Caden exhaled noisily. Fuck it.
Van sat up in excitement as Caden stood. "Oh, oh, I think he's finally going to start."
Gawain straightened. "Caden?"
Caden didn't answer, striding toward where Fiona and Roscoe stood keeping watch over their prisoners.
The men looked awful, bruises dotting their faces. Worse even than when the Tenrin dropped them off.
Their fingers no longer looked the way they should, swollen with some digits pointing in the wrong direction.
Their eyes were feverish. Only one of the prisoners was still showing signs of resistance.
"Get them up," Caden ordered.
Fiona and Roscoe looked anticipatory at his words.
"Looks like you boys are about to enjoy a new level of fun," Roscoe observed, reaching down and hauling one to standing.
His prisoner's feet hobbled and his hands tied behind his back, Roscoe's victim had little choice but to obey.
Van grinned at Caden's back, Gawain an observant shadow.
The last prisoner, the one who still had a little fire in him, laughed at Roscoe, the sound like that of dry leaves caught by the wind.
"Just like you'll get to taste the agony of despair when your friend succumbs to the doedea's bite." A giggle left the man as a macabre grin stretched over lips that were cracked and drying.
Fiona gave him a shove. "What would you know about that?"
The man pantomimed locking his lips. He winced involuntarily as Fiona shoved him again. This time hard enough to send him stumbling to the ground.
The prisoner moaned, curling around his ribs.
"I see what game he's playing," Roscoe crooned, never once losing his smile.
He pushed his prisoner toward Drake, who caught him easily. Roscoe crouched next to the troublemaker, grabbing a handful of hair and lifting his face up.
His smile was cruel. "You're trying to make us kill you because you're afraid one of you will break."
"As if we'd let that happen," Van rumbled.
The corner of Caden's lips stretched up in a humorless twist. "Oh well, it was a good attempt. Better luck next time."
Only Caden didn't plan for a next time. This was the end of the line for these two.
"What are you going to do with us?" the first man asked.
"The Trateri have a rule. We only keep those who are useful to us, which neither of you have proven yourselves to be. Since we had to abandon the valley and are currently being hunted through these mountains by your army, our resources are precious."
Caden allowed himself a moment of enjoyment at their flinches, before the numbness that had overtaken his emotions in the last few days since Eva lost consciousness washed away that little bit of emotion as well.
"In short, you're currently nothing more than parasites leeching off our kind intentions. What do we do with parasites?"
Van's grin was nasty. "We cull them."
Gawain made a sound of approval deep in his throat.
"You called them doedea. I'm guessing you know what they do to a person," Caden continued, undeterred by the growing terror in both of their faces, the troublemaker included.
