men suddenly lifted a long tube out of his cloak and put it to his mouth. There was a hollow pop and Tara quickly slapped her hand to her neck. Dusk watched as she pulled a small dart out of her skin and threw it to the ground. She cried out and began to run towards her taunter, holding the sword high to strike. He stood still, his eyes locked on Dusk. Tara took a few more running steps before she collapsed face first into the snow, her sword slipping from her grasp landing mere inches from their pursuer.
Dusk tore his gaze away. Not knowing if Tara was dead or unconscious, he turned to Lex and shouted, “Run!”
They hadn’t made it more than a few paces when Dusk saw Lex go down out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t even have time to stop before he felt something heavy strike him and wrap around his body. The snow broke his fall, but blinded him for a moment. Reaching up he brushed the quickly melting flakes from his eyes and looked down. His legs were bound tightly together, the cord and the weights he’d seen wrapped around them. Trying to untie them he glanced over to see Lex fighting to do the same, his bad arm free from the sling. There was another hollow pop and Lex grasped at his shoulder, a dart sticking out of it. He only lasted a few seconds before he began to slump sideways into the snow.
The cloaked men were all approaching now. Dusk felt the fear welling up inside him. He abandoned his binds and reached up, putting his hand on the crystal embedded in his chest. The voice was quietly rumbling in the back of his mind.
“Hurry!” the dark haired man yelled to the others.
Dusk felt the voice begin to grow and the crystal became warm under his palm. He pulled off the glove on his scaled hand, readying himself for what was about to come, already feeling the heat that was the precursor to fire. Another pop sound followed by a sharp pain in his chest. Dusk looked down to see a dart sticking out of the muscle just below his collar bone on the right side. He ripped it out and the voice grew louder, coming to the forefront of his mind. Already he could feel it taking over and strange words beginning to form on his lips. Fire began to lick at the edges of his outstretched hand.
But then it slowed and began to fade as the flames went out.
With a sense of growing terror, Dusk heard the voice slip further and further away until it was silent. He looked up to see those cold green eyes hovering over him, the edges of his vision growing dark.
“This little charade is over.”
The darkness suddenly came inwards and Dusk fell backwards into the snow.
***
The first thing Dusk noticed was the dripping. It was rhythmic and slow. He wasn’t sure if it was making him feel sleepy or driving him mad, but he didn't want to open his eyes either way. His head was still swimming and it was hard to maintain a thought for more than a few seconds. There were moments where he was back in the small house surrounded by herbs speaking to Juniper and then the dripping would draw him back to the cold hard ground he was resting upon. Moments later he found himself back at the mines staring at the large stalactites that lined the path to the dragon’s cave. Slowly, water would drip off their tips, splashing into a small pool at his feet. Glancing down he could see his own reflection disturbed by the tiny ripples.
Then he noticed something new: a tightness around his neck. With his eyes still closed he reached up to find a cold, thick band of metal wrapped around his neck and manacles around his wrists. The surface was smooth like glass except for the very center where he could feel strange carvings running along it. As his hand moved around the entirety of it, he was surprised to find that there was no seam or lock. The band seemed to have been formed around his neck, as if it had always been there.
He shifted slightly against the stone underneath, his brain finally starting to focus on the world that he was in. With no small effort, he forced his eyes to crack open, catching the first glimpses of his new surroundings. He could see chains running from his wrists to the wall behind him. A few feet away was a shallow tub that water dripped into from a crack in the ceiling. Each drop echoed as it struck the water, bouncing off the hard stone walls that surrounded him. It was cold, but like the underground cold he was used to in the mines. To his left he could see Lex hanging limply forward, his wrists bound to the wall by chains. On the right was Tara, her wrists bound as well. The room itself was a long rectangle with a door on the opposite wall of Dusk. The top of the door had a small window with iron bars running through it creating a small window for anyone to look through from the outside. A single sconce with a torch flickered on the wall, keeping the room cast in a dim orange light. He turned back to Lex.
“L–Lex. Can you h–hear me?” Dusk fought to get the words out. His tongue felt thick and lazy in his mouth.
To his surprise, Lex began to shift and pull against the chains. Dusk watched as he slowly began to open his eyes and peer around. He seemed just as groggy as Dusk felt, but he didn’t stay that way for long. He looked down and saw the chains. Immediately he began to thrash against them, grunting and straining to try to pull them out of the wall. Dusk watched as his recently injured shoulder pulled backwards and he cried out in pain.
“Lex stop!” Dusk called out. “Y–you’re going to hurt yourself more. Please.”
“We h–have to get o–out of here,” Lex replied, still pulling against the bindings, his speech slurred as well. “We have to get you to Inahan!”
“Lex, please.” Dusk's voice was no more than a whisper. “Please stop.”
Dusk tilted his head forward and closed his eyes. He felt the tears forming at the corners, burning against the skin. It had been a long time since he cried over something. They were done. They’d actually been in Inahan and now they were trapped by men who wanted to kill him. As he sniffled lightly, feeling the tears begin to flow down his cheeks he heard Lex stop struggling.
“Dusk,” he said after a moment. “We’re going to get out of here. Maybe you can use the crystal to get us out.”
Leaning his head back against the wall, Dusk slid his hand under his shirt to touch the crystal on his chest. It was stone cold for the first time. With his inner voice he called for the dragon’s aid. It had been about to help him when the cloaked men attacked them on the mountain, just about to take over his body once more to protect him. But no matter how much he tried, there was no answer.
“There’s something wrong,” Dusk murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“Something doesn’t feel right. It’s not warm anymore.”
There was a dull clunk at the door, causing both of them to snap their attention towards it. The rusty hinges squealed as the heavy door swung inwards, scraping against the stone floor. In walked a dark cloaked figure, the hood drawn upwards obscuring their face. They hooked the ring of iron keys onto their belt and came forward, lifting ashen gray hands up to pull the hood back from their face. Dark braided hair followed sea green eyes as he lifted his face to look at them both.
“I see you’re finally awake,” he spoke softly. “The Commander will be happy to hear that. He’s been waiting most patiently for you to sleep off the poison.”
Dusk remained silent, intently staring forward. Lex shifted, causing his manacle chains to rattle where they connected to the wall. The man looked between them both, then turned his attention to Tara. He walked over and squatted down next to her, taking her chin in his hand.
“She sure is a tough thing huh?” he asked no one in particular. “Hopefully the Commander will give her to us for some... experimentation.”
“Leave her alone,” Dusk heard himself say. “She’s got nothing to do with this.”
“Oh?”
“We just hired her to get us over the mountains. She’s nobody.”
“That’s a lie,” he replied coolly, getting back to his feet. “She is Captain Tordovic of the Royal Guard. She’s been telling the truth the whole time, but only half of it. What she didn’t tell you is that she’s under suspicion of conspiring with the ambassador of Inahan to kill the king, which, as you’ve undoubtedly heard, took place a little less than a week ago.”
“Why would she want to kill the king?” Lex asked, glaring at the man with ferocity.
“You can ask her yourself when she wakes up.” He gave her foot a small kick with no reaction. “For now, we’ll bring you all up to the Commander.”
He snapped his fingers and four more hooded men piled through the door. In pairs they unlocked both Dusk and Lex, then tied their hands behind their backs. One person led each of them from behind, while the remaining two unshackled Tara. Without tying her hands they grabbed her by the elbows and drug her forward to the door roughly. Dusk watched as their leader turned his back to them, braid bouncing off his shoulder, and led the way out of the rectangular room.
It took Dusk’s eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light, but as they did he saw an amazing sight in front of him. Beyond the door was an enormous underground cavern. Massive stalagmites lined the far edge of the cave where shallow pools of water gathered underneath. The ceiling loomed high overhead, the jagged rocks creating a kind of crooked dome. Shafts of sunlight pierced the darkness here and there from holes in the ceiling. He wasn’t sure if they were carved or natural, but they supplied most of the light to the cavern. Where they struck the floor, algae and moss bloomed, soaking in what little sunshine they could get. Even from their height, Dusk caught the woody, earthy smell of the moss warmed by sunlight.
The group stood on a stone walkway carved into one wall with stairs at either end leading up and down. Peering over the edge Dusk could see the stone floor far below and something else. In the center of it was an excavation site of some sort. It had an odd long shape and a few parts of it emitted a soft glow. A small number of men in black cloaks swung pickaxes to break away the stone while others seemed to focus on the glowing areas. Off to one side was a single person with a mule turning a millstone, filling the cavern with the soft sounds of grinding. The contents inside the grinding trough were glowing too.
Before he could get a better look, he was given a hard shove by the man pushing him from behind. He could hear Tara’s leather boots scraping on stone behind him as she was dragged along. The rope binding his hands was abrasive, more so than the roughly made iron shackles that he’d had on before. The metal band about his neck stayed cold even though it was tight to his skin. He couldn’t reach up to touch it, but he could feel that the crystal remained cold as well, the feeling spreading through his chest. His thoughts wandered, trying to search for the voice again, anything that might give him a sign it could help him. But there was nothing, only his own voice crying out into the darkness.
They walked for some time, climbing three flights of stairs and quickly approaching the roof of the underground cavern. On the second to last walkway they passed a series of open doors, out of which poured the rancid smell of dung and piss. Daring to take a look as they walked by, Dusk saw row after row of tall iron cages. In each were anywhere between one and five animals, most of them predators. All of them looked half starved and abused. A few of them had elongated fangs, claws, or other strange growths on their bodies, just like the bear they had seen in the ruins. Others had strange glowing spikes or horns growing out of their body with eyes that glowed in the dim light. In one corner he saw a few bodies, obviously dead, and mutated beyond recognition. In the center of the room was a long table on top of which was strapped a large wolf. On either side of the animal were men in black cloaks with their hoods pulled back. Their ashen faces peered over the animal as they surgically cut open parts of its body and inserted small quantities of the silvery dust from a pouch with a tiny metal rod. To Dusk’s horror, he saw the animal was still wide awake.
“Eyes forward!” the man behind him shouted, giving him a shove. Those in the room turned to watch for a moment before returning to their devious work.
At the top of the last flight of stairs they turned down a long walkway, coming to a large set of double doors in the very center. The dark haired man turned back to them, standing in front of the cherry-colored wood.
“Ready to meet the Commander?” he said with a wicked smile. “Take a good look around,” he looked to Lex, “this may be the last thing you ever see.”
With a hearty chuckle he turned back and knocked loudly on the door. A voice responded from inside and he placed both of his thin, gray hands on the doors and pushed. They swung open easily and all of them were marched inside. Dusk and Lex were led to a large wooden desk on a plush blue carpet. They were left to stand on their own while Tara was dumped to the side on the stone floor like a sack of potatoes. The four hooded figures and their leader left the room, pulling the doors closed behind them.
“So we finally meet in person,” a familiar baritone voice echoed across the stone.
Dusk turned to see another hooded figure standing in front of a massive gold framed mirror that leaned against the wall. He had his back turned to them, but Dusk could see his head was shaved bald. He stared into the glass for a few moments before he walked to the desk and lifted his face to gaze at the pair of them. His jaw was covered in a well manicured gray beard and his cold gray eyes looked across the desk to Dusk as a confident smirk played across his face.
It was the same man Dusk had burned alive in Kinallin.