King's Folly (Book 2) (10 page)

There was something about the darkness in the center of the shed that terrified the boy. It was wide, the stairs too big to be some simple pit for slaves. Zoshi’s heartbeat filled his ears, and the older folks started panicking, but it was useless. The guards were too eager with their spears.

Zoshi bolted. A large guard scooped him up. The boy kicked and thrashed, but he was no match for the tall man. Eventually, Zoshi gave up, letting his feet drag over the stone. He craned his neck, and caught sight of his brother Tuck dangling from the soldier’s left hand. At least he was with his brother, but Tuck wasn’t moving and there was a sickly stain on the back of his head.

Tuck was only four.

Tears came then, streaming down Zoshi’s cheeks. He couldn’t stop them, no matter what his mother said.

At the bottom of the dark stairwell, the guards sliced off the prisoners’ clothes with long knives. Some struggled, and were quickly stilled with a blunt cudgel. The sight of discarded rags and shoes made him sick. It reminded him of the way fisherman discarded the entrails of their catch. The guts were of no worth to anyone but the birds and rats.

A guard dragged Zoshi forward and tossed him into something that was more corral than cage.

“This one’s dead,” his guard said.

There wasn’t anything worse than hearing those three words. Hope sparked in his heart—maybe they were talking about another prisoner? But the spark was crushed when his four-year-old brother wasn’t tossed in afterwards.

The door slammed shut and the bolt was thrown. Most of the prisoners lay where they landed, staring blankly forward. Men, women, and children—there wasn’t no rhyme nor reason, Zoshi thought.

Despite the tangle of limbs, Zoshi squirmed and twisted. With a child’s limberness, he worked his shoulders, slipping his hands under his feet so they were in front. The ropes were tight, his wrists bled, but he struggled with them anyway as he scanned the tangle of bodies for Pip.

Some of the prisoners had found their feet. They looked to one another with the same helpless plea. In his experience, it wasn’t good when the old folk started looking like that. He didn’t like those looks. And he had no clue where they were. Curiosity laced with dread nudged him into action. He pushed his way through the press towards what he figured would be the front of the corral.

He wished he hadn’t moved.

The underground chamber was large, the stone shaped by skilled hands, smoothed to a polish. It smelled of death. Other corrals opened up across the way and a walkway traveled around a circle of sand that was white and grainy and pure. A silk-robed man with black hair stood in the center tracing a maze of strange markings into the sand’s pristine surface. He held a foul looking stave capped with a twisted sun.

Obsidian stone slabs were spaced evenly around the sand pit. They were angled downwards like a slide, with deep grooves running the length of smooth stone. A carved, open-mouthed face decorated the front of each. The wide, lolling tongues and gaping mouths reminded Zoshi of the adornments that served as gutters on manors.

The forced silence imposed on the prisoners made the chamber eerily quiet except for the careful work of the figure. A copper-skinned Rahuatl walked into view. Ritual scars decorated his face along with the ivory studs common to his kind. Despite his tribal markings, he wore a robe, and looked like he knew better than everyone else—like one of those Wise Ones.

Anyone who calls themselves wise, isn’t wise at all
. That’s what Zoshi’s mum would say.

“The exit point is ready,” hissed the Rahuatl. Zoshi could not hear them, but he could see their lips move. He had always prided himself on his ability to read lips.

“I want them dead, N’Jalss,” said the black-haired man. “I want their heads.”

“It shall be done.”

The black-haired man nodded, as if his orders had already been carried out, and then he paused in thought, surveying his work. “We’ll need ten from the herd for each. Get them in position.”

The Rahuatl turned towards the shadows. “Bring the Devout!”

Zoshi scrambled backwards, pushing himself between legs. With a sense of growing panic, he searched for Pip.

Whatever entered the chamber startled the prisoners. The captives retreated at once, fighting to push their way to the back of the corral, heedless of those being crushed underfoot. Zoshi nearly fell, but kept his feet, moving with the tide. The gate at the front swung open, and the panic reached a crescendo. Through gaps in frantic limbs, Zoshi saw the guards. They grabbed people at random, snapping collars around the necks of the unlucky.

A mud covered child was on the ground. It was Pip. His hands were free, and he was squashed against the side of the corral, digging like a dog in the dirt. There was a hole between the steel and the earth, where the slats had rusted away.

Zoshi fell in beside his younger brother. They exchanged silent glances and each renewed his efforts, battling crushing feet as they dug their fingers raw.

Pip was only five and he was little, even for his age. Just a bit more, and the smaller boy could squeeze through. For the first time since Zoshi came to, hope entered his heart.

One of his brothers would escape.

Escape—the stairs and hallway and all the guards. Even if Pip wiggled out of this cage, they’d spot him running.

A desperate plan struck Zoshi. He gestured with his hands until understanding shone in Pip’s wide eyes. The younger boy shook his head violently, but was stopped by his older brother’s hands. Zoshi grabbed the small face awkwardly and nodded again, firmer:
Do as I say
.

The corral was rapidly thinning. There wasn’t time to argue. Zoshi rose to his feet, giving Pip little choice in the matter. If the little boy refused, then his brother’s sacrifice would be for nothing.

Zoshi thought about all the stories he had ever heard about brave knights and warriors. Sacrifice was supposed to be a grand, heroic thing full of glory. He wanted to save his brother’s life, but he didn’t feel heroic—he was terrified and piss ran down his leg.

A gap opened in the press of bodies. His muscles tensed, and before he could lose his nerve, he scrambled between legs and sprang up, charging the guards. His bare feet slapped on the iron walkway.

The boy skidded under the first guard’s legs, and a collared captive with some fight in him drove his shoulder into the second guard. Zoshi skidded right off the walkway, grabbed the lip with his tied hands and swung down and under with agile ease. Boots pounded overhead as guards rushed forward to subdue the chained line of captives. Heavy cudgels pounded flesh, quelling the fight within moments.

The distraction had been enough.

Hidden in the shadows, Zoshi turned in time to catch a glimpse of Pip’s fleeing form dart down a passage. Guards rushed after the boy. Zoshi tried to shout, tried to scream, aching to draw their attention, but his throat was constricted by the unseen enchantment. He braced to charge from his concealment, but the sudden, dreadful twang of a bow string filled his ears and drew him up short. In his mind, he screamed.

“We got the quick little brat,” a guard announced coming into view. The man casually drug Pip by the hair. An arrow protruded from his neck.

Realization nearly struck Zoshi dead. The guards thought Pip was the boy who ran out of the corral. The boy crouched beneath the walkway, frozen with grief. This wasn’t at all how the grand stories went. Zoshi was supposed to have an arrow through his skin, not Pip.

“He’s still fresh,” said the guard dragging Pip.

“Get him up on the slab and we’ll begin.”

A cart sat nearby, waiting on the other side of the raised walkway. Zoshi scrambled from his cover, and slid under its bed, hiding behind a wheel.

The Rahuatl’s eyes gleamed in the shadow. He scanned the chamber slowly, and then walked from the center of the pit, stepping over the careful tracings. The slick, dark-haired man remained in the center of his maze.

A dull chopping sound drew Zoshi’s attention. He looked across the sand pit and saw the other prisoners in identical corrals. Their eyes were wide with revulsion. Against his will, Zoshi’s gaze was drawn to the space between walkway and pit, where the tip of a statue’s tongue lolled.

It began as a slow drip. Bright blood leaked from the spigot, staining the pristine sand. The next chop made Zoshi flinch. The blood pooled in the deep grooves and began to seep through the maze of tracings.

“Bleed the rest,”the Rahuatl hissed. At his calm command the guards yanked more prisoners from the corrals, slamming a captive on each stone slab. There was no ceremony, no elaborate ritual or showy chanting from black-hooded priests. The guards were quick, efficient and heedless of their victims’ flopping. Men, women, and children were gutted and chopped like fish for market.

The cart shuddered overhead as something fell into its bed. With a sickening twist, Zoshi realized that there were similar carts waiting by each slab. Knives flashed and the bound captives thrashed unnaturally as they were bled dry. Neck, wrists, thighs. The butchers didn’t bother killing them first. Just let them bleed while the life was drained and their bodies dumped in the waiting cart. Not all of the sacrifices were dead when they were tossed away.

It was fortunate that the boy couldn’t feel his throat—he would have been screaming. All he could do was cower beneath the cart and brace himself for every thud that rocked his hiding place.

Zoshi squeezed his eyes shut. He could not remember what the clerics said over the dead, but he did his best, praying to the Guardian of Life to see the spirits of the sacrificed safely to the ol’River.

At least Pip and Tuck would be together.

The grooves in the sand ran red with streams of converging sacrifice. Strange powers stirred over the pit while the silk-robed man stood in the center of the storm. His smooth chant rose on invisible wings, beating at Zoshi’s mind.

When the last pathways of blood converged in the center, crimson threads of light stirred around the man. With a final incantation, he gripped the stave with both hands and plunged it into the sand. The air was torn from Zoshi’s lungs, drawn towards the focal point of blood. A shadow flickered to life, an inky portal that
 
rapaciously lapped the blood offering.

As the last drop was drunk, the portal buckled outwards, snapping into focus. A mirage rippled through the dark lens. Zoshi looked into the Portal. It was like gazing at a pebble in a pool, only a cavern swam murkily at the bottom and there were people waiting on the other side.

The sleek man did not move, he was frozen in place, gripping the stave. His fine features were strained with pain. Sweat beaded on his forehead—no it was blood. Crimson droplets rolled down his face.

The Rahuatl gave a sharp order. Four massive litters were shoved into the Portal, the shapes beneath hidden by heavy black tarps. Four lines of collared prisoners, ten in each, were driven through the Portal against their will. When the last disappeared, the Rahuatl stepped through, and the silk-robed man uttered a word. The Portal snapped shut and the man dropped to his knees.

An eerie stillness settled over the chamber. It smelled of slaughter.

It was broken by a woman’s voice. “Get the bodies into the pit,” she ordered, before hurrying across the sand to kneel at her master’s side. She was tall and graceful and Zoshi had never been so revolted by beauty in his life.

As boots hurried towards his cart, he tore his eyes from the grim tableau. All around the walkways, guards hoisted the carts and hauled them away. His own hiding place joined the procession. Zoshi’s nostrils flared as he fought down the urge to bolt, concentrating instead on keeping pace with the cart. And yet, all his instincts told him not to go any deeper in this Void cursed place.

There was one cart behind him and one guard pulling it. Zoshi spotted an opportunity. He snatched up a rock as they circled the chamber. When a side passage came into view, Zoshi jammed the rock between wheel and cart and it lurched to a stop. The guard dragging it stumbled forward.

The fellow behind abandoned his own cart to help steady the load and Zoshi slipped from beneath, darting up the nearest passage. Luck was with him, or as much as he was going to get. It was the tunnel leading to the shed. As he ran past the discarded pile of clothing, he snatched a pair of breeches without pausing, and darted up the stairwell, praying that no one was going be waiting at the top.

Part of his prayer was answered. There was no guard on the inside of the shed, but the heavy iron door was shut and he wasn’t about to risk a guard being on the other side. He felt his way through the dark until he came to a corner. With his back against the wall, he twisted and worked his wrists against the rope until they were slick with his own blood. Ignoring the pain, he managed to free his hands. He slipped the oversized breeches on and rolled up the cuffs, cinching the rope around his waist to hold them up.

The boy probed the dark corner with trembling hands. His whole body shook, but fear wouldn’t do. He sucked air through his snotty nose, trying to steady his nerves. Bracing himself against each wall, he inched his way up the corner. Calloused feet and hands barely felt the rough stone as he clambered towards the ceiling. He caught a rafter and hoisted himself up.

The shed didn’t have windows but the gap between roof and stone was enough for the boy. After a tense minute and careful maneuvering, he slipped beneath the eaves into the chill night air and dropped to the soil. The soft scuffle of his landing rang loudly in his ears and he quickly pressed himself against the shed’s wall. Zoshi did not move, he only listened.