Scarlet and the Keepers of Light (5 page)

Xavier fell silent for a moment, looking down at his old friend. “Thank you, dear friend. You have saved us all.” There was so much admiration and gratitude in his voice that it seemed on the verge of breaking.

Udd Lyall shrugged off the thank-you, as Xavier had known he would. “How long do I have?” he asked, his voice resigned.

“I don’t know for sure.” Xavier sounded sad. “I have not found much in my library about the life span of dogs. Mr. Hopewell might actually know better than I
___
”

“No,” Udd Lyall interrupted. “It doesn’t matter anyway. We don’t intend to take our time.”

“You’re right, we do not,” Xavier responded. As Udd Lyall began to pad out of the infirmary, he added, “Are you going?”

“You don’t need me for this part. It’s you she needs now. I have some explaining to do to the pack.” And with those words, Udd Lyall trotted out of sight.

6

The Conquered

Brennan was scared. There was no point in denying it or trying to act otherwise. There was no one left to act tough for except himself, and he knew better. After all, he couldn’t fool himself. It just didn’t work. He was not, however, afraid of the jail cell he found himself in, or the overwhelming cold that sank deep into his bones. He wasn’t even afraid of the jailers who had kidnapped him, thrown him into this dismal place, and beat him so unmercifully. No, he was afraid of the loneliness and the sorrow. His mother was gone, and now he was the last of his people. The last of the Conquered.

It was hard to believe that it had come to this. For all his mother’s sheltering, her constant vigil, her obsessive looking over her shoulder, she was gone, and he was right where she had always feared. He looked over his body, lean and fit, his skin brown with the sun. Until this morning there had not been so much as a scratch on him, and now, after only half a day as a slave, his skin was marked forever. There were sharp, angry whip marks across his back, and an especially deep one ran the length of his chest, slicing a symbolic partition through his heart. This was his fate, as it had been that of all his people. Despite his mother’s attempt—which had only led to her death—there was no avoiding destiny.

His mother had not believed in fate and had fought it most of her adult life, but there was no denying simple fact. Every man and woman of Brennan’s race had been hunted down and sold into slavery—the women for their unparalleled beauty, the men for a natural strength and hardiness that made them invaluable as laborers for the mines and quarries in the southwest. Brennan had often wondered how, considering his peoples’ physical strength, they had become slaves to a weaker people. Not in all the libraries of the world could he have found an answer. There was no history of the Conquered, as his people were called. No record of a time before servitude. All that a young Conquered needed to know was that he had been born, he labored, and he would die. Even this brief history was no longer of any value. With the passing of his mother, Brennan had become the last of his kind.

That, of course, made him the most valuable Conquered ever to walk this land. He might be of little value to the mines now, but the dark and twisted souls of Satorium would pay a high price to own the last Conquered on earth. He would be kept like an endangered species at a zoo, in a cage for all to gawk at. Perhaps they might even put him in an arena. The last Conquered to have that honor had been a champion for fifty years before his master poisoned him to make for a more exciting contest. Unfortunately the Conquered gladiator had dropped dead before the match even began.

Brennan stirred and shuffled farther into the dark corner of his cell. Footsteps were echoing against the stone walls of the corridor outside, and that could only mean one of two things. They were coming to beat him again, or to move him to another, equally dismal place. Either way, fate or not, Brennan had decided he would not go quietly this time. When they first came for him, his shock over the loss of his mother had been too fresh, too numbing, for him to care for anything else. Now the pain was as sharp as a razor’s edge, honed to a deadly point of pure anger.

Perhaps in response to the violence around them, or as an attempt to better endure the life they faced, Brennan’s people had always been peaceful. The Conquered gladiator was such an anomaly that in a thousand years he had been the only one. Well, Brennan had no elder to speak calm words to him, to tell him to quell the anger inside. No mother to help him calm his mind against the flood of emotion that rattled him. His anger was all he had for guidance, and he saw no reason to deny it.

Deep in his core he felt the familiar heat rising, though he knew it was in vain. The Tempest, his people called it—a force latent within all Conquered males that could give them an incredible surge of strength. With this force, legend had it, the Conquered had built the Great Wonders in the Northern Mountains, the Dorans’ capital city, Caelesta, and the tower prison of Leona, where it was said that the dark one was being held. The construction of these ancient works would have been a feat even in modern times, and yet they’d been built by hand centuries ago by the Conquered. As an act of rebellion, the Conquered elders—acknowledging that the Tempest had become merely something for their enslavers to exploit, rather than a force that could throw off their bonds—had refused to teach the youth the ability to harness this power, and the knowledge had slipped away with the elders’ deaths. Now all that was left of the Tempest was a gentle suggestion of the bridled power within.

Brennan could now hear voices along with the footsteps, and he readied himself. The voices were familiar; they belonged to his jailers. Brennan tried in vain to unearth the Tempest, but it was like trying to find treasure that might be buried anywhere across an entire continent. Without a map, it was hopeless.

Though for a moment, when he had found his mother’s body and heard the laughter of her murderers, he’d almost thought—

It made no difference now. It was buried too deep.

“Can’t believe this is the last one.”

Brennan could make out the voices clearly now.

“We can retire on the money we make with him.”

Brennan could see the faces of the two men, who were indeed his jailers. The head jailer reminded Brennan of a rotten tree—large, cumbersome, giving a menacing appearance from a distance. Up close, however, the weakness and decay were evident. His assistant, much younger and smaller, had yet to show the ravages of a lifetime spent in prison; instead, he wore filthy rags in a feeble attempt to ape his mentor’s style.

“Whaddaya mean, retire?” The head jailer snorted, hacked up some phlegm, and spat on the wall.

“I mean, if he’s the last, we’re gonna get rich selling him. Make a lot more than we do with these normal creatures.” The younger man gestured toward the other cells. “Hasn’t been one of the Conquered up on the market in ages.”

The head jailer stopped and looked at his assistant, who obviously had the lion’s share of what little brains the two possessed. His head tilted, and he frowned, trying to figure out what the younger man was getting at.

The assistant threw the head jailer a worried look. Brennan had watched the two often enough to guess why—the big man would be none too pleased if his assistant figured something out he himself hadn’t or couldn’t. In any other circumstances, the scene would have amused Brennan.

“We get ten percent of what they sell for at the market, yeah?” the assistant said apprehensively, having decided to press on. Reasonable enough, thought Brennan, forgetting for a moment that it was his fate they were talking about. Surely the big man would be pleased he’d be getting rich, whoever he heard it from.

“Oy,” said the big man.

“Usually it’s the same. We sell a beast for a hundred, we get ten. We sell a rare beast for two hundred, we get twenty. Well . . . seeing as that big fella is the last Conquered anyone seen in ages, he’s gonna go for a lot more.”

“Oy.”

“Okay . . . So ten percent of a lot more is . . . a lot,” the younger jailer announced, quite proud of himself.

There was lengthy silence while this all sank in. Finally the head jailer cracked his assistant on the head with the handle of his whip. “You think I didn’t know that, boy?” he snarled and, without another word, started toward Brennan’s cell.

Brennan knew it was useless to fight the two men. It wasn’t that they could possibly be a match for him, but there was nowhere to go. The jail was four stories belowground, and surrounded by guards. Perhaps he should just take the way of his people and be at peace with his fate.

No, he couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that. He thought of his poor mother, who had died trying to keep him safe. He thought of their life together, running from place to place, never at peace, never at home. What honor would it do her memory to just accept being a slave, when she’d given up so much to keep him from becoming one? No, this Conquered was going to put up a fight. At least that way she would not have died for nothing.

Brennan had backed up against the slimy wall farthest from the cell door, steeling himself for the fight ahead, when he was hit with a sudden realization. At sixteen, he’d never fought before. Would that matter? He hoped not. He was strong—very strong. At nearly seven feet tall, he was broad-shouldered and thickly muscled. Once, traveling with his mother through deep woods, he’d lifted a tree trunk easily out of their path. Never, though, had he used his strength in anger or violence.

The jailers reached his cell, and the older one guffawed.

“Lookie there. He’s hiding in the corner.”

The younger jailer didn’t share his senior’s sense of humor, but he faked a laugh anyway. He didn’t see Brennan as a cowering child. To him, Brennan looked more like a cornered wolf—dangerously so.

“You gonna cry, slave,” the head jailer taunted in a high-pitched, scratchy voice. When Brennan remained silent, he scowled. “Open the door!” he yelled at his assistant.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” came a voice from behind the jailers. It was so unexpected, the younger jailer yelped.

They turned to see a tall hooded figure standing calmly only a few feet away, almost hidden in shadow. The head jailer recovered from his initial shock first, and his face flushed with anger.

“Who are you?” the jailer snapped. “Get outta my jail!”

The figure emerged into the light, moving with a slow, easy confidence. He stopped inches from the head jailer and removed his hood, revealing himself as a man of astounding beauty, his long hair woven into golden braids, his skin porcelain smooth and radiant. If it wasn’t for the man’s shoulders and his size, he could easily have been mistaken for a woman.

The sight of the man without his hood brought a sudden sense of dread upon the jailers. They backed against the bars of the cell and began to cower, averting their gaze from the man’s cold gray eyes.

“I—I—I’m sorry,” the head jailer quivered. He looked as if he had seen death itself.

The man stood motionless for a long moment, then said simply, “Open the door and leave.”

The older jailer obeyed at once, fumbling with the keys and dropping them several times before finally finding the right one and turning the lock with a metallic
click
. Once the jailers had scurried off down the corridor, the mysterious stranger entered the doorway to Brennan’s cell.

“I do apologize.” The man’s voice had an almost musical lilt. “But these heathens have not even bothered to discover your name.” He smiled. “I have no idea how I should address you.”

For a long moment, Brennan simply stared at the man, unsure whether to speak to him or attack. Surely this was some sort of trap. But something about the exchange between the figure and the jailers, the fear the newcomer provoked in them, had piqued his curiosity. It wasn’t as if he had much of a choice, anyway.

“I’m Brennan. Why would that matter to a jailer?” Brennan responded, watching the man closely.

The stranger laughed in a warm and friendly manner. “I’m no jailer,” he said. “I am called—well, I guess, Chosen would be the best translation. Not exactly right, but it will do. May I?” he asked, gesturing to the inside of the cell, as if he were making a simple house call and the barren stone chamber were a cottage in the country.

Brennan nodded, and Chosen strode gracefully to the center of the cell, effortlessly avoiding the puddles of blood on the floor. He stopped a few feet from Brennan and looked around in dismay.

“There doesn’t appear to be anywhere adequate for two gentlemen to sit for a conversation. If you will permit me?” Chosen motioned through the cell door, and the jailers reemerged from the darkness of the hall, each carrying a wooden chair, their faces fixed in a look of fear, verging on horror.

Brennan found that he was thoroughly enjoying the way the jailers, who just this morning had been acting so tough, cringed in abject terror. For the moment at least, he banished the idea of attacking Chosen from his mind.

The jailers scuttled into the cell cautiously, eyes darting about. They placed the chairs facing each other, as close as they dared to Chosen, and scurried back out, nearly
tripping over one another as they fought to get through the narrow door.

“There, that’s better,” Chosen said, motioning to a chair. “Please.”

Seeing no harm in sitting down, Brennan sat. Chosen sat shortly after, acting the role of a grand host so well that Brennan could almost imagine the dismal surroundings transformed into an elegant drawing room.

“So, you are to be a slave,” Chosen said after a pause, crossing his legs and leaning back in his chair.

“That’s what they tell me,” Brennan replied, a little curt; he didn’t appreciate hearing this fact spoken of in such a flippant tone.

“That’s a shame. You are much too young to be looking at such a fate,” Chosen said, more gravely.

“Why are you here speaking to me?”

“Why indeed? When word reached me of the last of the Satorians, I had to—”