He stands, his girth filling half the small space. We’re crammed in the other half with the guard. Wafting from his armpits is an odor that smells like what I imagine death would smell like. As I try to get a hold of my rebellious stomach, I consider yelling “I surrender!” and impaling myself on his axe, but I manage to close off my nostrils enough to regain control.
“Ain’t you a couple of tasty morsels,” he bellows, laughing before he’s even finished saying it, a growling echoing chortle that spouts a stream of rotten breath, proving that this dungeon master is more than just a one-smell act.
He takes a step closer, which means his belly touches me—not his clothing, but his actual skin, because he’s not wearing a shirt. Thankfully, I am, but the barrier seems so thin and insignificant I have to choke back another pulse of vomit.
“No funny business,” he says, showing us all his teeth, which amount to half of what he would’ve started with as an adult, yellow and chipped.
“Nothing funny here,” Buff says, and I agree wholeheartedly.
“All yers, Big,” the sword-poking guard says.
As he turns to go, I say, “See you later,” but he doesn’t look back or return the sentiment. Probably because he doesn’t expect he will.
“In,” Big says, and I wonder whether he came out so large that his mother couldn’t have possibly chosen any other name, or if the nickname was given later in life, when he quickly exceeded his peers in every physical way. Probably the former, if I had to guess.
When I forget to move, Big punches me forward, his fist like a battering ram, sending shudders through my bruised body. By the way Buff grunts behind me, I can tell he got the same treatment.
Torches line the walls of the dungeon, casting shadows in all the right places. Or the wrong places, if you’re me and you can only imagine what’s reaching out from the dark spots as you pass them.
I try to get a good look in the cells we pass, but their bars are thick and the shadows are deep, and if anyone’s in them, then they’re well hidden and quieter than a baby on its mother’s teat.
“Get in,” Big says, motioning with his axe to an open cell door on my left. I limp through, turn back to watch Buff do the same. “Not you,” Big says, stopping Buff with an axe blade to his throat. He seems to use the axe for a lot of things. Like if he were to shave his back, which clearly, based on the thick tufts of fur growing back there, he doesn’t, he would probably use his axe to do it.
He slams the cell door shut with a clang, twisting a big key in the lock in a practiced motion that I expect took him years to master given the sausage-like girth of his fingers, which clearly aren’t made for dexterity. Clobbering, yah. Pummeling, most definitely. Turning keys in locks, not so much.
“Later, buddy,” I say to Buff as Big pushes him forwards.
“Enjoy the food,” he returns with a dried-blood smile.
I take a moment to study my surroundings, which only takes a moment, because the cell is tinier than Buff’s house, and decorated with a miniscule assortment of gray stone walls, floor, and ceiling. A metal pail sits in one corner. I get the feeling I’ll be holding the urge to use the bathroom as long as possible in this place.
As I settle in on a spot on the floor that looks slightly less dirty than anywhere else, I hear a clang, the rattle of a key in a lock, and then the thud of heavy footsteps as Big lumbers past. “No funny business,” he hollers as he slams the dungeon door behind him.
I sigh. This is what I wanted. Right? Chill yah, I tell myself. It’s better being locked up on the inside, where Jolie might be somewhere nearby, than free on the outside, always wondering what happened to my sister, whether she’s alive, whether she’s safe.
“Buff?” I say.
“Yah.” His voice isn’t particularly close, but it’s not far either, maybe six or seven cells down the row.
“How you feeling?”
“Like a punching bag.”
“You’ll heal,” I say with a smile.
“I know,” he says.
“Buff.”
“Yah.”
“Thanks.”
“You owe me,” he says.
I’m about to respond when something scrapes the wall in the cell next to mine.
Chapter Seventeen
I sit statue still for a few seconds, listening intently. Was it my imagination? Was it the scrape of a rat’s tiny claws? Or was it something else entirely?
“Don’t try and avoid me, Dazz,” Buff says. “Just because we’re locked up doesn’t mean I won’t come collecting one day. And it’ll be something big, something mind-blowingly huge. You’ll wish you’d never asked for my help in the first place.”