Light the Reign (The Forgotten: Book 3) (18 page)

Gryffon entered as she was bent over, trying
to get a rip in her pants to tear farther without success, and she
jumped at his sudden appearance. Her jerking motion surprised him,
and he stepped backwards, drawing his sword.

“Going to stab your own wife are you?” she
asked him, putting a hand on her hip and giving him her widest
grin, which she knew must be horrible. She eyed his sword. “You
know, I was planning on you impaling me later anyway, but that
wasn’t quite the weapon I was thinking of.”

Gryffon sheathed the sword and moved closer
to her. “Normally, that kind of talk would be most endearing, but I
have to admit, at the moment you’re rather repulsive.” He wrinkled
his nose and raised a hand to touch one of the pustules the maid
had so painstakingly painted onto her, but withdrew his hand before
it made contact.

“Thanks so much,” she replied, resisting the
urge to plant a wet one on him. It would serve him right, but she
didn’t want to ruin the maid’s handiwork. So instead she gestured
to the door. “You ready?”

“Yes,” he agreed, but hesitated, “We need to
get you to wear a cloak or something until we’re in position.” He
opened up her closet and took out a plain black one. “Otherwise,
someone might attack you before we get there, you’re so
convincing.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she murmured,
pulling the hood of the cloak tightly around her face. She
definitely didn’t want to be skewered on the end of a guard’s sword
by being mistaken for one of the unfortunate souls who were past
helping.

“Oh,” said Gryffon, turning back around from
where he stood by the door. “I almost forgot, here.” He held out
two small red blobs. “These go in your eyes; they’ll change your
eye color to mimic the red color of the Bricrui. We sometimes used
them when I was training to be a spy in times where magical
illusion would be detected.”

Layna carefully inserted the things into her
eyes and blinked a few times, expecting them to be uncomfortable,
but was pleasantly surprised that she hardly noticed them. A quick
glance in the mirror revealed just how horrifying the effect
was.

“You’ll never look at me the same again, will
you, my love?” she lamented to Gryffon.

He grinned at her. “Nope.”

They rendezvoused with Sir Ruawn and his team
back in the tunnels, and Layna received a similar reception by each
of the guards. Gryffon was correct to hide her, and even thought to
warn them, which was a good thing. Otherwise, a Bricrui so close to
the King would immediately have been attacked. Even so, several put
their hands to their weapons in response.

“Are you sure you want to go through with
this?” Sir Ruawn asked hopefully, obviously wishing he could change
her mind somehow.

“I’m sure, let’s go,” she said determinedly,
and led the way towards the North End through the tunnels. When
they emerged, she hung back in the shadows while the guards and
Gryffon with Sir Ruawn took their positions. When everyone gave the
signal that they were ready, Layna sauntered out into the street,
mimicking the faltering gait of the Bricrui she had observed.

Luckily, people now knew not to be on the
streets at night, so other than wait for whatever mysterious event
was occurring with the Bricrui to take place, she didn’t have to
worry too much about being seen and attacked out here.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said for real Bricrui. They
were not picky about who they attacked, and would kill and eat
another infected just as soon as one not. Her hand tightened around
the knife in her sleeve and her heart pounded in her chest.

The valiant show she’d put on for Sir Ruawn
and the others was just that – a show. In reality, she was
terrified, but knew that it had to be done. It was bad enough that
the people were being reduced to blood-thirsty creatures without
those lucky enough to still be healthy desecrating them.

She took another unstable step and spied a
rat out of the corner of her eye. Remembering the scene where she
and Gryffon had observed one of the Bricrui going after such a
vermin once before, she dove for the pest.

And was immediately covered in a net. She
struggled against the bonds, and made hissing noises like the
Bricrui did, though hers were utterly lacking in their ferocity and
sounded much more like plaintive mewing to her. As she bucked
against the netting holding her, she saw Gryffon stepping out of
the shadows and surreptitiously shook her head at him. The person
or persons responsible had not yet shown their faces.

Her heart pounding in her ears from fright,
she thrashed against her bonds with renewed force, but it was no
use. She collapsed into a heap on the ground, panting dramatically
loudly. After a few moments, several shadows detached themselves
from a nearby building and slunk forward.

They moved quickly, and before she knew it,
Layna had been hauled up onto someone’s shoulder, and a sack thrown
over her head. Fear coursed through her now, unable to see whether
or not Gryffon and the others had been able to follow the hasty
abduction. She moaned every time her head slapped against the back
of the person carrying her, hoping it would help them locate
her.

After what seemed like an eternity being
thrown around on someone’s back, they finally reached wherever it
was they were taking her. Something solid was placed around her
neck and secured into place. She was flung unceremoniously onto a
cold slab of earth and she heard the scraping of metal followed by
the clang of a door shutting. She tried to sit up and immediately
hit her head on a hard surface above her.

She reached up and removed the hood. Before
her vision cleared, something moved quickly towards her, banging up
against the side of the cage she now realized she was in. She
scrambled away from it, pressing against the opposite wall, but not
nearly far enough. Something latched onto her hair from behind and
pulled it hard. Her eyes watered in pain and she cried out.

Yanking her hair out of the thing’s grasp,
she centered herself in the small cage and peered around at her
surroundings. She appeared to be in a metal enclosure, similar to
those that people in the cities often used for their dogs, and
there were several rows of these. Many contained other ‘guests’ of
the Bricrui in various stages of decay and infection. Several
looked to be severely injured; one’s blood-red eye had been
completely gouged out, leaving one red eye and one gaping red
hole.

She swallowed hard. Above the din of spitting
and growling around her, she could hear some sort of commotion in
the other room. She strained her ears to make out what was going
on. It suddenly hit her what this was. The sounds in the other room
grew louder and were followed by a roaring crowd of cheers and
jeering.

This was a fighting ring. Most likely the
same people who had previously used these cages to stage illegal
dog fights had adapted it to accommodate a new kind of fight: The
Bricrui pitted against one another. She felt sick to her stomach.
Where were Gryffon and Sir Ruawn?

The sound of laughter abruptly got louder as
the door to the room she was being kept in was opened and two men
stepped in.

“Which one will be the lucky one to fight the
champion?” one asked, his beady black eyes scanning the room.

The eyes lit on her and Layna sucked in her
breath. They wouldn’t pick her, would they? She had just arrived.
She felt herself beginning to shake. Though Gryffon had insisted
since their adventures that she be taught all manner of forms of
combat for protection, she still had no desire to go up against one
of these creatures.

The other man tapped on a cage to the right
of hers, indicating the Bricrui with the missing eye. “Let’s put
ol’ one-eye in there with him, having two champions will increase
the bets.”

The beady eyes tore themselves away from her
gaze and he grunted at the other. “Fine, I’ll get the leash.”

Layna watched as he slid a pole with a hook
on the end through the bars to the Bricrui’s cage. The thing
swatted at it with anger, but couldn’t get away in its confined
environment. The handler soon had the hook clipped onto the metal
ring attached to its collar and they opened the door. As soon as
the cage was clear, the other man clipped on another pole.

Even with the two of them, they had a hard
time controlling the flailing of the beast as it tried to attack
them. They eventually got it through the door, and it slammed shut
behind them, leaving Layna with nothing more than the muffled
sounds of the two poor Bricrui tearing one another apart.

As she took a closer look around her, she
noticed that in the back cages, there were several Bricrui huddled
in their cages meekly, rather than foaming at the mouth like those
nearest her. As she watched, one of them suddenly looked up at her
and she gasped. The woman’s eyes were not yet filled with blood and
they held behind them the kind of terror that Layna herself was
feeling. This woman was not beyond saving.

Layna watched the others near the woman and
found that they too, were still in the realm of being able to keep
it under control with the chokeroot. And certainly not beyond
reasoning. They were still capable of knowing that they were soon
to be facing possible death when pitted against one of those people
who were too far gone. They must be petrified.

The cage in the corner tugged hard at her
heartstrings. It held a young girl, no older than little Alina back
at the palace. Though the boils on her skin belied the truth of her
condition, her face was still innocent and her eyes still big and
round and most importantly, blue.

Layna shook with anger now. The monsters
running the fighting ring were evil in her book for pitting two
animals against one another, and now they had progressed to people?
How could they look at that little girl and not see her as a
person? Only as the money they would make putting her in a ring
with a full-grown Bricrui to be torn apart.

Not to mention the people paying to see it
and making bets on it. How could people be so depraved?

The two men came back into the room just then
and surveyed their options. The bigger of the two who seemed to be
in charge was followed by a scantily-clad woman, who was busy
draping herself over him. The beady eyed man strolled over to the
cage with the little girl and kicked it. She squealed in fright and
he laughed.

“How ‘bout giving them a little easy one,
boss, a little freebie entertainment while we ply them with some
liquor for the next real fight.”

The other man was busy groping at the woman’s
chest and he didn’t even bother looking at the cage. “Yeah,
whatever,” he told beady-eyes before mashing his mouth onto the
woman’s.

The little man clipped her collar with ease
and opened the door, dragging her roughly to her feet. She
whimpered a bit, and cried out as she stubbed a bare toe on the
uneven floor. Neither man, nor the woman seemed bothered by her
very human plight in the least.

Layna’s anger boiled over and she couldn’t
stop herself. “No!” she yelled loudly, immediately getting the
attention of all three.

The boss shoved the woman off him roughly and
strode over to her cage.

“You’re looking rather far gone for
complaining about your lot in life,” he commented casually, leaning
in for a closer look. She growled at him unconvincingly and his
eyes narrowed. He reached into her cage, and though she tried to
snap at him like a Bricrui would, he caught her chin easily. He
poked his other hand in and rubbed away part of her make-up.

“What the–” he began, rubbing the make-up
between his fingers. He let go of her chin with a little jerk of
her head and looked down at her. The beady-eyed man and the woman
were now standing next to him.

“That’s the strangest Bricrui I’ve ever
seen,” the woman commented stupidly.

“That’s because this is no Bricrui,” the
boss-man said, having caught on to the ploy. He glared down at her.
“Some do-gooder who thinks she can make a difference, huh?” He
turned to the beady-eyed man who was still standing behind him,
holding the little girl a safe distance away from them. “Put that
one back in her cage and get this one out. We’re going to have to
pack it up and move out, who knows who else she has coming. But I
think there’s time for one last fight.” He grinned evilly at her
and she held his gaze evenly as the beady-eyed man returned the
little girl and came over to her cage. He poked the leash in at her
and she reached up to grab it, easily keeping it away from the ring
it needed to clip to.

“Don’t bother with that,” the boss snapped,
“she’s not really one of them, it’s just a woman, open it up and
get her in the ring.”

As she was being led away, another door
opened and she looked up hopefully, praying that Gryffon and Sir
Ruawn had caught up to her at last. Her demeanor brightened as she
saw that it was two of the guards from Sir Ruawn’s Knights who had
been assigned to this expedition. She smiled at them, but it
faltered at the glum look in their eyes.

Her hopes were dashed in the next moment as
they stumbled forward, unable to catch themselves with their hands
since they were tied behind their backs. Layna swallowed the lump
that had just caught in her throat as she was roughly shoved
forward.

“And now, ladies and gentleman, we’ve got a
real live one for you…” the announcer was saying as she was pushed
into a dusty ring. She tumbled to the ground, barely catching
herself before smashing her face into the dirt. She looked up, into
the one red eye of the Bricrui she had seen earlier, and her blood
ran cold in her veins.

“Now taking bets!” the too-cheery voice rang
out above the jeering crowd. “Fifty-to-one odds!”

CHAPTER 11

The last tribe they had to visit, aside from
the Dena’ina, was called the Gwich’in people. Their territory was
in a swampy region, the lush green vines hanging from the trees and
twinkling of firebugs around them giving the place an ethereal
feel. Katya followed in the footsteps of the person before her
carefully, avoiding areas of ground that hadn’t yet been tested.
Twice already she had made the mistake of stepping outside the
already treaded path, and had soaked both shoes and good portions
of her pant legs in the process.