Taken: The Life of Uktesh Book 3 (2 page)

A man walked in behind Astiau. Like Astiau he had a golden ring in his bottom lip.  Unlike Astiau, this man was in full armor.  Uktesh had never before seen armor such as this.  In the dim light Uktesh thought that the man was naked and painted white. It wasn’t until he moved closer that Uktesh realized the man was wearing armor designed to look like the human body. What really caught his attention was the color, or colors.  It was primarily white, but there were swirls and lines of every color, and those colors seemed to shift based on where the light hit the man’s armor.  “Where can I get armor like that?”

Uktesh didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud until both the Lords laughed.  The new comer leaned against the bars and Royn scrambled back as far as his chains would allow. 
So he’s the one.  The one called, ‘the Destroyer,’ in the prophecy. 
Lord Astiau sneered and said, “Armor like his you’ll never have.  In all the empire there are only ten like it.  It is a prize for defeating a Dungeon.” 

The Destroyer said, “This armor only cost me the lives of fifty elite warriors.  It was a bargain by any definition, since Houses have gone to war for less.”  As he spoke his armor began to liquefy and roll across his body, becoming bracelets, rings, earrings, and necklaces.  Underneath his armor he was dressed in golden robes. 
No wonder!  That armor’s amazing!
  “I’m confused though. I encountered five incredible fighters during my battle, and my brother was nearly killed by you.  Are there more like the six of you in this country?” 

Uktesh lied, “Yes. Actually I’m just a beginner. The five on the islander were certainly the best unarmed fighters, but the mainland has dozens, maybe hundreds, of fighters that are better than they are.  Were,” he corrected his lie.

The Destroyer smiled and said, “Good!  Then we will return in a year or two.  With more ships, more soldiers, and more fodder.  That, brother, was our mistake this time,” he steered his brother away from the cage.  “What we need next time is some fodder for these master class fighters to tire themselves out on first!  If we can-” Uktesh strained to hear anything else but the Destroyer’s voice faded.

Royn said, “That’s him. That’s the Destroyer.  If you hadn’t already realized.”

Uktesh asked, “How’s your hand?”

Royn lifted his hand that was missing its middle three fingers and said, “Still messed up. Basically no movement at all; they should have just chopped it off and given me an attachable fist.”

Uktesh said, “You’ll get some movement again. Practice your meditation and visualize it getting fixed.  I’m sure they wouldn’t lie to you.  Someday you’ll get movement again.”

Royn looked at him with flat eyes, “You don’t have to lie to me or try to make me feel better, I’m going to be in the fighting pits too. They captured most of the dragons, and told me that anyone with a dragon tattoo would fight.  The thing is the Destroyer didn’t capture most of them.  The regular soldiers did, that’s how good they are.  The Destroyer is far and away better than the soldiers are.”

Uktesh sighed and said, “Yeah. His brother is no slouch either.  I was tired, but I threw everything I had at him, and he brushed it aside.  I only hurt him because he was gloating.  He could have finished me off if he’d tried to.”  Uktesh sighed as he thought back on his fight. He felt deflated after who knows how many hours, days, or weeks he been unconscious.  He now realized just how much the dragon had been augmenting his fletching powers.  With all that extra power he’d still lost and Lord Astiau’s brother seemed far stronger. 

Royn asked, “Did your family get away?  Or did they die in the fighting?”

Uktesh shook away the vision of Esolc’s head shattering and said, “Most of them made it, but Esolc and Leilani didn’t.”

Royn sighed and said, “At least Laurilli made it.  Was she hurt?”  Uktesh nodded mutely.  Royn must have read something in Uktesh’s silence because he asked, “She’s alive, right?”

Uktesh said, “I can only hope so. She took a crossbow bolt to her chest and arm.  She was alive when I last saw her, and a healer was trying to save her, but I don’t know if he was successful.”

Royn said, “She’ll be fine, she’s basically a second flame dragon because of all the people she beat, even if she didn’t know how to meditate very well yet.  You know, near the end people were afraid to spar with her, because of how embarrassing it is to lose to someone with years’ less training than you.”

Uktesh said, “Sorry about that.”

Royn smiled, and even in the dim light, Uktesh could see his true warmth, “You’re a completely different story.  You just breezed through everything we had. Even the grand masters were forced to admit that you were fit to join their ranks in only four months.  No one thought you were a weak opponent after the play.”  Royn exhaled loudly, “At first I was ashamed that you’d defeated me so easily, but then after I thought about it I realized that you’d taken out five dragons, three of whom were third flame dragons.”  Royn sighed loudly again, “Four dragons against one person who didn’t even know about the Shadow Step and you mopped the floor with us.  Then you learned the Shadow Step in like a day and the Shadow Walk the day after that!  You’re a freak!  A talented sponge for learning to fight, sure.  But a freak none the less.”

Uktesh said, “Well, I understand you’re exaggerating about the speed I learned the Shadow Step and Walk, but none of that does me any good who knows how many days out from Jubay.”

Royn said, “We’re only two days away. You could probably Walk half the distance if you tried and try swimming the rest of the way.  I heard you’d started working on elemental magic.  Just push the current toward Jubay.”

Uktesh said, “I can’t, I don’t have the strength right now. I used everything I had to stop Astiau. I still feel empty. I haven’t recharged even a hundredth of the power I had when I fought Astiau.”

Royn said, “Wow, are you going to be able to recover?  Or did you permanently burn away some of your ability?”

Uktesh felt his eyebrows raise and asked, “That’s possible?”

Royn said, “Yeah. That’s why only fifth flame dragons can learn it. It could kill you if you fuel your power with your life force.”

Uktesh felt his eyebrows climb higher and asked, “You can fuel magic with life force?”

Royn said, “Obviously I don’t know how, but that’s what I’ve heard.”  Royn sighed loudly again, “I wonder how far away this, ‘Empire,’ is.”

Uktesh said, “Hopefully months away.”

Royn twisted his head quickly to look at Uktesh in shock, “Months?  You want to be chained to a wall for months?”

Uktesh shook his head and said, “I doubt I’ll be chained for much longer, because where is there to run at sea?  I’ll still be in a cage and Astiau knows how to track the use of Shadow Walk though he called it a Split Step.  If he can track it I’m sure the Destroyer can.  The more we have to travel the further they are from home and that means it’ll be harder for them to gather the needed supplies to attack us again.  That will give our people enough time to ready ourselves for their return.”

Royn asked, “Do you think we can stop them?”

Uktesh shrugged and said, “If the grand masters had known about the attack they wouldn’t have wasted their power with the magical display the used as a sendoff for me.  They would have attacked the ships much further out.  They might not even have had to fight if they took out all the ships far from the shore.  I know that we probably won’t see their like again in our time, but while we mainlanders may not be as skilled in fighting or magic, we have canons and I’m sure we’ll find a few of their crossbows to reverse engineer to have our own to use against them.”

Royn said, “Those crossbows!  They fire four times before they need to be reloaded and they punch through walls!”  Uktesh raised an eyebrow at Royn, who said, “Well they have a lot of speed.”

Uktesh nodded and didn’t argue about the walls comment because most of the dock side stores had straw walls to let in a breeze.  Uktesh asked, “Do you know how many people they captured?”

Royn replied, “Thanks to you and the grand masters they didn’t have enough ships to carry very many prisoners along with their surviving soldiers.  At night the soldiers sleep in those cages over there,” he nodded at the empty cages. 

Uktesh had to smile at that thought.
At least we stopped them from getting too many people
, he thought to the dragon, before he remembered that the dragon was gone.  Royn rolled back over and soon Uktesh heard him sobbing.  Uktesh again felt that he was somehow emotionally broken, Esolc and Leilani both died, but he only felt anger at the thought.  He knew that when he had a chance he was going to avenge their deaths, but guessed that that day was future. 

Especially if Astiau and the Destroyer’s dad, the Storm lord, is more powerful than they are.

Royn finally fell asleep and left Uktesh to review his fight with Astiau.  Uktesh shook his head and couldn’t imagine how his attack had been blocked.  He had poured everything into that one attack, only to have it deflected or what seemed more likely, destroyed.  Uktesh suddenly realized that when the dragon Walked away the dragon could have picked him up and then Walked both of them away. 
Why didn’t I think of that then?  Why didn’t he think of it?  Maybe he couldn’t, maybe he didn’t have enough strength to Walk both of us away. 
Uktesh assumed that it was because the dragon couldn’t, and not that they’d both overlooked such an easy solution, though the thought did leave him disconcerted. 

After a few hours a man came, unlocked the cage, set a plate of food in the corner, and left after relocking the cage.  Royn woke up, began to eat, and handed Uktesh half the bread.  Uktesh found that the shackles had enough chain length that he could feed himself, if not easily.  When Uktesh was finished Royn handed him a cup of water and Uktesh gratefully gulped it down.  When he finished he tossed the cup to Royn with a flick of his wrist.  He then leaned against the wall and wished for a chair of some sort to sit on.  Uktesh thought about the shackles and wondered if he could unlock or break them with his powers.

Uktesh closed his eyes and tried to meditate on his right shackle as if it were a part of his body.  First he pictured the lock, and then he imagined a key and tried to solidify the air inside the lock and twist. Although it failed, he could tell that he was using his power the way he wanted.  Next, he tried to break the hinge, with the thought that if he did that he could try to force open the rest of the shackle.  When that failed he tried to break the lock by filling it with air, solidifying it, and then expanding it, but it was like trying to bend steel by blowing on it.  With a huff he gave up.
If I had my sword a perfect attack would cut through the chains.
  Uktesh looked at the wooden wall the shackles were attached to and realized that he could punch through the wood, or at least damage it enough to pull the chain from the wall.

He lifted his hands, spun around and realized that the chains were now wrapped around each other and he could barely move. 
So much for that thought,
he sighed and spun around the other way to untangle himself.  He leaned against the wall and meditated on the chain and shackles to see if there was a weak point.  He felt the whole length of his right shackle and chain, and when he didn’t find any weak points, he moved to his left shackle and chain.  He was halfway through the chain when he heard someone enter their area.  Three guards appeared, along with the man who’d brought them food.  They unlock the cage and then entered it.  

The key holder said, “I’m going to release you, now that we’re far enough away from land, but I don’t want any trouble.  You may be a hot hand with a sword, but Lord Astiau already beat you once, an’ he’s itching for you to break out so he can do it again, maybe permanently.”  The man cautiously moved to unlock Uktesh’s manacles and even though Uktesh man no movement the man jerked back several times before he got both shackles unlocked.  The four men exited the cage and the key holder locked it up again, before all four made a hasty exit from the prison.  Uktesh rotated his wrists and sat down with a sigh of relief.

When night fell a man entered the prison and Uktesh couldn’t help but try to get some information.  The man was short with well-defined muscles and a full beard.  Uktesh asked the man, “Hey, how many prisoners did you get?”

The man stepped into a cage, started moving straw around to make a bed, and said in a bored tone, “Shut up.”

Uktesh said, “It must’ve been a lot, but you probably couldn’t bring them all.”

The man sighed, lay down, and said, “Shut up.”

Uktesh said, “I’m Uktesh and this is Royn. What’s your name?”

The man started at the ceiling and said, “Shut up.”

Uktesh shrugged, wanted to sarcastically pretend he thought the guy’s name was “Shut Up,” but instead asked, “How’d you get the short straw and have to sleep down here?  You’re pretty old to not have seniority. Are you bad at soldiering?”

The man glanced at Uktesh for the first time and deliberately said, “Shut up.”

More people came in and Uktesh said, “Thanks for the information. I didn’t know that.”

The man didn’t respond, but Uktesh could see by his face that he was confused.  One of the newcomers a bald overweight tall man with a bronze lip ring said, “Cavavos, are you telling him things you shouldn’t?”