Connor heard the man walking away even as heavy footfalls tromped up to him. Rough hands pulled Connor up by the shoulders, hoisting him to his feet.

  Connor’s head slumped like a wet noodle as a pair of men dragged him out of the container, his feet scraping over the slick, wooden floorboards. Connor’s eyes remained the only thing he could move and he looked around as best he could.

  But, he saw little other than legs, feet, and the dark wood beneath him.

  He took in every scent and paid careful attention to every sound. There was no telling what might later prove useful.

  For one thing, the ship sounded huge. That implied interesting things about the resources the Syndicate had access to. Though if the ship was as large as he suspected from what he could hear, then it wasn’t exactly new knowledge about his enemy having vast wealth and power.

  It did however tell him a little more about how that power manifested.

  The question is… is this ship as large as it sounds like it is? For that matter… does this ship belong to the Syndicate themselves, and how many others do they have access to? Connor thought.

  Not that the answers to such questions seemed as though they’d prove immediately useful… but he was determined to wring every drop of useful information out of his unfortunate situation.

  Moreover, he couldn’t help but wonder where they were taking him that they needed a ship. Particularly what sounded like such a large one. He wondered who else was on this thing. If any of the others were being taken elsewhere like he was…

  The thunderous crack of something striking wood with impossible force rippled through the ship in a small quake as another distorted, unnatural roar howled below.

  Or what else…

  Connor tried to move. To will his limbs to respond. To break free and slip away. But, his limbs hung limp and the men carried him down a set of polished wooden stairs like a rag doll. A hive of activity surrounded him as they went below into a deck lit primarily by magical torches or some form of lanterns.

  He heard Vadik’s much lighter footsteps behind him and it was an effort of will not to focus on that. On his anger. On his searing hatred for the man he’d once thought of as a dear friend.

  Instead, Connor counted every step the men carrying him took. Every turn no matter how slight. And tried to extrapolate out from that a sense of the environment they were hauling him through.

  They went down another set of stairs, again of polished wood. One of the men carrying Connor stumbled over the boots of a dead man sprawled on the floor but quickly regained his balance.

  The men’s heavy footfalls crunched on the layer of smoking wooden splinters littering the floor as dark red liquid oozed over them with a soft sizzle.

  Connor caught glimpses of other bodies on the edges of his vision.

  Unease slithered and coiled in Connor’s gut as they brought him down another set of stairs. He couldn’t help wondering if he was about to be fed to whatever creature had caused such mayhem even as his anger silently praised the monster for dispatching of a few Syndicate agents.

  As far as he was concerned, that meant whatever it was couldn’t be all bad.

  The men carried him across polished wooden floors that gleamed like metal in the dim light. Though that impeccable order was disrupted by more carnage as the men dragged Connor through a lake of blood.

  It lapped against his shoes and rippled in his wake. He caught glimpses of more bodies and a damaged mast. Not badly enough that it couldn’t be repaired, unfortunately. But whatever had cracked the thick, enchanted wood had to have unbelievable strength.

  Connor filed that information away too. Perhaps, if whatever the monster was could be negotiated with, its strength might prove useful in a potential escape plan… it had certainly displayed no fondness for the Syndicate.

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  They came up to a thick wooden door reinforced with a familiar smoky gray metal as blood crawled through the thin gap under the door in a sludge-like trickle as though attempting to follow its liberator.

  Despite the distracting sight, Connor had kept careful note of the route they’d taken and though it was impossible for him to tell whether they were carrying him fore, aft, starboard, or port he knew how to get back up to the deck in a hurry should the opportunity present itself.

  Keys rattled and the door opened. They carried him through the now open doorway for a short distance and turned right up to yet another door reinforced with dark iron.

  Given the number of stairs they’d carried him down, Connor was sure that the ship was indeed large and that they’d brought him down to its very bowels. Though whether there were yet deeper levels he was unsure… there had to be at least a hold somewhere below their feet but if there were other decks, he didn’t know.

  If there were, he doubted there’d be very many. The ship seemed impressive enough despite that.

  The men opened the door and marched inside, lugging Connor between them up to a dark iron gate built into what Connor assumed was an entire cage made of the extremely durable, smoky gray metal inscribed with elegant runes.

  A cell within a cell? And an enchanted dark iron one at that? Why not snap a collar around my neck and be done with it? He thought.

  The men carrying him tossed him forward into the cell, and he fell to the floor, unable to reach out a hand to stop his fall. He smacked into the hard, polished wood and the breath whooshed out of him.

  He growled inwardly, trapped in his own body, and wished he could see their faces so he knew who to take particular pleasure in hunting down when he could finally move again.

  Somebody grabbed his shoulder and turned him over.

  Vadik’s face filled his vision. Almost nose to nose. So close that Connor felt the moisture of Vadik’s breath in his eyes.

  The man he’d once considered to be his friend stared at him with mocking laughter and cruelty in his eyes as a smug grin twisted his lips.

  “Did you miss me?” Vadik asked as his smile stretched over his teeth, “What? No greeting for your old pal? I’m hurt. I thought we were friends.”

  Connor ached to wipe that smile off Vadik’s face with his knuckles.

  Vadik took out a syringe, covered in gleaming golden metal and elegant runes. The sharp needle glinted in the light of the lanterns. The window of glass showed nothing inside the syringe.

  He looked Connor up and down. “You’re not looking so hot. You’re not coming down with something, are you? Don’t worry, I’m sure a nice voyage and the bracing sea air is just the thing to fix you right up,” he said.

  Vadik stuck the needle into Connor’s neck. Connor felt a light pinch through the numbness.

  “You know,” Vadik said in a conversational tone, “you surprised me when you asked Adelia to join you that night at the docks. I shouldn’t have been, I suppose. You’ve always loved having that insufferable bitch hanging onto your coattails.

  “But, then you lured them all straight into a trap far better than I ever could’ve done. Thank you for that, by the way. If it weren’t for you, I’d still be tangled up dealing with the thieves’ guilds. Not to mention Adelia. Now she could’ve been tricky. But, with your help, everything was easier than I could ever have hoped. We always did make a good team, didn’t we?”

  Vadik pulled the needle out and inspected it for a moment. Connor saw his dark blood in the window of glass.

  How much more must you take from me, traitor? Connor thought. Even as he wondered what Vadik wanted with his blood.

  Vadik turned his attention back to Connor and lightly patted his face. Connor glared up at him, begging his body to move. To rip Vadik’s head free from his body. To break his bones and make him scream. He was so close. It would be so easy to bite the bastard’s ear off. To spit in his face. Something. Anything! But, his body remained motionless.

  “I’ll tell Victor you said hello. You really should come see him sometime. At this rate, he’s going to start thinking you don’t care…” Vadik said as he stood, towering over Connor, “strip him.”

  The other two men roughly obeyed, removing Connor’s armor, his clothes, and his bottomless bag. Until he lay paralyzed and naked in the cell.

  The door opened and someone else entered.

  “Why is he naked?” asked the robed man.

  “I know Connor,” Vadik said, “he has weapons hidden all over him. And all kinds of things in that little bag of his. Probably has lockpicks embedded in his clothes too. You wouldn’t want him to escape after all the trouble we went through to catch him, would you?”

  “It would take more than any of that to break out of this cell,” said the robed man. There was a dangerous edge to his voice.

  “With respect, Your Grace, I urge you not to underestimate him,” Vadik said.

  There was a tense moment of silence and Connor wondered if the robed stranger would return his things for some reason.

  “Take everything to the captain’s quarters,” said the robed man.

  “At once, Your Grace,” said one of the men.

  “We’re setting out soon, Vadik. If you’re still on board when we do, you can swim back. And, you, bring him some clothes and get someone to mop up the blood before the carpenter gets to work,” said the robed man.

  “By your will, Your Grace,” said the other man.

  Boots marched away and cell doors slammed shut with a bleak, hopeless finality that rendered the room unreasonably silent. No doubt the work of sound suppression enchantments.

  Connor lay alone once again, glaring impotently through the metal bars at the wooden ceiling above as his soul howled for Vadik’s blood.

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