Free Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy) by J.S. Morin Page A

happening to check the cell block while you men
are carrying on about how you are looking to break out of here. Now get some
sleep.”
    In truth, the odds were against the guards checking up
on the prisoners during the night. They were just concerned with keeping the
prisoners from storming their own barracks. Rellis Island was three miles of
rough sea from the nearest mainland coastline, the small port town of Trebber’s
Cove. There was nowhere to hide on the island, either. Though nearly a mile
long, the island was only a few hundred yards across, and the terrain was rocky
and barren, with very little cover. Any prisoner who broke out of the cell
block would either have to make a swim for it against incredible odds or avoid
the penal colony’s guards until they were eventually captured anyway.
    Denrik did not care for his men’s questions, though.
They were pawns, and he wanted it to remain that way. If he had to explain
everything, there would inevitably be suggestions to change things this way or
that, or for the men to question if it would work. Things had been arranged too
carefully for Denrik to suffer his imbecile henchmen throwing the chaos from
their bedraggled minds into his carefully constructed scenario.
    The silence lasted not nearly long enough: “Hey, I’m
thinkin’ of something. Try and guess,” called Andur softly into the darkness.
    “Is it something on the island here?” another voice
whispered.
    “Nope.”
    Despite the pitch darkness in the cell, Denrik found
himself squeezing his eyes shut, willing his idiot companions to shut up.
    “Well, is it something on the mainland?” asked another
voice from the bunk just above Denrik’s.
    “Nope.”
    “Hey, wait a minute, it has to be one or the other …”
    Of all the inane activities Denrik’s crew engaged in,
this was his least favorite. It was an insipid attempt to fill the quiet
darkness with something human, Denrik believed. The others were weak-minded and
needed the comfort of knowing that there were other people with them in the
still dark of night, lest they be overcome by fear.
    But let them tell tales or brag of what they will do
when they are free , thought Denrik, or
even sing if they have to .
    The game could last hours, so poor were they at it.
Despite his best efforts to block it from his mind, Denrik could hardly help
occasionally trying to guess, though he kept his questions to himself. If he
was going to order them to stop, he would have put an end to the game long ago,
but he had chosen not to. He reminded himself that though they deferred to him
in almost anything when he made his will known, these were not his ship’s crew,
nor was he really a captain here. There was a limit to how far he dared push
these men and how much resentment he was willing to risk creating. And so he
allowed them to continue, though it pained his quick-witted mind to listen to
it.
    Denrik tried to block the silly banter of questions
from his mind as he sought to find the peaceful rest needed to meditate. His
muscles were still relaxing from the long day’s work, and he was still sweating
out the late-evening heat from his body—he was not ready for sleep quite yet.
And so he drifted into introspection, fleeing the ennui of his present and
wandering rather unwillingly into his unpleasant past. If only his wandering
mind was as obedient as his waking one …
    *
* * * * * * *
    “Ow, watch it with those,” he complained, rubbing the
sore shoulder where the apple had struck him. He was a small boy again, perhaps
eight years old.
    “Oops, sorry, Deni,” his brother Kennon called down
from above, amid his giggling amusement at his little prank.
    Denrik hated this memory.
    Kennon was four years older than Denrik, and the two
were nearly inseparable, despite the fact that Kennon teased him and picked on
him all the time. It could hardly be helped, since Father would not let him go
anywhere unless he agreed to stay with his older brother. Given a