Broken by Magic: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (Dragon Gate Book 3), page 38
Sorath thought about pointing out that the wolves and condors had been giant, magical, and numerous, but he hadn’t been there for that fight either and didn’t know how the druid woman had slipped past.
“I see.” Uthari gazed at his zidarr. With a touch of disappointment?
Maybe that was Sorath’s imagination.
During the conversation, the druid sat stoically, facing the tent flap and not making eye contact with anyone, even when Uthari turned to address him. Uthari didn’t use Dhoran but some local language that the druid could presumably understand. Since Sorath couldn’t, he merely clasped his hand to his pick behind his back and kept his thoughts from churning.
Until the druid spoke into his mind.
Kywatha said you might be an ally. The words weren’t in Dhoran, but Sorath understood the druid. Why did you help capture me?
Sorath almost replied, but if he did and if Uthari or Yidar or any of these mage guards were paying attention to his thoughts, they would hear the words. He stared at the side of the tent and didn’t think a thing.
Uthari squinted over at him. Damn, had he sensed the druid attempting to communicate with Sorath?
“He will not speak with me,” Uthari told Yidar. “Not surprising.”
“You wish him tortured?” Yidar asked.
“Yes.”
Sorath kept from grimacing, though he knew perfectly well what that would entail. The mages rarely resorted to physical brutality—though someone had worked Vinjo over thoroughly—but they knew how to expertly use their magic to inflict pain.
As stoic as Sorath liked to believe himself, he hadn’t been able to keep from answering Uthari’s questions when his mages had interrogated him. He hadn’t blurted anything out loud, but it hadn’t mattered. They’d plucked the location of this pool from his mind.
If you are an honorable man, the druid spoke into Sorath’s mind, why work for these tyrants who are invading our land and putting our people in danger? Especially when they also put your people in danger? All people. Were you not here for the first battle? We know the agoratha came through and destroyed many ships and devoured many mages. We hoped they would kill them all so that we could retrieve the ancient gateway and once again bury it.
The words stopped, as the druid’s jaw clenched.
Yidar stood behind the man, his hand on the back of his neck. Magic must have flowed into the druid like an electrical current, for he gasped, threw his head back, and arched his back as much as he could within the confines of his bonds. The chair jerked, but it was also held down by magical restraints.
As agony contorted the druid’s face and he panted and gasped, veins and tendons standing out on his neck, Uthari stood indifferently in front of him, his chin clasped in his hand. The guards were just as indifferent. Nobody appeared to enjoy the druid’s pain, but nobody protested the treatment.
The gasps turned into screams. Sorath closed his eyes, wishing he were back in Perchver, a glass of lemonade on his desk as the sun came up and he worked on his memoir. At the time, he hadn’t appreciated those days of quiet, of forced retirement. He hadn’t been able to, not with all the guilt that had lingered after he had survived while losing his men, but he wouldn’t have minded some of that quiet now.
He tried not to think about how the druid was right. Uthari and the other fleets were the invaders here, the ones bringing danger to this land, if not the entire world. And Sorath was working for them.
Sorath sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, again forcing his mind to be still. Even if Uthari was focused on the druid, Sorath dared not let anyone sense his thoughts. Kings didn’t want their mercenary commanders to be sympathetic to the other side.
It occurred to him that the druid might have given him a hint about what his colleague planned. Should he mention the thought to Uthari? Maybe it would distract him from the torture and give the druid a reprieve.
Sorath kept his mouth shut. He’d already helped one druid when he shouldn’t have. If he made a habit of that, someone would notice, and Uthari already knew who to punish to hurt Sorath.
He couldn’t keep himself from thinking of Ferroki, her face always serene, even as they endured the frustrating machinations of mages.
After what seemed like an eternity, the screams stopped. The druid’s head slumped forward, and blood dribbled from his nostrils and onto the woven grass tunic he wore.
Sorath didn’t think Uthari and Yidar would have killed a potentially valuable captive—even if they’d gotten all the information they wanted, he might be useful if a prisoner exchange was ever needed—but the druid was so still that it was hard to tell.
“Is he truly unconscious?” Uthari asked. “Or feigning it?”
“I believe he is unconscious.” Yidar released the back of the druid’s neck. “Did you get anything useful?”
Uthari turned and looked at one of his guards, then tilted his head toward the tent flap.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” The man walked outside.
Since ten other guards remained, Sorath couldn’t guess what that was about.
“His duty,” Uthari said, turning back to Yidar, “and the duty of the other druids who launched attacks from the trees, was exactly what we believed. To cause a distraction so one of their people could go through the portal. Though they did genuinely wish to destroy the engineer’s work. Somehow, they determined that he’s making a ship to facilitate exploration through the portal.” Uthari gazed over at Sorath.
Sorath didn’t have to hide his surprise. He hadn’t said anything about that to the druids.
“The druids don’t want our camp here,” Uthari said. “They don’t want it to be easier for us to explore, and they certainly don’t want us to find anything out there that would prompt us to stay in their land with the portal active.”
“The only reason they have this land is because it’s worthless and no king has truly tried to take it from them,” Yidar said.
Since Sorath was keeping his mouth shut and his thoughts quiet, he didn’t point out Yidar’s hypocrisy. He’d been out there trying to make an alliance with the druids, and now, here he was scorning them to his master.
“People will fight for their homes, no matter how worthless, because it is all they have,” Uthari said.
“What do they think one girl is going to be able to do out there?” Yidar asked.
“She is apparently an expert in using her magic on animals to convince them to do her bidding. He isn’t one of their leaders—” Uthari waved to the druid, “—so he doesn’t know as much as I would have wished, but he believes she is attempting to bring back an animal or animals strong enough to threaten us.”
“Not another one of those worms.” Yidar made a disgusted face. “We can defeat another if we must, but that was a pain.”
“It was. I find it unlikely that even a druid talented at commanding animals could control such a creature. We attempted everything from physical attacks to mental manipulation on it, but its resistance to magic was so great that little worked.”
Except grenades down the gullet, Sorath thought, though even those had done minimal damage.
“But she could find something else to threaten us and lure it back,” Uthari said. “If she is permitted to. Several people saw which symbol she activated, so we can follow her as soon as Malek returns with the key. And our archaeologists. The professor is translating a book with information on many of the worlds. She can fill us in on where the druid woman went. Whatever her people plan, they will not succeed. We will not be driven away prematurely. A few battles and a few deaths are a small price to pay for what may be gained from exploring these other worlds.”
“I agree, Your Majesty.”
Sorath gave Yidar a flat look, but neither man was paying attention to him. He preferred it that way and wondered if he could slip away without anyone noticing.
The tent flap shifted aside, and the guard returned with a second wooden chair. He set it down a few feet away from the one the druid occupied, then returned to his post.
An uneasy feeling crept into Sorath’s gut even before Uthari looked at him.
“Colonel Sorath.” Uthari extended a hand toward the empty chair. “Have a seat.”
“You’re going to torture me? Again? I helped capture your prisoner.”
“After you had a secret chat in the jungle with the very woman who escaped through the portal,” Uthari said.
“Her cat dropped a magical rock at my feet. I went to see what she wanted.” By now, Sorath could hardly be surprised that the employer he’d never wanted would torture him. What rankled most was that Uthari’s supposedly loyal zidarr had also gone out to see the druids, and he wasn’t being questioned. Did Uthari know about that?
“Good,” Uthari said. “You will tell us what she wanted, what she offered, and how tempted you were to make a deal with her.”
“Not as tempted as your zidarr.” Sorath pointed at Yidar’s chest. “He went out to see her several nights before I did.”
“I am aware of what Yidar is up to,” Uthari said.
No surprise flickered in Yidar’s eyes, so maybe Uthari had already confronted him. Or maybe Yidar had confessed and somehow managed to throw any suspicion in Sorath’s direction.
“He is ambitious and wants his own kingdom,” Uthari said. “It is an odd passion for a zidarr, but I understand ambition and can work with it. What you want, Colonel, is more insidious.”
“For you and all your tyrannical mage cronies to die? This may shock your old heart into seizing up, but everyone wants that.”
“It’s the ones who potentially have the power to make it happen who are problematic. Sit down, Colonel.”
“I don’t have any power, you sadistic bastard.”
“You’re irking me.” Uthari twitched a finger, and an immutable force pushed Sorath toward the chair. “You should have brought Captain Ferroki along to squeeze your arm and tell you when to keep your mouth shut.”
“I’m glad she’s not here.” What he wished was that she was back in the southern desert, leading Thorn Company on some modest mission that had nothing to do with mages. Because she was here, she would hear him scream, and she would worry about him.
Sorath fought the magical force out of principle, but it didn’t matter. He ended up in the chair, with invisible bonds tightening around him.
Beside him, the druid groaned, though his head was still slumped to his chest. Another witness.
Yidar gripped the back of his neck, and Sorath braced himself.
Jadora followed two guards and the clipboard-wielding man down the same stairs she’d attempted to rush down the night before. At the bottom, the same dour-faced guard waited, but now that she had an escort, he didn’t stop her.
They descended more than twenty feet, well under the surface of the arena floor, and headed toward one of three cement corridors leading deeper into the complex. Here and there, a mage lamp glowed on a wall, but there was more shadow than light in the underground passage. Distant growls came from one direction, animals in cages presumably, not throaty gladiators snarling at each other.
As she trailed the men, Jadora strove to keep her thoughts still. The last thing she wanted to think about when people were monitoring her was the dragon steel secret or the team’s plans to escape.
She hoped she and Malek would be able to speak without being monitored. She realized with a start that they would have to speak. He wouldn’t be able to communicate telepathically with her anymore.
As much as she would prefer Malek the mundane to Malek the zidarr, she admitted it was handy to be able to speak without being overheard.
She wished she’d thought to grab her backpack, or at least her painkillers and poultice-making materials. Without his magic, he wouldn’t have been able to heal his wounds, and who knew if anyone here tended the gladiators?
They turned at an intersection, and laughter came from up ahead, along with more light. How many gladiators were housed down here? Waiting for their turns to possibly die in the arena?
From what she’d seen, only one or two out of five men survived their encounters with the creatures chosen to fight them. And some of the gladiators returned the next day, lowering their probability of survival even further. She had no idea how many battles they had to fight to win their freedom, or their prize—whatever it was they sought—but it was surprising how cheerful the laughing men sounded. Maybe because they were the survivors from the day?
Other noises drifted to her, grunts and heavy breathing. At first, she thought those sounds also came from animal cages, but she and her escort had moved away from that area of the compound.
They turned into an open room with trays of food, bottles of wine, and pitchers of the juices that were popular here. She would have called this a kitchen, or at least a food preparation area for the men who had to be fed, but there were also two young women removing their clothing under the surprisingly bored eye of a guard.
In that moment, the grunts clicked for Jadora. They hadn’t belonged to animals but people having sex. She didn’t know why she was surprised when the clipboard man had implied that was the reason she was being brought down. A reward for a victorious gladiator.
One of her guards poked her and pointed at a corner where the undressing women were hanging their garments on hooks on the wall.
“You want me to take my clothes off?” Jadora guessed, only catching about half of what they said. “That’s not necessary. My relationship with Malek is more intellectual than carnal.” Since she could also only speak about half of their words, she doubted she had conveyed that properly.
The guard poked her again and pointed more firmly. “Undress.”
She sighed and moved to comply. Intellectual discourse was doubtless a rarity down here.
The women on their way out of the room to service who knew which gladiator eyed her dismissively, then elbowed each other and giggled. The idea of being paraded past cells filled with strange men horrified Jadora, and she hoped Malek appreciated the lengths to which she was going to bring him information. Not that the clipboard man had given her a choice. All along, her team hadn’t been given many choices. The suite and idea that they were honored guests was only an illusion.
If she’d brought her backpack, it would have ended up on a hook, so that was one regret she could cross off what was turning into a long list of them. At least, when she walked naked back to the corridor, none of the guards ogled her. Why would they when they had voluptuous women half her age wandering around here? Though this was so commonplace for them that they all appeared far more bored than interested by any of it.
As she’d feared, they marched her past several cells on the way to Malek’s. Some of the men already had female partners and were too distracted to glance out, but others gazed out with interest, men who hadn’t yet fought perhaps.
When Jadora reached Malek’s cell, she found him gazing out with his hands clasped behind his back, still clad in the leather loincloth, though he’d taken off the torso harness and hung it and his weapons on a chair. He couldn’t have been surprised to see her, since he’d requested her, but his eyebrows flew up and his jaw dropped when she arrived naked. Since the gladiators could only see out to the corridor and not into each other’s cells, he must not have expected that.
He only gaped for a second before averting his eyes. The clipboard wielder flipped an unremarkable lever on the wall, lowering the barrier that held Malek inside. He pointed for her to step into the cell.
Since the barriers were invisible and Jadora couldn’t sense magic, she couldn’t detect them and had to trust that this one was down. Once she stepped inside, the man flipped the lever again. Locking them in together. Well, there were worse people Jadora could be stuck with.
As soon as the men left, Malek spoke. “I apologize, Jadora. I didn’t realize they would remove your clothing.” He glanced at her but seemed flustered by her nudity and quickly looked away again. He lifted a hand toward her, as if he might offer some comfort, but he drew it back, first dropping it to his side, then propping it on his hip, then clasping it behind his back again. He opted for gazing at the cement wall in the corridor instead of at her. “I assume this was their choice and not yours.”
Despite the awkward situation, she was amused by his fluster. That the powerful and experienced zidarr, who’d doubtless seen many naked women over his life, didn’t know how to handle a nude archaeologist tickled her.
Admittedly, before today, she’d never seen his bare chest either, and it was… eye-catching. In the arena, when he’d been hundreds of yards away, his physique hadn’t been as noticeable. Also, she’d been worried that the great bristled predator would get the best of him. It had been hard to admire his strength and agility when she’d kept remembering the dragon battle and that moment when it had caught him and he’d dangled from its massive jaws, fangs piercing all the way through his body. He’d come so close to dying that day. And she was terrified he would fall to a similar—or worse—fate here in this arena. Ogling him hadn’t been at the top of her mind.
But now, in this quiet and semi-private moment, with Malek close enough to touch if she wished… it was far easier to let her gaze drop to admire his fit musculature. All that zidarr training had honed his body into a powerful weapon, even without the assistance of magic. A powerful and attractive weapon…
Malek arched his eyebrows, reminding her that he’d said something.
“That’s correct,” she blurted. “I’m not opposed to taking my shoes off and getting comfortable for intellectual discourse, but that’s usually where I draw the line. Especially when it’s chilly.”
The subterranean temperature was significantly cooler than the night air had been up above, and her nudity made her particularly aware of her gooseflesh. She rubbed her arms, realized that made her breasts jiggle, and jerked them down to her sides. Slavemasters in Hell, she was just as flustered as Malek. Who was she fooling?
“Understandable.” Malek swept the lone blanket off an uncomfortable-looking straw mattress, complete with strands sticking through the coarse fabric, and offered it to her.
