Page 28 of The Empty Throne

"And we might have fucking caught him if youhadn't been insubordinate!" snarled another voice. "I should punchyou again."

A far more garbled voice replied, but fellsilent at an ordered hiss to do so.

"Check it," the sergeant said. "It looks likehe fled, but that could be to mislead us."

Cohea sighed inwardly. So much for that ruse.He supposed stupid, lazy guards twice in a row was too much to hopefor.

"Check the loft," the sergeant said.

Great. His day was getting better andbetter.

Cohea waited, scarcely daring to breathe, ashe listened to the man grunting his way up the ladder, thescrabbling as he climbed into the loft, clearly unfamiliar withdoing so.

"This is stupid," the man muttered, thoughCohea could only barely understand the words, the accent not one hewas familiar with. Must be from the far north end of Terek; he knewall the southern dialects.

The sound of him drawing his sword filled thespace, and that was it, Cohea was officially fucked. He'd stay andpray, but if the stupid, careless ass was using his sword to searchthe hay when he knew damned good and well they needed to take Coheaalive…

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. So much forescaping.

As the heavy boots drew closer, the man'smuttered complaints filling the dusty air, Cohea drew a deepbreath, sent a silent apology to all those he had failed and wasstill failing, and then stood.

The man yelped in surprise, dropping hissword like the world's stupidest cadet. Cohea lunged, grabbed, andsnapped. Letting the body fall, he grabbed up the man's sword andheaded for the edge of the loft, swinging out over the edge, anddropping down right on top of one of the other soldiers. The onewith the broken nose, to judge by the way he screamed before Coheaput him out of his misery.

By the end, the sergeant was on him, and bythe sharp, piercing whistle filling the air, the remaining soldierwas calling for assistance.

Cohea cut the sergeant down and headed out,but there must have been guards nearby because ten of them surgedinto the yard and after that there was nothing Cohea could do.Especially not when a moment later, mages joined the ranks, one ofthem with the tell-tale red marks on his face that signaled hisaffinity for fire magic.

They stripped him of everything but hispants, secured manacles to his wrists, and hauled him off.

Standing in the doorway of the house, thewoman who'd given him shelter watched with wide eyes, handsclutching the front of her heavy sweater. Cohea bowed in apology asbest he could.

The soldiers dragged him off to an inn, andfrom the glaring lack of anyone not in a uniform, save for thetavern workers, they must have commandeered it as a temporarygarrison. Hopefully they were paying the tavern owner well forthat, but somehow, he doubted it.

In the main room of the tavern, they chainedhim up by the fireplace, securing the chains to the wall, andadding another manacle, on a separate anchor, to his left foot.Well, at least he wouldn't be cold.

He was getting really tired of beinghalf-naked, though. There was one person and one person only he wascomfortable being naked around, and it wasn't anyone in thisroom.

With nothing else to do, and the soldiers allignoring him with the glaring effort of the guilty, Cohea leanedagainst the rough, uncomfortable wall and closed his eyes. Let themthink he didn't care, add to their discomfort. He'd escaped theseassholes before; he would do it again.

"Anyone ever tell you that you lackpatience?

"Everyone. Everyone in the world tells medaily, sometimes twice, that I lack patience."

That throaty laugh he loved so much. "Well,I suppose you make up for the lack in other ways."

Eventually, the idle chatter washing over himstarted to register, reluctantly drawing him from the light dozehe'd been enjoying.

Two things caught his attention.

Fazekas didn't know he'd escaped. The guardsCohea had snuck out on were trying to cover up their massivemistake.

Fazekas had run off back to the fortressbecause his son was missing. Hisheir, Lysyken Fazekas.Cohea didn't know much about him, though he'd seen him a couple oftimes in passing. Always a sad-looking boy, as though the weight ofthe world rested on his shoulders, and every day more weight wasadded. Cohea commiserated. Neither was he surprised; he could notimagine the burden and torment that came with being Fazekas'sheir.

Especially considering that one of the fewthings Cohea did know about Lysyken was that he was a renownedscholar. Fazekas was nobody's fool, but like many of his people, heput prowess in the hunt, in the fight, above all else. It wasn't anentirely unreasonable way of thinking, given the harsh environmentsthey lived in. Apparently, there were places in the world where itwas always hot, and nobody had to worry about freezing to deaththree quarters of the year. Places where the snow only lasted aquarter of the year, where seasons were distinct and varied. Coheacouldn't imagine.

So while it made sense that so many of theircultures focused on things that came back to survival… personallyCohea thought it was wiser to focus on the scholars, on what theycould see and change that the rest of them would never notice orthink of. It was scholars who would make the difference right now,not soldiers.

Though first the soldiers had to clear thepath, which Cohea wouldn't be able to do if he didn't stop gettingcaptured like a fucking fool.

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