His Ancient Heart by M. R. Forbes Page B

He's gone now. I know it. We missed him." He looked out across the ridge line. He couldn't have missed by much.
    "Shall we turn around, my Lord?" Peyn asked, careful to stay a few paces behind.
    "No. We go down."  
    He didn't give a reason. He didn't need to. He wouldn't have liked the decision, but Spyne had a feeling he had known sending him here was a risk. That his memories were a risk. He also would have to know that Spyne was the most loyal of the Nine. The one least likely to forget the promise. The one who would act out of emotion, out of anger.  
    He had forgotten for a thousand years, and now Talon Rast had forced him to remember.
    His wife was down there. His daughter. His home.  
    In ruins.
    All of it destroyed.
    If Talon had his way, for nothing.
    He would find his former friend, and crush him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    Talon

    Word traveled quickly among the soldiers that Silas Morningstar had been caught.  
    The groups of guards that had been spread throughout the city keeping lookout for him were recalled, and they waited at the gates to the palace as Fehri and his own company of men led Talon and his brute of a companion through.
    Talon didn't balk under their gaze. He didn't flinch at their insults and jibes, their spittle and anger. He kept his head up, his posture proud, confronting them, daring them to lose their own sense of control, to push their way past the soldiers to get a piece of him. He was the Liar, their enemy. He had killed their brothers in arms. He had killed an Overlord .
    Oz was ambivalent behind him, not reacting at all to the noise or the emotion. They hadn't tried to remove its hat or cloak, perhaps out of fear after what it had done to their comrades. It remained nothing more than a beast of a man to them, trailing behind its master.
    "Where is your whore?" a voice cried out from the crowd in front of the gates, even as they began to swing open.
    "Yeah, I'd love to get a taste of that," another shouted.
    "How much?" yelled a third.
    Talon refused to let the words affect him, though they boiled him on the inside. His mind was locked on the image of Eryn as he last saw her. It was the reason he was here. It was why he was enduring this.  
    He raised his hand up to scratch his face, drawing a sharp look from the guard next to him, who inched his sword closer.  
    "Watch yourself, Liar."
    "Just an itch," Talon said.  
    Fehri shifted in his saddle to glance back at them. After seeing the soldier's face when he showed up to claim them, Talon was no longer sure that the so-called servant of Amman was still going to see their plan through. He couldn't believe he was enough of an actor for his face to have paled and twisted in such a way of his own accord.
    Although, perhaps the fact that he was still alive was testament to the Captain's word. Even if he had been disgusted by the violence, Fehri had made a promise, and Talon had placed his trust. It wouldn't be in the spirit of Amman to break it.
    "Take his head!"  
    The shouts continued.  
    "Cut him in half!"
    "Put him in the guillotine!"
    They marched through the gates, to the large courtyard at the front of the palace. The barracks were on the left side, and hundreds of soldiers had risen from their sleep to see what the fuss was about. They stood in linen pants and bare chests, joining in the fury of the crowd, adding their shouts and curses. The entrance to the dungeon would be on the right side, closer to the palace proper. Their escort shifted that way, leading them away from the others.
    A small bastion was the only external hint of the prison below the palace, a block of simple stone with an iron door at its center, and a stoic elder soldier standing in front of it.  
    "Commander Trock," Fehri said, dismounting his horse and sharing a bow with the soldier. "I bring you Silas Morningstar, and one of his outlaw companions. He is to be interred at once."
    Trock. When Talon heard the name, his mind fell from Eryn, back to somewhere else.