The Edge of Everything (Untitled #1)(41)

“I am grateful for your friendship,” said X. “But if you free me, you merely postpone my punishment till another day—and endanger yourselves. I will endure this now, and be done with it.”

“Don’t be so bloody noble,” Ripper said. “You’ll bore the arse off me.” She paused, her brain spinning in search of a plan. “If you won’t let us free you,” she said, at length, “then we can at least place our bodies between you and the threat. You are one of us, and we will not stand by while they make pulp of you.”

Ripper called to the bounty hunters.

“Form a ring, my daisies!” she shouted. “And do try to look at least a little fierce?”

The hunters made a human chain around the tree. Banger and Ripper paced in front of them, the first line of defense. X was surprised—and moved—that so many of his fellow bounty hunters had come to his aid.

Prisoners spilled forward in greater numbers. The chance to scrap with a bounty hunter or two was too tempting to pass up, and they all wanted to try their luck at getting through to X. The human chain may have been intended as a protective measure, but it took on the air of a challenge.

Banger alone trounced half a dozen men, but soon the prisoners attacked him two at a time. Ripper came to his aid repeatedly, jumping on their backs, gouging at their eyes, and trying to tear their fingers off with her teeth. (She actually succeeded once, tossing the finger at her dazed victim’s chest and exclaiming, “Oh, don’t weep, you infant! Your nanny can sew it back on!”) Soon, the prisoners grew bored of losing. They attacked the tree in one vicious mass, surging past Banger and Ripper and assaulting the chain of bounty hunters with rocks and branches.

X strained at the rope, but it only cut deeper into his skin. A handful of men were raining down blows on him now: A bearded giant crashed a rock against the side of his skull. A tiny pink worm of a man jabbed him with a stick over and over in the very place that Stan had stabbed him with the scissors. X was losing consciousness when he heard a voice so furious and commanding that it could only belong to a lord.

“Enough! The next man to deliver a blow will receive a hundred back from me!”

It was Regent, the princely lord. A hush fell over the plain. Exhausted, Banger put his hands on his knees and tried to steady his breathing. Ripper wiped blood from her mouth, looking irked that she could not detach any more fingers.

As Regent approached X, the bounty hunters disbanded and sank back into the crowd. The lord wore his royal blue robe, but no jewels or bangles. He had stolen nothing from his charges. He alone of all the lords seemed to remember that he had once been a prisoner himself.

Regent shouted for the guards to drive the mob back up to the cells. The prisoners complained loudly, but knew better than to resist. Only Banger and Ripper remained. They would not abandon their friend, and the guards let them be.

Regent tore away the rope that bound X and, when his bruised body fell forward, caught him and eased him to the ground.

“I am sorry for the evil done to you,” he said. “Dervish is a villain for engineering this torture, and he will shortly have a conversation with my fists.”

“You have my thanks,” said X. “Yet I broke the laws of this place, and was deserving of punishment.”

The lord shook his head.

“You were not deserving of this,” he said. “Never of this.”

From behind them there came a wordless holler.

It could only be Dervish.

Banger saw him and groaned: “This guy sucks.”

Ripper turned to Regent.

“Say the word,” she said, “and I will relieve this crazed lord of his fingers.”

“Do nothing,” he told her. “I shall settle the matter myself.”

Immediately upon his arrival, Dervish began berating Regent.

“How DARE you set my prisoner free?” he said. “How dare you even call yourself a lord? Do you really imagine yourself my equal, you filthy creature?”

Without a word, Regent struck Dervish across the mouth, sending him flying onto the rocky plain.

The prisoners, still rumbling up the staircases, stopped to watch the confrontation. Soon, a dozen other lords streamed in from the tunnels, moving so quickly they seemed to fly.

“I told your little friend that your bones would soon swim in his soup,” said Dervish. “And now I shall drink it down myself.”

Ripper laughed at the threat.

“Please,” she said to Regent. “His fingers? May I?”

“Your proposal has its merits,” he said. “But no.”

The other lords poured in around X now, men and women in a riot of wildly colored garments and gems. Up on the steps, the prisoners were stunned to see so many lords roosting in one place, like brightly feathered birds. Even the guards were mesmerized.

The cavern grew silent as the lords took in the strange scene before them. Regent stood in front of X, protectively. When Dervish tried to stand, he nudged him back to the ground with the heel of his boot, causing the prisoners and guards—and even some of the lords—to titter. X was relieved to find that his champion had such standing, yet feared that humiliation would only strengthen Dervish’s resolve. He wanted no enemies here, no celebrity—no scrutiny of any kind that might endanger his return to the Overworld and to Zoe.

The lords broke into debate about what was to be done. They murmured in low voices so the prisoners could not hear.