"Here's the other one," another voice growled suddenly.

Aster pried his eyes open at the surprising interruption to Endel's vengeance.

Another pair of Watchmen had topped the wall with Castleia pinned between them. She appeared to have come unwillingly as evidenced by a throbbing bruise on her forehead that threatened to close her snarling eyes.

Dropped to the promenade, she venomously spat a clod of red onto the stone. "You can't do this. We're members of this watch. The Counil will -"

"Quiet," Endel growled. "You have no room for negotiation here. And the Council has no power here. I am chief of these woodsmen and," he chuckled dryly, "you do not make the cut."

"Chief," a bystanding warrior grunted, "now may not be the best time to trim the branches, so to speak."

Aster's eyes widened as he clutched Endel's steel grasp and fought the urge to look down. The speaker was a voice he recognized - Griffic from the night before.

The bearded warrior let his ax slip from his shoulder to the stones beside his feet. "With an army of moonfolk within our walls and the council as unsettled as it is about Vahnir's company. Another mess might be one too many."

Endel pursed his lips and tightened his grasp on the boy's neck. Turning his gaze to meet Aster's wide eyes, he finally jerked his head. A swift toss sent Aster grinding against the walkway of the wall, some feet from the edge.

"Wise, as always, Griffic. Find irons for these two." His lip curled as he glared down at the boy. "Don't get your hopes up; there will be another time."

Griffic nodded as Aster felt coarse hands grab him again.

Before he could even speak a wad of cloth was shoved into his mouth and a strip of leather bound about his eyes. He tried to cry out in protest but the only sound was a voiceless muttering as his teeth crunched against the dirt of his gag.

"Make this easier on the both of us," a faceless voice muttered, "and don't struggle."

Another pair of hands grabbed him by the waist and hoisted him up. A pelt-cushioned shoulder dug into his stomach and he felt the body begin to move.

Jostling was all he felt for many moments. Booted feet scraped against stones as he was tossed on the nameless woodsman's back as they descended from the wall. Further pattering of feet told him they had arrived on the street.

There was little noise other than the distant murmurings of people in the square. Still air seeped through his nose, but it was barely enough to breath from. His tough fought the gag until it became coated in the grime of the rag, but the cloth refused to dislodge.

As time went on the air around them grew cooler. The lower streets, he whispered mentally.

It was not until some time after that the Watchman finally lowered him with a grunt.

"Get up, you can walk for the rest."

Aster hesitantly found his footing and stood. He reached his hands behind his head to undo the leather that incurred his blindness, only to feel the camp of iron against his skin. Clattering chains and the weight of iron links pulled on his wrists.

He muttered in protest, only to be silenced by the gag still between his teeth.

"One moment," the watchman grunted.

Hands untied the leather, letting it fall to the ground while Aster's eyes traced the surroundings.

A wall similar to the gate they had left behind rose before them. Its stones were dark, stained by moisture that wept from its cracks and a layer of soot and dirt clad the lower part of the wall but was interrupted by a wide, short portal. A portcullis of thick Elderwood timbers posed like teeth above the opening, though it hung high enough for Aster to see the large antechamber within. Another woodsman who evidently was responsible for his chains stood beside them.

Tilting his head backward, Aster took in the height of the wall. It stretched perhaps fifty feet tall and at least as many wide. On either side the stones met similar walls to form what he envisioned as the squat square keep that rose from the southwest end of the city.

"The Strongfast," he muttered. "What am I, a criminal?"

The warrior who had bound him shrugged. "As good as it from my orders. You're to go in the brig. That sound right?"

The other fighter nodded. "So says Endel."

"Good enough for me."

For a third time a strong hand snatched him and escorted him, this time through the gaping jaws of the gate.

Inside a thick haze of torch smoke and dust obscured much of his vision. Relying on the thrust of his handler he was led into the center of the antechamber where a swirling stairwell of slick stone curled both down and up in a corkscrew of steps.

It was the downward set that his jailer took. The descent was precarious as the steps were crooked and ill-shaped with cracks and angles made by either time or craftsmen. Beneath the floor of the tower the walls were packed dirt melded with uncut stone that only succeeded in adding to the haze. Candles instead of torches lit what little there was to see, but their scanty light revealed little more than the dust that drifted in the air.

A row of metal grates walled a hollowed section of wall. This enclave was further separated by walls of haphazard metal lattices to fashion a half a dozen or so prison cells. The woodsman nudged him in one such space after unchaining him and closed the door behind him, slipping the sweeping belly of a bearded ax between the bars to hold the latch closed.

"You know I can unfasten that from in here?"

The woodsman met his gaze darkly. "Trust me lad, don't."

It was not long after his captor's footsteps faded that Aster heard another racket. Through the haze of the subterranean dungeon a girl's voice shrieked.

"Let me go you hairy bushwhacker!"

All he could make out was a heavy thud, the creaking of metal bars, and a grunt as footsteps again disappeared up the stairs.

"This is your fault, twit," a voice unmistakably Castleia's spat through the dark.

"Bushwhacker?" Aster retorted. "Where did you hear that one?"

Another grunt. "I thought we were about to die a second ago. Now I'm sitting in a puddle in the muddiest cell of this filthy pit. Don't even think about judging me."

He cocked his head. "Fair enough."

The sound of rattling bars echoed to his ear.

"You aren't seriously going to try to escape," he muttered more to himself than the furious girl he envisioned beating on the bars across the chamber from him.

"Shut it."

Aster rested his head against the clammy dirt wall behind him. "I can't believe I forgot the gate."

"Me neither."

He bit back the impulse to hurl a curse through the dark at the girl.

After what felt like forever he heard her shift on the ground. "It wasn't your fault entirely though. That moonwalker - it's his fault for distracting you." Silence. "And I might shoulder some of the blame too. But if you had just closed the gate like I said -"

"Then we wouldn't be here," he finished heavily. "I know."

"How long do you think they will keep us here?"

Shaking a drip of cold water off his back, Aster shakily rose. The ground seemed to shake under him as he searched for his balance without the reference points of sight. "I don't know. Can't say I have ever been locked in the Strongfast before."

"Could've fooled me," Castleia muttered.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"When we have to share a watch you look like you've been living in a cellar. I can't imagine one makes a living like that without a scrape or two with the Watch - one of them or otherwise."

"I'm not a thief if that's what you mean," he snarled.

"Fine then," she combated. "How is then that you pull it together? I heard Endel say something about your uncle dying in the wood. And this city isn't kindly to a person without a Watch of their own."

"I've had some good friends," he whispered. For some reason the words tasted dirtier than the dank dirt on which he stood, but he knew no other response. As much as his pride cringed, it was true.

Castleia scoffed. "You've had some fine stars shining then."

"What about you?" he retorted. "Nobody joins the Watch unless they have an alternative - how do you get by? Done a stint in here?"

Metal bars clanked loudly as something struck them. "There are things less savory than thievery that still go unpunished. I get by."

Aster found himself without a response.

Sliding to the ground, he covered his head in his hands until he could not take the silence. "What do you suppose is going on outside?"

He could imagine her shrugging. "Emereld is probably meeting with them. Endel is probably still stalking the walls like a Night Panther looking for any reason to put his claws into one of them. Moonlight, you know how this is going to end, don't you?"

"How's that?"

"Bloodbath. He'll put an ax in someone, they'll stick him with a blade, and the whole city will be up in arms. When was the last time was a visitor anyway?"

It was Aster's turn to shrug. "Canth would know, but I have no idea. I don't remember anyone other than the nomads that come from the south in the spring."

"Nomads - more like robbers. I noticed not as many came with season."

"Who can blame them after Endel nightkissed their comrades the season before last."

"Who came up with that term?"

"Nightkissed?" He heard her head scrap the wall as she nodded. "I don't know. I guess after your bound and left for dead in the woods you're at your most vulnerable - sort of like a kiss I guess. And the black gets so close when the moon is hidden in the woods..." He shivered.

"You're such a poet."

"You asked."

"I've never been in the woods at night."

"Me neither." Another shiver slithered down his spine.

It was a long while before they heard another noise. Their conversation eventually staggered to a halt, leaving the stagnant air stoic and stale until a faint light broke through from the steps above. Heavy footsteps plodded down the stairs until Aster could just make out a hand grabbing the ax that held his door closed. The metal shrieked as it was pulled away and a hand seized his arm.

"Up," a pelt-clad Watchman barked.

Castleia grunted as someone grabbed her in a similar fashion. "After sitting in a pit for hours your just going to kill us again?"

A speaker Aster could not see snorted. "No little pup, we've found something to do it for us."