Scars of Silver Read Free

ceiling, almost all of them donated by the Scribes.
Leather furniture arranged in conversation groupings occupied the
floor space on that side.
    Donovan remained focused on the massive table in the
center of the room. Papers from his personal files scattered over
the entire surface in the early stage of organization. As the head
of the Unseelie Elite, Donovan periodically had to run down various
exiles hiding on the surface. Though the exiles tended to relocate
frequently, his files provided a starting place. He shifted through
the slips of paper. Just paper, and yet the only clues to what
remained of the Sidhe in the wake of the Collapse.
    The scattered earthborn offspring of the exiles,
mostly untrained, often orphaned or abandoned, likely outnumbered
what Sidhe escaped the Mounds. They held so much potential and yet
were so vulnerable. The last hope for survival of his race teetered
on the brink. The predators already tasted blood in the water.
Circling in, they picked off any unwary and unprotected Sidhe they
could run to ground.
    A war this was. A war for survival. A war with more
lost battles than victories, but he would never surrender.

Chapter Five
     
     
    With no way to track night and day, Malcolm couldn’t
figure how long he’d been locked up. If they fed him once a day,
like he guessed, it had been about four days. No one came into his
cell in all that time. He’d managed to struggle out of the ropes.
Now Malcolm used those coils as his pillow.
    The cell was nothing but a crag where the cave
ceiling hung low and bars separated him from the large, main
chamber. No furniture. No toilet. A bowl of kinda clean water in a
metal dish and an armful of leftovers were pushed through the bars
periodically. The food was picked over. Leftover meat on bones
already gnawed on. Always meat. Never anything else.
    While his cell was cramped, the chamber beyond his
wall of bars could have held a feast. Leastwise it was big enough
for it. A big stone table sat right in the middle. Metal rings were
screwed in it at random places along the perimeter. More rings were
in the walls at various heights and from the ceiling. Not much else
out there except a couple random piles of chains and ropes.
    After the first couple of days, Malcolm gave up
shouting for help. No one heard him. No one who cared, anyway. No
one who would help him. The goblins just laughed and jabbed sticks
through the bars or threw rocks at him. So he shut up. Since then,
they mostly ignored him.
    The silver shackles were the worst part. Couldn’t
shimmy out of them like the ropes. They burned constantly. Blood
seeped out from under the metal and dripped lazily from his
fingertips. He could jam a few bits of cloth torn from his shirt
under the tight bonds, but just on the soft insides of his wrists,
not over the back or sides.
    So when the goblins escorted a young woman into the
chamber after four days, Malcolm just stared at her. They didn’t
restrain her. She’d come under her own power, not dragged there
like he had been. Her arms crossed over her middle, as if the
stench of the place made her sick. Probably a few years older than
him, he guessed she was early twenties. Nothing fancy about the
dress. Reddish hair falling out of a haphazard ponytail. Not
unattractive, but worn out looking. Dark smudges under her eyes.
Kinda gaunt in her cheeks. Hungry looking.
    She just watched as the goblins opened Malcolm’s
cage. Though he remained outwardly still, Malcolm’s muscles
tensed.
    The goblins scuttled along toward him. No rush. No
worry. Malcolm didn’t resist as they lifted up the chain between
his shackles. Didn’t even risk breathing as they unlocked first one
and then the other.
    Like giant broken blisters the shriveled skin around
his wrists had a shiny wetness to them. Malcolm shivered, but not
from the pain or the chill of the exposed wounds. The urge to run
shuddered through his impatient body. The second the shackles
clanged to the stone floor all the