A Flight of Ravens by John Conroe (thriller books to read TXT) 📗

Savid,” he said with a tiny nod.  The sound of a bolter hissing hit my ears as something stung my neck.  Instantly my vision began to go dark, but I still heard his final words: “Perhaps you’ll see your brother after all,” before it all faded to black.

Chapter 33

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I awoke in darkness, my stomach an instant knot of cramps.  Indigo eel venom.  The symptoms were obvious even though this was my first time observing them from a direct, personal exposure.  Our favorite knockout agent for bolter darts.  Apparently the Ravens’ favorite too.

Cold hard rock laid under my left side but compared to the cramps, it was barely a bother.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Let’s see… darkness, dripping water, cold stone floor, leftover knockout symptoms.  I was in the dungeons, deep under the castle, a place I had often visited but never as a guest.

Another bout of cramps hit, my breath whistling from my lungs as I tried to pant my way through them.  I recalled that women drugged with Indigo venom hardly ever complained about the side effects, but men tended to go on and on about the pain.  Weaker sex indeed.

The pain passed and my stomach muscles unclenched gradually, slowly.  Sometime later, maybe five minutes, maybe ten, I felt good enough to push myself upright, discovering as I turned that the darkness wasn’t as complete as I thought.  Flickering orange light shone through the small barred aperture set in the massive cell door.  Hmm, not just any cells but maximum security, I noted.  Tightly set stone blocks, each somewhere between one and two tons, made up the walls, the gaps so small, a doctor’s surgical blade wouldn’t fit between them.

The floor was hewn rock and there was no window other than the square opening in the door, half a hand wide and the same tall.  The door itself was iron-bound oak, thicker than my forearm, and I knew there was a metal plate that swung over the viewport, yet it must have been left open for me to see torchlight.

There was no cot, just a solid bench of hewn stone, a little shorter than I was tall and a little narrower than the width of my chest.  No blanket, no containers for water or waste, just a narrow trough cut into the stone of the floor leading to a small square opening in the wall that I would have trouble putting two fingers into. The whole room stunk of urine, feces, and vomit.

After a few moments sitting upright, I tried standing, discovering that my legs were still holding onto the effects of the toxin, refusing to answer to my brain and almost dumping me onto the floor again.

“Aye, yer awake then,” a gravelly voice said at the door grate, the outline of a head blocking most of the torchlight.  “He’ll want to know, he will.”

The head disappeared and the sound of booted feet moved off, the cell brightening a bit.

Somewhere far away, something metal screeched and clanged, followed by silence.

First things first.  I checked myself over.  The stiffness in my limbs was fading, if slowly.  My boots were gone, as were my socks.  I wore only my undershirt and my pants, minus the belt.

So they got ninety-nine percent of my weapons and stuff just by removing most of my clothes.  Now to see what they missed.  I shuffled over to the stone bed, making my traitorous legs obey me.  Sitting, I pulled my left leg up and checked the hemmed cuff of my pants.  On the front edge, I felt a tiny metallic shape, barely over two one-hundredths of a span in length—a small needle. On the back edge where it fell against the bottom of my calf, a slight rectangle of hardness was still inside the spot where the seam was sewn—a tiny blade.  I switched sides and tested the other hem.  The wire woven into that leg was still there, along with another ceramic cutting edge and a small straight rod of good steel.

The waistband of my pants still contained almost two full spans of thin cord woven from Mondrigian trap spider webbing.  The back of my pants waist, where suspender tabs were attached, had two pieces of flexible steel, a tension wrench, and a small pick.  Locks had not changed in Nengled in centuries and every RRS trooper was well trained in lock picking.

I hadn’t been kidding when I told Mr. Kazilionum that we had learned from his tailoring of needles and tools into our clothing.  Lessons that we hadn’t had time to impart to the royal guard yet.

I had enough stuff to possibly break out, and the needle in my left cuff was coated in the same toxin that had just knocked me out.  By why was I here in the first place? Alarm bells were ringing in my head and I was suddenly very worried about Brona.

The man, who I suspected might be the king’s jailer, commonly known as Egg, had left the metal plate open.  I stood and walked stiffly to the door to peek out.

Across from me was a cell with open bars, in fact, the very cell Lady Dominick had occupied up until recently.  Another open grated cell was next to it and I could see a pair of booted feet on the exposed end of a cot.

“Who’s over there?” I called out.

The boots lifted off the thin bed swiftly, disappearing for a second before being replaced by a face I knew well.

“Brent?” I asked.

“Yes, Captain. Are you alright?” He looked tired and disheveled, but I couldn’t see any injuries.

“Eel venom sucks, but yes.  Why are you down here?”

“Two days ago, I was called to attend the king in his office but as soon as I got to the anteroom, royal guards grabbed me and dragged me here.  The jailer won’t answer my questions.  Then they dragged you in here.”

“How long ago did they drag me in?”

“Maybe an hour, maybe more.  Time is hard to figure down here.”

“Is there anyone