Crossposting this fic.
He counted the days using the noise of cicadas. Whenever he could hear them beyond the stone walls, he knew that evening had come, and whenever they stopped he knew that the sun had risen. A cycle of noise muffled by rock, and sometimes overshadowed by the noise of his captors going throughout their days above him.
There was a trickle of water down the wall, too slow to make a trail of droplets, but fast enough to make the porous rock damp. He licked this to quench his thirst, tearing at his tongue. He couldn't feel it anymore, meaning that he had either mutilated it beyond words, or had toughened the flesh there.
The last time he ate was a roach that had wandered next to his foot. The time before that was a rat, and the time before that was another roach. Those were always several days apart, but so long as he moved as little as possible, he could preserve what little strength they gave him. He couldn't let his muscles fall to disuse though, so he flexed his whole body several times a day, to make sure everything functioned still. He was getting weaker as time passed, but he could still move if he needed to.
The last time his jailers came to torture him, he killed one of them. They seemed content to let him rot to death in the cell instead of fighting him directly. They were bandits, and thus natural cowards. Not that he was any better in the end, else he wouldn't be here. He was almost tempted to pray for freedom from his captors, but stayed his tongue.
He doubted his people's god would care for him, and he doubted any other god would either. Anything that might answer him now would offer a deal he wouldn't accept. It had been thirty-nine days since he was first captured, he held onto that, focusing on it. Thirty-nine days since he was captured, twenty-nine since they last came to check on him.
There was a whisper in the back of his mind, steadily growing as time passed by, only driven away by noise. It had the voice of a sweetly smiling woman, and its sound soothed his worries.
"You don't have to suffer anymore, if you just let go…"
He hated that whisper, hated it more than anything else in all of creation. He did his best to ignore it. The whisper kept murmuring to him, speaking sweet nothings and promises of easing his ills. It was a horrible sound, something he couldn't ignore.
The dim light of the chamber was illuminated by a single long-burning torch near the entrance. He focused on the flickering shadows, their dance only barely detectable to his strained eyes. They were one of the few distractions in this place, their dance and his memorization of the tilework of the chamber.
There were a number of small stones littered throughout the chamber, from where he had broken a loosened brick over the temple of one who came to harass him. That was weeks ago at this point, and he had ample time to work with them. Quietly, in the time of days when the cicadas were at their loudest, he would take the shards he could reach and grind them against the walls and floor. Sharpening them to a dagger-like point, starting with the smallest pieces first to practice, then moving onto larger pieces as he improved at this hobby.
This had driven away the whispers for a time, but he had run out of stones several days ago. All of them were sharpened to a point capable of gutting a man, if only one of them would finally come into the chamber to throw his corpse out. Daggers of stone, a shame to the son of a blacksmith. His father made horseshoes for the steeds of Marukan, and now the son was making knives out of rubble stone.
Knives that he couldn't use for lack of targets.
Being forgotten was a terrible thing, he had come to realize. Even hatred was preferable to this maddening solitude. Heated words would drive the whispers away, at least.
"There's nothing left for you, why not go to sleep…?"
He breathed in, and breathed out. He turned his eyes to the flickering of the shadows, and focused on their dance. Focusing on anything but the whispers, waiting for noise to drive them away again. The cicadas would come, eventually, he just had to endure.
The shadows flickered for a time.
The whispers assaulted him.
…There was noise above him. He latched onto them. It was the sounds of muffled talking, and footsteps.
…the footsteps were getting louder…
He moved himself, slumping down in the darkest corner of the chamber, and hiding his small collection of sharpened stones behind his body. He let himself go limp, and slowed his breathing as much as he could. He didn't know what he looked like, or what he smelled like, but it couldn't have possibly been pleasant.
He positioned his hands near to his best knives.
The steps got louder and louder. From the corner of his vision, came two of the rough and unwashed men who had ambushed him so long ago. They stopped at the entrance of the gated door, and unlocked it. He stayed as still as possible.
"Gah, the fucken smell. I forgot about that fucker." The fatter one spoke in a slightly warped accent of the muck-dwellers, still recognizable as rivertongue but distorted by those who lived in the swampier regions.
"Yah figure we should clear out his corpse first?" The lankier one with the scratchy voice spoke.
He was met with an immediate and dismissive scoff. "I'm not gonna fucken touch it unless boss tells us to, its been down here for weeks, fucking rotten by now. Just toss 'er in."
There was a rustling of fabric as a large lump was tossed into the center of the chamber. The chamber door was shut and promptly locked, without either of the men entering. He grit his teeth quietly.
The whispers started to creep back, he focused on the foreign object in the chamber.
It was a woman, unconscious and curled up. Perhaps beautiful were she not covered by an abundance of bruises and welts. She was dressed in a well-made, faded blue dress of a design that wasn't recognizable to him. It was much too fancy to be everyday wear. Her hair was a light gray, or perhaps a white, and her skin was fair. Both were signs of northern heritage.
The north was very far away from here, which made her presence a small mystery. That distant heritage combined with her foreign dress meant that she was likely a ransom target, the wife or daughter of an independent merchant. Not a guild merchant, because his captors were too pathetic to dare challenge them in such a way.
If she wasn't an important prisoner, then they would have raped and killed her already.
Well, he supposed it was possible that they intended to break her in as a whore and servant for their little fort. Which meant the defilement would likely come later, probably in a large group. Every man in the fort taking a turn or three to crush her will.
…He wasn't going to survive much longer, this would be his best chance. Not during the large group, too many to kill all at once, but before then would be ideal. Either she was ransom, in which case he would have to gut them whenever she was retrieved for the exchange, or she was a future slave.
…The best way to escape would be to use her. If he could convince her to call in a roughian or two to sample the goods early, he could get the drop on them and get out.
How to convince her…? He would promise to get her out too, and he would keep his word until the point at which they were spotted again. They would be distracted with her too much to capture him as he ran. Then he would be free, both of these whispers and of this miserable chamber.
He had to get out, away from the call of sleep. There wasn't any point in living for others, they weren't going to live for him, it was only fair. Anything was worth getting out.
The whispers were about to come back. Slowly creeping up as he watched the unconscious woman breath on the floor.
Then, outside, the cicadas came back. Their song began and the whispers ran away in fear. He smiled, cracking his lips from the first motion in days.
The night of the thirty-ninth day had begun.
—
Awareness came to her slowly, the first thing that greeted her was the pain. An aching throb that filled her body. It was a pain beyond what she had ever felt before, but not enough to cloud her thinking. At least, not enough that she could detect.
The second thing that came to her was the feeling of the cold stone beneath her, only barely held back by her airy imperial dress. It was chilly enough to provide discomfort, but not enough to freeze. She was grateful for the cold, which soothed the pain in her body to more manageable levels.
The third thing that came to her was the horrid smell, which nearly brought her to tears. It was a smell of rot and long-dried excrement and all manner of other fluids. It was a foul, all-encompassing thing that surrounded her. She brought a hand up to cover her nose, not yet moving from her position on the cold stone. That only barely masked the stench, instead filling her nostrils with the smell of blood. That was preferable.
What had happened…?
Her memories came to her slowly, trudging through the pain and smell to slowly arrive. She had been traveling with a small escort, back from the docks where the ship had deposited her. Back to her mother's lands from the Heptagram for an event of some sort she was to attend. Mother's letter hadn't been clear about what exactly it was.
Then… there was an ambush upon the carriage. She had been…
She opened her eyes to see nothing, waiting for a long moment for her eyes to adjust. She was in a dimly lit chamber of stone.
…She had been captured by the attackers. Slowly, she pushed herself up on aching limbs and gave the chamber a brief examination, finding nothing of particular interest. She stared down at the stone work.
She wanted to cry at the floor, cry at her uselessness. She was a student at the Heptagram, one of the few careers of prestige open to her. Studying to be a scholar and sorceress both, a useful and rare asset that could be leveraged by her family for an edge over their rivals. It was the best she could be for her family, for her failure to exalt. Her family were princes of the world, and she was captured.
She might have to kill herself, and rid her mother of the shame of having borne her.
She looked around her cage, looking for something to distract herself from her misery. There was a stone floor, a stone ceiling, and stone walls. The floor was mostly clean, save the stains of darkness at various points. She liked to assume those were blood and not something more foul.
One of the walls was a solid set of bars, and a door was there. She slowly pushed herself up, wincing at every moment to go over to the door. Jostling the door to find that it was locked. She frowned to herself, what had she been expecting?
She looked around the cell again, using the dim light of the torch outside to see the faint outlines of the stonework walls. This was clearly an older fortress, but fallen into disrepair. Functional enough for mortals, but she had seen far greater splendor at her family's lands. Let alone the Heptagram itself, a veritable fortress of runic wards and bound spirits to keep any outsider at bay.
This was squalor. Fit for mortals.
…Mortals like her. She walked to the back of the cell, and slumped down against the damp wall. Curling up in an effort to stay a little warmer. Her eyes had adjusted more, giving a final look across the cell…
She froze when she looked to the rightmost corner. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment and her veins filled themselves with once-comforting ice.
There was a corpse in the darkest corner. Slightly curled into itself, slumped against the wall. Its hair was matted and long, and its form emaciated and sickly looking. After several long seconds, she calmed herself down and the fear began to disappear, replaced by anger. They had tossed her into a cell with a corpse, an unburied corpse…
She looked over it once more, starting with the rough and calloused feet and trailing up. The form was masculine, the shoulders and beard were indication of such. She strained her eyes to look at the face, which was weathered and rough looking. The features may have been handsome, were it alive and undamaged.
The hair was a dark color, but it was too dark to see anything else. The eyes were decently bright, a lighter shade of some kind…
There was something off, but she couldn't tell what. There was something wrong with the scene, she knew it. Like a half-remembered dream, there was something she was aware of but not conscious of yet. There was something about those eyes, their color maybe?
…They were staring at her…
She threw herself backwards, and crawled back to the far wall. Her heart pounded in her chest again as she stared at the body she thought was a corpse.
The eyes followed her. It wasn't a corpse.
Then, the corpse opened its mouth. She gulped, hands shaking.
The corpse coughed, then brought up a clenched fist to cough into for a moment. The other hand slowly raised in a gesture to wait. She stared at the suspiciously polite ghost as it tried to stop coughing.
After a moment, its coughing ceased, and it breathed in and out. It turned its head back up to stare at her. It opened its mouth again, and spoke in a low, raspy voice.
"Apologies."
She blinked at the corpse, well no, it was a man. A man that was also captured, and from the looks of it he had been here far longer than she would be. She would be sold for ransom, or used for leverage. This place was probably a temporary cell to hold her while waiting for another transport to take her. He was a mortal then, and not a descendent of any imperial family. Maybe a retainer that was being punished as an example?
Graciously, she inclined her head at the prisoner, accepting his apology. The prisoner took that as his cue to continue.
"Merchant's daughter I suppose? That or the daughter of a smaller noble house, the dress gives it away."
She frowned at the insult. Her dress was plain, yes, but that's because it was her casual gown. She hadn't expected to be captured, she wasn't dressed in her best.
"The second." she replied tersely. Her family was rather small, she supposed, from humble origins. Her grandfather had taken his second breath while serving in the Tepet legions, elevating their house to minor vassals of the great house. Her mother had used her cunning to elevate their house further, to the point that they were lords-in-regent for great house Tepet in the Realm's northerly provinces.
Their lands weren't particularly large, and their rivals were many, but they were quite successful for only having three generations of noble history. Her sister was to inherit, having taken her second breath some years ago.
…Unlike her.
"Ah, that's good for you. That means you're probably a ransom target here." The prisoner was decently educated then, if he knew that much at least. "You'll probably be unharmed during your stay here, bandits wouldn't want to draw the ire of nobles."
She paused, and narrowed her eyes. "Banditry has long since been stamped out on the Blessed Isle." She glared at the man for lying to her, or being ignorant, which was worse.
The prisoner paused, and stared at her more deeply. She swallowed.
He shook his head with a cynical laugh.
"Is there a joke I'm not aware of?" She demanded of the commoner that had the audacity to laugh at her. His chuckles slowed as he began to speak again.
"You're far from the Blessed Isle, girl. This old fort is in the Hundred Kingdoms." He leaned forwards a bit, bringing his face slightly into the light. She saw the grim amusement on his face. "In the Scavenger Lands."
She countered immediately. "You're lying."
He dashed her hopes that the filthy peasant was lying. "I have no reason to, what would I gain?"
She struggled to think of something that he would gain. As she did so, the commoner continued. "It's bad luck for you then, if you really are from the Blessed Isle, that you ended up here."
"I know that!" She barked at him. He shook his head.
"No, you don't girl. Because noble girls don't end up hundreds of leagues away for ransom. They get taken that far…" He smiled sadly at her. "...to disappear."
"...shut up."
"The way I see it, you're not going to be ransomed."
"Shut up."
"You'll be lucky if they kill you after they're done."
"Shut up!" She all but yelled at the dirty lying mortal. She breathed in and out, pulling her knees up to her chest and wiping her eyes. "...shut up, you mongrel bastard."
She did her best to stop the tears. They defied her, continuing to flow down her face. Her training at the Heptagram… none of it would help her escape a cell. She had only attended for a brief time thus far, only knowing a single spell. Stalwart Earth Guardian would help her delay the inevitable, and nothing more.
She tried to not think about her future.
She was a fair young lady. They were Scavenger Lands bandits. She knew exactly what was going to happen to her. She curled tighter, and tried to stifle her sobs.
"...You're not just going to sit there and cry, are you?" The commoner sounded disgusted. Her tears stopped, replaced by fury.
"What can I do, you bastard?" She yelled at him. He gave her a crooked smile.
"How about helping me get us both out of here?"
She glared at him for a moment longer, cheeks still wet.
"...I'm listening…"
The prisoner outright grinned.
