Chapter Text
The bastards had no idea Dick had got his hands free. So that was a start.
Dick hunched in the train’s coal car, knees drawn up to his chest, breath steaming in front of him. They must be someway up the mountains by now. It was getting colder. Behind his back, he twisted the loose rope in his fingers. His tie was stuffed in his mouth.
Alfred would be pissed. It was a nice tie. Silk.
Ra’s al Ghul’s men stood over Dick, watching through the slats in the wooden car walls. Trees flashed by. No snow yet. They’d put their weapons away—which didn’t mean much. They were quick. And Dick was unarmed.
At least I led them away from Damian.
Dick drew a deep breath. Whatever happened now, that was the important thing. Damian was safe. The others, too, although Jason would call him a self-sacrificing dickhead and Bruce would cuff him and tell him never to pull a stunt like this again.
If he saw them again.
Shaking himself, Dick lifted his head. No need to get melodramatic. Ra’s’s men were hardly going to kill him. At least, not right here on the train.
Not when he’d got his hands free.
Burying a smirk, he tiled his head back against a crate of coal and stared out through the slats. More trees. A tiny village further up the mountain. A castle—
Dick choked around his tie.
Castle.
Castle.
He knew that castle.
His stomach squirmed. It had been—what—five years? Probably more. The chances of a warm welcome were slim.
Want to wait and see if you get a warmer welcome in Nanda Parbat?
Dick tucked his legs in tighter—and shot to his feet.
Before Ra’s’s men could react, he nailed the closest one with a kick to the head. He lunged for the train car door, but a second man grabbed his shoulder and hauled him back. Dick twisted out of his grip and snapped another kick at the man’s ankles—which he anticipated, and dodged. What he didn’t anticipate was Dick’s hands coming up with coils of loose rope. Dick looped the rope around his neck in one sharp movement, then yanked. The man careened into the third and last of Ra’s’s men, sending them both sprawling.
Dick turned and wrenched the train car door open.
He leaped before he could stop to think.
He hit the dirt and his legs buckled. Dick tucked in, rolling over his shoulder and then tumbling, over and over, like a ball of scrunched up paper tossed across the floor. Pain shot though his elbow—his knee—up his ribs—until he finally fell flat on his back, gasping. He wrenched the tie out of his mouth and wheezed.
The train roared past him.
Inside, Ra’s’s men would already be getting up. Preparing to jump after him.
Stuffing his tie in his pocket, Dick staggered up. He was in a valley, stripped of trees to make way for the train tracks. But above him loomed the mountains. And close—so close—were the grey walls of that familiar castle.
Dick ran into the woods.
All he could see were white flashes of moonlight. He stumbled over roots, falling into trees and crashing through bushes. The air was burning cold; it was going to snow.
Dick stumbled, lost, down the mountain.
Bruce. Where was Bruce?
He was going to freeze to death out here. He needed shelter. He needed help.
And then the wolves started howling.
A bullet cracked into the tree by Dick’s shoulder. Dick hissed, too out of breath to scream. Dogs barked behind him.
Of course they had dogs.
Dry yellow leaves crunched under his shoes. His wrists ached where he’d strained and twisted against the rope. Dick darted around another tree and kept running, uphill, heart pounding.
Far below, the train roared away along the tracks, leaving a trail of black smoke. Triumph surged through Dick’s chest. Even if they caught him, they couldn’t get him back on the train now. No more hiding him in the coal car. They’d have to find some other way of sneaking Bruce Wayne’s famous son to Nanda Parbat without attracting a fuss.
Ra’s al Ghul hated to attract a fuss.
Another gunshot split the cold air. Dick flinched. Kept running.
Boots pounded up the slope. They didn’t call after him. Ra’s’s people were too smart to waste their breath. Bullets were more effective. One of the dogs let out another howl, and the others started up barking. Dick’s breath hitched. They were so close already. He couldn’t outrun dogs. Not for long. They’d drag him down and their master’s next shots would be clean, in the back of his head.
The castle was close. It had to be close.
The barking of the dogs blended with the blood thundering in Dick’s ears. He flashed past a pile of dark stone—what might once have been a wall.
So close. So close.
Dick’s foot slipped in a pile of loose leaves. He hissed, put a hand down and scrambled forward. The slope was growing steeper. More black stones jutted out between the trees. More ruins. But the castle was still standing, mostly. He knew it was.
Dick gripped a branch and hauled himself up. Thorns snagged at his sleeves, and he ripped himself free.
The broken remains of stairs rose jagged out of the ground, as if they had grown there alongside the trees. Dick surged forward. Almost there, almost there. The trees thinned. A dog howled behind him. He could hear them running now; their paws thudding in the dirt, hushing in the autumn leaves. Dick kept running, teeth gritted, stomach sinking. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing him give up. Not when he was so close.
The forest cleared.
And the castle loomed over him.
The wolves were little more than shadows moving on shadows. Just darkness rippling around him.
Dick brandished a stick. ‘Get back!’
They had to be desperate to hunt a human. Or maybe they could just sense how weak Dick was—how alone. He must’ve seemed like easy pickings.
Tightening his stinging-cold fingers on the stick, Dick determined to prove them wrong.
He nailed the first one as it leaped, slamming it across the ribs. He’d have taken out a dog with a swing like that, but the wolf was bulkier and heavier, and its momentum propelled it into him regardless. Dick hit the dirt with the wolf on top of him. He slammed a punch into its head and wolf backed up for a second, whimpering.
Then it lunged.
Dick barely brought the stick up in time. Instead of Dick’s throat, the wolf closed its teeth around the stick with a sickening crunch. Dick snapped a kick into the wolf’s belly, then rolled, pushing it off him. He was almost back on his feet when the next wolf slammed into his back. And the next bit into his leg. And the next—
The castle was a mass of twisting turrets and dull windows. The surrounding wall looked as if it would crumble at the slightest touch, but Dick knew better. He lurched for the gate.
Stitches seared through his ribs. His legs trembled. As he came level with the bars, a familiar wash of cold flooded through him. A warning, creeping into his bones.
Don’t go in.
He plunged through it, gripping the bars. They rattled.
‘Slade,’ he gasped. ‘Help me.’
The gate swung inward, as if it had never been locked.
And Dick was inside.
He staggered across the shadowed bailey. Bare, bone-white trees creaked around him. Dry leaves skittered across the path. There were more stairs to climb before he reached the castle proper, but that shouldn’t matter. He was inside the grounds now.
He was on Slade’s land now.
He turned just as the first dog reached the gate.
Dick tensed, gulping for breath. But the dog stopped at the gate. It stared at Dick, teeth bared and snarling.
It took a step closer.
It stopped. Pawed at the open gate. Whined. Backed up. Snarled again, then inched forward to sniff the iron bars before backing up again, tossing its head as if the metal burned its nose. Dick shivered. The dog could feel it.
Don’t go in.
You had to be invited. People didn’t expect that to work both ways.
The dog couldn’t push through. And neither could the next dog, which paced and whined, as if it was staring down a solid wall and not an open gate. The third dog came up with the men. It hid behind their legs, ears back, legs quivering.
Ra’s’s men hesitated.
One of them muttered something in Arabic; the other shushed him. Then he stepped forward, slowly. He winced as he came up to the bars. He reached out, teeth gritted, as if he were pushing his arm through fire.
‘Grayson. Come back, now.’
Dick lifted his chin. ‘Come get me.’
The man’s eyes flicked up to the castle. ‘It is not safe here.’
‘You’re right.’ Dick’s breath was coming easier now. And a new feeling was coiling in his stomach, tight and cold. He kept his expression hard. ‘I felt much safer tied up on the train.’
The man shook his head. ‘Come now. We will take you Nanda Parbat unharmed. Come.’
‘And when I get to Nanda Parbat?’
The man’s arm trembled. He finally withdrew it, his face screwed in pain. His companion said something else in Arabic, and Dick wished he’d learned something more from Damian than curses.
Not that he needed it. He knew what was waiting for him in Nanda Parbat: Ra’s al Ghul and his extensive understanding of exactly where to put the knives to make you talk. Ra’s didn’t want Dick. He wanted Damian back. And Bruce’s head on a spike. And Dick wasn’t going to give them up.
‘We just want your help.’ The man’s eyes were still creased in pain, as if it hurt him even just to stand so close to the gate.
Dick bared his teeth. ‘Not happening.’
The man sighed. He stepped back. ‘Then you are no use to us.’
He lifted the revolver.
‘Stop!’
The word cracked through the forest like splintering ice.
The wolves leaped away from Dick as if he’d stung them. He hesitated, shielding his face. Then, hearing the wolves’ paws padding away, he slowly sat up.
A shadow stood over him. In the dark, with only glances of moonlight on his head and shoulders, he seemed impossibly tall. And the wolves backed away from him, whimpering like puppies.
‘You have no right to humans on this mountain. You know that.’ The man’s voice was low and cold. ‘Go! Hunt something better.’
The wolves vanished into the trees, slicks of oil disappearing in the dark. The shadow standing over Dick crouched, and a touch of moonlight fell over his face. Enough for Dick to make out pale hair, and a black eyepatch. The shadow stretched out a hand and Dick took it. His skin was dry as paper. He pulled Dick up.
Dick just about made out the shadow of a smile.
‘Well look at you, little lost bird.’
Dick didn’t respond. He was too preoccupied with the way that smile showed off two perfectly pointed canine teeth.
Dick took a breath, every muscle tensed to dive aside—for all the good it would do him.
But then, the man paled. A blast of cold hit Dick’s back like a gust of wind, but none of the dead leaves stirred underfoot. The man staggered back.
And a hand settled on Dick’s shoulder.
‘Touch him and I’ll kill you.’
The coiling in Dick’s stomach tightened into a knot.
Slade.