She pulled and tugged, hanging heavily from the chain despite holding herself aloft with rapid beats of her wings, each jerk traveling through the chain and painfully jarring his ribs and shoulder.
The chains clanked and shifted, but she didn’t seem to quite have the strength to hold herself in the air and pull the heavy chains. She tried again, with no success, before finally flying back down, wings low and dejected.
Mathos looked up, considering. There was another option, but it was going to hurt. A lot. “If you stand on my shoulders, do you think you can unhook it?”
She gave him a quick nod and stepped forward trustingly.
He bent down to let her clamber up him, balancing herself with her wings, and gritted his teeth against the howl of agony that tried to escape. His ribs, his shoulder, even his swollen eye seemed directly in the path of her small feet.
A cold sweat broke out down his back as he concentrated on breathing evenly and not flinching or groaning.
Long, excruciating moments passed as the chain clanked and she dug her feet in, wings beating slowly to help her balance. The wound in his left shoulder reopened, and blood trickled down his arm, along with hellish waves of fresh agony.
Then, with a small crow of success, she jumped backward and floated down, carrying the chain. Within a minute, she had tugged and pulled the coiled chain away from his wrists and his arms were truly free.
A slow wave of woozy lightheadedness gripped him, and he leaned against the wall for a moment, trying to get his breath, while Alis picked up the candle.
Long before he was ready, he pushed away from the cold stone and held out his good hand. She slipped her small hand into his, and they picked their way across the floor to the open door.
Maybe it was the trust she gave him. Or perhaps her bravery. Or maybe it was the loss of blood. Or the lightheaded gratitude he felt for his sudden reprieve. But, for the first time in over a decade, he felt responsible for someone else, and it didn’t make him want to run. If anything, it made him want to stay and take care of her.
They tiptoed through the door and pushed it closed, sliding the bolts across to seal it. Alis blew out her candle and tucked it into her pocket, and then they stepped silently up the narrow earthen stairs into the fresh air and more gentle darkness of the shrine.
It was a circular building of rough stone and carved images, with a huge altar standing in the center, smooth and worn from hundreds of years of sacrifices and offerings. Above it, the oculus in the domed roof let in the rain, the sunshine, and, at that moment, the fresh nighttime air.
He looked up to the circle of star-strewn sky and let out a slow breath. There was something about looking up into the sky, that wide, free space, that settled him. Even that small circle of stars above him in the shrine gave him hope.
He could hear men’s voices laughing and joking just a few yards from the entrance to the shrine, but Alis tugged on his hand and they turned in the opposite direction. She led him to the back wall where a row of window-like openings in the stones would serve as ventilation and to bring in light during the day. Usually, they would be covered by thick leather hangings during the night, but they were still rolled up and tied to the side, no doubt left that way when the local priest or priestess was sent away by Dornar.
Mathos and Alis stopped against the wall, listening.
Slow minutes passed. And then the rough tread of two pairs of booted feet echoed outside.
They shrank back in the darkness and waited until the path was silent. As soon as he could hear the guards welcoming back their comrades, he squeezed Alis’s hand and pointed up.
She immediately flew up and through the opening, pausing on the ledge to carefully look around before flying down and out of sight.
It was significantly more difficult for Mathos. He heaved himself up onto the ledge, jaw clamped tight against the screaming agony.
He paused for a moment to check that no one was waiting, and then turned to lower himself out the other side as far as he could. He had to let go and allow himself to fall the last two feet, but he somehow managed to do it silently enough despite the grinding pain.
He crept forward into the low scrub on the side of the burial mound and stopped next to the small blond girl who had saved him.
The relaxed voices of the guards still murmured from the other side of the shrine. And why wouldn’t they game and chat and relax? Who could ever free themselves from heavy chains and open a bolted door from the wrong side? Fuck, he was lucky. And deeply grateful.
Alis guided him down the small hillock and into a copse of birch and spiny buckthorn, following a narrow trail that led to a small pond.
“Is it safe?” he asked, almost under his breath, looking longingly at the water.
“The priestess uses it,” Alis replied just as quietly.
Thank the gods.
Mathos dipped his hands into the cold water and took deep, glorious gulps and then splashed his face, biting back a gasp as the icy drops ran down his neck. He was desperate to clean and bandage the wound on his shoulder and bind his ribs, but there was no time.
They walked quietly together to the edge of the stand of trees, where the village came into view, and paused. “Do you know where they’re keeping her?” he asked, looking down the small path.
“In the tavern. Fixed the room special, I heard.”
