Free A Whisper After Midnight by Christian Warren Freed Page A

room stank of human waste and bile.
    Argis had once been among the elite; a noble of mighty Delranan. He’d been the first to charge into battle the night Chadra Keep was assaulted. The first to discover the body of Badron’s son. He’d stood beside his king without question through good times and bad. But every loyalty reaches the point of question. His came when Badron announced the final plans for the invasion of Rogscroft. Argis couldn’t see why. He empathized with the misery the king felt over the loss of his son and kidnapping of his daughter, but didn’t see the justification for a full-blown invasion. With no one to turn to, Argis began to doubt. His mind strayed what was right and wrong before deciding that Badron was wrong.
    He rebelled. Quietly at first. He made his way through the various social circles, feeling out who would follow him and who might lead. A core group of the most diverse people gradually came together, forming the nucleus of the rebellion. All it needed was a spark. Argis provided the spark. It had been he that unlocked the long forgotten exit at the base of the mountain Chadra Keep had been built on. He alone knew of the attempt to steal Maleela away from her father; a father who hated her with every fiber in his body. Badron had never forgiven her for the death of her mother in childbirth.
    For a time the rebellion went well. The Wolfsreik reserve forces were caught off guard and put on the defensive. Argis insisted the rebels only kill when necessary while maintaining maximum enemy casualties. A wounded man was worse than a dead one. Supply depots and arms rooms were raided, stealing from Harnin. Each assault produced a drain on enemy combat strength and, hopefully, weakened their resolve to engage their own people. It worked. Many of the Wolfsreik had friends and family in Chadra, neutralizing them from doing what they did best.
    Harnin demanded they assault the city with extreme prejudice but the commanders refused. The rebellion gained ground, winning the people over. Harnin struck back, placing the kingdom under strict martial law and authorizing summary executions in the street for those unfortunates caught performing subversive acts. Panic soon gripped Chadra. A mass exodus began and Harnin let them go. The smaller the population made it easier for him to conduct his war. Argis knew it was only a matter of time before the rebellion faltered.
    He lay on his back and stared up towards the dark ceiling. Eyes open or closed, it didn’t matter. Argis had come to accept his confinement. What didn’t make sense was why he was still alive. Common sense said he should have been executed long ago. But Harnin had grown wicked and cunning since the army left for the war to the east. His imagination visited odd horrors on the land. At first they came every day to brag about their deeds, attempting to break his spirit. When that didn’t work they brought in prisoners and threatened to kill them if he didn’t talk. His lips never parted and the bodies were dragged away in trails of blood. Eventually torturers abandoned their earlier policies and introduced him to foul instruments designed to deliver maximum pain. Argis screamed and cried but still said nothing.
    Frustrated, Harnin soon abandoned that tactic as well. What happened next was much worse. They simply left Argis alone in his cell. A forgotten relic of what might have been. Food and water were shoved into his cell and the door closed quickly. Light entered for only a fraction of a minute before darkness reclaimed the cell. He began hearing voices. They called to him, beckoning him with impossible promises of freedom and reward. He laughed. Madness threatened to settle in. He briefly thought about trying to escape but the opportunity never presented itself. Nor had anyone come to rescue him. Argis felt trapped, damned.
    A noise drew his attention. So faint he thought he imagined it. Sitting up, he slowly swept the cell for any sign of