The Mad King by Robyn Wideman

Author:Robyn Wideman [Wideman, Robyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-16T18:30:00+00:00

23

Nathan

Nathan was shocked when he first entered the huge building where the prisoner’s cell was located. It had nothing to do with the corpses piled in the antechamber, waiting for Magnus’ men to move them to a pit that would be their final resting place. It was something much different.

“What is this on the walls?” he said, leaning forward to inspect the gelatinous substance which coated the entirety of the antechamber’s interior. He recoiled and gasped, “Oh, it smells like old meat.”

“I wish I could say it’s something you get used to over time,” Kai said, “but I would be lying. Add in the smells of a dozen unwashed people, as well as the smells they produce, and that was my every day.”

Kiana and Hanna both nodded vigorously in agreement.

“It was pretty bad,” Kiana said. “When Katla and I first went back there, it was hard not to gag.”

“Where is Katla?” Nathan asked. “We could probably use her help with this.”

“She’s with Hester. I’ll go get them,” Kiana replied, then hurried toward the exit.

Hanna chuckled at how quickly the girl left the slime-coated room. “Any excuse to get out of this place.”

“Maybe Hester will know more about it,” Nathan said, then asked Hanna, “Does it go through the rest of the building?”

“Only the bottom floor. Besides the open room with the cell, there’s another room of a similar size next to it, but that one is empty. The upstairs is one big open room with a massive hole in the roof. When I was clearing the building, there were a half dozen men up there performing some type of ritual, though I didn’t recognize any of the symbols or objects they were using. All of them were well-trained warriors, though none of them lasted very long.”

Nathan chuckled. “I can’t imagine they did.”

“From the sounds of their chanting, it seemed like they were praying to some mysterious god or something.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Nathan said, then expanded on his statement when Hanna gave him a quizzical look. “The army is made up of foreign mercenaries. It stands to reason they would have strange methods of worship.”

“It’s strange Jorral didn’t mention anything about this place, though,” Hanna said.

“It probably wasn’t a very popular place to venture,” Nathan said with a shrug. “Maybe he didn’t know about it.”

Hanna shook her head. “I don’t know why you insist on defending him.”

“He helped us.”

“It’s more likely he was leading us here because he figured his buddies in the colorful armor could take us down.”

Nathan wasn’t interested in arguing with her. “I guess we’ll never know,” he said, then changed the subject. “How do we get to the room with the cell?”

A grin teased at the side of Hanna’s mouth, but she kept a straight face. “Right through this doorway.”

Using a handkerchief, Nathan opened the door to find himself in a large, open room covered in the same slime as the antechamber. In the middle was a cell where the Red Knight was being kept.

“He’s still out,” Hanna said, peering through the bars.

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