Anniya 21

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" All guards on hand! On guards on hand," someone screamed. West jerked his head up, noting the terror in the voice. He weakly strained his head to get a glance of the owner of the voice. It wasn't an easy feat, A beefy, assertive yet terrified man bolted into the room, holding a cross bow.

" All of you," he gasped, indicating West's guards. The guard's eyes darted nervously towards the loud, agonizing shriek outside of the cells. " You! Ride to the nearest one of the posts and require help. The rest of you! You! Guard the prisoner! The rest of you follow me, bring any weapon you have! Move," the man screamed.

" Sir...Might I ask....," one of the guards stuttered, obviously trying to find the courage to voice the question of what the problem was.

" The dragon cage! The Bars have vanished--it was like magic! We saw a bright green light in the room for a moment, and then the next thing we know, the damn things loose! Get out here if you want to live! Move! Now!" the man cried yet again, more urgently.

West let his head drop back to the ground. He was surprised that they still had guards guarding him at all---- he was nearly dead. The Count was too cunning, too shrewd to let him die peacefully; all these months West had been slowly starving to death. His tunic had been discarded long ago; his breeches were covered in filth and fleas. Still, he moved slightly to see if they had all left.

Pain shot through him, and he collapsed back to the ground. Who has the papers! Do you refuse to tell me who you have given them to again? I have lost my patience with you. ..........I've given you yet another chance. Whip him until he tells. Or better, use the rack. It's a tad bit rusty, but I'm sure our dear friend won't mind. Yes, do both. And use the Cat's tail( authors note: medieval whip that had 9 strips of leather with hooks on the end) the Count's voice echoed in his head. West flinched, momentarily reliving the pain. The hours he had spent in agony with the hooks digging into his flesh, the intense, anguished feeling of being stretched apart. At one point, when they had stretched West as far as they dared without ripping him apart, he had actually screamed out what the Count had wanted to know: who he had given the evidence to. The Count had assumed that West had believed that he was about to die and called out her name in pain, thank god.

A rat scurried past his bare, bleeding chest. He gave it a kick that once had been swift and killed the vermin on first try. It knocked the rat back a small distance, but then it did a peculiar thing; it came sniffing back towards him. West suddenly noticed several others creeping forward. He kicked the same one back again, but this time it hardly flinched. Several others came into view. West laughed, the idiotic chattering laugh of a man filled with a horrified fear. The dungeon rats were no longer afraid of him.

That was how John had died. The arrow he had taken in West's place had put him in a bad place, and he had worsened almost immediately. But no, John couldn't of died a decent death. He had been closed to it, sick with disease. West had been in the cell directly across from John, and been powerless to help him. And so his friend had been ripped apart by the rats. John. His best friend.

The vermin weren't ordinary rats. West had heard rumors that the Count had them specially bred, for their size and ferocity. He believed it. The rats were certainly the largest he had seen in his life, and had little fear of humans. In his case, they had now had none.

West pushed himself up with a sudden determination to stay alive, to stay strong. He kicked at the slowly advancing rats again, a hard kick. They scattered, making their damn little squeaking noises. They quickly scurried back into a group. That was yet another delightfully interesting biology lesson I've learned, West thought grimly. The rats realized they were stronger in packs.

He ignored the screaming pain in his chest and backed up to the cell door slowly. He concentrated on remembering Anniya, the dim memories he had of her. The rats advanced with him.

" Filthy little bastards. You're damn lucky I don't have my bow," West muttered to himself.

A nervous chuckle interrupted the silence. Though some would of flinched, West did not due to his trained reflexes. Squinting, he made out a pale, milky looking guard.

Anniya leaped involuntarily into his mind. West's desire to live surged stronger, and he slowly came to his knees. The guard's eyes had nervously darted toward the commotion. West grinned, and quickly slid his hand through the bars and yanked the guard's neck up against the cell.

" Alone at last," he said, still grinning.

Applying pressure to the neck, the man fell to the ground, but not before West caught the keys.

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Author's note: this is a horribly short chapter, but I wanted to clear things up with where West has been for the past 8 chapters in a single chapter rather then spend waste space and time in the next chapter( It'll be up by Saturday night) describing where's he's been. Next chapter will be up tomorrow. I promise. Really.