No Reprieve Read Online Free Page A

beacon.
    Five thousand steps. Only a few candlemarks had passed, but Blaine was growing tired. Before the fight in the mine, and the ordeal in Prokief’s headquarters, Blaine had already been exhausted from the hard labor in the ruby mines and at the edge of starvation from the prison’s scant rations. That left few reserves on which to draw, now that his body began to register the full trauma inflicted on it. Uncontrollable shivering cramped bruised muscles and tensed broken skin, jerking him awake every time the tremors made him shake from head to toe.
    At least I won’t die of thirst, he thought, using the buckle from his belt to scrape off some chips of ice. But even that was folly. Eating ice would lower his body temperature. Sooner or later, whether from cold, hunger, exhaustion, or thirst, he would die in the darkness. Weaponless, he lacked the means to shorten his suffering.
    Twenty thousand steps. Blaine sank to the floor, unable to push his weary body further. He wondered how Piran was doing, whether Piran was shouting curses in the darkness or trying to climb the slick walls of his oubliette, or surrendering to the finality of the situation.
    One hundred thousand. One hundred thousand and one. Blaine kept counting, though he had stopped walking candlemarks before. He was resigned to the numbness in his fingers and toes, the growing stiffness in his bruised body. He huddled in his rough cloak, trying and failing to warm his burning cheeks and ears.
    If I’m still alive when they haul me out of here, what will I lose to the cold? A hand? The tip of my nose? My ears? Toes? Just in the few months Blaine had been in Velant, he had seen his fellow convicts lose a bit of themselves to the awful cold. Frostbite was relentless. Blaine had helped hold a man down as the hedge witch cut off two gangrenous toes, frozen dead by the cold.
    That’s what we have to look forward to, if we survive. Dying by inches.
    Blaine kept on counting, but the pace grew slower. Now and again, he lost his place and had to back up to the last number he remembered. It gave him a focus, but he was tiring. Even something as simple as counting became difficult to maintain. He counted to keep from sleeping, but it didn’t help. He faded in and out of consciousness, and the dreams and nightmares finally claimed him..
    Sunlight warmed his skin. The meadow down the lane from Glenreith was yellow with spring flowers. Mari ran through the blooms, shrieking with glee. She gathered a fistful of blossoms and presented them to Blaine with a wide smile. Her face and dress were grass stained but her eyes were alight. Innocent. Untouched still by the horrors to come. Blaine reached for the flowers, but Mari pulled them away and, with another gale of laughter, turned and ran across the field.
    “Come back!” he shouted, starting after her. It occurred to him that he should be counting his steps. Why? He wasn’t sure. It had been important. He knew that, but not the reason, and so as he ran he kept a silent count with each footfall, as the tall grass sliced at his skin, leaving traces of his blood behind on every razor-sharp blade.
    “Mari!” She only laughed harder and ran faster. Surely he could catch her, but she remained far ahead of him. They were leaving the meadow and its brilliant sunlight, heading into the darkness of the forest. Blaine called for Mari to stop, but she ignored him, or perhaps she was too far away to hear his warning. The forest was dark and cold, filled with danger and predators. Wolves. Bandits. Monsters.
    In the shadows of the tall trees, Blaine lost sight of Mari. He could hear her laughter but he could no longer see her. A glimpse of her white shift sent him running in one direction, and the sound of her voice made him veer off. Mari was everywhere and nowhere, and it was growing dark. He had lost count of his steps, and now he would not find his way out of the forest.
    Blaine shouted Mari’s name, but silence answered him.