Caracara's Hunt

"You"ll need to sleep at some point," a part of him whispered, but he shut it up immediately. He was fine for now.

While waiting for Corwal to wake up, he stayed somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, drifting through memories. The batch of criminals before him was the one that had lasted the longest. So long in fact that the other groups were becoming faint recollections in his mind of things that might have happened.

A voice brought him back from his reverie. On the other side of the cell, Liam was inciting Cayote to go for Corwal. To Arawn"s surprise, Cayote refused, but he didn"t explain himself.

Another long while later, Corwal cracked his eyes open. Confusion flashed past his face, but it was gone as soon as it came. The man yawned and stretched, wincing when he pulled on his injured arm. "Does this place ever look like anything but h.e.l.l?" he asked with a grimace. "I can"t even make out my fingers in this dark."

Arawn shook his head, then realized that Corwal would probably be unable to see it if he had trouble with the dark. "No. The only light comes from that hatch up there."

It was settled in the middle of the dome-shaped ceiling and allowed only a few traces of torchlight through. They were so faint that it was little different from if they didn"t exist at all.

"How can people even live like this?" Corwal asked, his voice filled with disgust. He tried to stand up, but then thought better of it. "Animals are treated better than this."

"We"re worse than animals—monsters that have no right to exist." But Arawn didn"t bother saying that, afraid that it might make Corwal think twice about talking to him.

Instead, he focused on another matter. "What"s it like outside?"

"You"ve never been there?" Corwal asked. His eyebrows rose, but he swiftly hid his surprise. "Horrible, or so I thought before coming here. Now I feel like it"s paradise."

After some prompting, he launched into a story about the world beyond the Gutter"s walls. He spoke of the warmth of the sun on one"s skin, the joy of a refreshing breeze, and the simple happiness of raising up a hill to see a city open up before him. His words were both descriptive and simple, painting a picture of unparalleled beauty before Arawn"s eyes.

Without noticing it, he"d come closer, sitting on his legs as he leaned in to not miss a single word. His hands were on the ground, grasping the dirt and bread crumbs there as various emotions warred within him.

He could imagine the world Corwal spoke about all too well. His own faint memories supplemented the descriptions, a.s.suring him that it was the truth. In his whole life, he"d been outside only once, and only for a brief moment, but it had been a glorious one.

When Corwal finished, he moved to wet his dry throat. Arawn tensed, training his eyes on the criminals on the other side. Some were sleeping, others playing stones, but Feist and Cayote weren"t among them. The two most dangerous men were sitting a couple meters apart, but both were staring right back at Arawn.

Well, that wasn"t exactly true. They were looking in his general direction, paying close attention to any sounds. When Corwal moved, their heads shifted a little, focusing on the noise he made.

"So why are you here anyway?" Corwal asked as he returned while following the wall. He lowered himself to the ground and sighed as if he"d done something exhausting. "Wait, let me guess, you were born with too much power and scared people?"

"Does that happen often?" Arawn asked with some surprise. He"d never considered that his case might not be singular. Everyone had said that he was an aberration like no other, a curse onto the whole world.

Corwal grimaced, looking away from him. "More than it should. Though in most cases, such kids are just killed outright. I don"t really understand why you were thrown into prison, or how you"ve survived so long for that matter."

There was a very obvious answer to that, but Arawn kept it to himself. Anything he would share about himself would scare his new friend away, so he simply chose to not say a word.

"Why do they do that?" he asked. He knew that he was a monster, but those other kids shouldn"t have been, since they could be killed.

A shadow fell over Corwal"s features. He looked into the distance, unseeing. "Fear is a good motivation. It"s fine if your child is powerful, but what if it"s a servant"s one? Won"t they make you suffer for mistreating their parents? Or even destroy your whole family once they grow up?" He shrugged. "It"s much safer to just get rid of any talented ones among the servant children while they"re still young."

The explanation left Arawn cold. The people outside were killing each other as well? He was told he was a monster, an aberration for having been unable to control the magic within him, yet others did it of their own accord? And they walked free while he lived his whole life caged?

There was something incredibly wrong about that, but he pushed it away, refusing to acknowledge it. He had to be locked up. The power within him was unstable, and way too strong. If it escaped his hold… more than just a few lives would be lost.

"Don"t worry, I"ll bring you out with me," Corwal promised. "You won"t need to rot to death here."

Fear rose like a violent beast within Arawn, and he blanched off, almost falling on his back. "No-no way! I can"t!" He scrambled away, shaking. "Cannot, cannot."

Corwal"s eyes narrowed, but he didn"t say anything more on that. "So what do you usually do around here?" he asked, changing the topic.

"Stones," Arawn answered, a little out of breath.

He calmed his heart while collecting a number of uneven onyx pieces sc.r.a.pped off the walls. The ground was littered with them from prisoners" attempts at escape and Arawn"s own magic lashing out a couple times.

Once he had some ten shards, he explained the game to Corwal. Each person would get five "stones". Four of them would represent the four elements while the fifth one would be the archmage wielding them.

"No mage can wield all elements," Corwal stated with a frown. "Two is already a maximum."

"The game is based on Saint Varene. He was the only man to have wielded all four elements. Anyway, you mostly play with the four element pieces since the archmage"s death means a loss."

After a long explanation how one moves the pieces without a board, adds new ones by picking more shards and claiming them as their minions as well as battling on imaginary terrain, Corwal was so confused that he could no longer tell right from left.

After asking a good dozen questions for clarification, he threw his hands up. "You people are crazy! There"s a thousand rules, and that"s just for the basic gameplay! Who could possibly learn all of them?"

Arawn grinned. "We"ve got nothing but time on our hands. This game has gone through some twenty or more iterations since the Gutter was built, with each one adding more and more rules."

"Crazy, as I said," Corwal muttered. Still, he did his best to try to memorize the various rules.

When they tried to play, the other criminals ventured closer. Corwal glanced around, uneasy, but Arawn calmed him. "It"s a tradition for everyone to watch the newcomer lose terribly for the first thousand games."

"Your version of a twisted initiation ceremony?" Corwal sneered, but his shoulders relaxed. He was still a little tense, but most of his concentration went to the game arranged before them.

Feist and the others didn"t come too close, sitting down somewhere around the middle of the cell. Their interest brought joy to Arawn. He"d seen the first games of many newcomers who"d showed up to be strong enough to stay, but he"d never played with them. No one dared to treat him like anything more than a monster even among them.

Strangely, the game was also popular among the guards at the lower levels of the tower, so whenever the Gutter was wiped out, they would teach it to the new batch of criminals. This was as much to pa.s.s on the tradition as to give the prisoners something to do.

"So I move this here, right?" Corwal asked with uncertainty while pushing his earth element forward.

His words were followed by a couple groans on the side. "Fool, who starts with earth element! Now it"s too far forward! Have you no common sense?"

Liam cackled. "And you"re one to talk, Ginger. You started with your water element back then! Water!"

This was followed by laughter from everyone, and more than a few jabs into Ginger"s sides. He swatted the hands away while cursing their owners. "How was I to know that water magic is the weakest? I"m no G.o.dsd.a.m.ned mage."

"I did something wrong?" Corwal wondered while fingering his archmage shard. It was still safe behind the lines, away from any harm.

"Just lost your first match," Arawn informed him with a wide grin. "Nine hundred and ninety-nine more left before you can be said to know the basics."