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pierrotwrites-hc · 29 days ago

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sneak peak: part III chapter 2

The hatch above sliced the weak light like a cutting wire, casting a grid on the damp stone walls below. Connell watched through half-closed eyes as two water droplets slid down the wall toward a patch of light. He wasn’t betting on any droplet in particular; simply observing their progress.

Doran spoke, his voice raspy from dehydration. They weren’t quite thirsty enough to start licking the walls, but it was only a matter of time.

“Hey, Con,” he rasped. “What time d’you think it is?”

The first dozen times Doran had asked this question, Connell had tried to make out the hour by the subtle variation in the darkness. The next dozen times, he’d responded with sarcasm. Now he didn’t even bother to reply.

“I’d wager it’s lunchtime,” said Doran. “Hey, Con. What’ll you wager it’s lunchtime?”

“Doran, we’re in a pit. What do you expect me to wager, rat bones?”

There was a pause.

“I don’t think all of these bones belonged to rats,” said Doran.

Connell had been trying not to look too closely at the pitiful heap of bones against the far wall. Now it loomed hugely in the corner of his eye, a portent of a future he didn’t want to contemplate. He turned back to the water droplets, but they had already been absorbed into the stone.

“Hey, Con.”

When Connell didn’t reply, Doran kept repeating his name until he snapped.

“What?”

“D’you think Toby and Luca made it to Fleetside?”

There was a long silence. This time Doran didn’t try to break it.

The top of the pit opened with a scream of metal. Piercing sunlight streamed down. Connell and Doran scrambled to their feet, squinting up through watering eyes. Connell could just make out dark figures high above. He had the image of hunters looking into a trapping pit to see what they’d caught for dinner.

There was a muffled discussion, too far up for Connell's straining ears to hear. Then something was thrown down. A rope ladder. It unrolled as it fell before jerked to a stop a few feet above the damp ground.

“They can’t seriously expect us to climb up,” said Connell.

Doran was already testing the ladder’s bottom rung to see if it would hold his weight. He cast Connell a scornful look.

“What else are we going to do? Stay here and starve?”

He had a point. Still…

“What if they cut our heads off once we get to the top?”

“It’ll be a better death than that poor bugger got,” said Doran, nodding to the heap of bones.

That was all the convincing Connell needed. If he was going to die, he wanted to die on his feet, under the sky, with the gods as his witnesses. Not here in a hole like a rat.

Doran was already scaling the ladder. Connell took a steadying breath and pulled himself up after.

They emerged several long minutes later, sweating, panting, dizzy with hunger and vertigo. After so long spent in the dark of the pit, even the pale gray sun was blinding. Connell wiped his streaming eyes on his sleeve. The figures swam into focus—not Dogs of Guye but a dozen armed men who wore no uniform. Still, Connell could tell they were soldiers. It wasn’t just their weapons, but their air of casual menace and the readiness with which they held themselves.

Gods above and below, Connell was sick of soldiers. Nearly as sick as he was of waiting to die. He almost hoped this lot would just kill them and have done with it.

“You’re the freedmen they call Connell and Doran?”

The question was asked by a wiry, weathered, quick-eyed man in a dark orange greatcoat. He had no symbols of office on his breast, but it was clear from the way his fellows regarded him that he was the leader here.

Connell and Doran shared a speaking look. They had no friends in this place. Anyone who was looking for them by name meant them harm.

Their fear must’ve shown on their faces. The soldier held up his hands.

“We’re no enemies of yours, lads. Got you out of that pit, didn’t we? I’m to bring you to Robert Black. Orders from the man himself.”

“Why?” asked Doran, only remembering to add “Sir” when Connell elbowed him.

“Something to do with his boy,” said the soldier, shrugging. “Anyway, you ought to be thanking your lucky stars Black spared a thought for you, busy as he is. The Dogs meant to leave you down there. They were taking bets on how long you'd last.”

Connell and Doran shared another speaking look. This time it was horror that echoed between them like the sound of a scream too deep in the earth for any living soul to hear.

“How long were we down there, sir?” Doran asked.

“Two days,” the man replied. “And no wonder you’re jumpy as cats, you must be bloody starving.” He took some bread from the inside pocket of his greatcoat and tossed it to them. “Thought so,” he said, as they fell on their portions like wolves. “I’m Tyburn, by the way.”

The name was vaguely familiar. From Doran’s reaction, he knew it.

As they followed the man—away from the pit, thank all the gods; Connell would be glad to have no more dealings with pits for as long as he lived—Doran leaned in and hissed, “Willy Tyburn, Con! He’s the Terror of King’s Road! His gang held up Lord Ambrose’s carriage, remember? The Duke wouldn’t leave the grounds for months without an armed guard.”

As usual, Doran had spoken louder than he intended. Tyburn cast an amused look over his shoulder.

“Belonged to the Duke of Chesten, did you?”

Connell and Doran exchanged guilty looks.

“Yes, sir,” said Connell. He turned his forearm to show the Duke’s mark branded there. He was so blanched from the cold that four-ringed annulet stood out like a blood-blister.

“We aren’t runaways, sir,” said Doran quickly. “The Dogs freed us.”

“I’m in the business of taking collars off slaves, lad, not putting ’em back on,” said Tyburn. “Whether in the Dogs’ camp or ours, you’re free men.”

Doran didn’t try to hide his relief. Seeing it, Connell had to tamp down a searing flash of anger. After everything Doran had put them through—after what had been done to them, to Toby, to Luca—even now, after all of it, the only thing he cared about was his precious fucking freedom.

Toby and Luca. Could they have run into Robert Black on the way to Fleetside? Luca had been a spy, after all, however difficult it was for Connell to get his head around; he and Black were on the same side. And they’d known each other in Lyonesse, hadn’t they? That brute Arkwright had said as much. Black had been one of Luca’s clients when he was still posing as a lord. But maybe that, too, had been a ruse, a cover for their meetings. Maybe Black and Luca were better acquainted than anyone knew.

The same thoughts were going through Doran’s head. In a voice too low for Tyburn to hear, he whispered, “Something to do with his boy. You don’t think…?”

Connell didn’t know what to think. But he hoped. He hoped more fiercely than he’d let himself hope for anything in a very long time.

They passed through the vast gates and emerged onto the moor. When Connell was here last, it had been an expanse of damp mist drifting over earth so barren even the snow seemed to wither as it fell. Overnight, a city had sprung up. It was a city of tents, thousands on thousands, vanishing into the far distance. Within those tents and bustling between them were twice, no, three times as many men—soldiers, Connell supposed, though few wore anything like a uniform, and some of those uniforms were in Ademar’s colors. At least half looked more like Midland peasants than battle-hardened rebels.

“Con, look!”

Connell followed Doran’s pointing finger to a group of men distinct not only for their richly-colored skin but their military bearing. These must be the Enkaaran mercenaries he’d heard about. They were certainly easier to imagine in battle than the peasants. Still, in their pale uniforms against the backdrop of gray tents and grayer sky, they looked lost, even a little forlorn, like a flock of birds blown off-course in a storm.

“Poor buggers came all the way to Castle Guye just to camp on the bloody doorstep,” said Tyburn, shaking his head. “That’s Northern hospitality for you.”

He brought Connell and Doran to a tent that would have been indistinguishable from any of the others except for its size and the sense that, somehow, the rest of the camp had been built around it. A line of people queued outside, all with that air of self-possession particular to freeborn men. They reacted with varying degrees of indignation as Tyburn pushed Connell and Doran past them and into the tent.

Judging from the bustle of activity within, they’d just entered the center of operations. These soldiers were clearly among the more seasoned. Connell even spotted a few faces he recognized from Redditch. Others were familiar from the wanted posters he’d seen in Lyonesse and along the King’s Road.

And at the center of it all was Robert Black.

He would’ve stood out even if he hadn’t been half a head taller than everyone but the barbarian who loomed at his right side. There was the red hair, of course, unnervingly similar to the color of dried blood, and the eyes that stared out of deep hollows, as hard and bright and calculating as a carrion bird’s. Connell had seen drawings of Black’s face on wanted posters—bad drawings, he’d thought at the time, but seeing their subject now, there was some truth to the depictions. He might not have the cartoonish menace of the posters, but Robert Black was the most dangerous-looking man Connell had ever seen.

Robert looked up and saw them. It was like being pinned under a glacier.

“That will be all,” he said.

He didn’t even need to raise his voice. In a moment the tent was empty. Even Tyburn melted away. The only one who stayed was the barbarian. Black’s bodyguard, Connell assumed. His was not a comforting presence.

Robert Black came around the desk and leaned against it. There was a silence; Connell measured its length in heartbeats. When at last Robert spoke, his voice was chillingly devoid of feeling.

“So you’re the so-called friends who abducted Luca.”

#the golden bird #pierrot writes #original slash #whump #slavefic #wip #tgb #sneak peak #guys this chapter is taking forever i'm sorry #in my defense there's a whole election happening and it's taking up like #90% of my waking life rn #thank you for your patience <3

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