Chapter 7: The Cell at Dusk

The old Halloran quarry was a pit of grey stone with a row of trailers and tents along the rim.

Black cloth hung from every pole.

Marina drove the quartermaster's truck down the ramp with Jude in the passenger seat and a boning knife against his side.

She did not say a word the whole forty miles.

Men with rifles waved them through the gate.

A huge man in a gray beard waited in front of the biggest trailer.

His left hand was wrapped in a leather glove, and when he lifted it to greet them, only three fingers moved.

Corwin Quillon looked exactly as Jude remembered him from the Pass.

He was only older, and thicker through the middle, and he had a river's scar on the side of his neck.

"The war leader," Corwin said in a rough, pleased voice.

"I'd have known you anywhere."

"You're dead," said Jude.

"I was for a while."

Corwin looked at Marina.

For one second, his face did something strange.

It softened, and then it went flat again.

"Good girl," he said quietly.

"Hand him to the guards."

Two men took Jude by the arms.

Marina let go of the knife and stepped back, and her hands hung loose and empty at her sides.

"Where is the ring?" Corwin said to Jude.

"You'll want to ask my brother."

"I did," Corwin said.

"He wears it, but the whole Council watches his hand."

"He can't give it up without waking the hall."

"I gave it up on the Council table two days ago," said Jude.

"My brother took it, and he is the man selling you the sect."

Corwin gave a long, slow laugh.

"I believe you," he said.

"A man like that is a lot of use, right up to the day he isn't."

He turned toward the trailers.

"Put him in the feed cellar, boys, and make sure he's cold."

"Tomorrow I'll decide how many pieces to take."

They shoved Jude down a ramp into a concrete room under the trailer yard.

It had one grey bulb and a drain in the floor, and the door closed behind him with a hard clang.

He sat against the wall and looked at his hands.

He did not think about the knife.

He made himself think about the lock, the number of guards, the angle of the stairs.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Ascension to the Lost Throne from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.