her body to relax and subside. By the time Shaad came by, still popping figs into his mouth but alone, she was curled up in the corner of the cell, small and white.
The slave owner was visibly astonished at first. He yelled at her to get up, which normally would have provoked an angry outburst from Rivven. He would then berate her and call her names, and that would be the end of it. But that night his yelling provoked no response. His eyebrow lifted with curiosity, and he stood there for some time, watching her.
Eventually, Shaad beckoned her over, using a softer voice, perhaps to test her reaction. She knew exactly what she needed to do; she meekly looked away then slowly crawled over to the bars. In her stomach the knot of fire grew more intense, but outwardly she was cold, shivering. Shaad’s questions and inquiries were all responded to with shrugs and shakes of her head. He grinned toothlessly, an expression that sent her mind spinning into a whorl of rage. All Shaad saw was a young girl responding to his clumsy attempts at soothing utterances with fragile acceptance.
Shaad opened the cell door and drew Rivven to him. As he sought what his base instincts demanded, Rivven saw to hers. She took the curved paring knife from his belt, the knife she’d seen him use hundreds of times to peel Haltigothian citrus fruits, and drove it into his brain.
Rivven left Yasmut Shaad twitching there in the hallway of the dungeon and ran. She didn’t stop running until she had fled Lemish, making it all the way into Estwilde. She left slavery behind, but she carried the fiery spark within her and her memory of using deception and guile to get ahead. It was that same deception and that same fire that laid the path toward her arcane studies and from there to Ariakas.
Rivven opened her eyes. She was back in Wulfgar, soaked to the bone. The arena was empty. Somebody had come and taken away all the corpses, patched up all of the living. Maybe they had seen her standing there the whole time, her helm hiding any indication that her mind had been back in Lemish. Wisely, they had left her alone.
She turned, looked up at the stands, and saw a single figure moving at a brisk pace down the central stairs to the arena floor. As he approached, she lifted her hands, palms upward, and spoke a word of magic. The arcane power rippled within her, bright and hot, and the water on her body and armor boiled away into steam. It was easy to keep dry when you were a pyromancer.
“Hello, Aubec,” Rivven said to the man.
“My lady,” the Nordmaaran aide-de-camp said, out of breath. “A message for you.”
Rivven took the folded note from Aubec, who stood in the downpour as his mistress’s spell continued to keep the rain off her. Opening it, she looked over the contents then handed it back to him.
“We’ve got him,” she said and smiled widely behind the mask.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Vanderjack opened his eyes, seeing nothing but black.
He had a ferocious headache. He felt his neck and the back of his shaved head, felt the telltale lump, and knew that the sivak’s wingman had probably smacked him with the flat of the sword. He didn’t feel the wetness of blood, only the damp floor beneath him, which smelled like urine and rotting straw.
“Gredchen?” he said, speaking into the dark. No response. He felt around, hoping to rest his hand on something he recognized. “Theo?”
There was a moan off to his right. He couldn’t tell if it was the girl or the gnome. Then he remembered his sword.
It was gone-no scabbard, no Lifecleaver. In fact, all of his gear was stripped from him. He had the arming doublet but not Captain Annaud’s dragonarmor. He had no knife, nothing. Combined with the darkness and the horrid smell, he realized that he’d been captured and tossed in a cell.
“Gredchen? Theo?”
“Vanderjack?” came the gnome’s voice. “I might have known. Star? Star?”
“It’s good to hear your voice too, shorty,” Vanderjack said stoically. “We’re in the clink. Somehow I don’t think the big brass tiger’s with us.”
Theodenes sighed. The moan came again too, and Vanderjack knew it was Gredchen. Shifting position, he rose to kneeling, and tried to use the wall beside him to get up.
He almost collapsed from the rush of blood to his brain. “Sivaks got me in the head,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Well, I daresay I have had better days,” Theodenes replied. “Also, I have deduced we’re in separate cells.”
“So gnomes
“Of course not. Don’t believe the rumors. I have deduced this because right now I am holding bars in between myself and your voice.”
Vanderjack rubbed at the short stubble where the lump on his head was. “Gredchen? You conscious?”
A weak and annoyed voice said in response, “Only just.”
“Theo and I are both here. I think we’re in the dungeons underneath Castle Glayward.”
“What makes you so sure?” Theodenes replied. “We could be anywhere.”
“I know, but based on what you two were told by Rivven Cairn, that sadistic cow’s probably got us set up for an extended stay in the baron’s castle. I know these highmasters and highlords. They like the drama.”
“If this is the dungeon,” said Gredchen, “then my memory tells me there are six cells. Three on either side of a hallway, with iron bars between each.”
“It’s a good thing I have my people’s expert senses,” said Theodenes.
“You have big noses, if that’s what you’re talking about,” said Vanderjack.
“Extraordinary senses of smell, yes,” grumbled Theo. “But hearing, too-unless you’re in the Guild of Resonant Sonics, perhaps-which I have been employing as we talked.”
“Congratulations are in order, then?” Vanderjack said, groping his way to the bars near where he thought Theodenes’ voice was coming from.
Theo ignored him. “Gredchen and yourself are linearly arranged about me,” he said. “Which means that I am in the middle cell of a group of three.”
“If we’re lucky,” said Gredchen, “the current occupants of the castle don’t know about the loose slate in the floor near one of the cell doors. If you’re where I think you are, Vanderjack, then feel around underneath the door to your cell.”
Vanderjack did so. The floor was covered in fitted stones, the slates Gredchen had spoken of. Most of them were stuck fast, caked in foulness and a kind of mucilage produced from years and years of straw breaking down in the muck of vermin droppings. One, however, shifted slightly when he pressed it.
“Got it,” he said.
“Great,” Gredchen said, relief in her voice. “Then the door to the dungeon’s next to my cell. See if you can pull that slate up.”
“While I’m doing this, I don’t suppose these bars are wide enough for Theo to squeeze through, are they?” Vanderjack dug his nails into the muck around the slate and tried to get enough purchase to lever it up.
“The baron was plagued by kender for a while,” Gredchen said. “He made sure the cells were designed with that in mind.”
“Typical,” Theodenes said. “Once again, gnomes are lumped in with kender. As if we shared anything in common beyond stature.”
“I think I have it,” Vanderjack said. He gave the slate a final tug, and it came free from the floor with a thick squelch.
He heard Gredchen move around in her cell, coming as close to the bars as she could. “All right. Now you should be able to slide the vertical iron bar immediately above where you removed the slate down and out of the socket, and then lift it free from the other bars.”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought, haven’t you?” he said. He wiggled the bar she had described; it was definitely loose.
