Atone by J. C. Owens

Author:J. C. Owens [Owens, J. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Etopia Press
Published: 2022-06-07T18:30:00+00:00

* * *

The next day dawned bright and clear, a faint mist rising from the land just a bit to the south of the village, which formed a bowl shape, becoming marshland fed by snowmelt from the mountains. The rugged slopes ringed the village, strange and looming over the small valley, very different from what Tal was used to. In Valemont, the mountains formed a backdrop to life. Here, they were inescapable. They held a stark beauty as the rising sun shone off the snow partway up the slopes.

He shivered. Summer it might be, but it was cold this high. Without his shirt, he found he was less cold-hardened than he had formally believed. Certainly the Chitosos undertook harsh training in all climates, but here, with the wind off the snow above them, he found himself thoroughly chilled.

Perhaps he was not quite as healed as he’d hoped. The cold made the phantom pain in his missing hand even worse.

He gently lay the sleeping Kira down upon the bed they sat on, which was only moderately dirty instead of absolutely filthy, before rising to his feet and ducking out of the shelter. He needed to move, needed to test the boundaries of this cage.

It was silent, still very early, with no one to be seen on the plateau around the fighting arena. He had heard loud laughter and wild celebration in the village, lasting far into the night. Now everything was still and silent. Even the four cages he could see on the edges of the fighting ring showed no sign of life.

He flowed into the stretching exercises learned from the Chitosos training regime, warming his muscles, steadying his mind. For the first time since the accident, he felt calm, which was madness in itself considering his circumstances.

Yet the prospect of conflict, of pitting his will and mind against these people to find a way out for himself and Kira before turning his attention to the baron, seemed to divert his lethargy, his inability to think and act as normal since his wounding, and channel it into something approaching his old self.

Warmed by the movements and the abrupt clarity of his thoughts, he paced the confines of the cage, inspecting it.

Large pieces of wood were attached together with boiled leather strips infused with wax that had shrunken and hardened. Even a knife would have a hard time against it, and Tal’s had disappeared at some point, no doubt now in the possession of one of the tribesmen, if not Kycos himself. Yet another thing taken. It wouldn’t have mattered. The Chitosos used just such a method to make boiled leather armor, and he knew its strength and resilience. The posts were buried deep, and the cross pieces formed squares of no more than a foot. Well designed to keep an adult male in confinement.

The faintest of sounds made him whirl in place, half crouched, ready to act.

The young man he’d spotted the day before stood just out of reach outside of the wooden bars.

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