It was difficult to judge the passage of time. My hunger gnawed at my insides and I felt some kind of slimy dirt spread on my leg as I shifted on the straw. I prayed and hoped it wasn’t fecal matter from some former prisoner. It could have been hours or it could have been minutes, although probably the reality was somewhere in between, when my captors finally opened up the cell door enough to thrust a bowl of oatmealy goo towards me.
I was so ravenous at that point that I really didn’t care if it tasted like sodden cardboard. I gobbled the foul but sustaining substance down, licking the bowl clean before settling down to contemplate the door again. My pangs diminished and I felt sustained enough now, that I was certain I could cross when next the doors opened.
My plan was to wait in readiness and overwhelm the guard through sheer surprise. Once my foot crossed the threshold, I could glimmer and continue my journey forward. It wasn’t subtle and it would probably make the piggies even more suspicious towards people like me in the future, but at least I could get on my way. There was one minor flaw to my brilliant plan: it hadn’t occurred to me that the next person to open the door could surprise me.
I crouched in readiness, holding the bowl as an ersatz weapon. The vessel had either been carved from wood, or perhaps formed from a hollow half a seed pod. It wouldn’t form a great cudgel, but anything was better than using my hands alone. I stared at the crack of the door, eyeing the gleam in the darkness like a cat waiting at a mouse hole. I somehow doubted that cats’ muscles ached as badly as mine did from this sort of waiting readiness, but who knew. It isn’t like cats are terribly forthcoming in the best of circumstances.
I heard the shuffling of feet outside my cell’s door and I tensed. The aching in my muscles grew to a dull and painful vibration. There was more of the soft grunting, growling pig language, louder shuffling and then, as the bolt was drawn back from the door, a male voice spoke in English; “Well, let’s see the tramp.”
I froze, my plan completely forgotten. I knew that voice. It was such a shock to hear that voice here of all places that my disbelief completely paralyzed me. The door swung open and sunlight eclipsed the tall shadow that stood before me. That was fine, I didn’t need to see him. His mocking expression had been burned into my memory in the years past. I could feel his smirk, his sheer delight and I imagined how I had to look, mostly naked, covered in straw and filth.
His taunting tone made my teeth clench until they hurt. “Darling sister. What a surprise!”
I gritted out the barest of polite acknowledgements, “Cullen.”
He backed out of the light and there it was: the chance to get away, to cross. I hesitated. Curiosity and a desire to know if he knew anything about Vicky barely won the internal argument against my desire to get the hell out of this world. I waited inside the cell, wary of a trap.
“What are you doing here? And what do you want from me?” I demanded. Cullen had burned me more than once in the past. He might be blood, but I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. And I wasn’t really sure that I could even pick him up.
He laughed so sweetly that it almost made me smile; “Come out,
Grudgingly, I crossed the threshold into the light, clutching my llama skin covering over my nudity. I could feel his gimlet eyes taking in every detail, from the dirt on my legs to the straw in my hair. Even worse, I could tell he was enjoying it. “I can’t have my own flesh and blood, my dear sweet sister, treated like an animal, now can I?” He clearly thought himself a great wit. I was inclined to disagree.
My eyes had adjusted to the light enough to see him now. He had put on some weight in the years since last we had met and I had to admit, the broader shoulders suited him. Cullen had inherited Dad’s copper-red hair and grey eyes. His wide mouth and straight nose must have come from his mother. He looked more like the rascally mischievous boy grown up than what he really was. Too bad he had never been that boy to begin with. He was a half-blood, too. One who preferred life in the Mistlands to anywhere else and growing up, he had been my greatest tormenter.
I looked around at the piggies surrounding me, spear guns lowered threateningly and scowled. “No, of course you can’t, half-brother.” The reminder that my mother had usurped the place of his own mother in Dad’s quest for the ideal partner was a barb I wasn’t above using. His laughter ceased and I smiled.
Although he looked irritated enough to order the pig-men to shoot for an instant, he didn’t. He had learned a bit of control, apparently. He led me across and beyond the village, explaining, “Primitive towns in this world. Positively medieval, most of them. I find it more comfortable to bring my own lodgings when I recruit.”
Recruit? I filed that away for later consideration. He was fond of war games, perhaps he had found a real war somewhere that he wished to get involved with. He seemed to think I had some sense of what he was talking about and I knew that I was more likely to get answers out of him if I played along than if I asked explicitly.
Just beyond the village was what looked just like some military encampment out of some feudal war history book. Granted, instead of horses, llamas had been tethered and the knights and squires were pig-people rather than human, but the atmosphere was otherwise the same. I was intrigued to note that the llamas came in several colorations, including black, dark red and brown as well as the green I had seen before. Billowing tents rose from the ground and although the sky was not yet dark, campfires were being built between them.
Cullen ushered me towards the largest of the tents and I paused to touch the material when he held the flap open for me. Silk. I ducked into the tent and looked around. This looked like an officer’s meeting tent or strategy headquarters. Maps were rolled up on one table and there were glasses lined neatly up awaiting filling. A few wooden trunks were tucked underneath. A larger table stood in the center of the tent with benches running the length on either side.
“Nice setup,” I commented, trying to keep a rein on my curiosity. What game was he about with all of this?
Cullen waved me towards the central table with one hand. “Go on, sit, sit. Let me get some wine and we can talk seriously. You can’t bargain without wine.”
Bargain. As I suspected, he wanted something from me. I began to wonder if the pigs that picked me up had been on his plan to draw me in. Or perhaps he was the one behind the assassin. I really couldn’t put it past him. The real question, however, was why? Why would he go to all that trouble and why now? And was that what had happened to Vicky? Mulling, I sat at the indicated bench and tucked my makeshift robe around me to ensure decency.
“I take it recruiting is going well? You seem to have accumulated a small army.” I watched carefully as he pulled a bottle out of one of the trunks and uncorked it to pour into two of the lined up glasses. Red wine. If he wanted to poison me, he would have laced the glass beforehand, but his system wasn’t all that different than mine. He would know it would only incapacitate for a time, not destroy.
“It’s a start,” he replied distractedly as he poured. “Some of us believe in preparing rather than winging it.”
I couldn’t tell if this was intended as a comment about my method of escaping my unexpected assassin or if he spoke on something greater. From the sound of it, the assassin was something I should have expected, but that still made little sense. There was something still that I wasn’t being told and that ignorance could probably be used against me. I momentarily wished that it had been someone I could trust who had found me here so I could simply ask the questions and be done with it. But if it had been someone I trusted, I might not have found myself in this situation to begin with.
To keep him from realizing that I had no clue what he was talking about, I responded; “For those of us with ingenuity, it’s the only way to succeed.”
Cullen snorted and plunked a glass of wine in front of me. It wasn’t the laugh of scorn that I expected and I frowned. He rounded the table and slowly sat on the bench opposite me. He eyed my current garb and replied, “Yes, success.”
He seemed more thoughtful than mocking as he regarded me. Without another word, he drained half his own glass of wine. Unease, that familiar friend, began to stir in my stomach. The sensation was strong enough to rise over the now constant buzz of fey-awareness that was tingling so steadily it was almost a form of psychic white noise. More than anything, Cullen looked older than I had ever seen him before, and he looked worried.
He heaved a sigh that sounded genuine and looked up at my face. “
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