Rebel, Pawn, King. Morgan Rice

the cloaked figure had grabbed him; close enough that he’d felt as though he could reach out and touch the entrance to the rebellion’s hideaway. He’d felt as though he was finally safe, and they’d snatched it away from him.

      “Lady Stephania sends her regards.”

      The words echoed in Sartes’s memory. They’d been the last words he heard before they’d struck him unconscious. They’d simultaneously told him who was doing this and that he had failed. They’d let him get that close and then taken it away.

      They’d left Ceres and the others without the information Sartes had been able to find. He found himself worrying about his sister, his father, Anka, and the rebellion, not knowing what would happen to them without the gate he’d been able to find for them. Would they be able to get into the city without his help?

      Had they been able to do it, Sartes corrected himself, because by now, one way or another, it would be done. They would have found another gate, or an alternative way into the city, wouldn’t they? They had to have done, because what was the alternative?

      Sartes didn’t want to think about that, but it was impossible to avoid. The alternative was that they might have failed. At best, they might have realized that there was no way in without taking a gate, and found themselves trapped there while the army advanced. At worst… at worst, they might already be dead.

      Sartes shook his head. He wouldn’t believe that. He couldn’t. Ceres would find a way to come through it all, and to win. Anka was as resourceful as anyone he’d met. His father was strong and solid, while the other rebels had the determination that came with knowing that their cause was a righteous one. They would find a way to prevail.

      Sartes had to think that what was happening to him would be temporary too. The rebels would win, which meant that they would capture Stephania and she would tell them what she’d done. They would come for him, the way his father and Anka had come when he’d been stuck in the army camp.

      But what a place they’d have to come to. Sartes looked out as the cart jolted its way across the landscape, and saw the flatness of it give way to pits and rocky surrounds, bubbling ponds of blackness and heat. Even from where he was, he could smell the sharp, bitter smell of the tar.

      There were people there, working in lines. Sartes could see the chains connecting them in pairs as they dredged the tar with buckets and collected it so that others could use it. He could see the guards standing over them with whips, and as Sartes watched, a man collapsed under the beating he was receiving. The guards cut him loose from his chains and kicked him into the nearest tar pit. The tar took a long time to swallow his screams.

      Sartes wanted to look away then, but couldn’t. He couldn’t take his eyes from the horror of it all. From the cages in the open air that were obviously the prisoners’ homes. From the guards who treated them as nothing more than animals.

      He watched until the cart drew to a halt, and soldiers opened it with weapons in one hand and chains in the other.

      “Prisoners out,” one called. “Out, or we’ll set fire to that cart with you inside, you scum!”

      Sartes shuffled out into the light with the others, and now he could take in the full horror of it. The fumes of the place were almost overwhelming. The tar pits around them bubbled in strange, unpredictable combinations. Even as Sartes watched, a patch of ground near one of the pits gave way, tumbling into the tar.

      “These are the tar pits,” the soldier who’d spoken announced. “Don’t bother trying to get used to them. You’ll all be dead long before that happens.”

      The worst part, Sartes suspected as they fitted a manacle to his ankle, was that they might be right.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      Thanos slid his small boat up the shale of the beach, looking away from the manacles set there below the tide line. He made his way up off the beach, feeling exposed with every step across the gray rock of the place. It would be far too easy to be seen there, and Thanos definitely didn’t want to be spotted on a place like this.

      He scrambled up a path and stopped, feeling anger join his disgust as he saw what lay along either side of the path. There were devices there, gibbets and spikes, breaking wheels and gallows, all obviously intended to give an unpleasant death to those within. Thanos had heard of the Isle of Prisoners, but even so, the evil of this place made him want to wipe it away.

      He kept on up the path, thinking about how it would be for anyone led down there, hemmed in by rocky walls and knowing that only death awaited. Had Ceres really ended up in this place? Just the thought of it was enough to make Thanos’s gut clench.

      Ahead, Thanos heard shouts, whoops, and cries that sounded almost as much animal as human. There was something about the sound that made him freeze, his body telling him to be ready for violence. He hurried off the path, lifting his head over the level of the rocks that blocked his view.

      What he saw beyond made him stare. A man was running, his bare feet leaving bloody smears on the stony ground. He wore clothes that were ripped and torn, one sleeve hanging loose from the shoulder, a great rent at his back showing a wound beneath. He had wild hair and a wilder beard. Only the fact that his torn clothes were silk showed that he hadn’t lived wild all his life.

      The man chasing him looked, if anything, even wilder, and there was something about him that made Thanos feel like the prey of some great animal just looking at him. He wore a mixture of leathers that looked as though they’d been stolen from a dozen different sources, and had features streaked with mud in a pattern that Thanos suspected was designed to let him blend in with the forest. He held a club and a short dagger, and the whoops he emitted while chasing the other man made Thanos’s hair stand on end.

      On instinct, Thanos started forward. He couldn’t just stand by and watch someone be murdered, even here, where everyone had committed some crime to be sent here. He hurried over the rise, sprinting down to a spot the two would run past. The first of the men dodged around him. The second paused with a sharp-toothed grin.

      “Looks like another one to hunt,” he said, and lunged at Thanos.

      Thanos reacted with the speed of long training, swaying out of the way of the first knife thrust. The club caught him on the shoulder, but he ignored the pain. He swung his fist around sharply, feeling the impact as he connected with the other man’s jaw. The wild man fell, unconscious before he hit the ground.

      Thanos looked round, and saw the first man staring at him.

      “Don’t worry,” Thanos said, “I won’t hurt you. I’m Thanos.”

      “Herek,” the other man said. To Thanos, his voice sounded rusty, as though he hadn’t spoken to anyone for a long time. “I – ”

      Another cry came from back toward the wooded section of the island. This one seemed to be many voices joined together into something that even Thanos found terrifying.

      “Quick, this way.”

      The other man grabbed Thanos’s arm, pulling him toward a series of higher rocks. Thanos followed, ducking down into a space that couldn’t be seen from the main path, but where they could still watch for signs of danger. Thanos could feel the fear of the other man as they crouched there, and he tried to stay as still as possible.

      Thanos wished he’d thought to grab the knife from the man he’d knocked down, but it was too late for that now. Instead, he could only stay there while they waited for the other hunters to descend on the spot where they’d been.

      He saw them approach in a group, and no two of them were alike. They all held weapons that had obviously been crafted from whatever had been near to hand, while those who still wore more than the barest scraps of clothing wore an odd mix of obviously stolen things. There were men and women there, looking hungry and dangerous, half-starved and vicious.

      Thanos saw one of the women there prod the unconscious man with her foot. He felt a thrill of fear then, because if the man woke, he would be able to tell the others what had happened, and that would set them searching.

      Yet he didn’t wake, because the woman