The Dragon Games

Captured

Regan peeled her cheek off the cold stone floor, her head pounding, her surroundings a blur of gray blobs. She blinked, and her vision slowly returned. Rusty cuffs shackled her wrists and ankles, and small metallic rings bound her fingers together, preventing her from using the divine. She was in an underground dungeon, and of the twenty cells, only hers was occupied. She couldn't have been unconscious for long. Looking at her reflection in the muddy puddle by her feet, the rash Drax's Divine left on her neck had not healed much. Neither had the cut on her arm, the surrounding skin still pink and tender.

Suddenly, the door creaked. A knight of forty or fifty years descended the dungeon steps. His eyes burned into Regan, the dim torches lighting the hollows of his face like a skull. A dragon was carved into his silver breastplate, its wings spread to form the shape of a crown – the king's sigil.

"I'm Leon Bates," he said. "Captain of the Sword Brethren."

"Bates? So the one that put on raider's garb to attack me while my guard was down is your son?" Regan said with a loose smile. "Too bad the raiders are done for. He would have made a great addition."

"Dishonorable people do not deserve honorable combat. Do you know what your friends did the second they were caught? They turned on each other in sorry attempts to save their own skin."

"They're not my friends," Regan said.

"Don't try to lie to me. I know your secret."

Regan stilled, her breath catching in her chest.

"I know you're not truly Nine. 'Nine' is a ruse used to hide your true identity. You're the raider known as'Crenshaw's pet."

Regan relaxed against her cell wall, swallowing the sudden urge to laugh. She hadn't heard that name in ages. It had started in rival gangs, then spread to the public and stuck to her like glue. Drax hated the name, viewing it as a slight on his authority. After Sammy disappeared, Drax threatened to cut out the tongue of any raider that used it – the first and last decent call he made as captain. As much as Regan liked Sammy, she never liked being known as the soppy wagtail trailing after his heels.

"All a ruse?" Regan examined the missing finger on her left hand. "I must be really committed to the bit."

"Do you deny that you are Crenshaw's Pet?" Leon said.

Regan shot him a sour look. "I'm not a dog."

"Do you deny it?" Leon repeated, his voice thunderous.

Regan did not bother replying. He already knew the answer, anyway. Drax and Sammy were long gone. Who else in the raiders could bend metal and levitate multiple guards at once?

"What's your true name?" Leon said.

Regan stared into the darkness of her cell, her face unreadable. She had no weapons, no Divine, no friends to fall back. The only thing she had left was information, and she'd be a fool to give it out freely.

"I would be willing to work out a deal with you," Leon said. "In exchange for your cooperation with my questioning, you will not be sentenced to death. Instead, you will be senteced to thirty years of hard labor and The Bind."

The Bind was a procedure that removed someone's ability to acess the Divine, and Regan's stomach clenched at just the thought of it. A few victims of The Bind wandered the slums, sleeping on the streets and begging for scraps of food.

"So in addition to thirty years of hard labor, you will sever my hands and blind me?" Regan said. "How would I even do hard labor without any eyes and hands?"

Leon afforded her a smile. "You may keep either your hand or your eyes. I'll even grant you the ability of deciding which."

"How many of the others agreed?"

"The other raiders did not have the chance to accept my deal. They didn't have the answers I was looking for, so they were sent to the gallows."

Regan stilled, suddenly realizing what answers he was looking for: the answers that only Crenshaw's pet would know. He wanted her to betray Sammy, but even if she knew where he was, the information did her no good. She had been thrown in enough dungeons to know the whole song and dance of threats or rewards, loyalty or death. Staying silent would cost her life, but Sammy was the last person in the world she would betray.

"I refuse," Regan said.

"I won't compromise on The Bind, but given good behavior, a few years might be–"

"I'm not interested in negotiating. The answer is no."

His face darkened. "Are you sure that's wise? All ten raiders in capture have already been executed. If you think we'll spare you because you're young, and the public doesn't like watching innocent faces hang, it's nothing a bag over the head or a few beaitings can't fix."

The color drained from Regan's face. Her chest tightened, and she struggled to breathe. "Ten?" she echoed, her voice strangled and high. "Don't you mean eleven?" Fifteen raiders went on the mission. Not counting Regan, and leaving out Auntie, Viper, and Ghost because they died at the manor, the count should only be four raiders short.

"Eleven. As I'm sure you will be glad to hear, Drax escaped–"

Regan moaned in despair, as if she had been stabbed. Hiding her face with her arms, she slid down the wall of her cell until she was laying on her back. Of course, Drax escaped. Of course, the man responsible for their deaths was the only one to evade punishment.

"It seems the gravity of your situation has finally sunk in," Leon said.

Regan bit the inside of her cheek, least she cry in front of the Captain of the Sword Brethren. What she wouldn't give to go back in time and spit in Drax's face, just once...

"Are you ready to work the me now?"

"No," Regan mumbled into her arm.

"Come again?" Leon said, his voice incredulous.

"No," Regan confirmed.

Leon grabbed the bars of her cell, dropping his voice to a menace. "Whose to say I need your cooperation? That I can't force the information out of you?"

"You know that won't work," Regan said. "You talked to the other raiders. I'm sure they told you why I lost my finger."

Leon sneered. "Crenshaw's pet to the grave, I see."

"Don't call me that."

"Accept my deal, raider. I will give you one more chance. Stop being a fool and accept it."

Regan lowered her arms away from her face to fix Leon with a bored, loathsome look. "You may as well call the torturer now. I have nothing else to say to you."

There was a long, heated pause. Rage practically emanated from Leon in waves.

"Fine," Leon growled. He turned to the door and shouted, "She's all yours!"