Guardsmen approached from both sides, more of them filling into the room behind the first set, quickly closing in as Vidar desperately backed away toward one of the thin wooden walls, searching for a way out. There was no other exit. No way out. Vidar considered the contents of his pockets and wondered how far he could get with a stakra rune, pushing his way through the guardsmen. But no, he did not want to harm anyone if he could help it. After what happened in the jail, he thought he could regulate the power of the rune to make the impact nonlethal, but this was not the time for such a test.
Still, he grabbed the stakra rune and the algiz. If no exit remained to him, no option for escape, he’d just have to make his own. With guardsmen closing in, backing Vidar up against the wall, he spun, braced himself, and then triggered the stakra rune.
The wall was torn apart by the thrust rune and the force pushed him back a little, almost into the arms of the guardsmen. Planks were forced out of place and nails shot outward as the whole thing crumbled. Vidar saw the snow outside and threw himself forward with a whoop of fear and exhilaration, holding up the algiz rune to protect himself from debris crashing down. Something heavy struck the rune and a shimmering blue, translucent barrier appeared, then crumpled as Vidar cleared the wall.
He fell onto the snowy ground, reflexively catching himself with both hands. Pain bloomed in his left hand and the bandages dampened after contact with the snow.
Suppressing another cry, he stood and shuffled away, glancing back at the destruction behind him. With the broken-down wall, not enough remained to support the roof, and it leaned down dangerously. He saw no guardsmen, but he hoped the bastards hadn’t been buried in the rubble.
“Here!” someone shouted behind him.
Vidar turned down a different street, then another, increasing his speed. Finding a narrow path between houses, he squeezed in. On exiting that path, he spotted a pile of shoveled snow stacked near a pile of boxes. Hurrying over, his knee threatened to give, but he pushed through, digging into the snow with his one good hand. Once the hole was big enough, he hid the items he didn’t want to be caught with. All his runes fit that category, the algiz, stakra, and styrka runes chief among them, as well as the bone spikes.
Once he was satisfied no one would find them, he set off again. Vidar made another few turns before emerging right behind a guard. At first, he froze, but then turned and hurried the other way. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it far until someone spotted him and the chase began anew. In his weakened state, Vidar didn’t stand a chance, and he soon found himself surrounded by guardsmen leering down at him.
If he’d kept his runes and fought, perhaps he might’ve won, but from the sounds of men running and shouting, more of them were converging on his position. The memory of the jail cell flashed in his mind. Vidar didn’t want to kill anyone else if he could avoid it. Another memory popped up as a fist barreling into his stomach doubled him over. Ida and Siv coming to his rescue from a very similar position. No one would be coming this time.
Vidar desperately shielded his hand to keep the kicks from reopening the wounds. Instead, they landed in his face, his gut, and even his legs and back. They were relentless and Vidar didn’t even get enough air after that first blow to cry out in pain.
When they finally stopped on the order of someone approaching, Vidar was barely clinging on to consciousness. Blood ran down his nose and his left ear only picked up a loud, shrill tone. Even in his dazed state, he saw the face of the one who’d stopped the brutes from killing him outright. Guard Captain Anderson. The gruff, mustached authority who’d met with Embla to comment on the recent thefts.
Two guards pulled Vidar to his feet and held him up by his arms. Anderson leaned in close enough for his billowing breath cloud to reach Vidar’s face.
“Vidar,” Anderson said, speaking slowly. “Remember me? We’ve been looking for you.”
His face betrayed no emotion or reason for Vidar’s capture. No rage or even mild annoyance, just a man who seldom found himself surprised in his profession anymore. Boredom. Not the face of someone who’d just caught a killer, surely?
Vidar hung his head and pretended to fall unconscious. If they wanted to drag him to a cell somewhere, they better believe he wouldn’t be walking on his own.
They tied his hands and legs, the rough treatment bringing new pain to his palm, then brought forth a cart with workers to drag it. Apparently, they didn’t feel like carrying him all the way to whatever dark hole they wanted to shove him into.
The winding way to wherever they were going was long enough that Vidar recovered a little. He sat huddled against the side of the cart. To his horror, he realized he’d forgotten to dump the hidden sowilo runes. Now, with his hands bound and his muscles screaming at him in pain, it was too late. Guardsmen surrounded the cart, which drew the attention of everyone they passed. All eyes were on him and Vidar did not like it.
“Why have you apprehended me?” His voice was barely more than a croak.
All the guardsmen ignored him. Guard Captain Anderson had chosen not to accompany the group.
“Answer me, bastards!” he shouted.
One of the guardsmen, a young man with a large, purple birthmark covering almost the entire side of his face, who walked by the side of the cart, leaned over the side and poked Vidar hard in the side, just below the ribs. “Shut your mouth!”
“Ow!”
He rode upon the cart in silence for a while, considering his prospects of escape. In his bruised and battered state, even if he freed his hands and feet, he wouldn’t get far. The puny weapon in the inner pocket of his coat would not be much help. Not now, anyway. He’d get his chance later, once they reached their destination. Vidar was certain of it. With his mastery of runes, who could keep him locked up for longer than it took him to write a few lines? He’d use his blood again if all other tools were taken from him. Just like with the knife, the ink and brushes jostled around in his pockets while the cart bucked this way and that, going up the cobbled street.
The endless ride lulled him into a half-asleep state. Only when they reached the inner wall did a particularly heavy bump jostle him awake. Onlookers gaped at the prisoner going through the gate, but to Vidar’s surprise, they did not head for the jail. Instead, they kept dragging and pushing the cart up the long slope to the keep.
“We’re going up there?” he asked the ugly one who’d poked him.
The guard held up the finger he’d used to poke Vidar, as if daring him to keep talking. Vidar sighed and slumped back. Less than two days until the dragon returned, according to Lytir, and here he was being dragged into the keep. They should already be hailing him as a hero for his effort to craft a weapon capable of felling the dragon. Instead, they gawked.
He wanted to stand up on the cart and demand his release and the praise of all those who stared at him, slack-jawed and with nothing behind their eyes.
They approached a side gate into the keep and the guardsmen bustled him out of the cart and through a heavy wooden gate. Two of them walked in front and two behind, with two more holding his arms, making the corridor feel cramped.
Kenaz runes were set into the stone on metal plates every couple of steps, giving ample light to see by as they reached a spiraling set of wooden steps leading upward into the belly of the keep. Vidar slumped, trying to force the ones holding his arms to carry him, but that just earned a gauntleted hand into his gut.
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He coughed and wheezed, trying to get his breath back while walking up the stairs. Landings appeared at regular intervals with corridors leading off into some other part of the keep. Some of those corridors were carpeted with the colors of the Crown, red and white, with pictures hanging in heavy gold-painted frames on the walls, while other corridors were empty except for servants in livery scurrying this way and that.
By the time they reached their destination, Vidar had lost count of how many floors they’d walked. He was breathing hard, sweat streaming down his face. He hadn’t seen any sowilo runes, but with the air this warm, there had to be plenty hidden away from sight. Even the guardsmen were sweating and grumbling among themselves, throwing evil glances Vidar’s way, like it was his fault they were forced to trek all this way.
The corridor they walked into was one of the sparse ones with heavy wooden doors along the left wall. A single chair was placed by the opposite wall, each facing a door. All chairs except one were occupied by an incredibly bored-looking guard. A long line of faces turned to Vidar when he approached in the middle of a clump of guardsmen, bustling him forward like a group of bodyguards.
Unsurprisingly, the one door without someone guarding it was meant for Vidar. The front two men escorting him opened the door and then waited outside while Vidar and the four remaining guardsmen entered. It was a cell. No other words were really needed to describe the bare stone room. A single kenaz rune was placed above the door, shining far too bright. A metal grate was set into the stone floor.
“Take off your clothes!” one of the guards barked, letting go of his arm.
Vidar looked between four impassive sets of eyes. “You must be joking.”
Yet another blow to his stomach doubled Vidar over, and this time he could not keep his food down. Red mush, hopefully from the tomatoes, splashed against the floor. Some of it got on the guardsmen’s boots. Served the horrible bastards right, Vidar figured as he wiped his mouth.
“Off with the clothes, rat!” that same guard said, pulling back his fist, daring Vidar to mouth off again.
Vidar raised a hand, still coughing. “Fine, fine. Relax.”
He removed his coat, looked for somewhere to hang it, then shrugged and threw it into a corner, careful not to let it land in his vomit.
“Now the shirt.”
Vidar couldn’t help himself. “What?”
The guardsmen moved forward as one. Two grabbed his arms again and the other two drew knives. Vidar screamed and kicked his feet, terrified they were going to end his life right then and there. Instead, they began cutting the clothes off his body.
Once he was down to his smallclothes, they thankfully backed off. One of the guardsmen, an old geezer who’d shown surprising strength in manhandling him, gathered up Vidar’s clothes, including the jacket, and left the cell. Two of the remaining ones each grabbed an arm and forcefully pushed him to the back wall, where metal cuffs were inlaid into the walls.
“Now, hold on a moment!” Vidar shouted. If he couldn’t even move his arms, there was no way he was getting out.
They ignored him and the restraints clicked shut around his forearms. Vidar tested his strength against them immediately, thrashing this way and that with no result whatsoever. He was firmly stuck. To make himself feel a little better, he kicked one of the guards as he was turning away, making him stumble forward and almost fall.
“Take that, you bastard!”
The guard righted himself and drew in a deep breath without turning back. He began walking away again.
“That’s right! Scurry away, coward!”
The guard turned, took three long steps back into the cell, and suddenly Vidar’s vision blurred and he saw stars swirling before his eyes. His neck hurt something fierce, and when he finally managed to raise his head back up, the guardsmen were gone and the door closed.
Vidar spat blood, cursing his temper. The metal bands wrapped around his forearms were firmly stuck and were placed far too high up on the wall, forcing Vidar’s arms up into a most uncomfortable position. His hands stuck out at the other end of the cuffs, but his one and only attempt at pulling his good hand through showed he needn’t have bothered. There was no getting out without losing his entire hand. Not a sacrifice he was willing to make.
The light rune directly opposite him shone its oppressive light right into his eyes. Even closing his eyelids, the brightness shone through.
Sounds were coming from the other side of the closed doors. Guardsmen speaking, he figured. With so much solid material between them, there was no way he could eavesdrop. The mystery soon resolved itself, however, because the door opened back up and a bunch of those liveried servants shuffled inside carrying large buckets of water.
Three women and two men all wore the same colors, the steward’s colors, of a lighter red on a field of purple. Strong, bright colors, especially compared to the drab grays and browns the men and women of Andersburg wore.
“You smell,” one of the women said. She was a matronly one with wide, bulky hips. Her thick forearms and calloused hands hinted at hard work.
“Thanks,” Vidar said.
“Filth spreads disease. We will clean you now.”
“What?” was all Vidar had time to get out before they each, in turn, stepped up to throw their buckets of water right at him. It wasn’t just water, he realized after getting some into his mouth as he was cursing the ground they stood upon. Soap had been added to it. The temperature was right above freezing and he gasped each time one of them added to his painful existence. His hair was matted to his head and his smallclothes were soaked, as was the bandage on his hand.
Once all buckets were empty, the matronly woman stepped up and cut through the bandage with a pair of scissors. She smelled the wound and recoiled, then pursed her lips.
“What?” he asked, now shuddering despite the heated rooms.
Rather than answering, she swiped a towel hanging from a leather belt around her waist and began rubbing his body. The others joined her in drying him off and he screamed, then laughed as the rough fabric tickled him.
“Stop that, you bastards!” He tried kicking them, but that angered the men, who grabbed hold of his legs, putting Vidar in a most undignified position. The other woman was younger, only a few years Vidar’s senior, he guessed, and she smiled at him, enjoying his discomfort. More water was carried in and they emptied them over his head. This time, it was just water, and they didn’t stick around to wipe him off after.
A moment later, the matronly woman returned with a brown glass bottle, which she uncorked and poured into Vidar’s wound. It stung almost as much as the alcohol the veterinarian used, and he screamed in agony and hurled profanities her way until he was breathing too hard to keep talking.
“Medicine,” she said, holding the bottle in front of his face and pointing to the wound. “Sick.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, his face hanging toward the floor. “Just leave me alone.”
The warmth made the room dry up him quickly enough and most of the water ran into the grate in the floor. Weakness and hunger warred in his limp body, fighting over which was hurting him most. With no modes of escape, all Vidar could do was bide his time. The problem was, waiting was painfully boring.
However many hours later, Vidar was attempting to draw blood by digging into one big toe with the other. He wasn’t sure what sort of rune he could use on the floor right in front of him to escape, but he just could stand there idle anymore.
He’d examined his now unbandaged palm as best as he could, strapped to the wall as he was. The lines didn’t look as deep anymore now that the swelling had gone down, but the skin was still angrily red and, while he was able to move his fingers a lot better, full dexterity still eluded him. The veterinarian had done a good job with his strange poultice and the result was surprisingly good after such a short amount of time, though he worried the wound’s condition would worsen in these squalid conditions.
“Hey!” Vidar shouted at the closed door. “Hey!”
The murmur of voices on the other side silenced for a brief moment, then continued speaking, ignoring him.
“Why am I in here?!”
A while later, he tried again. “I demand representation!”
A loud bang rang out, and the door shuddered. “Shut up in there!”
Vidar didn’t appreciate the guard’s tone of voice, so he did the opposite.
“LET ME OUT LET ME OUT LET ME OUT!
“BASTARDS!
“YOU’LL BE SORRY YOU DID THIS TO ME!”
It was silent on the other side again, then the lock clicked and the door swung open. Four guardsmen walked in.
“That’s right,” Vidar said. “Now release me!”
When he came to a while later, after the beating he’d just received, the kenaz rune no longer shone.
“Must’ve run out,” Vidar mumbled through swollen lips.
His left eye barely opened and he could not draw too deep a breath or he would start coughing until he almost passed out. That ringing in his ears from before was back, a result of someone striking the side of his head. His wrists stung something fierce from carrying his weight after Vidar blacked out, but when he attempted to stand, his legs barely held his weight.
“Bastards,” he muttered.
At some point, he fell asleep, or fell unconscious again. When he woke, the rune once again shone its blinding light. Someone was standing by his side, examining his hand.
A woman. A female rune scribe, judging by the robe she wore.
