Prowler: Book Two of the Darkwatch Trilogy by E. M. Duffield-Fuller

Author:E. M. Duffield-Fuller [Duffield-Fuller, E. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-12-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen: Bissy

W hen Bissy awoke, she thought for one horrible moment that she was back in the dungeons, awaiting Iridia and the prowlers again. The cold air was just the same as it curled around her. But as she sat up with a hasty gasp, the hands which fled to her face were unbound, and slowly the memories of last night returned.

Her mind released its sleep-fog slowly this morning, still muggy with the truly copious amounts of raw curite the Sixth Camp rebels had forced down her throat as they tended to her wounds. She wore a bandage beneath her small clothes—as her aching ribs reminded her, and a stinging salve had been slathered over the myriad cuts that lacerated her skin. Still, nothing was broken and she was still in one piece, so she supposed she couldn’t complain too much.

She rubbed her face, forcing her racing pulse to calm once more. The thrum of power from the wardstone throbbed in her boot. As she and Shona had gritted their teeth and forced their way through the warding protections, ignoring the panic seizing her mind, freezing her limbs, making her feel as if she was about to explode and melt at the same time, she’d shoved it down the side of her boot to hide. As they had both collapsed against the rocky ground on the far side of the wardings, panting, sweating and crying, a distant alarm had sounded and scurrying feet hurried towards them.

There had been a swaying flare of light, Bissy recalled, glinting off the raised swords and pickaxes, reflected across the dripping dark of the walls. An urgent clamour of voices had engulfed them as Shona had been recognised, and the last thing Bissy heard was someone calling desperately for Maundi as hands had grabbed and hauled at them, tugging them away.

She looked around slowly now, trying to take it all in. There was damp and oozing rock overhead, all streaked with the red threads of curite, glistening almost demonically in the lanterns that were hung around the frigid air. A blanket had been thrown over her, and a matted, threadbare fur was laid underneath to protect them from the chill of the rock in the nook both she and Shona had been laid within. A curtain of fabric had been nailed on the overhanging lip of the nook to afford them both some privacy and, as she twitched it anxiously back, she saw a thimmaru guard standing to attention beyond the heavy wool dividing them.

Bissy glanced across at Shona, who was squeezed in here beside her. She had been given a plethora of pillows to plump around her in the light of her condition, but it probably wasn’t a good sign that she, too, was under guard.

She was still asleep, though they must have arrived hours ago. There was very little sense of time down here without any sunlight. Bissy didn’t wake her. Shona looked awful. The candlelight above them threw deep shadows over

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