Page 76 of Elvenbred

He laughed dryly, more cough than mirth. “Get it as a child, and it’s bad, but nothing like what it does to adults. Called breakbone … your muscles seize up. Usually not to where it literally breaks the bones, but close enough, and it sure as hell feels like all your bones are breaking. It’s the fever that gets you. Broils your brain. If it was your first time, then by all rights, you should be dead. It takes two-thirds of adults that it sicks, and the rest aren’t doing anything except lying weak and still for days. You were down with it a day, maybe less, and now back on your feet.” He shrugged. “You ain’t dead. So, you had it before, and this is a mild case.”

She shrugged. “I’d never been sick before I came here. Not ever. Maybe I’m just good at healing?”

He looked skeptical. “Maybe. I can’t explain it.” He paused. “They did tell me you were a nutter. That you think you’re a princess in some airy-fairy land. Head full of dreams that never happened, and too far gone for the physicians. So, who’s to say what might be real to you?”

“I see,” she said. She worked that around in her head, trying to think of a response, when her stomach rumbled, loud enough for him to clearly hear it. He chuckled. She looked at the bucket. Almost, but not quite full enough. He followed her gaze, took a deep breath, and looked at her.

“The rules are the rules,” he said, “but given the circumstances.” He opened his satchel and took out the covered bowl. She couldn’t have wanted it more if it had been the sweetest ambrosia. He stood for a moment, thinking, then chuckled again. “Pile the dirty bowl next to the door, where I can open it without entering. Assume the position. You know the drill.”

She went and walked to the step, passing Rock. She saw him shift slightly, turning a bit, to keep his body between the guard and the rod she had removed. Rock can “see” Gelbert somehow, and knows to hide where the rod was removed. Intelligent. She stored that thought away.

She stepped up onto the first step, faced away, and put her hands behind her head. She heard the cage door open, and the scrape as he removed the bowl. She heard the satchel open and the soft clink as he set the porcelain down on the floor. She felt faint, and wanted the food so badly that she could barely stay in place. The cell door closed, followed by the double clang of the lock closing. She fought to keep her voice steady, and heard the tremble.

“May I turn?”

“Yes,” he replied, “I’m clear.”

She turned, her eyes locking on the bowl. His eyes followed hers.

“I’ll go, so you can eat.”

Once he moved away, she abandoned any pretense of dignity. She ran to the bowl and wolfed down the gruel. It was not enough, it was never enough, but at least for a few minutes, she felt full.

She heard the stable door close. Gelbert departed, leaving her alone with Rock, and her thoughts.

17

N

Triana had settled into the daily routine, not that there was much to vary. Shovel, scrape, sleep, eat (never enough). Repeat. The stables stayed at a constant temperature, comfortable when she worked, a bit cool otherwise. Small as that blanket was, it was welcome. She even tried wetting it down to stretch it, but that wasn’t successful. The mage-lights remained on all the time, neither dimming for night nor brightening for day. She had long since lost track of the days.

She had made a half-hearted effort to keep track of time using her rest periods. She had no firm clock so marked off a “day” after every other rest period. She knew that to be arbitrary, and it didn’t seem to matter much, but at least it gave some structure to her life.

Otherwise, she settled into a rhythm. She recalled her father’s admonition. “They have to be right every time, you only have to be right once.” She made it a point to be compliant, to try and draw the guards into a sense of complacency. They remained vigilant and careful. She counted the steps from her cot to the step, from the door to the step, from the dung-bin to the step. All were too far out of her reach. She considered using the bronze rod that she had removed from Rock’s back as a spear … but it was heavy and poorly balanced, and fighting was something her slaves did. Not her.

She wasn’t going to win the game using their rules, so she needed to change the rules. She had finished her work, eaten, washed, and gotten into clean clothes, when she sat down on the step with the bronze rod. She lifted it, felt its weight, studied the end they had struck with the sledge to crack Rock’s back and drive it in. “So, Rock, they use these rods to control you, the same way the collar controls me. Push the button until you do as you are bid. Same as me.”

She rolled the bar between her hands, feeling its weight and hearing the soft grinding sound of metal against stone.

“If we can get the other rods out, then they won’t be able to control you. One comes into the cage, while the other protects him. But, if that control rod or box doesn’t work, then there is nothing to stop you from squashing him. A little chaos at the door, and I might be able to get to him before he clamps the collar down on me.” She rolled the bronze rod back and forth, working out the details. “I take out the one with the control rod. I run towards him and give him one good spear shot. He goes down, and then there’s no one to put me on the floor.” The memory of Haldeen choking her with the control rod rose up, and with it the remembered terror. “Once I’m free, we figure out how to get the cage open. The stable has a big door that will lead to a big hall. Somewhere, there will be a big door outside. Stables are for animals, and they need a way to get animals in and out. We get out that way. After that … shit, I don’t know. We figure it out. Improvise.”

She held up the bronze rod, hefting it over her shoulder like a javelin. “Oof. Going to need to work on that. Got to get stronger. I’ll have one throw.”

“Thoughts?” she asked Rock. Silence.

“Yes? No? Indifferent?”

More silence from Rock.

“You know, my good, sir,” she said. “There was a time when I liked my males on the taciturn side. Kept them from filling up my air with their prating and posturing and other male foolishness. Perhaps the next one I get might be a bit less stoic … perhaps merely laconic. Carrying the whole conversation gets old.”

She lowered the bronze rod from her shoulder and sighted along it. “This one came out on account of some kind of infection. I suspect the others will be set more firmly. Let’s see what we have, shall we?”

She tried the trick with climbing the cot again, but Rock would not cooperate. She would get it set, and start up, and he would shift away, leaving the cot to slide down his side and clatter to the floor. She had learned to jump free after one nasty spill where she wrenched her ankle.

She made several attempts, her frustration venting in sulfurous profanity. Then, inspiration struck. She got her shovel and laid out a line of Rock food, starting where he “sat” and extending across the cell. Rock’s mouthparts clattered as he worked his way along the straw and dung. The food kept him on a straight path, with no sidling away as she placed the cot along his side, climbed it, and scrambled up to where she could swing herself up. The cot clattered away, as Rock chewed through the remaining dung. “You are definitely male,” she said triumphantly. “Put a little food down, and everything else just gets forgotten.”

She walked along his back, getting the feel of the rhythms of how Rock moved. A pace or so forward, eat, another pace or so. She got to the first of the rods and gave it a tentative push. Quite solid, and with no play whatsoever. No luck here with an easy extraction. She made a couple of tentative tests of the other rods, and they remained as firmly set as this one. She wasn’t really surprised, but each rod’s firmness needed to be checked.