the_lioness | (no subject)

Hakim was alone when he went to update Alanna. The other five members of the King's Own who had been searching the keep half-jokingly suggested drawing straws, but Hakim felt it was his duty to deliver the bad news. They hadn’t argued with his decision, each face as grim as the next as he took a torch, opened the heavy door and ventured down the uneven dusty steps.

Prudently, he made noise on the way.

“He’s gone?” Alanna asked when the light from Hakim's torch joined hers. She didn’t turn around, didn’t take her eyes off the high clay wall in front of her.

“Yes. His steward said the monsters came for him with a chair in a box and flew away. It was all the sense we could get from the man.”

“You’re surprised?” It rang with bitterness and anger.

Hakim waited a moment to respond, as if giving her time to swallow her temper. “No.”

“No,” she repeated, clenching her fists at her sides even as she worked to control her tone. “Let his servants go. Anyone loyal has fled.”

Her friend nodded; so did his shadow. “We’ll find him.” He paused. “And the mage.”

Alanna growled low under her breath and drew her sword. Torchlight flickered along the polished metal, but she couldn’t see past the sickly yellow magical glow surrounding the racks of twisted instruments interspersed with chains and blades and all manner of fiendish devices designed to cause pain. Releasing the stone at her neck, she grasped the sword with both hands and yelled as she struck one of the chains holding a broken skeleton to the wall. When it fell to the stone floor, she sheathed the sword and turned back to Hakim.

“We’ll inform Numair and then ride hard for Corus,” she said. “But first, Great Mother, we take care of him.”

Hakim regarded her steadily. “Yes, Lioness.”

She nodded once and left Lord Sinthya’s dungeon without a backward glance.