Chapter 201: The Prisoner's Resolution

Book 4, Chapter 42 - The Prisoner's Resolution

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Was it feeding time already?

Keys jingled. One was placed in the lock. It clicked , and the barred gate swung open, grating against the stone floor while rusted hinges let out their pitched cries. Lantern light spilled into the cell.

Eildred Aegis squinted. He raised his head a half inch. His hair, long and filthy, fell at the sides of his head with greasy strands hanging before his face. He had a mostly greyed beard that went down half past his torso. Rashes and bug bites marked his skin, along with pink and white threads marking scars old and new from lashes. The guards were less kind to him since his ecape attempt, if 'kind' was a word that might be used.

Eildred hung his head, uncaring for who brought him his food. A silver platter was plopped down before his feet. The guard in blue held his nose and bore a deep frown as he nudged the platter closer to Eildred's side. “Flaming rigged lots,” the guard cursed as he went on a knee and unlocked one of the shackles holding Eildred's arm pinned to the wall. “Chin up criminal,” he spat. “Eat your damn gruel and be quick with it so I can leave this rank and filthy dungeon behind.”

The mumbles of a madman echoed down the passage beyond the cell, and the young guard flinched.

Eildred snorted.

“Did you just Flaming laugh at me?” the guard asked.

“No lad,” Eildred croaked. “Just minding the irony of the once grand chamberlain's position.”

“The who?”

Eildred strained his neck to get a better look at the guardsman's face. Fresh, smooth shaven, with shoulder length dark hair akin to the male noble fashion of two years past. And this wet eared lamb wears the colors of the royal guard… “They don't tell you who they're keeping down here, boy?”

“They tell me you're the bloody traitors who killed our last queen,” the boy guard spat. He kicked Eildred in the gut.

Eildred groaned. He hacked up on the boy's boots, expecting another punt in the gut. He got just what he wanted. Eildred snatched the boy's ankle mid kick and pulled hard, forcing the guard to stumble forward into the wall head first. He fell to his knees with a cry, and Eildred snatched the keys hanging from his belt.

Thin and weak though his arms might have become, his captors were fools if they thought sending a lone boy guard for his meals was going to go well. Eildred fumbled for the key used to unlock one bind and shoved it into the keyhole for his other arm. The guard cursed and backed away, hastily unsheathing the longsword at his belt.

Longsword. In this cramped cell. The quality of the guard has fallen so low…

“ Hsss. ”

Eildred tensed. That voice . It dampened whatever hope he'd just managed to muster. That voice was the sound of his defeat. Of failure . A shadow at the edge of his faulty vision blurred by, striking the guard hard enough to make him cry and double to the floor while holding his gut. The lantern lighting the cell tipped over and the glass casing cracked.

“Out,” the woman hissed, pointing outside the cell. The boy guard left.

Eildred sighed. He held on to the ring of keys, but just barely. The woman snatched them back and bound his free arm up again. “I still need to eat,” Eildred mumbled.

“Si…lence,” said she.

Eildred snorted again. He looked this creature over with his vision glazed with dirt, tears and the shadows of his own hair strands. Smooth black hair, a deep tan like Lord Serene's wife, and garments all too similar. A woman taken from the once existing Papillion Forest and forged into a weapon by the man Odain. Pale white scars crisscrossed their way up her entire body. There were lines along her neck also, and lash marks crossing her face. A beautiful face, similar to Lady Sar'tara's if Eildred's memory served well enough. Beautiful in the dark, that was. When in light, this woman's scars were revealed. Despite it, Eildred felt not a thread of pity. This woman had taken him down before the palace gates, before Queen Dahlia's corpse. She'd prevented his vengeance and wrath.

And she'd brought him low a second time when he'd escaped his cell and made it halfway up the dungeon steps not two months prior.

Following that, she'd tortured him. Tortured him under Odain's supervision. The places where her knife had bitten still ached to this day despite being Healed. “I will kill you,” Eildred promised, each cracked syllable grinding against the next.

The woman eyed the shackles as if expecting him to make good on the promise at that moment. She then stared him in the eye. “You… can… try,” she said.

Similar accent to the duchess. Elongated speech. Signs of torture from a young age. “They made you scream a lot, didn't they?” he asked. Perhaps she could be enraged into hitting him. Into putting him out of his misery for good. Or perhaps she'd make a mistake and put that knife on her hip too close to his left arm…

“Scream?” the woman asked.

“Your scars,” Eildred said.

“Scars?”

He frowned. Was she dumb as well, then? Kept docile enough to be controlled, but not smart enough to think for herself? “So how do I eat now?” he asked.

The woman picked up the bowl of gruel set on the platter and held a spoonful up to Eildred's mouth. “Aah,” she said with a wide open mouth.

Eildred clenched his jaw. Today's event confirmed they kept this woman on guard before the stairs whenever it was time for him to be given a meal. He exhaled through his teeth. To think he'd fall as low as to be looked down upon and fed by his very captor as he sat beneath his own refuse. His muscles quaked with rage. But no. Now was not the time to lash out. He opened his mouth and let himself be fed the tasteless slop of grain porridge with bland animal leftovers and ground down bits of bone. He swallowed down bite after bite, staring daggers into the scarred woman's eyes. He would not pity her. He dared not do so, for that single bead of emotion could give way to hesitation when it would come time to kill her.

Eildred's meal ended and the woman turned to leave. “What is your name?” he asked as she closed the groaning gate of his cell.

“You… do… not… need.”

“Sar'tara. Does that name mean anything to you?”

Silence. Then “Tara,” came a soft voiced reply. “Dead.”

“She's alive in Metsiphon,” Eildred urged, feeling a sudden surge of hope. Perhaps the woman could be convinced to leave.

“Dead,” the woman repeated. “All… dead… Mother… dead.”

“She's alive. Sar'tara is alive,” Eildred croaked. But the woman didn't listen. She went over to Finral Luçen's cell. His mindless ramblings grew louder as his cell was opened and his meal was placed inside. Unlike Eildred, the old chamberlain was not kept pinned to a wall.

Time passed, and the lantern light disappeared as the woman left the dungeons. All that remained were the constant ramblings of the madman in the cell next to until the last of the footsteps disappeared and a distant click of the faraway dungeon gates pulling shut were heard.

Eildred hung his head and closed his eyes, feeling to his marrows his every ache, sting, and itch but having little power to relieve himself of any of it.

“It was a valiant attempt,” Finral said from the next cell over. “Trying to stir that creature's memory like that. You're certain she's one of those forest women?”

“Yes,” Eildred answered.

“And she can sprout wings, eh? I wonder if our dear duchess can do that. Not that it matters anymore.”

“You lose hope too easily, old man. Perhaps Lord Serene's already found the cure to his wife's ails in the time we spent rotting down here.”

“Or perhaps Odain has already done him in,” Finral said. “Hold on. Old man? Now if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black!” Finral let out a groan that he oft did when massaging weary joints. “You should really try the madman act like me. Maybe they'll release your arm shackles.”

Act, huh? Eildred wasn't so sure what Finral did was entirely an act. After all, between the two of them, the old chamberlain used to be the optimist. Eildred did not hold on to much hope. He only let fury drive him. Dahlia's end plagued him still in nightmares unending. Nightmares Eildred happily devoured, letting stir thoughts of all the violent ways in which he'd end his enemies.

“Or maybe not,” Finral continued. “I don't suppose they'll ever unshackle you after what you pulled two months ago. And today by the sounds of it. What'd you do today?”

“Took the keys from the boy guard they sent down,” Eildred said. “Seems this woman is never far behind when they come to feed us.”

Silence followed for some minutes more and Eildred thought Finral had gone to sleep. But he heard the old man groaning and shuffling about not long after.

“What do you think our boy king is up to right about now?” the former chamberlain asked.

“Boy king? You mean Agrienne's spawn?”

“Who else?”

“Couldn't know. Couldn't care.”

“Couldn't care?” Finral asked. “That isn't like you, Eildred. If he's a Zz'tai as you said, he'll be coming for the throne.”

“Then he'd better save Odain and that forest woman for me, or I'll have his head!” Eildred spat. “And every treacherous guard from my time as well. I'll bloody behead them all myself.”

“Eildred the Executioner,” Finral noted with a hints of sarcasm. “Lovely ring to it. Is vengeance all you think of these days, old man ?”

Eildred flexed his neck, feeling a sharp crack as he tilted it from one side to the other. “Not much else to consider when you're locked away in the dark,” he said softly.

“There's lots of things to consider,” Finral argued. “The weather, for one. The time of day for another. Or perhaps the season.” He paused to sigh, then in a more serious tone said “your niece —Dahlia's daughter. Your pupil, Azurus. Lots of things to consider, Thundersword. Lots of things.”

“Those thoughts will not fuel my escape.” But the thoughts did linger. Eildred had an easier time remembering Azurus than he did his niece. He'd spent a lot more time with the boy after all, watching him grow from an unruly urchin with a foul mouth to a knight of the guard every bit as competent and honorable as the next.

“Ah, but your nightmares will?” Finral wondered. “You still see her, don't you? Every time you close your eyes?”

“What would you know of it?!” Eildred said harshly.

“Your niece is kept prisoner in the palace above!” Finral yelled back. “You think we have it bad, Eildred? The poor lass is Odain's bloody puppet. Flames knows what he's done to her, what he's made her do perhaps.”

Eildred ground his teeth. The royal guard were in a pitiful state compared to his era. He could only assume the same for the capital city, if not worse. Perhaps even assume such of the entire kingdom. Emeria… Dahlia's blood, and her final wish imparted upon him. Even in that he was a failure. He could not even watch over his family.

Eildred felt a wave of guilt wash over him. His escape was never going to be more than a means to serve justice in the most horrifying way possible. He did not see a life for himself afterwards. He had planned to join Dahlia in the afterlife following his vengeance. But Emeria and Azurus still lived. They could still use his aid…

“Well? Why the quiet now, Sir Aegis?”

Eildred freed his left arm. He then stood upright in an awkward position, for that was all that was allowed of him with his right arm still bound.

“What was that? I heard your shackles click,” Finral said.

“My left is freed,” Eildred answered.

“Ah, still have your wits about you, eh? Attempting another escape during breakfast?”

Breakfast? So he's still kept track of time when I have not. Eildred found it in himself to smile. “Not yet,” he said. He began doing squats. “I need to build up my strength again.” And meal times would never work so long as the forest woman came as a guard. He would have to find another way to break out.

Eildred eyed the shackle binding his right. Pure iron. He felt around in the dark, touching traces of rust with the tips of his fingers. Days of pissing and spitting on it would rust the binds. In a few cycles, they could be weakened enough to break. Then he'd have to pick the lock of his cell, which to his convenience, might be done with the thin bone he'd procured from a meal long ago and spat out into the corner of his cell.

A few cycles won't be enough to build my strength…

A few months, then. Eildred ground his teeth as he began counting his squats. There were chapters left yet before the Thundersword's story would come to an end. Chapters he would ink in blood.