Free The Song of Andiene by Elisa Blaisdell Page A

one of them to ashes.
    Andiene was silent and motionless. Though she did not look into his eyes, she felt that green stare on her.
    The heat from his breath made her step back a pace, as he opened his great-fanged jaws and spoke with a voice that was powerful, but dry like the scratching of rats running through the fallen leaves.
    “Welcome to this land, O daughter of mine enemies. I have waited long for you to come.”

Chapter 6
    Ilbran listened dully to the footsteps passing back and forth through the dungeon corridors, echoing noisily in the low-roofed halls of stone. He had heard them for days. He could not think clearly, to know the length of his imprisonment. He thought of his mother and father and clenched his teeth to keep from sobbing aloud. His mind was a crazy jumble of pain and despair, with one red glint of revenge-hope in it. He clung to that one hope—it steadied his mind—but even it was dimming. They had said he would die tomorrow.
    Lord of all life, who led my fathers into this wide land, give me the courage to fight them and win a quicker death , he prayed.
    He did not look up as the footsteps came nearer, a firm confident tread, and a stumbling, shuffling one. Then they halted. His cell door rattled, and his mind froze with the terror he had thought he could not feel again. Had they changed their minds? More torture?
    This time, he would fight, not go meekly. There would be one moment, when they unshackled him from the wall, before they held him fast again. He glanced up, trying to keep his face numb and uncaring.
    Giter! Bruised and bloody, almost unrecognizable, the man that the guards held between them was Giter! Ilbran sprang to his feet and pressed to the limit of his chains, all pain and plans forgotten.
    One of the guards let out a bark of laughter. “Back! Be patient! You’ll have your dancing day tomorrow.” He laughed at his own joke so heartily that his hands shook and he could not fit the key into the lock. Finally the other guard, a man with less sense of humor, pushed him aside and opened the door.
    Giter was shoved inside. The door slammed closed. The key clicked in the lock. Ilbran stared at the butcher, filled with a bitter joy, a fiercer joy than any decent one could be. When do I tell him? When do I let him know? Not yet. Not yet.

    Giter stared at him, wild-eyed. “My Lord Fisherman,” he gasped, and then looked as if he regretted the words.
    Ilbran spoke mockingly. “When the stars change courses, lords as well as honest shopkeepers can fall to dungeons. What are you doing here?”
    No answer came. “I see. Not knowing who told them the truth, they will torture both till one confesses.” He laughed like a madman, unable to control himself.
    Giter backed into the farthest corner, holding out his manacled hands as though to ward off an attack.
    Ilbran tugged against his chains, knowing that they were too short to allow him to reach the butcher cowering in the farthest corner, but relishing the look of terror on the other man’s face. Giter seemed to have shrunk and withered within his layers of fat. The guards had not been gentle with him.
    A messenger passed through the corridor with brisk confident steps, then came a guard with a slower, heavier tread. Ilbran sat down again, watching the other man narrowly.
    Giter was the first to speak, made nervous by the silence. “I never meant to tell them.” Silence was the only reply. Then more silence. Then a man’s scream echoed down the corridors, again and again, high and terrible. It ended abruptly, and then there were heavy footsteps, and more silence. Giter shuddered, and hid his bloodied face in his hands.
    “Sometimes they torture one of us in his cell,” Ilbran said in a conversational tone. “They feel it teaches us to speak more promptly, when it is our turn.”
    In the stillness, they heard a man sobbing, a nagging sound like a child crying himself to sleep. The late afternoon sun shone golden-dim through the high