《The Shrine of a Thousand Kings》


 Chapter One: Grime, Grit and Grimace in Godless Godsprings

    Carlos squeezed his eyes tighter against the glare of the tiny streetlamp that sat outside the filthy window of his closet-sized room. The opaque and warped glass intermixed with the heavy smog of Godsprings city, distorting the light of its alchemic fire into a greyish sickly hue that clung to the walls and floors like rainbow tinged soap scum. He slowly opened his eyes and watched as the shadows cast by the soot-crusted beams that peaked out through bent and shoddy blinds danced to the tune of the bustling city below. They shifted and swayed with the passing of pedestrians who scurried along the damp and dingy labyrinth of corridors that snaked their way chaotically along the steep canyon cliffs of the Abino Canyon. The impromptu nature of the city¡¯s origins lent them a complexity rooted in a distinct lack of planning and organization. The city had been born from an unholy amalgamation of transients and ruffians who, over time, had come to pitch their tents to capitalize on the once pristine and formerly hidden spring waters nestled among the great Canyon. These had long since lost their luster, the source of the spring morphing into a muddy greyish blue. The waters bubbled and boiled; a product of natural minerals and alchemic properties welling up from a hidden and angelic miracle long since lost to the eyes of man. Despite its tarnished appearance, the waters of the spring held an invigorating and stimulating effect, the single source of reprieve against the festering ooze of the boil that was the city of Godsprings.


    Carlos rubbed his eyes, breaking free the mucus-crusted membrane that was a hallmark of the miasmic air of Godsprings. The city held a permanent type of smog that clung heavily to the air. Palpable and infectious, it clung to any surface it could touch, coating them in layer upon layer of grime and soot as if the sins of its inhabitants themselves had reached capacity on the souls for which they clung and so, now stuck to the very fabric of the city itself. He coughed and sat up, his fingers racing over the rough and tattered sheets of what the inn had audaciously dared called a ¡°bed¡±. Grime coated and stuck to them, leaving behind a sticky stain that many said ¡°clung to you for days after leaving the city.¡± No amount of wash could clear it of its filth.


    Carlos shook his head to clear the mental cobwebs that ensnared his half-sleeping consciousness. The first night in a new bed almost always meant a night full of half-waking nightmares for him; whether that bed was a makeshift mess of refuse and pine needles or the relative safety of an actual room. Here in this city of grit and shattered dreams, those nightmares seemed to feed off his delirium, off his repressed phobias and anxieties like buzzards picking at the half-rotten corpses of some unlucky carrion.


    He hated how long it took him to return to full waking sentience. The nightmares always seem to fade so slowly, clinging to the shadows of his periphery like the way that leeches would cling to the legs when wading through thick muck and mire, slowly sapping away at his sanity before finally giving way.


    He scratched at an itchy spot on his rough cotton trousers, the scabbing of hard clotted blood over an old surface wound breaking off within the leg of his trouser. It fell into the grime of the floor and intermixed with the filth that coated the crude wooden floorboards. He stood slowly, his vision swimming and eyes popping with a slow firework of stars. the fatigue of poor sleep coupled with a night full of strong slightly soured warm ale demanded their penance in the form of his strength. His stomach rebelled the moment the remanence of bubbles and backwash hit his parched throat, but in the end, he triumphed and his stomach returned to its usual state of apathy.


    Pulling on his boots he crammed his feet deep into their leathery crevice, their tight rough leather forming a familiar shape around his chronically aching feet. They hurt, but in a dull familiar sort of way, their pain and discomfort provided a sort of well-needed sense of security. He had known what it was like not to have shoes, had known how much worse it could be. The soles of his feet still bore scars and unending needle-like pains as proof of that. Despite the discomfort the ill-fitting, improperly tanned leather of his cheap secondhand boots held, he welcomed their embrace with an open heart. If nothing else, they were reliable and had yet to wear or be torn. They kept his feet dry and free from rot and so were among his most prized possessions.


    Carlos stood up as he heard a knock come from the other side of his cheap inn room door. ¡°Sir?¡± an elderly voice broke through the wood in a squeaky, insecure voice. Its tone implied a history of abuse, coalescing in a culmination of insecurity that had only ripened with its owner''s old age.


    Carlos strode to the door, pulling over his cotton undershirt, its rough texture scraping over his weathered and leathery skin, hiding a mess of ugly curved scars that spiderwebbed across the surface of his world-weathered skin. He ripped open the cheap wooden door of his room wide and faced the wrinkled and shrunken face of the innkeepers'' assistant. The Inn-keepers assistant¡¯s face wrinkled in a flinch as if expecting to be struck. ¡°The master humbly requests your presence sir¡± he mumbled in a stuttering and wavering voice which sounded as if it were very nearly on the verge of tears.


    The elderly man had a face that looked as if it had been carved from a log. It was twisted and weathered by a lifetime of labor in the extreme heat of the desert canyon city of Godsprings. He wore a jacket of bright pastel colors; pink, yellow and blue squares interwoven in a checkered pattern, with the feathers of a macaw stuck the sleeves. The old man looked down and away from the gaze of Carlos. However, Carlos noticed the shoulders of the old man shifted down into a slightly more relaxed tone when he realized that he wouldn¡¯t be struck. ¡°The master, he says he just wants a word, anyway.¡± ¡°by your leave sir?¡± he trembled before scrambling backward from the balcony of the inn room, scampering back onto the long ladder of the cliff-cave inn. Carlos watched as he hastily scampered downward towards the central chamber of the lobby with a speed not often seen in a man of his age. All this, before Carlos even had a chance to grunt out a response of thanks or acknowledgment.


    Carlos sighed; he had grown accustomed to such events. The price, it seemed, of his reputation. On one hand, it was good for business, on the other¡­ well it came with early morning disturbances and a mountain of expectations. He stepped onto the patio, the soft glow of lamplight illuminating the filthy urban scene of the canyon both above and below him.


    Godsprings was a cliffside town, its houses were carved straight into the cliffside itself, interconnected by a dizzying array of ladders and balconies that stretched up through massive rock walls of the Abino canyon network.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    The Abino canyons were a network of deep cliff-like ravines that stretched out in a large natural labyrinth, snaked by a lazy slow-flowing river. Small cavern outlets often fed into mineral pools, fed in turn by hot springs that cracked up through rock crevices, the water stubbornly peeking through hardened granite, infinitely fed by a vast underground freshwater ocean deep beneath the canyon floor.


    Here, at night, the pollution from the miners coupled with the filth from the industrial pipeage was blanketed by darkness, providing the canyon city a short reprieve to the blistering and corrosiveness of the toxic fumes they exhumed. Only the sprawling and bobbing mess of lamplights carried by the scurrying of the late-night shop owners, opening their black market stall signs, or the vast network of miner brothel-pubs provided any semblance of light, blotting out what had once been a dazzling cosmic theater in the sky above the canyons.


    Carlos mounted the old and creaking wooden ladder of his Inn room, climbing down its rickety rungs down towards the main lobby. The ladder squeaked out its complaints under his weight, groaning under the strain. Years of exposure to the acid rains had weakened its wood, warping it to a barely serviceable hazard. Shoddy and impromptu repairs studded along its length, doing little to prevent half the rungs from freely spinning in their loose sockets.


    A fall from this height, Carlos thought, would be quite the ironic demise. After a lifetime of training, the years of fighting and hunting, his recent misfortune and hard life of vagrancy on the road and through exile, only to slip on a broken and neglected ladder rung in the most despised city on the entire continent.


    His foot touched solid ground, jarring him from his daydream. The balcony of the entrance was cluttered with an odd assortment of junk and dust-covered furniture, obscured by long flowing patchwork tarps. A single sign hung above the entranceway to the lobby, softly glowing with an eternal alchemist¡¯s fire. It cast a pale and dull green glow twisted into the shape of a large pixie. In her mouth was a large rose with words that read ¡°The Blitz¡± in large curling cursive font. Carlos strode towards the entrance of The Blitz, his hobnail boots making a deep hollow thud as he made his way across the loose wooden floorboards.


    He flung open the swinging double doors and entered the cavernous space of the main lobby. The elderly man from earlier stood wobblily, his eyes continued to point downward in a permanent submissive stance. Behind him was a wall of keys, their brass rings jingled intermittently with the canyon breeze.  ¡°In there¡± he mumbled, gesturing with a leathery leopard-spotted arm towards the only clean object in the entire place, an ivory white door.


    The door seemed to shine in contrast to the smudged, soot-covered walls and dull grey-green alchemist light that decorated the lobby.  A sign hung above it, polished brass screws holding the clean and shiny surface of the ivory sign in place at the top of the brilliant white door. The words ¡°Kentwood¡± snaked their way across the side in brilliant gold engravings. Carlos turned and walked to the door, ignoring the drunken patrons slumped over their whiskeys and the table of gamblers heavily engrossed in their game of craps.


    The patrons largely ignored him as he approached the bar, several shooting him cursory and dismissive glances before dismissively returning to their debauchery.


    Carlos looked filthy, his cotton trousers were overworn, characterized by gaping holes and stains that came from years of vagrancy and wild living. His trousers were deeply frayed at the seams, the hems of each of the legs exposed dangly bits of cloth and string, which were dragging through the grime and tobacco spit that caked the lobby floor.  Carlos was a drifter after all, which is why he was able to tolerate and even embrace the run-down conditions of the Blitz inn. In fact, to him, it was quite the stroke of luck to have been chosen as a recipient of free room and board on his first attempt to find work.


    In fact, the very elderly Godspring native who previously had fetched him to see the master of the house had been the one to recruit him. He had wordlessly shuffled by as Carlos had slept against one of the few refuse-free rock piles that he could find among the dizzying corridors and balconies of the lower city.


    Carlos had made it to the city merely three days prior, having stowed away in the crevice of one the large caravan boats that often busily sauntered down the river that cleaved the canyons. Those boats, with their steam engines that piped out billowing clouds of superheated smoke. Inky black, they intermixed with the toxic and suffocating expulsions of the miner¡¯s canyon pipes; adding additional layers of suffocating smog to the thin canyon air. In one of these ships he had stowed himself away, stashed away in between boxes of coal and tools in the ship¡¯s boiler deck. It was the novice¡¯s move (as it had turned out) as those tools had snarled and ripped his already worn trousers and bruised his back and thighs as he attempted to minimize the noise he made while sleeping. Even now, dry and warm in the lobby of the Blitz, he could feel the effects of his journey, his bruises still throbbing in a constant dull ache.


    Carlos shook his head, trying to shake off the daydream. Since his time in the boiler room, he had found it increasingly difficult to focus on the present. Perhaps it was a side effect of the blistering inferno of the boiler, an inescapable heat that had felt as if it had boiled his brain with its intensity. His vision swam struggling to refocus his attention back to the present.


    He was facing that great ivory door now, its shining white surface seemed to glow invitingly and hypnotically, the gold carvings at its perimeter and the unblemished, untarnished sheen creating such a stark and extreme contrast that it seemed to swallow him up and wash away the grime of that cursed city. It felt so warm and inviting to stare at its beauty. Carlos slowly reached out a hand towards the slick curvature of the doorknob. Its brass was twisted into an intricate design of an elephant¡¯s head, its trunk proudly curling skyward. Carlos felt as if the Elephant-doorknob could move, its inlaid ruby eyes shining an intense crimson color, the surface of the meticulously polished stones catching the odd ray of alchemist lamplight, refracting it into a brilliant rainbow. The effect made it seem almost as if it was winking back at him. The trunk too, felt as if it was triumphantly trumpeting a song of nobility and power.


    At that moment, when his fingers touched the smooth surface of the elephant¡¯s trunk Carlos swore that he heard the sound of the elephant¡¯s call. The sounds of the Inn faded away, only to be replaced with the constant hum in his ears and the sounds of the elephant. At this moment, something seemed to wash over Carlos, a sensation that was warm and inviting. The feeling seemed to wash over him, filling him from his toes to the roots of his hair. It filled him with blissful delirium much like how the confident but gentle touch of a teacher might grip the hand of a student only to guide and trace their hand into the correct shape of letters. Carlos felt the confidence of that touch on his consciousness. The warmth and strength of delirium made him feel so very tired, and with no struggle at all, Carlos relinquished control.


    Carlos was merely a passenger now. He saw his hand first grip then press down the knob of that great white door and turn it. The door made no sound as it smoothly glided open and the light of real fire warmed him, casting benevolent dancing shadows along the walls and cutting through the dim melancholia of the weaker alchemic light of the lobby.

 Chapter 2: The Machinations of One Mr. Kentwood

    Carlos watched his legs stumble forward on their own accord. He sleepily mused to himself from his floating half-conscious state that he should probably be a bit worried over this loss in motor control. Yet, these worries seemed to melt away in those warm waves of comfort and tranquility that seem to wash over his incorporeal mind the way the tide ebbed and flowed in a cleansing and calming rhythm across the ocean floor.


    His feet rested, finally, in a robotic wooden pose in front of a great wooden desk. Its mahogany surface was slick and shiny under a thick layer of wooden laminate, while its great sturdy legs were inlaid with intricate carvings. The carvings seemed to take on a life of their own, playing out the scenes of an intricate tragedy.  The characters seemed to dance before him, ensnaring his gaze with a hypnotic trance. Carlos saw in those carvings a circle of witch-like figures standing in a semi-circle around a great unlit bonfire. Each wore a mask of a monstrous demeanor. One wore the hideous deformed visage of a fox, another a demented owl, yet another that of a terrible box turtle.


    The carvings continued down the legs of the table showing the ladies dancing around the unlit bonfire. Their breasts were laid bare, the warped and uneven surface of the table gave their skin a wrinkled and elderly quality to them.  In one scene the carved figures of the women carried an infant above their heads, the cloth of its swaddling billowing out around their terrible outstretched talon-like fingers. In another, they had tied the infant to the fire, their mask-covered heads and blood-soaked palms stretched skywards. Their saggy breasts were half obscured by stringy, matted locks, a detail that Carlos hadn¡¯t thought possible to convey in simple wood carvings. In the last scene, the fire had been reduced to coals, tiny whispers of smoke escaping from the waning power of their once roaring flames. The mouths of the women¡¯s masks were now carved to show dripping liquid as if blood seeped from obscured yet ravenous maws.


    The enchantment of the table was finally broken by the sound of a smooth, honey-like voice that slowly and smoothly beckoned him back into focus. The effect of the voice felt much like the feeling of warmth of that spirit-like wave which now held total dominion over his motor functions. ¡°henceforth, you shall be known as number 2278¡± it cooed.


    The sound emanated from the lips of a lanky and unthreatening man. The man¡¯s skin seemed to almost glow in the same translucent milky-white shade as that of the great ivory office door. A long and flowing waterfall of shimmering golden locks cascaded in gentle coils down and around his sleek yet muscled shoulders. His hands were slender and un-calloused. The man rested them on the surface of the table, forming a pyramid with the tips of his fingers. His posture, too, was perfect and straight; free from the cumbersome weight of poverty or hard labor that characterized most of the inhabitants of Godsprings.


    ¡°From henceforth you are purchased property of the Chloridian Corporation. You are hereby indebted in the amount of...¡± he reached down and thumbed through the pages of his ledger. Its yellow-aged pages crinkling and cracking with each turn until his long slender finger stopped abruptly, evidently discovering what he had been searching for. ¡°Ah here we are 1,000,000 pontifs¡± he flipped a page, the sound of the crinkled page once again creaking and moaning in antiquity-laced protest. 20,000 pontifs for room and board, 30,000 for the scouting fee, and 300,000 for the uniform and mining equipment¡±. His fingers continued to trace a line down the page, his yellow cat-like eyes darted across the lines of the page in a determined yet somehow disinterested gaze. ¡°oh yes and¡­¡±


    The man who Carlos suspected was named Kentwood looked up now, a sadistic smile forming at the corners of his mouth. The nearly translucent skin of his face wrinkled against all odds at its impossible tautness casting a terrifying and chilling effect on Carlos¡¯ disembodied consciousness.


    Gone now was the pacifying warmth that had enveloped him while it had seized control of his motor functions. Its calming arura fled as fast as it had taken root, dissipating like the warmth of sunlight fleeing from a domineering and tyrannical Stormfront.  If Carlos still had had control of his body, he would have shivered. Everything about this Kentwood man oozed malice and disdain. So strong were the feelings that they seemed palpable, emanating outward from his very being in nauseating waves. ¡°and 650,000 in fines for public vagrancy¡± Kentwood continued, elongating his words through his smug sneer.


    From a corner of the room, a steel door swung up from the floor with the loud clambering of steel hitting the rough wooden floor of Kentwood¡¯s office. From out of its depths, a large burly man ascended. So covered was he in thick unruly hair that he resembled that of a ram. Much like a ram, his brow was furrowed in a permanent expression of aggression. His neck was so thick that his large round head could scarcely fit upon, it. Instead, it seemed to sink directly into the crevice between his two massive shoulders, nestled between them like some sort of boulder, wedged between the crags of two mounds.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    His large ape-like arms pulled him up, past the lip of the crevice of the recess, and with a heave he propelled himself up, first sitting, with legs dangling, over the lip then swinging himself so that his legs were sprawled across the incredibly clean floorboards.


    Rising to his feet, he faced Carlos. His face was incredibly expressionless, relaxed into an empty emotionless stare. His eyes, too, were blank. Those eyes were empty and lifeless, two black coals. They were dull like the remnants of a fire, inky black revealing no hint or trace of whatever fire they might have once held in his more youthful days.


    In one hand he held a long silvery pole, at the end of which glowed a simmering red glow twisted in the shape of a stylized C. It twisted and turned wickedly, clearly intended as representative of the Chloridian Corporation. The brand gently seeped smoke as the heavy-set goon dragged it behind him in a lazy posture. He seemed oblivious to the burn marks he streaked across the polished wooden floor. ¡°Ts ready¡± he mumbled in a low, nearly unintelligible tone.


    ¡°Pick up the brand you dolt!¡± Kentwood hissed, a hint of violence cracking through if only momentarily, his carefully crafted cool and calculated demeanor. ¡°You will brand employee 2278 and return to your post-Mr. Peeves. And you WILL be wary of your brand. I will of course be deducting the cost of this indiscretion¡­¡± he eyed the blackened marks of the brand on the polished surface of the heavily polished wooden floor with disgust ¡°from your account. Additionally, you will have one week of grog reduced from your weekly rations¡± he continued.


    Turning his attention back to prisoner 2278 (formerly known as Carlos) Kentwood stretched out his boney translucent finger, pointing it accusatorily at him. ¡°now I¡¯ve had quite enough of this. It¡¯s time to end this charade and send you to work where you belong. Whatever you once were 2278, well all of that is now gone. From this day your past, your days of vagrancy, and whatever else once characterized your past, these are now dead. You will behave and you will contribute¡±.


    Mr. Kentwood snapped his bony fingers which produced a sharp crackling sound unlike any normal human fingers could produce. The sound seemed sharp and piercing to Carlos as his consciousness began to slowly slide its way back into his body. All his senses felt alien to him now, unnatural, cold, and jarring. The sound was painful in his ears, the sound of his blood rushing into focus. Roaring and deafening, it rushed around him, enveloping him in its deluge. Yet his faculties still alluded him. His muscles twitched in miniature spasms across his body. They were minute, unobservable to a passerby. But to Carlos¡¯ recently returned consciousness, they felt like the pricks of a thousand needle points, stabbing and prodding him with every twitch. It felt like his entire body had fallen asleep as control, ever so slowly returned to his command. In these moments, when the spell of Mr. Kentwood had finally begun to wane, even breathing seemed difficult.


    As his motor function returned, Carlos sank to his knees, suddenly aware of gravity. The weight of his own body seemed to crush him. He felt as if he were encased in a vat of oozing, tar-like molasses. Tears welled in his ducts, instinctually attempting to shield him from the pain of the light against his dry, formerly unblinking eyes. Even as his lids closed, it felt as if his eyes were ablaze. The tears streamed over his cheeks, salty and stinging in their attempt to restore his sight.


    Against the blinding white of his newfound blindness, he felt the rough grasp of calloused fingers curling their way around his biceps. In his state of hypersensitivity, they felt like the embrace of a python, squeezing the life from recently captured prey.


    In a moment of searing heat and overwhelming pain, he felt the brand make contact with his skin. Pain exploded from his arm, painting broad fireworks of color and stars in his vision. The pain consumed him, leaving no room for any amount of introspection or self-awareness. Only pain remained and it enveloped and entangled him in its embrace. His body, with the motor control finally now fully under his control spasmed violently as his body fought to distance itself away from the hot burning end of the company brand.


    Carlos vomited. Hot chunks of porridge and scavenged leftovers spilled across the once pristine floor. He smelt the bitter sting of his bile which made him retch more. Lying there in a pool of his own waste, his vision faded to darkness.


    The large brute, who had branded Carlos, stooped down grasping his legs. He flung the limp body of Carlos over his shoulder with impossible ease.


    ¡°Gah you Imbecile, you complete moron¡± Kentwood sputtered in unbridled rage. ¡°get someone in here to clean this mess up at once! This is disgusting. You¡¯ve been doing this job for how long and you still manage to botch the easiest, most straightforward job available. How am I to be expected to work in these conditions.¡± He spat each line out at the brute of a man who had done the branding as if his words were pure venom. ¡°Get out! Get out! And make sure he¡¯s properly equipped to start work tomorrow. If he¡¯s too damaged to begin work tomorrow you will be expected to complete both yours and his duties for the week. If you fail that too, well you don¡¯t want to see what happens then, let me tell you that now. Brutes are replaceable, they are REPLACEABLE¡±!


    Without uttering a single word, the monster of a man disappeared down the darkness of the hatch, pulling the lid shut quickly behind him.

 Chapter 3: Into the Depths of Despair

    Despair swept over Carlos, sinking icy tendrils of panic that wrapped themselves around him in their chilly maddening embrace. He found himself uncomfortably shackled, both at the wrists and ankles. Large iron chains snaked across the floor, binding him on both sides to the other unlucky men who shared his fate. Although his vision was still enveloped in half-darkness (the light of the cheap alchemic lamps casting a bluish tinge and slightly illuminating the woven pattern of the rough and cheap burlap sap for which his head had been unceremoniously stuffed inside) he was aware of his new comrades. Both their smells and their intermittent jostling made him painfully aware of their presence. He could tell by the rustling and jangling of the chains as they rose and fell with the breaths and shifting movements of the prisoners, that three other companions were sharing his fate.


    ¡°They didn¡¯t recognize me¡± The thought reverberated through his skull, consuming his every thought. He tried to escape it, the reality of the situation, the gravity of what had happened, yet those icy tendrils of panic only squeezed harder the more he tried to escape from the rising and inescapable feelings of doubt and despair. It had all been for nothing, the robberies on the road, the months forced in seclusion, the countless nights of hunger and starvation, all of these had led to this moment.


    ¡°How could they have not recognized me?¡± Carlos shivered as an icy wind raked its talons across his bare chest, bitterly cutting straight through the meager and overly worn cotton of his trousers. His back was pressed against a rough and freezing surface which he recognized as rough-cut granite. Cold and domineering, the granite wall seemed to greedily sap at what little warmth he had left. To his left, he heard a man sneeze, the force of it jerking the taught chains for which they were linked. This caused the overly secured shackles to tighten against his leg, sending a sharp pain in his ankle and up to his leg. He felt a warm and wet line trickle from the part of his ankle that the shackle had tightened against.


    Carlos tried and failed to stifle a yell, emitting instead a low suppressed whimper that encapsulated all the misery and misfortune since the day he had accepted what he had previously hoped would be the biggest score of his career. ¡°How could it have come to this,¡± he thought. The sentiments of frustration welled up in him, echoing the same emotion repeatedly through slightly different thoughts. The rage he felt when he first awoke had long since subsided, eroded by the forces of fear, captivity, discomfort, and cold. That rage now gave way to an unsettling, apathetic smolder of panic and defeat that seemed to suckle away at the last ounces of hope that had supported him through the trials for which he had endured on his way Godsprings.


    That hope, a vision of a future where he no longer had to fight for survival, a future where he would be free to thrive, to fight for the changes to the broken and imbalanced system of ¡°justice¡± he had dreamed of since his youth now lay in tatters.


    Carlos¡¯ shivers intensified, increasing from intermittent shakes to full-on convulsions, rattling his teeth together like the keys of a secretariats type-machine documenting in unending succession the records of a high court. His mind began to slip away from the biting sting of the cold of that dark half-illuminated place and into the numbness of delirium.


    Fever. He knew that was what was now upon him. If he could weather its effects, he might survive it. But what then. What would Carlos be surviving for? The cycle of despair had begun. He knew that if he wasn¡¯t careful, these thoughts would drown him. They would pull him deeper and deeper towards the unending darkness of their abyss they way a great vortex would pull a ship towards its center, before ripping it with unyielding force towards its watery depths. It would claim his clarity and self, leaving only the husk of his body behind.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    He needed a purpose, a reason to keep fighting. More than that he needed something to keep him from falling asleep. He knew if he let go and succumbed to the fever dreams, he might never awaken. Whether it was from the fever or out of a part of him that desired survival, he was unsure. Regardless, and against the better parts of reason which in that dreary place had long since abandoned him, he uttered aloud a whisper.


    ¡°Who are you¡± the words hung in the air, clinging to the atmosphere like the way smoke clung to, rose, then filled a room. Here there was no ventilation for it to escape and so, instead, it penetrated the silence and introspection that had previously dominated the enclosure for which these captives found themselves. The desperation of the sentiment proved infectious, too overbearing to ignore, and so as if with a great deal of effort there squeaked out a reply from Carlos¡¯ left side.


    ¡°Elandris, my name it¡¯s Elandris¡± the voice from which the words sputtered was gruff gritty, and low. It carried with it the weight of many years of toil, tribulations, and tragedy. Despite the surety of the tone and the confidence in which they were spoken, Carlos noticed a slight wavering stutter to them and realized that this elderly man must be as frozen as himself.


    These words and the humanity that seemed to emanate from them had a sort of tonic effect on him, pulling him back, if for a moment, from the brink of his internal abyss. The simplicity of the response was honeying to him, despite the misfortune for which he now found himself, if nothing else he was just glad to not be alone. The response of that old man symbolized a glimmer of hope for this. If he could make a connection, reach out, and find support, he could once again find a reason to persist.


    But this hope was fleeting, perhaps even artificial. A desperate last attempt to cling to anything that might provide him with hope. Deep down Carlos knew there wasn¡¯t any, and so he shoved himself away from the looming spiral of all-encompassing hopelessness and clung instead to this false hope of human connection.


    Carlos knew what awaited him down here, within the mines of the Abino canyon complex. He had heard the rumors in every inn and tavern since he had crossed the desolate sands of the Khalmuki. Rumors of the slave gangs of the Godsprings mines and how soulless these men were.


    They were inhuman, the stories had said, bound with blood magic and dominated by the infernal clockwork of the corporate Djinns. Those slaves became walking husks, half-humans who were mutated into hulking mountains of meat, left to spend their days extracting the minerals, coal, and blessed water that made the Abino canyons so profitable.


    Elandris spoke again, the words poured out of him now in a torrent of desperation to be heard and singed with the bitter flavor of past nostalgia. ¡°I was once a soldier of the Arena, captured as a boy on the Isle of Dalm. I have rarely known freedom. Here I find myself trapped once again. I have once tasted of freedom, hard-won through a lifetime of blood and death in the Arenas. Yet, fate it seems is a cruel mistress. Here chained to other men, it seems I¡¯m destined for death in slavery. A death rooted much like the days of my youth. From that which I came, must I know return¡±


    He paused only to take a deep gasping breath before the unending vomit of wounds spewed out once again. ¡°My story is long and hopeless, but I pray that you will listen to it. I do not fear death, not a physical one anyway, but I need to be remembered even if it''s nothing but an illusion. I must know that others will remember my life, that all the death, my sins, and triumphs, will be remembered even just for a moment. Please¡± he begged; his voice choked with the raw emotions of panic.


    Although Carlos couldn¡¯t see him, he could imagine the pain contorted on Elandris¡¯s elderly face. He thought that despite his relative youth, that his face likely contorted in similar wrinkles and furrows, the years as a vagrant in pursuit of this score had undoubtedly left him weathered.


    Before Elandris could continue, however, a door swung open with a thundering crash and the bag was painfully wretched from Carlos¡¯s head in one fluid, forceful tug. Despite the dimness of the alchemical lights, their glare still managed to blind him momentarily. He blinked to clear the pain and was faced with the image of his captors and the reality of his surroundings.

 Chapter 4: Trapped

    As he had expected, Carlos found himself faced with three additional prisoners. All were chain-linked together, bound by the infernal clockwork of a blood vice. The vices had been molded to resemble the snarling maw of a bear¡¯s jowls. The teeth were wicked and pointed, stained a dark blotted red. Clumps of gnarled and clotted flesh stuck between the teeth of the ankle vice where it had auto tightened against the stirrings of the previous sneeze.


    All four men were nearly naked, shirtless, and wearing only the most meager of trousers which hung in frayed and filthy tatters. The older man, the one called Elandris, had a dark stain that emanated outward from the center of his crotch. The smell of his self-soiling burned Carlos¡¯s nose as he became more conscious of his surroundings. ¡°It was odd¡±, Carlos mused to himself, ¡°how much more aware of other senses you felt when once your eyes were uncovered¡±. Previously, he had been almost entirely unaware of its musky-moldy stench, his mind preoccupied with more abstract, existential concerns. Yet now it felt inescapable, choking him with its oppressive and offensive odor.


    Two his right, Carlos saw his other two silent companions. The first man was a large ox-like man. A hulking bulging ripple of muscles that bulged across his frame like the rolling hills of the fjords of Ktholl. Thick golden fur carpeted his limbs and chest, flowing so thick across its surface that it seemed to wave back and forth with the breeze of the cave draft much the way the wheat fields of Ktholl dominated the rolling hills of the highland fjords for which his kind called home. Large and curled locks cascaded down and around his shoulders, shining, even in this weak alchemical light, with a golden splendor. His eyes, which were a brilliant resplendent blue, were glazed and distant. They reminded Carlos of the sea in the wake of a terrible tempest. Though their waters were now calm, they betrayed a hint of fury and destruction just beneath the surface. Yet now they remained glazed over; sullen, distant and broken.


    Next to him, sat a man of significantly smaller stature. He was a tiny man, with long slender fingers and dainty almost lady-like hands. Although he was equally filthy and bore similarly tattered garb, something about the smoothness in his face and panic in his eyes made Carlos suspect he had known a life of luxury. His eyes were wild and not yet broken. Carlos suspected that this man was new to captivity and indeed misfortune. ¡°If he was lucky¡±, Carlos mused ¡°his misfortune would be short-lived¡± he guessed this would be so judging by the tautness of his skin stretching over and exposing the bones of his ribs just under the pale, nearly translucent hue of his skin.


    The ape-like brute who had branded him now stood in the doorway of the cave-room. He paused for a moment, surveying the pathetic state of the prisoners as if he were savoring the air of dejectedness that they exhumed. In his hand, he carried two wooden buckets, both of which sloshed around as he moved. Their brown liquid splashed out and onto the floor in sickening plops. His hardened scarred mouth twisted into a cruel smirk as he approached the skinny frail man first. He first scooped into the steaming depths of his one bucket, then lifted a crude wooden ladle filled with chunky brown liquid to the lips of the young man, who cowered back and away from the brute in an instinctual flinch.


    ¡°Eat¡± the brute muttered in an almost unintelligible and low-toned grunt. Brown liquid stained his mouth and chin as it dribbled down his face. He seemed frozen in a panic unable to react, except to recoil away from the brute and his spoon as much as possible, which only caused the blood vice to sink its teeth deeper into the flesh of his ankle and arms causing blood to ooze out in tiny red rivulets.


    ¡°EAT!¡± the brute screamed, smashing the wooden ladle into the lips of the petrified young prisoner. The brown lumpy liquid spilled down the front of his bare chest in splashes. The brute dropped his second bucket and wrapped his large sausage-like fingers around the tender milky white flesh of the prisoner¡¯s neck. His eyes bulged as large foamy bubbles of dull-colored broth sprayed around the edge of the wooden spoon as it was repeatedly forced down the throat of its victim.


    At first, the young prisoner thrashed about, gurgling and sputtering as the food was forced down his throat. The mechanics of his clockwork restraints ticked dutifully as the blood vices tightened their grip in increasing intervals, the blood now welling in pools across his forearms and thighs. Carlos heard a sickening crack as the bones in the prisoner¡¯s ankle splintered. The torn flesh was ripped away in bloody fleshy gore exposing the gleaming white of exposed bone.


    The blood, bone shards, and sinew filled the inner maw of the blood vice. The blood which was now contained inside rose to fill in the glass eyes of the contraption. The eyes of the machine began to glow a bright shining shade of crimson and with a wet slosh, the teeth of the blood vice broke through the other side of the leg, severing it messily. Strands of skin and sinew dangled between the severed foot and leg as the foot swung in the space between the blood vice and his ankle. The eyes of the prisoner grew cloudy as the life slipped from his lips and out through the last few tiny bubbles around the spoon.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    ¡°Eat Eat Eat¡± The brute continued to shove spoonfuls of slop into the slack-jawed mouth of the dead prisoner even as the body grew limp and his bowels evacuated. The stink of death overwhelmed the stench of urine that had previously filled the air. ¡°OK,¡± the brute let go of the corpse letting it sag in a limp heap against the granite cave wall to his right.


    ¡°Next one¡± He moved over to the large Kthollite man, once again lifting his wooden ladle. The Kthollite learned his lesson from the spectacle that had just occurred, lapping up each spoonful of slop without hesitation. His face contorted in a grimace, but otherwise, his eyes remained transfixed on the dark recess of the cavern floor.


    Once finished, the attention was switched to Carlos. A glimmer of recognition flashed in the brute¡¯s eyes as he faced Carlos. ¡°YOU TAKE BEER RATIONS, I TAKE FOOD RATION¡± He scooped up a steaming spoonful of slop and plopped the entire contents into Carlos¡¯ lap. The liquid was hotter than Carlos had expected, burning his legs with its heat.


    Despite the discomfort, Carlos remained frozen in place, tensing his muscles against the instinct to retreat and squirm. He trained his mind on a memory of discipline. He remembered a field, filled with yellow poppies and cool green grass. He remembered the dirt lines of the range, the uncomfortable, yet the familiar weight of the rifle in his arms. He remembered how comfortably its buttstock had fit into the meaty pocket of his shoulder, the tight squeeze of the loop of its sling around his bicep. He recalled how peaceful it had made him feel to hold the weapon, to breathe in an easy rhythm, and watch the tip of its iron sights slowly bob up and down as it centered on the small black and white rings of the target. Back at that moment, he had become the rifle itself. All other worries slipped away from him, he ceased to be Carlos and instead was the embodiment of his own breath. Up, down, up, down he remembered what it was like to slowly pull his finger back, sliding it smoothly back against the curvature of the trigger as if his finger too were a part of the well-oiled parts of his rifle, moving naturally and in tandem with each perfectly fitted component.


    He remembered how natural the sound of the weapon firing was to him in those moments; deafening, destructive, and beautiful, it always jolted him slightly in a surprise motion. He remembered how satisfying the little pop was, only a mere heartbeat after the bullet had left the chamber as the red-hot ball of lead struck the soft paper of target and later thumped into the sandy berm behind it. It seemed to him in these vivid memories that he could even taste the gunpowder that often clung to the air during these moments as he, together with the members of his company, set hundreds of rounds into the sandy berm.


    The memory of these days, training on the firing ranges long ago, training for a meaningless battle in another far off place, was to him what meditation was to the Yogi. And so, he retreated into the memory, mimicking the rhythmic rise and fall of his breath. Up, down, up, down, up.


    The brute laughed and hit Carlos hard with the ladle creating a wet, sloppy sound as it connected with the pooled up slop that was pooled there as well as with the flesh of his legs. ¡°schlop schlop schlop!¡± When Carlos still didn¡¯t budge, the brutish man grew bored and moved on to the elderly man repeating the process.


    Once each man was fed (and thoroughly drenched in brownish liquid slop) the brutish man placed a wooden bowl at the feet of each of them excluding the dead man. He then filled each bowl with warm greyish water. He reached into the folds of his tattered and frayed cloak and produced a large key. He then proceeded to insert the key into the locking mechanism of the clockwork monster shaped shackles.


    As he twisted the key into each slot of the blood vices, their internal mechanisms squeaked in protest before grinding into a click. Reluctantly it seemed; the jaws of the blood vices relaxed and let go of their captors. The brutish man stuck in his hand and pulled from the depths of his tattered cloak, old fashioned iron locks, which he affixed to the chains. He examined each shackle against the light of the alchemical lamp, turning and twisting it in the dull green light before placing them into the bucket which had held the brackish water, he had left for them to drink.


    Turning away, he hurried out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The remnants of the slop sloshed out its contents as he went. A moment later, the door swung open again. In the entrance stood two average men wearing dull blue colored cotton coats. The brass buttons were unpolished, and soot-stained much like their worn black boots. Their once white trousers were thick and reinforced, greyed by the soot of coal which was a hallmark of the miners¡¯ trousers.


    Their appearance was so distinctly ordinary that it was jarring. They seemed so out of place after the recent events that had befallen Carlos in those last few hours. Yet, upon closer inspection, Carlos noticed the emptiness in their eyes. Their eyes were white and pupil-less, glazed, and unthinking, they were stuck in an unblinking, unmoving stare.


    The pair moved mechanically, cleaning the blood from the floors and administering a salve to the ankle of Carlos where the shackles teeth had sunk when the Kthollite had sneezed. As the miner bent down to administer the salve, Carlos caught a glimpse of a mechanical scarab affixed to the nape of his neck. Its legs were deeply embedded through the meaty flesh and its eyes glowed red in the same way that the eyes of the shackles had.


    ¡°Blood magic¡± Carlos shivered involuntarily. He had encountered such things before in his travels across the Khalmuki. The memories of the horrors they caused chilled his veins to ice faster than the frigid temperatures of that cave. Before departing, the two blue coats draped a blanket over the three remaining prisoners, hefting the corpse of their former companion over one shoulder and plopping the remnants of his severed foot into a wash bucket. They exited as soundlessly as they had entered, leaving the three prisoners chained together sharing the meager warmth the flimsy woolen blanket provided.

 Interlude Part 1

    Leon awoke to the sound of muffled scratches on hardwood. Mice had recently taken up residence in the bleach-white walls of his first-year room, drawn in by Leon¡¯s own neglect and the sheep¡¯s cheese he¡¯d smuggled from the Academies mess hall. ¡°Scratch scratch¡± This time he heard the unmistakable sound of muted voices. Hushed and low, they broke out in between the sounds of scratching. Their low frequency rattled his heart, the terror reverberating and amplifying the shadows. His imagination transformed them into objects of horror and danger. His mind drew on the tales of the horrific monsters that his grandmother used to tell him about every night until his seventh winter when she had left him to join the great halls of Raek to work the forges of the gods who live below. She had told him tales of monsters who preyed on weak and irresponsible children, snatching them up and devouring them whole as they slept or else entering their nightmares and trapping them forever in petrified slumber to feed off their fear for eternity. ¡°Scratch Scratch¡± the sounds intensified, building in tempo and fervor the way storm clouds darken, saturate, and swell before finally unleashing their deluge and violent fury. The darkness of his room seemed, now, to suffocate him. Where before it had heralded the comfort of sleep and rest, acting as a blanket of refuge against the weight of responsibility and abuse that farm work brought, it now pressed its weight heavily with its oppressive terror. It squeezed his heartbeat into a wild rhythm, trumpeting in his little chest as if it were trying to escape the recess beneath his rib bones.


    His mind raced, swirling and perverting shapes of the once familiar objects of his room into objects of horror. Ever since he had arrived at the Academy, such nightmares had dominated his every night. In the beginning, they had brought him dark gifts of warm reeking urine which had stained his sheets. He remembered the fury of his instructors., how they had refused him clean linen, making him sleep in crusted sheets. It had almost killed him, as his open wounds which had been inflicted during hard days of training and sparring, had easily become infected by the unhygienic conditions. By the fifth night, he had become so feeble from fever and delirium that the instructors had finally taken him to the sickbay for fear of losing their investment. When finally, he had returned, he found his sheets finally replaced with fresh white linen. After that, it never happened again. But, the nightmares, the half-waking paralysis, the intense feelings of panic as his mind struggled to cope with his displacement¡­ these had never stopped.


    His window shutters revealed slivers of silver moonlight. They looked to Leon now like the terrifying glowing eyes of some creature, the mirror in the corner of his room took on the form of a great and gaping maw, the imperfections at its corners transforming into wicked teeth. The darkness of the reflection seemed empty and terrifying, like that of a great abyss. It was a darkness that swirled and devoured; desiring, he imagined, to swallow his very soul.


    In this twilight moment of half-being, Leon felt as if he was rising from his own body, shedding his skin like that of a serpent, leaving behind an old and now useless husk in search of a new sleek, slender and strong vessel. In this state, he felt both vulnerable and powerful at the same time. Yet that great gaping maw of the mouth-mirror seemed to pull him towards it shiny emptiness, pulling him ever closer like the way Leon¡¯s own mouth might suck at the claw of a boiled crab, pulling with intensifying force at the sweet and vulnerable flesh inside until, finally, he consumed it, leaving the husk of the once-powerful shell as nothing more than refuse.


    A shout broke Leon from his half nightmare, jolting him now into true terror and action. The previous spell of paralysis that sleep had gripped him in was now broken, replaced instead by instincts of pure survival and self-preservation. Instincts that had been methodically and cruelly hammered into him over the last seven months. A loud splintering crack echoed out as the sounds of wood on wood clanged and clamored violently, violating the air of peace and tranquility of the sweet night air. Leon dove out of his bed, pushing his furniture against the door in a furious panic.


    Nearly a year of regimented training exercises coupled with his recent growth spurt of his ninth summer supplied him with the necessary strength to push his most prized possession, a medium-sized bronze mirror, against the wooden door of his upper room. Leon dashed to his window, throwing open the wooden shutters, and peered below. He considered leaping to the rocks below but dared not risk it. Last summer, another boy from the academy, a classmate named Promo, had taken to chasing the wild donkeys who played and grazed the fields between the rocky hilled farmlands that dotted the Isle of Dalm. That boy had been kicked and later trampled by a particularly large jack, breaking his leg. Leon still remembered the ceremony of cleansing that the masters of the isle had performed on behalf of the academy. They had cast the boy from the stony precipice of the great cliffs as punishment for having broken his leg. What was more vivid to Leon than the memories of the broken, bloodied and mangled body of the young Promo, however, was the grueling hours of log duty the rest of the class had been forced to endure for allowing the academy to lose such an investment. Leon¡¯s shoulders still bore the scars from the long splinters that had wedged their way through his shoulder blades. For a week after, the mere effort of lifting his arms had brought tears to his eyes. The lesson had been hard-learned, but it had been learned. The boys were a team, a unit and therefore they all bore the sins and successes of each other.


    On the isle of Dalm, cripples were an affront to the Lord of Games. Broken legs and limbs meant they couldn¡¯t fight. Since these boys were now property, the value of their lives rested solely on their ability to fight in the arena. A broken boy wasn¡¯t even good enough for fodder in the Arena. Maybe, if it had been an arm or a cracked skull, but legs were a different story. Despite the education it afforded, the academy only truly cared about one thing, and that was coin. A loss of life in the arena yielded coins, and so, was deemed acceptable. A death without coin, however, now that was the gravest of sins. Leon dared not risk such heresy, and so he backed away from the temptation of the gamble leaping from the ledge presented. He might make the leap, but the chance of breaking his legs could doom him, causing suffering for his classmates for months. It was a price Leon knew he couldn¡¯t and wouldn¡¯t pay.


    The battle continued below, the sounds of shattering clay and the tossing of wooden furniture shook the walls of the Barracks¡¯ crude and simple construction. The scuffle intensified and he heard a sharp and stinging yelp cry out, the sounds of pain and fury filled Leon¡¯s ears rattling his skull. As always, he felt the weight of the emotions behind them, angry and buzzing through his skull like a mountain of stinging fire ants swarming and biting and tearing all at once in murderous fury. Leon had learned through the years how to suppress these sensations, dulling them through his own will and concentration. Through rhythmic breathing and mental chants, he had learned to balance the thoughts and feelings of others that had laid a constant siege against his psyche since the days of his first memories. Still, the voices came from below and so were muffled and distorted beyond recognition, carrying with them only a vague semblance of meaning to Leon¡¯s ears.


    At once, Leon recognized the shouts of his classmates, their high-pitched snarls were distinct and piercing. They carried instinctual bravado which thinly masked waves upon waves of fear, rising in menacing and towering waves. The emotions rose in increasing intensity reaching peaked crescendos, before crashing back down in a drowning and destructive force on Leon¡¯s psyche. The emotions of real battle proved too great and Leon sunk to his knees, and later to the prone position, writhing in mental anguish. Leon searched deeper inside himself, probing until he found a silvery shiny ember, dully glowing with a weak and faint shimmer the way the remnant coals of a once great and ravenous bonfire might crackle, merely hinting at the destructive potential hidden within.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    With careful determination and in a rhythmic pattern, Leon took controlled breaths. As he sucked in air, he drew within him the power of the emotions of those who fought below. Each exhale blew on the silvery spark within him fanning the flames of their power and filling him with fire. His fear and cowardice subsided, as did his pain. Leon clamored to his feet with renewed vigor and with powerful determination. He had harnessed this power before. The night after Promo had died, he had fed on the secret fear and despair of his fellow classmates. Argos, in particular, had provided him with enough fuel to create an inferno if he had wanted or had been less careful.


    Argos was the biggest classmate. All the first years were the same age, but Argos had grown the fastest, reaching a height and build rare for boys his age. He was also the strongest among them even since those early days when they had first arrived at the academy, soaking wet, starving, and pathetic. The days before the shipwreck were hazy and cloudy for all of the boys, providing only the faintest of memories of the time before. None of them could remember why they had been on the ship in the first place or where they had come from, only that they were here and that they must learn and fight or else die. Yet, even since those earliest days, Argos had been the leader. Other boys his age, faced with such raw physical power would become bullies, exerting, and testing their strength and power over the other boys as an exertion of pent up desire for vengeance on the abuses of the academy. Yet, Argos had been different, taking up the role and responsibility as leader and guardian of the other boys in Class 3. In the training grounds, he fought with ferocity and unyielding passion whenever one of class 3¡¯s members were in danger of losing a training fight with one of the other classes. His back was pockmarked with whip scars, the lessons of which seemed to be lost on Argos, who continued to bullfight his way into any fight he felt threatened the safety of his class three family. As such, the death of Promo had hit Argos like a hammer to the gut, shattering his will. It was Argos who had taken the place of Promo on the log drills, carrying the weight of two boys. Yet he had remained unphased physically, walking as if he were some ghastly reanimated corpse, intent on moving but without purpose or meaning. It was the tears and the pain in his room alone that had first caused Leon to discover the hidden ember of his soul and the power it held.


    With the harnessed power of his silver ember, Leon now pulled away the furniture he had propped against the door. Their weight, which before had caused him great amounts of exertion to move, felt weightless now. Moving them seemed so trivial and effortless, the energy of the flames within his soul stirred with increasing inertia, whirling faster and faster into a fiery vortex of power deep within him as the battle below raged on. He knew there had been death, at least one classmate below had gone to join the halls of Raek deep below, he felt the power of it swell suddenly in an almost unbearable surge of power. Leon knew in an instant that it could consume him if he wasn¡¯t careful.


    Leon bound down the wooden stairs into the open training grounds below. In the open courtyard, among the litter of training dummies, a group of boys in class 4, faced off with the other members of class 3. They carried in their hand¡¯s training swords but inlaid with long iron nails. Long and wickedly barbed, the metal-studded training swords jutted out menacingly. Murderous contempt seemed to peek through the darkness of half-lit faces of the boys of class four, partially illuminated by moonlight.


    Class 4 had had a rivalry with Class 3 since the early days of the academy. The rules of the academy had stated that starting in the fifth week, class practice bouts would determine which class got served extra rations at mealtime. Under the leadership of Argos, Class 3 had easily won the weekly training tournaments each week. Only class 4 had come close, led by their own leader, a boy named Arkkon who led his class through a campaign of fear and intimidation in stark contrast to Argo¡¯s strict but brotherly leadership. If they could take out class 3, they would finally gain access to the most precious commodity at the academy; rations. Despite his cruelty, Leon could see and feel what truly fueled Arkkon, fear, and hunger. In fact, the faces of all the boys of Class 4 were contorted into a determination that only extreme hunger could fuel.


    ¡°He¡¯s unarmed!¡± shouted a boy, pointing a nail-studded training sword at Leon, who looked deceptively disheveled standing at the bottom of the stairs of the barracks, the other boys shifted into a defensive retreating position against their small 10-year-old opponents. It would have looked comical, with these two groups of children waving practice swords and spears and wearing training armor, if they hadn¡¯t already felt the bite of these makeshift weapons. Blood seeped from several wounds on the boys of class 3¡¯s thighs and arms where they had received lucky blows from the other children. Leon looked and saw the fire in Argos¡¯ eyes as he rallied an advance on a separated group of boys from class 4, employing a well-trained spearman¡¯s formation from the members of class 3, carrying training staves as if they held spear points.


    Yet, these children were clearly outmatched, despite their superior organization. The lethality of the makeshift weapons outmatched nonlethal training equipment. This coupled with the murderous intent driven by extreme hunger and jealousy put the boys of class 4 at a distinct advantage. Argos knew he was doomed, but refused to back down, driven by an unyielding sense of responsibility to his comrades.


    Leon opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead, a great and terrible flame shot forth, a culmination of the mixed emotions that assaulted him on every side. He dropped to his knees, but the flames continued to spew outward. They swirled first upward, then outward, engulfing all around him, searing flesh and melting skin. Screams rose upward, filling the sky with fear, horror, and agony. The high-pitched sounds of children dying intermixed with the sizzling of popping skin and boiling blood. Soon all these melded together, everything in Leon¡¯s vision becoming flame. Leon felt himself, once again floating, leaving his body behind as he had done mere hours before in his half-dream. He rose upwards, feeling himself fill into the night sky. He felt free, freer than he had ever remembered feeling since he first entered the academy. The silence of the dead pacified him, filling him with a peace he had never before experienced. It was quiet for the first time in his life. If he had a mouth he would have laughed. Instead, he simply floated, rising higher and higher, the mountains and hills of the island growing smaller and smaller. Soon it became a green dot among the endless blue of the sea. Soon, this too disappeared, and he was once again among the darkness. He saw at this moment, the gaping maw of the mirror. It swallowed him, if he could, Leon would have screamed.


    Leon awoke and tried to move but failed. His hands, he found, had been bound as were his feet. He opened his eyes and saw the metal bars of a cage. In the distance, he heard the bells of the arena. Instinctively he knew they rang for him. He had been granted this final reprieve, perhaps in respect for his power, a glorified death at the hands of the arena. Leon drew in a deep breath and felt once again for that faint ember of power deep within. This time, however, all he could hear was the screams of dying children. His nose was once again filled with fleshy soot, his mouth tasted of blood and ash. As his cage rose upwards, towards the sound of bloodthirsty cheers and murderous chants, he let go. The flash of real steel rushed towards him, the faces of the wielders of these vicious weapons obscured under expertly crafted animal-like helms. Leon let tears flow from his face for the first time since the shipwreck. He was still a child; despite the trauma and violence, he had endured. Leon let his childhood take over and he wept for his mother, her face blurry and obscured by the passage of time. In his soul, the ember faded, and he felt it die as the bite of steel pierced through his neck, shoulders, and abdomen, the steel tearing through sinew, blood, and organs. Blood spilled, soaking into the unquenchable sands of the Academies arena.

 Interlude Part 2

    Leon felt himself float upwards and watched the bloodied remains of his body grow smaller as he slowly ascended skywards. He saw the round oval of the arena and the many spectators which turned to ants as he continued to float. He became the sky; the clouds were his children. He could see the ocean, blue and shining beneath him as he became free. He became incorporeal filling the entire sky with his essence. He explored the extent of his mind, flexing and reaching out his tendrils of power, forming little clouds that were his eyes, or else commanded the birds which became his eyes.


    As he filled the heavens with his self, he became aware of little sparks of energy which swirled up into his sky body, clinging to him, adding whispers of their past lives. Their weight became heavy and the sky was soon crowded with souls. He heard the whisper of the sky itself, a voice that was weak and feeble spoke to him. It showed him a vision of what once was, a vision that was both great and terrible at once.


    In the beginning the souls of man had been bound to the wheel, a wheel driven by the father of the sky. Here in the heavens, the souls of the dead resided. Some were calm, gently sleeping amidst his billowing clouds, winking into the stars as their dreams and memories lit up the night sky every night. Others were scorching hot needle points. Their angry malevolence sweltered against the sky, raking out in violent, unbridled fury at the ground below. All these forces welled up inside the sky, impregnating it with their intermixing consciousness.


    Yet in reality, the land and the sky were really one, a fragmented unit filled with opposing forces; life and death; land, sea, and sky; good and evil. These forces muddled together, blending in messy marbled layers. Yet all were driven by the wheel. It turned, forcing the balance to continue to churn in time causing the seasons to come and pass in a great cycle.


    The Sky Father had turned the wheel and occasionally vent the oppression of souls that filled up and saturated his clouds. In those moments he let them vent, sending the souls of heaven back to the earth in torrents of rain, releasing them back into the grip of life to be born once again. As they filled the ground, their essence was returned to the planet, filling slowly back into all the living things until the time came for them to once again return to the blissful slumber among the sky. Only those whose lives had reached fulfillment were free from the cycle, imprinting themselves as stars which eternally winked as they slept and dreamed of paradise.


    Leon watched as the lives of men shifted and swayed living, dying, and reuniting in a cycle of harmony as he breathed balance back to the cycle. He felt cooling airs of passivity blow, cooling the flames of war. The cities of men crumbled to dust as men shed the machinations of power and lust for control, returning to small communities to live out their lives in communion with the earth itself.


    Yet Leon felt a stirring from within the earth. A dark and unyielding force that tug at him, stealing away the hearts of the men who lived above. It was a writhing slithering mass of rage and jealousy. The souls of vengeance and dishonor he expelled from his sky fueled it with their hate, filling it, with increasing power until it rose from the crags and caves taking a form that was all too familiar to Leon.


    Raek, the god of the earth, he whom his grandmother had taught him to respect and to pray to. Raek was an entity that fed on war, petulance, and turmoil. The truth dawned on Leon even as he felt the plague of Raek once again spread, infecting and awakening once again the blackest reaches of the hearts of men.


    From out of the depths of his mountain halls, came Raek¡¯s brothers, taking on physical but shadowy forms clad in black armor that seeped the very color in the aura that emanated from them. On their heads were great wickedly shaped antler-horns which protruded in impossible jagged spikes. They were filled with the souls of the dead, those unfulfilled souls filled to the brim with rage, greed, and the lust for vengeance. Aberrations that had escaped the ways of the wheel and had become twisted and corrupted by it.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    They rained down from the sky in explosions of lightning. Leon saw as the Sky Father lost control of the careful balance of the wheel. The darkness from the halls of Raek assaulted the Sky Father¡¯s heaven. In that moment Leon knew it was this force, this darkness that spewed forth from the halls of Raek and the old gods who had fed off the suffering of men that had tugged at him in those nightmares back when he had been a young farmer turned child soldier on the isle of Dalm.


    They had wanted the sky for themselves, to overturn the realm of the sky and corrupt the hearts of men who lived beneath it. They lusted for his power in order to trap the souls of the dead within their halls and feed their sway over man and beast. Their malice was without bounds, their anger undying in their immortality. And so, they sent forth their legions of vengeance and wrath assaulting heaven and the wheel in their desire for liberation and lust for power.


    For eons the forces of the heavens and the legions of Raek battled, scouring and scorching the earth with tempests and fire from below. The stars were awakened, recruited in the effort to restore balance to the wheel.


    In the last days of battle, each force faced off in battle. The forces of heaven gathered in resplendent glory gilded in shining ethereal armor they glowed with determination and the power of light itself.


    However, their foes were terrible. They were dark masses that had long since twisted into unrecognizable shapes. Their teeth gnashed with great maws filled with needle like teeth. Their exteriors were hardened and scaly, great caprices that oozed from the joints slick and corrosive slime. Their eyes were red and pupil-less, nearly blind from ages spent in submersion in the great halls of Raek.  Countless legs carried them on long spindly spider-like legs. Their mass of legs danced in a constant squirm as they struggled to contain the weight of hatred bore by the minions of Raek.


    The battle was fierce, the forces of both tearing and rending each other, sending countless souls into the dissipating nothingness of the dark abyss. By the time the battle had reached its zenith, the earth and the sky had been rent asunder. Great wounds gashed the earth splitting it into deep ravines that snaked outwardly in sneaking tendrils that mimicked the pattern of the lightning weapons that had caused it. The sky bled crimson as its moon lie in tatters leaving nightfall in near darkness. The stars two had lost half their host as the attrition of the cosmic battle left it all but barren.


    In the end a tumultuous peace was reached, When the spear of the Sky Father pierced the dark heart of the god Raek. The wheel too had been shattered, its splinters carpeting the earth, covering it in thick and dark forests and jungles. Leon two had suffered burns from the dark tendrils of Raek.


    Thus, the age of gods and fate had come to an end. The world was left unbalanced fate-less. Each of the hosts of both heaven and the earth were left unbound, left to inhabit what was left of the world. Here both were corrupted, losing all sentience and in time reducing to the basest elements of the world itself.


    In the aftermath, men too were nearly eradicated from the earth. Yet they proved to be more resilient than both god and beast. Despite the harshness of the broken planet, they emerged from their hiding holes and rebuilt. The corruptions of Reak and the loss of hope from the death of the gods left mankind lost. So instead, they adapted, building great cities and reveling in lust, worshipping the minerals of the earth which had been the realm of Reak. But with the wheel broken, the souls of the dead could not recycle, and so they came to inhabit the earth instead.


    The world of men was all but lost, yet Leon saw now in this vision a glimmer of hope, a remnant of power left behind by the aftermath of the great cosmic war. Within the halls of Raek, deep within the mountains was the weapon that had been used to strike down Raek, that great and terrible weapon which had scorched the earth itself. There it remained trapped, infusing, over the ages with measures of both Raeks and the Sky Fathers power. There Leon knew was the last bastion of hope for the return of balance. Only this weapon could restore the wheel. Only then could the hosts of the dead return to the cycle of rebirth.

 Chapter 5 Visions and Dreams

    The events of that first day repeated themselves. The presence of the brutish man who came to feed them tasteless slop began to bring them solace in its routine and indeed was the only marker for when a new day had begun. That first day had been the only time they had seen even a glimpse of the miners. After that, they had always been alone, with only the brutish man who came to feed and water them as well as change their waste bucket.


    The second day, after their skinny-boyish collogue had been returned to the earth at the hands of the brutish man, the brutish man had appeared bearing a sullen and gloomy expression. His head, arms, and legs all bore red-stained bandages that seeped messily as he worked. He had grimaced as he had worked. Over the days the bandages had slowly left, replaced with a new set of scars, which fanned out across his limb and even his face in ugly red lines.  Still, his expression never softened, and his movements became gentler and more careful. Carlos suspected this was out of fear. It was clear that whoever was directing this brutish man had not taken kindly to the death of the prisoner.


    The moments in between were spent sleeping or else waiting. In the first few days, none of the prisoners spoke to each other. Even the older man, the one who had called himself Elandris and had begged to be heard, had retreated into silence. The impact of the violence had left each of the men in a state of stupor, their movements devolving into a sort of clockwork, instinct-driven survival. They moved about to eat, or else to relieve their bowels into the waste bucket.


    Otherwise, they slept or stared into the abyss of the dimly lit rock face of their cave prison. Each had retreated into the recesses of their own minds. There they found sanctuary against the horrors of their reality in the comforts of past memory. These dreams and memories intertwined, with the only semblance of life and humanity punctuating through the silence in mumbles or intermittent screams during their periods of sleep.


    Only Carlos seemed immune. Carlos was still driven by a small ember of hope, a meaning for survival that transcended the boundaries of his prison. It was a deep-set unquenchable fire that laid hidden and buried within that smoldering ember. An ember that persisted against the cruel and unbridled gale of hopelessness, boredom, and captivity that did its best to try and smother and fully extinguish what remaining humanity Carlos had left.


    Carlos too existed in a state of persistent remembering. The walls of his prison and the insufferable silence of his companions had driven him to the brink of madness. In the beginning days, he had tried to break through their shells. He recognized their symptoms; the emptiness in their eyes that seemed to no longer work as intended, acting now as mirrors of their internal world that sheltered them from the trauma and responsibility of their own survival.


    In those early days he had shouted at them, physically shook them as hard as he could, but they only seemed to cling tighter to their shared blanket and stare or sleep. When he had shaken them they either shrugged him off or else let themselves be shaken, the jolt of human touch softening their expressions and sparking a glimmer of sentience before the waves of sweet pacifying nostalgia once again drowned them back into their comatose like stupor.


    He had at first spoken to them, he needed to be heard, to exist, and ultimately to not be alone. He told them stories of the monsters of the wilds. Stories of the great scorpions of the Khalmuki who laid sand traps, their poison-tipped tails waving harmoniously in the wind like the stalks of a desert palm, the only indication of their terrible nests. These tails had held great bulbous date-like fruits. The scent of which enticed men with their sweet scents until the beasts snatched them with wickedly curved and barbed claws, only to pull them down beneath the shining golden sands of the Khalmuki. Their poison-tipped stingers slipping into the spines of their victims who would be paralyzed with the neurotoxin only to be slowly devoured bit by bit within the Scorpions lair.


    He spoke to them about the beast-men of his homeland. Beasts that lived within the filthy bogs and preyed on the innocent villages of the Marshlands of the Wyrwood. They were beasts like men who lived in wolf-like packs and merely pantomimed men, building cheap hovels out of marsh grass and mud. These beast-men lived off the flesh of men, hunting them with ravenous ferocity. Some beast-men even knew how to mimic the look of men and women, an ability that allowed them to leverage their countenance in order to ensnare their victims. He told them these stories and more, yet nothing he said was enough to break through the spell of despair that gripped them in perpetual comatose inducing dreams.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    As time became less and less discernable, Carlos found himself succumbing to the maddening effects of isolation. And so, his reality soon was replaced with memories. Memories of his youth and the events that led up to his unfortunate imprisonment.


    Even more than the flood of vivid memories that replaced his conscious mind, blending and blurring the line between reality and dream, was the rage brewing inside him.


    The rage rose and fell like the tides of the sea, sometimes reaching a boiling point that forced him into action, channeling through his muscles and into intense moments of exercise which mimicked the training he had received in his days as an enlisted man. He used the weight of the archaic rusted chains, wrapping them around himself as he pushed his body to the limits of exhaustion. Each bout of exercise burned white-hot with the anger, keeping it from consuming him into self-destructiveness.  Every time his body failed, the tide ebbed, giving way to anguish and ultimately sleep which was abated by the dreams of his past life.


    As Carlos slipped ever deeper in this nostalgic ever-dream, the events of his mission and that thing which drove him to live played out within his mind. In the meanwhile, his companions continued to wallow in their despair, the Kthollite and the grizzled gladiator of Dalm softening the outline of their muscles by their perpetual slumber and inaction.


    So, Carlos dreamed of the home as he relived the events that had led to this fate.


    Carlos was a child again. His eyes were wide with surprise as he held his first sword in his tiny undeveloped hands. His palms were slick with excitement. It seemed so large, long, and heavy in his untrained arms. The large black-bearded man with piercing blue eyes and copper-toned skin looked down at him with a stern stoic expression. He seemed as tall as a mountain to young Carlos, a hulking behemoth of rippling muscles poorly hidden beneath the flowing royal-purple hued garments of silk that shimmered around him. Despite the hardness of the face, Carlos felt safe looking at it. The eyes of the mountain betrayed a softness when it looked at him, a softness of fatherly duty and love.


    ¡°Carlos¡± his father spoke to him in a deep, raspy, and masculine voice. ¡°On this ninth year, I present you with the responsibility of the sword. It is as much a curse as it is a boon, my son. In your hands, you now hold justice itself. An instrument of the people and the cruel arm of justice herself.¡±


    He paused, moving backward, finally sitting down on the golden and shimmering surface of his throne. Behind him rose the great twin oaks of the Wyrwood. Frekya, the goddess with her resplendent flowers of topaz, amethyst, and sapphire that shone brightly amongst her emerald Leaves and silver cast branches stood on his left, and Grenythal the God of the wood with his iron and thorn-covered trunk bare of both leaves and flowers, but instead with hanging fruits of pure amber which glowed with an undying ethereal light brighter than any alchemical fire but dimmer than that of the roaring hearth fire.


    ¡°It will be your will within only a decade to rule in my stead, to use the sword in service of the kingdom.¡± He continued, sipping from a chalice that a young servant in a lacey shirt and blue servants coat with little meticulously polished coat buttons had brought to him. The servant bowed as the king took the chalice, bowing so that the white powdery wig nearly touched the smoothly polished marble of the white palace floor before silently dissipating from view like the way steam escaped the surface of a freshly roasted hog.


    ¡°Yes, a curse¡± he continued continuing to nurse the frothy contents of the chalice. ¡°terrible, yet necessary. For the good of all, yes, it is a terrible burden. You will soon understand.¡±


    The king cleared his throat. ¡°Today is your birthday and so I give you leave to enjoy the last days of your childhood. Your mother has arranged for all the usual pleasantries. From this day on though, you will learn the ways of statecraft and you will carry that sword with you as a symbol of your duty, your honor. Its weight will grow familiar because you will never remove it except to bathe, but not even to sleep. It will be your new best friend. It will cling to your side like a newborn cling to the breast of its mother. You will do these things, or you will feel the sting of the whip of the headmaster. The fate of our kingdom will depend on it, my little prince. You are but a cub now, but soon you will be a bear.¡±


    ¡°Yes, father¡± Carlos had said in a canned voice the words had fallen from his lips automatically as if they were breaths. He remembered the pride he had felt, the naivety of childhood twisting his daydreams into visions of heroic deeds of kingship, visions of conquering evil incarnated into faceless hordes of men and shadowy monsters of the wood and bog. He dreamt of empire imaging himself as a benevolent king bringing order to the lawlessness of the barbarians who existed beyond the wooded walls of the Wyrwood.

 Chapter 6: Youthful Arrogance

    Carlos was an adolescent now. The weight of his sword rested naturally in his palm. The balance of the weapon was perfect, his grip around its hilt adhering to the padded leather binding as if it were a glove. His feet glided seamlessly into a sword stance; a comfortable and confident triangle, his lead foot pointing directly towards his intended target.


    Much had changed since his boyhood, both in terms of skill as well as wit. Gone was the hero-chasing visions of heroism and altruism that had filled his boyhood fantasies. These things had been whipped out of him at the hands of the headmaster and in the books of philosophy that had replaced his childhood delusions with cold hard cunning and a dogmatism towards the absolute morality of pragmatism.


    This pragmatism was at the heart of the Wyrwoodian religion, a product of the life and death balance of the god and goddess of the woods who demanded logic above pathos and who had demanded that all men follow the principles of nature. Each man, it was said was to fulfill the role of their life. Each was a cog in the wheel of society, destined to fulfill their distinct purpose. Therefore, each man was beholden to their own set of morality within their status group. It was said that those who acted according to their nature were destined for rewards from the elder gods of the forest.


    Carlos parried the flurry of blows that assaulted him from his courtly rival. They came at him hard and fast, stabbing at him with intensifying ferocity. Yet rather than panic, Carlos let his instincts guide his blade, easily deflecting the attacks to the left or the right in tight circular motions of his wrist. The increasing power behind the thrusts only lent weight to their deflection. Carlos leveraged them into the empty spaces pirouetting his feet, directing the flurry away from himself. He held his left arm rearward, gripping the handle of his wooden pistol, which he had positioned to his rear in comforting support and to keep his left arm from getting caught in the flurry of stabs and slashes.


    Carlos remembered how much fighting was like dancing, how he had realized in his youth that footwork and measured breathing were the keys to success with the sword. It was a dance of death, beautiful and terrible. Yet Carlos¡¯s opponent, a rival by the name of Kridash (a young duke from the eastern marshes) had none of the grace of a swordsman. Instead, he swung his sword in fast embarrass-fueled swings and stabs. His feet shuffled about haphazardly, often unbalancing himself with his own weight and momentum.


    Back in the cave, Carlos danced the swordsman¡¯s dance. His chains rattled to the rhythm of his feet as he mimicked the memory of the dueling grounds. His eyes were glazed in the half madness of captivity, perhaps also aided in part by the mystery concoction of ingredients that made up the slop for which they had been fed. The other prisoners, too, slept on despite the occasional tugging of the chains caused by Carlos¡¯s dance and the words of his waking dream.


    ¡°Stop, relax, and concentrate. I¡¯m not even swinging at you anymore. You can¡¯t solve swordsmanship with brute strength¡± Carlos chided the young soon-to-be-Duke in a calm but firm voice. A voice that had been groomed for command and one that held high notes of haughtiness and superiority. ¡°You¡¯re such a righteous BITCH¡± Kridash bellowed, swinging even faster and harder and with even more reckless abandoned. ¡°I don¡¯t care if you will be the King soon, you can¡¯t just get everything you want. People are not your TOYS.¡± Kridash continued to bellow out his anger, the tone of his yells occasionally squawking into higher pitches as was customary of boys who were on the cusp of manhood.


    Carlos remembered what he had done next. The shame of it cutting through the hallucination and stinging him with the shame. He saw his young face slashed, the swing of Kridash¡¯s sword leaving a shallow but crimson mark across his smooth bronze cheek. Blood had trickled down the gash dripping down from his square chin.


    He saw the fire in his own teenage eyes, the dangerous and ruthlessness that laid beneath a deceptively calm and collected exterior. Eyes that bore the weight of neglect that only a lifetime of privilege and power could produce. The infantile drive to constantly flex his control and dominion over a world that (for the most part) bent to his will without resistance.


    Here stood someone who defied that, defiance for which he had dreamed of, a real challenge to make him feel alive. Or so he had thought, but now his face was scratched and this lowly disgusting thing that was called Kridash had scratched him. It was going to scar but not as ugly as his pride would. Kridash was unrefined and a poor swordsman, but he had scored a hit on Carlos, not only the Kings heir but the most renowned fighter of his entire class. All the tutors had said so and all the noble¡¯s sons had fallen in duels with him. Only the headmaster or the training masters could beat him in practice duels.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    Carlos had worked really hard at that. He had trained when others had slept, had forgone the pastries at the feats, and neglected the sweets at the harvest festival to stay light and to learn discipline. He had slept with his sword even when its metallic surface had sapped the very warmth from his skin in the winter and had cut him in those early days since he had begun training. Yet here was this brat of some backwater probably inbred Duke, a nobody with barely any training and who was chubbier than a squirrel¡¯s cheeks in the middle of the harvest season. And still, he had dared to strike him, even when Carlos had chosen, in his arrogant benevolence to train him rather than straight humiliate him in this foolhardy ¡°duel¡± if you could call it that.


    The fires in his eyes, at this one thing in the world that wouldn¡¯t comply with his whim, had to go. It was cancer, ugly, and blighting his beautiful lands. Or they would be his soon enough, he might as well call them his. In a swift leaping lunge, Carlos stabbed with his rapier, sliding his feet and guiding his sharp rapier directly through the heart of the young Duke¡¯s son. The shiny steel of the rapier poked out through the back of Kridash¡¯s simple tunic. The fabric was torn and frayed around the thin metal which dripped with crimson.


    Kridash screamed or at least tried to but all that escaped from his mouth were pink foamy bubbles which foamed up around his mouth like a fish spawning as his body crumpled. Carlos remembered how those eyes had glazed over and the sickeningly wet suckling sound his sword had made as he had pulled it from the corpse of the Duke''s son.


    Something was being forced down Carlos¡¯ throat, a warm stinging tincture that bubbled and fizzled as it came into contact with the saliva of his mouth. In seconds his body was jerking into convulsions as if it had been struck by lightning. He felt like his skin was covered in thousands of sharp needle points and his eyes swam with visions of little silver stars. But his mind had also returned to reality.


    Hooded figures stood in front of him and his companions. The hooded man stood in front of him holding a small wooden bowl to his lips. The man lowered it and Carlos saw that his companions were retching from the stink of the bubbling greenish liquid which emanated a suffocating stench that smelled not unlike burning refuse.


    ¡°You were in the throes of madness, this cannot do. No, the scarabs do not like madness, they will not bind to the mad. This will not do, not do at all¡± Turning to face the room, the figure lowered his cloak revealing the smooth pale face of Mr. Kentwood. The other figures, along with the Brutish man who visibly shrunk as he passed Mr. Kentwood, his eyes looking to the ground and his shoulders hunching in a defensive and submissive fashion all moved forward, secured the chains of the other two prisoners through large iron loops that were set into the walls.


    ¡°There¡¯s something about you, no don¡¯t try to speak, I¡¯m afraid the tonic I administered, while it will alleviate the more severe of your symptoms, will leave you quite speechless¡± He paced back and forth his hands clasped behind him; ¡°you are special prisoner number 2277, worth quite a lot of money¡± his tongue clicked around the words which were clearly foreign to his tongue. He grimaced around the words as if he was embarrassed at their simplicity. He quickly recovered quickly readopting an air of indifference, which thinly masked his embarrassment. He shuffled about, his feet pittering and pattering to and fro with an air of superiority which was palpable amidst the air of embarrassment which exhumed from him.


    ¡°You seem to be made of heartier stuff than your comrades¡± he continued, clicking his tongue in agitation. ¡°To be frank, this seems to be a sort of mixed blessing. For one you¡¯ve managed to remain fit which means you¡¯ll be able to fill some of the more unsavory positions within my mines. On the other, it could prove difficult to pacify you. I¡¯ll have to think about what to do with you, I can¡¯t have you losing your mind, at least not before I implant the scarabs. Yes, I¡¯ll have a good long think on it before making any decisions. For now, you will retain your wits. All of you¡±


    Kentwood¡¯s face was contorted into a grimace, his lips curling back and upwards as he spoke as if the disgust, he felt for looking at his property gave him physical pain. He threw his hood back on, attempting to create a shelter from their countenance and preserve his superiority within the silk folds of his robe.


    ¡°Double rations for this group and make sure their rations contain meat this time. I¡¯ll be needing this group ready to replace mining group thirty-seven after yesterday¡¯s demise. I want them outfitted with a scarab by the end of next week. We can¡¯t afford more than that in lost profits or the board will have my head. Oh, and unshackle them. The scarabs take easier when the hosts are more docile.¡± With that, he turned and strode towards the exit.


    The hooded guards, however, remained. One slipped a bottle from his robe. He slipped off the cork that plugged it. It made a familiar thumping sound as it was pulled free, the fizzle of the bubbles and carbonation sizzling up in a rush as the pressure was instantly released. The hooded figure poured the contents into the mouths of each of the prisoners, the brutish man helping to hold back their heads. This proved necessary as each of Carlo¡¯s companions were clearly still stuck in a sort of sleep-like stupor. Although they were clearly conscious, their heads drooped from lack of control and saliva dripped in stringy globs as the brutish man held their heads back.


    Each man coughed and sputtered as the liquid ran down their throats. The life returned to them almost instantly, their lungs heaved and sagged in rapid succession as the brew did its work. When it was Carlos¡¯ turn, the Brutish man elected to wrap one hand around his throat, increasing pressure on it in a clear act of revenge. Carlos Once again convulsed, but this time was met with the blissful darkness of dreamless sleep.

 Chapter 7: A Feast For the Forlorn

    When Carlos finally opened his eyes, he felt as if a great weight had been shrugged from off his shoulders. In fact, he felt light, almost as if he were floating. A cool peaceful calm swept over him as he lay  nestled within the nest of dry hay that had been used to fashion his makeshift bedding. A series of laughs were what roused him, the mirth contained within them produced a sweet infectious and invigorating effect on him. They were the first laughs Carlos had heard in months. Even before his imprisonment he had stewed and wallowed in isolation, the shame of his panhandling punctuated by either the clinks of loose copper into his tin cup or else noiseless ruffles and shoves by exhausted miners. Godsprings had contained no traces of laughter or mirth, instead it seemed to have suckled from the very teat of misery herself. The oppressive bleakness had hung over the city like the way a filthy curtain might be laid over the rotting corpse of a battlefield, thinly veiling the desperation and waning hope of its inhabitants who clung to her meager wages like rats clinging to the driftwood of a storm bashed ship.


    Carlos sat up from the hard cave floor and looked over towards the two other prisoners who sat on the bench where they had been chained earlier. He could see that the color had returned to their cheeks, casting a soft pinkish blush over their once gray faces.


    In front of them was a large tin plate filled to the brim with assorted meats, cheeses and breads. At their feet was a large tankard with some unknown liquid, for which Elandris took greedy gulps in between mouthfuls of his makeshift sandwich. Each gulp seemed to redden the blush of his face, slowly spreading across his cheeks. The intoxicating effect of that liquid seemed to imbue him with the very essence of mirth and debauchery filled bliss that only liquor can truly provide.


    Elandris partook of the liquors with the confidence of a man who had once survived wholly upon them. The pupils of his eyes seemed to loosen and then shine with the glossy glaze of a familiar comfort and escape filling him with a numbing solace against a long painful lifetime of horror and trauma. As he ate, he spoke to his new friend, the occasional wine-soaked crumb dribbling and spraying out in between slurred syllables. The lumbering Kthollite sat cross legged on the stone slab. His meaty frost colored thighs bulged in and over each other like twin pythons embraced in a murderous rage filled combat.


    Carlos heard his voice for the first time and was surprised at the softness of its tone. The Kthollites words were spoken in a surprisingly high-pitched tenor that flowed from his lips in a singsong-like poetic tempo. Despite his colossal clumsy looking girth, Carlos could feel a deeper more educated man hidden underneath.


    This made two prisoners so far, besides himself, who were distinctly out of place for a Corporate slave mine. First was the mystery of the noble prisoner, a man who had been slaughtered in a clumsy undignified manner. Why had he shared their prison? Clearly, such a man would lack the strength to be of any value in the mines. If he had been a political prisoner, what value could there have been in killing him outright?


    Carlos knew the reputation of the guilds of Godspring. They were more ruthless than any tyrant or warlord. But more importantly, they were predictable, driven solely on the basis of maximizing their profits. While the competition among them was fierce and often bloody, they did operate within the bounds of a shared code. An organization of corporate elected representatives known simply as The Council carried out the executive functioning¡¯s of their charter law via the enforcement of an elite musketeer brigade called the Stingers. Their creeds were simple, dictated by a single unifying rhetoric of efficiency and effectiveness above all else. Logic, and Reason, they claimed, was their only master and so sought to punish all who threatened equilibrium or profit.


    So then why let the Chloridian Corporation invest such exuberant funds in securing his capture only to let him be murdered in such a clumsy clearly uncalculated manner? How could death in this way possibly contribute to profits?


    Carlos finally sat up, rubbing the small of his back which sent dull aching pains up his spine, payment for his slumber on the cold stone surface of the cavern floor. He stood up; bits of hay drifted down and around him in flurries like a shower of golden colored snow. He spun on his heels facing his companions and strode to the food, stuffing his face with their contents.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    He gulped down the food in a fury of hunger fueled passion, pausing only to steal gasping breaths in between chews. The more he ate, the more ravenous he felt. His body needed the nourishment, his stomach urged him onwards in this glutenous binge.


    It took all his effort to force himself to slow. Carlos knew, from his experience in the wilderness, that binge eating after starvation could easily lead to death. He had seen it with his own eyes, men who seemed like the living dead, refugees from the skirmishes in the marshes of his homeland, whom his platoon had been tasked with replenishing with supplies as well as to gather reconnaissance on the makeshift border such villages created.


    He remembered the ravenous and greedy devouring of these skeletal men on the supplies which they had brought them, the way in which they had seemed to devolve into beasts, biting at their peers who dared to get in the way of their frenzy. He also remembered what they had looked like dead, their bodies splayed out along the road or else slumped over in heaps and in puddles of their own vomit and excrement. He remembered how bloated their bellies had looked. Carlos shivered at the memory, putting back the rabbit¡¯s leg haunch he had lifted to his lips.


    Instead, Carlos emitted a loud belch and patted his full belly. His eyes drooped as his stomach churned into overdrive in an attempt to break down the sugars starches in the food and convert it into this newfound energy after so long without proper sustenance. Instead, Carlos squat low, not sitting, but letting his haunches support his weight, the slight effort proving enough to keep his mind from drifting off back into unconscious sleep.


    ¡°We don¡¯t have long I expect¡± he said, not directing the statement at anyone, but instead letting the words linger in the air, acting as tendrils which tentatively probed the atmosphere between the other prisoners  seeking out any hint at hostility. Instead they just laughed, shifting around so that they half faced him creating a sort of semicircle.


    ¡°It might not feel like it now¡± the old man muttered in between mouthfuls. ¡°but this is likely our last moments of freedom¡± He gulped down more wine which increased the shiny glaze that had formed over his eyes. Elandris continued, ¡°I¡¯ve heard the stories I¡¯m sure we all have. Stories about the slaves of the Albino canyons. Those companies that have sought to replace the indentured miners with secret blood magics. Can any of you remember anything from the time since we got here? It¡¯s fuzzy and I think¡­ mixed with nightmares and dreams but I think I can remember¡­ something¡±


    The Kthollite, who had until this point adopted a look of jovial and genuine warmth, quickly darkened. His eyes suddenly sunk, and it felt like in a moment that the shadows from the alchemical lights intensified the dark shade that cast over his squared face. He looked down, kicking at the loose rocks that littered the floor of their cave prison. He then spoke, ¡°I can remember. I remember everything. Elandris is indeed correct, these will be our last days of freedom. This is why they feed us now. They haven¡¯t realized yet, but I have been immune to their drugs. While you both slept, I have been cursed with sentience, loneliness and thoughts of my past. I saw you both slip into madness, the drugs twisting and warping your minds as they sought to pacify you.¡±


    His face brightened ¡°but that is all over now. Come now we are friends, let us embrace companionship and merriment while we can. Let us indulge, for soon we die.¡±


    ¡°What do you mean? Soon we die?¡± Elandris retorted ¡°how much sense would that make. The mining guilds of Godsprings may be cruel but they wouldn¡¯t waste precious resources on our food or imprisonment only to murder us. No, not in Godsprings, not when at least four of the councilmen hails from Dalm. They love money, it said that gold flows through the veins of us Dalmatians¡± he chuckled to himself over that one ¡°perhaps for the nobles that¡¯s true. At any rate they won¡¯t kill us¡±


    ¡°No¡± the Kthollite stood dropping the heel of his bread back onto the platter and stretching his arms high above his head. Their cracked in an audible popping noises as he pulled his massive arms into stretches. ¡°They will not kill us, but we will die¡±. I¡¯ve seen the blood magics that are implanted into the miner¡¯s napes. They are under control by the infernal ghosts of the machine. Similar blood magics as those original shackles which had taken the arm of our umm¡­ former companion. We will become drones and so we will die but our bodies shall live.¡± He sat back down, but his body leaned forward as he spoke, his eyes widened and bulged as he struggled to bridle his rising hysteria and panic. ¡°But before that happens let us share or stories. In this way we might still live. At least in the memories of each other or else in the dreams that the infernal dreams will drown us in whilst they wrest control of our minds.¡±


    He paused for a moment, watching to see if the other two would interject. When he saw that they were listening, he continued. ¡°At the day of my christening I was named Orion son of the hunt masters. At least I was, before the day of betrayal¡±

 Chapter 8: Of Triumph and Betrayal

    Chapter 8


    Orion sat with his legs folded in on themselves in the cross-sitting style. The meaty portion of his thigh supported the weight of his elbows, providing a stable cushion for his elbow. His hand gently cupped the smooth polished wood of his rifle and aimed in down the sights. He steadied his breathing in anticipation of the hunt, the steady rhythm of his breath matching the rhythm of his heartbeats. The calm of the hunt, the peace of the forest, and the sounds of the birds that chirped their mating songs around his hunter¡¯s nest seemed almost to match that same rhythm of his breath. In and out in and out, he watched the sights of his hunting rifle bob up and down slightly as he watched and waited for his prey. The familiar protests of his muscles twitched and ached against the position he had taken, yet he suppressed and ignored them, taking great care to willfully relax the tension building up in them. In time, however, the numbness set in, replacing the protests with a slight tingling sensation of inaction.


    From the foliage beneath his hunter¡¯s perch, he heard the rustle of leaves and snapping of twigs as the weight of the animal that moved through the brush smashed its way through. Even from this distance, Orion could hear the snorts and sniffs of an elongated snout rummaging and foraging, seeking out the delicate morels of newly grown mushrooms or young seedlings that fed the voracious appetites of the Highland Boars.


    Every season, the highland Boars came to the only woods in the entire Ktholl highlands, a small but densely populated woods that housed a unique array of monsters, vermin, and wild game. Although small, this wood accounted for a significant portion of the food for the small villages that dotted the highlands, the rocky rolling hills of the region making farming all but the hardiest of crops an impossibility. The resulting mixture of high altitude living and a heavy protein-focused diet resulted in a population that was large in stature, heavyset men and women nearly two meters tall on average.


    Both men and women of the highlands known for their great strength, size, and endurance. As a result, they were the prime targets for the thriving slave trade. These raiding slavers had led the inhabitants of the Ktholl highlands to reinforce alliances across the various tribes, resulting in a loose confederacy of tribes ripe with political intrigue and a teeter-totter of power balances spread across the highlands.


    The iron sights of irons rifle steadied themselves squarely on the temple of the boar which had finally emerged from the foliage and had taken a roughly stationary position as it began digging into the earth. Great clouds of dirt were snorted up and behind the animal. It¡¯s giant wickedly barbed tusks, digging into the soft rain-soaked earth as it rummaged for its morel shaped prize.


    It was the biggest goddamn boar he¡¯d ever seen. Even at this relatively short distance, he was unsure whether the velocity of his small round projectile would be enough the penetrate the thick bone of the Boars reinforced skull. If it wasn¡¯t, well that¡¯s where his spear would come in.


    ¡°No time,¡± he thought to himself, as he glided back the trigger mechanism of his wheel lock rifle. The sparking of the tinder caught light against the powder in the priming well filling the air around him with the smell of lit gunpowder. In an instant, the rest of the charge lit, and the loud bang of his rifle filled the forest.


    The boar screamed and squealed as blood trickled down and around its snout and into its eyes. It charged the tree which Orion had established his perch, its tusks slashing and splintering wood with dizzying efficiency. Although blind, the Highland Boar remained a clear threat as the entire tree which Orion sat in began to lose integrity. The entire perch lurched and pitched with every charge from the Boar.


    Orion quickly slung his rifle across his back and managed to grasp his boar spear right at the last minute before it pitched itself out of the tree with the last charge from the boar. That fury scared Orion, despite years of training. Past hunts with his father had been equally dangerous, but back then he could lean on his father¡¯s expertise. That knowledge, the smooth clockwork-like movements of his father in response to any threat or situation had been almost inhuman.


    At this moment, when the panic began to grip his heart in a python-like vice, he yearned for the comfort and safety of his father. Yet Orion could have no such solace.


    This was the Umbatuu the trial of the hunt. It was his responsibility to fill the shoes of his father as the next master hunter. He gripped his spear and with the next shudder and groan of the tree, he swung down from his perch, rolling with his spear tucked in against his body as to avoid stabbing himself as he tumbled into the brush.


    Despite being blinded, the boar turned from the now fallen tree facing Orion. Pain twisted its features into a terrifying demonic countenance. Its tusks dug into the dirt in front of it as it twisted in agony. Blood continued to ooze from the bullet which was visibly implanted into its thick skull. Its leathery hide was covered in disgusting warts, its hair was sticky and matted like the head of an artist¡¯s brush.


    The boar pawed the ground with massive cloven hooves and then charged, its thick skull braced against its massive neck. Its tusks came at Orion fast and dangerous like the head of a pikeman¡¯s halberd.


    Orion crouched in anticipation, mentally calculating the trajectory and momentum of his opponent. At the last possible moment, Orion rolled to the left side of the charging boar, miscalculating the charge by a hair and receiving a grazing blow from its razor-sharp tusk. Despite the shallowness of the hit, Orion¡¯s shoulder gushed blood which intermixed with the mud and twigs of the forest floor deeply staining the bleach-white cloth of his ceremonial garb.


    With his feet quickly regaining purchase, Orion, swung his boar spear, instinctively shifting his grip on its shaft into a piercing blow against the tough hide of the boar¡¯s side. The animal squealed in pain as the spear point tore through its flesh and down across its belly, exposing its intestines which dangled and dragged through the muddied forest floor. Blood intermixed with the dirt, mixing up the few dry patches of dirt into dark crimson muck.


    The beast¡¯s eyes began to glaze as his life began to slip away. Yet it retained a devilish tenacity as it increased the thrashing of its tusks, attempting to gore Orion. It was hellbent on revenge, despite the fleeting strength that slipped away in the gushing of its lifeblood. Its blind rage made these death throes increasingly dangerous for Orion, far more dangerous than when it had been healthy.


    Orion scrambled backward, nearly avoiding a tusk to his belly. The now slick mud made Orion slip and slide as he lost purchase and balance. He found himself prone in the mud, slipping his way back as the boar continued to blindly thrash, feeling around slashing and smashing everything in its path as it dragged its intestines through the blood-soaked muck.


    The boar reached Orion and he lay frozen from exhaustion, expecting a tusk to mark his failure in bloody death. However, as the boar brought down its tusk in a final swing, the momentum of its thrust lacked weight, its energy having seeped out through the wounds inflicted by both the bullet and spear. The tusk did pierce through Orion¡¯s chest but only superficially. Although painful, the wound was superficial rather than life-threatening. With the last ounce of his strength, Orion hefted the head and tusk of the boar off of his chest and screamed in pain as the tusk was pulled from his chest in a slurping motion. Silvery stars filled his vision as exhaustion and blood loss set in. As his vision tunneled, he saw the shadowy shapes of the elders emerge from the brush. Although muffled, he heard their solemn chants inducting him as the new master of the hunt. One elder ripped the intestines of the great boar, wrapping it around the neck of Orion like a necklace. His vision slid into darkness as they hefted his broken body into the air.


    When finally, he awoke Orion was succinctly aware of the throbbing soreness that permeated throughout his entire body. His vision was wreathed in darkness, only vague shapes recognizable in the midnight darkness of his hunter''s hovel. Someone had bandaged him, tightly wrapping clean pearl-white cloths around his arm and abdomen. He struggled to sit up, grunting at the dull pain that his fight with the boar had afflicted him with. He ran his hair through his thick golden locks which thankfully seemed to have been washed of the gory muck that had previously stained and soiled it. Orion was proud of those locks, the jewel of his ancestor for which every generation of a hunter in his tribe had borne.


    He had passed the trials of the Umbatuu. The symbol of the boar was now his totem. He could feel its spirit filling him with its raw tumultuous power. Deep within him it writhed and seethed in a rage, only the wards from the village elders kept it caged. These tattoos were fresh, the skin around it still red and angry from the needle.


    Orion reached to his tableside, lighting the whale oil lamp that sat there. He lifted the rough homespun tunic that covered his torso and examined his hard-won trophy. The black lines that formed the boar were intricate in detail. So fine was the workmanship of the artistry that it seemed to almost come alive on his skin. ¡°how had they managed to replicate the rage so accurately¡± he pondered aloud to himself as he gingerly felt along the swollen lines of his fresh ink.


    ¡°Tomorrow everything changes¡± he mused to himself. ¡°The formal induction and I need to select officers for the hunter''s corps. I wonder who I should choose for the lead hunters. Perhaps Fverth would be best to lead the eastern team¡± Orion remembered how many promises Fverth had shown in the last hunting raid in the eastern portion of the Ktholl forest. He remembered how his quick thinking in response to a goblin raid on their fresh kill had saved both their kill and the lives of the fresh hunters. They had even managed to secure several goblin corpses along with an entire grown forest ox. Goblin corpses were highly prized for their regenerative and medicinal properties along with the heavy magical reserves contained within the special musk sacs contained behind their ears. ¡°Yes, Fverth has earned a spot as lieutenant¡±If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Orion forced himself out of bed despite the protests from his aching muscles and throbbing thumping of his head. Shaking his head against his swimming vision, he righted and steadied himself against his sturdy nightstand. Once he had regained his composure, he set himself to the task of cooking. He pulled from his pantry several slabs of fresh pork belly, for which the butchers had carved from the Ktholl boar which he had slain. Although all meat within the village was carefully distributed in equal portion within the commune of their village, the best portions of the first kill for a master hunter was reserved for him and him alone. Orion slapped the meat with equal portions of salt and pepper, before popping the cut squarely in a heavy iron pan. He lit up his fire, which quickly roared to life. He moved the iron pan to the center of the dancing orange flames and soon the sizzling of the meat and the savory aroma of the meal filled his small hovel.


    After his various preparations for supper, he sat at his wooden table, his large wooden plate filled to the brim with freshly cooked pork belly which sat on a bed of wild rice. Thick Pork gravy heavily enriched with flour and butter smothered and soaked the rice and pork. Thick Ktholl butter rolls sat on a side plate, sticky and sweet with maple glaze. Despite the modesty of his hovel, Orion enjoyed a special status that afforded him the rare comforts of exotic foods. Orion dug into his meal, relishing the tastes his status afforded him.


    He ravenously devoured every last morsel and crumb available. Although his belly groaned in desire for more, he resisted the temptation, returning to his bed and blowing out the whale oil lamp. He noticed the bobbing of torches in the distance through his large shutter-less window which was intensified by the contrast of heavy darkness caused by the overcast night sky. Orion felt himself drifting back into the warm embrace of sleep as his stomach struggled to metabolize his recent feast. It was sleep well deserved. Sweet dreams of tomorrow¡¯s ceremony swirled to life. Dreams of responsibility and satisfaction at finally having fulfilled the legacy for which his father had groomed him for.


    The deep booming of a horn jerked Orion back from the comfort of his dream borne fantasies. The walls of his hovel shook as the deep boom of another horn blast through the twilight of the waning night. The boom of the warning horn finally shook free his head from the cobwebs of half-sleep jolting Orion into a panic. ¡°An invasion? This far north into the Ktholl highlands?!¡± The tribe wouldn¡¯t stand a chance, not without leadership from the hunter¡¯s corps which acted as a defector defense force for the village. There simply weren¡¯t enough tribal members to form a real guard. This coupled with their advantageous position atop a hill deep within the forest meant that had enjoyed the complacency and illusion of safety after ages free from violence. In fact, the last raid, carried out over a tribal dispute from their eastern neighbors at the edge of the forest, had been resolved without any actual bloodshed from either side.


    Orion scrambled to his feet, adrenaline temporarily numbing the aching pain from his muscles and wounds. He grabbed his musket from its stand, his fingers fumbling to secure the rifle sling. Orion felt afraid, an emotion for which he felt deeply embarrassed. He concentrated on a memory of his father chiding him to be a man, a real hunter. He drew on the voice, using it to goad himself into action. Concentrating on this self-loathing spurred him into action, drawing on routine and repeated practice. Muscle memory and the focus of discipline won out over the rising panic and he managed to properly load powder and a shot into the barrel of his rifle. He shoved the stick deep into the barrel, packing in the round tightly against the powder. He rushed towards the door, then doubled back, nearly forgetting to strap his ammunition and powder to his belt. He slammed open the door to his hovel with a fierce kick, stumbling out into his garden and racing as fast as his feet would take him down the dirt path and down into the center of town.


    ¡°Orion! Here¡± a voice of a hunter cried out before a loud snap of exploding gunpowder was quickly followed by a meaty thump and wet gurgling sound as the hunter dropped lifelessly to the cobbled street. The rest of his companions dove to quickly find cover. The panic in their eyes compelled them to abandon reason and order, instead, they scrambled to find cover. Some clumsily clutched their rifles as if they were pieces of driftwood after a wreck at sea. Others still had abandoned their weapons entirely, choosing instead to cower and hide in whatever crevices or hidey holes they could find.


    Orion kneeled, wrapping the sling of his rifle around the meaty portion just above his elbow, and pulled back the trigger of his wheel lock rifle. Nothing. He cursed as he realized how he had forgotten to fill the priming chamber of his rile.


    Quickly rising and ducking behind a nearby tree, Orion narrowly avoided a stray bullet, which ripped past him, the loud cracking of the projectile slit open a small cut as it whizzed past him. Once again kneeling, Orion fumbled to fill his chamber with primer. Success! Her raised his rifle and in the half-darkness, aimed his sights at a shadowy line of lumpy shapes which had formed within the perimeter of the crude wooden walls of the town¡¯s defensive perimeter.  He pulled back the trigger, forcing himself to calm his heartbeat. This time, the powder caught, and his rifle released its projectile. A moment later he saw the lump collapse.


    He saw the line collapse forward as the enemy broke ranks and charged the streets of the village. Orion screamed commands he had learned from the past drills his father had insisted they practice despite the safety of the village. Despite the drills, the hunters had never taken it fully seriously. They had always seen defensive drills as a chore, a relic of the past and monument to tradition and nothing more. They had always played games, ran jokes, or simply grumbled during the drills, moving slowly as if they were encased in thick molasses. This complacency left its toll as the hunters simply ignored his orders, choosing instead to either hide or spread out disorganized in a few mavericks who craved glory of foolhardy saviorhood.


    He saw three of his men fall in the twilight, their screams filling the echoing valley of the forest below the hill. One of the buildings that formed the perimeter of the village caught flame illuminating the scene against the weak waning darkness of twilight in that dawn of early morning. The flickering of that arson revealed the bright yellow of the uniforms of the men who had attacked them. On their coat was the symbol of the black scorpion. They were mercenaries. Even out here in the middle of the Ktholl highlands, Orion recognized them. The agents of the Guilds, those who were agents and slaves of industry. They served efficiency and coin above the lives of men. These mercenaries enacted slaughter and violence at the whims of whichever purse was heaviest. They were a scourge of the Ktholl, essentially the muscle of the slavers who supplied the mines and factories of the guilds of Godsprings, the capital of the Abino Canyon confederacy. But how had they breached the perimeter or the walls of the village for that matter?


    Orion quickly scanned the length of the wall, noting no noticeable cracks. Instead, he saw only that the gate itself was left wide open. It seemed to him almost like the open space of a gaping maw, exposing the soft fleshy bits of gums and throat that lay venerable inside. It was like their teeth had been knocked out, his hunters left in disarray and ignoring his orders despite years of discipline and experience in the hunt. Although they were veterans of the hunt and even experienced in combat against the primitive communes of the goblins within the forest, against a well-trained veteran company of mercenaries, they may as well be untrained peasants.


    Despite the odds, Orion continued to fiercely resist the invasion of yellow jacket mercenaries. As some of the hunters witnessed Orion put down a handful of yellow coats from his random potshots behind his position, they began to find courage. In a rallying cry, several left their hidey holes and formed a line from the topmost part of the hill. The steep streets of their village along with the snaking labyrinth-like corridors of its streets put the invaders at a distinct disadvantage even despite their superior training and gear of their armament.


    Orion directed what few hunters that would listen into a double line, the front fixed bayonets while the second line sent a volley down into the bottom portion of the town which the Yellow Jackets now occupied. Most rounds bounced off the brick of the buildings the Yellow Jackets occupied but several screams indicated that some had found their mark.


    Orion directed his forces to split, using the largest buildings which stood near the top of the village as cover. More screams rang out as his forces sent out almost continuous volleys of fire. Smoke from the gunpowder on both sides choked the village air within a thick cloying plume.


    Despite the progress, the hunters stilled remained doomed. Yet each successful kill emboldened them. Orion began to feel hope again. Perhaps they could repel the invasion.


    From the rear, Orion heard the shouts of fresh troops. The front had merely been a diversion, as fresh troops used the time to climb the steep ridges and rocks of the backside of the hill. Now surrounded, half of the troops dropped their weapons, raising their hands in defeat. The rest charged the fresh troops but quickly fell to the war axes of the superior troops.


    The battle now over, the hunters (Orion included) found themselves bound, chained in the irons of slaves. The mass of Yellow Jackets swarmed over the village which was now free from resistance. They looted, smashing with gleeful vigor all items they deemed not worth looting. Another building, this time the church of the hunt, caught fire.


    When the mercenaries had finished looting, they rounded up all the slaves, consolidating them in the center square of the town. From within their ranks, emerged a Mercenary, clad in an immaculate, intricate version of the yellow uniform. He wore a long flowing cape which was adorned with a large embroidered figure of a black scorpion; the symbol of their company. Although he was overshadowed in terms of size by his captives, the captain of the mercenaries was a behemoth of a man. His intricately forged iron helm obscured his face casting a demonic visage and almost ethereal countenance. Behind him was a tall spindly Kthollite dressed in a Yellow Jacket''s uniform that was too small for his lanky beanstalk-like frame. His face was contorted in a sneer of satisfaction his wispy and unruly hair sticking to his slick and shiny forehead in greasy stringy lumps.


    Fverth, Orion¡¯s intended lieutenant had betrayed them, defecting to the greatest enemy the Kthollites had ever faced. A man Orion had trusted, even thought of as a friend, a companion. ¡°Why?¡± it was the only thing Orion could manage to get out between the exhaustion and pain he felt at the battle and betrayal. But he never heard a response, Fverth simply spat before turning on his heels and disappearing into the crowd of his new masters.


    That night the new slaves were loaded onto the cage carts. Double decked steel cages were pulled by the towering oxen of the lowlands which bordered the Ktholl territory. As the carts wheeled away into the forest paths, Orion looked back and saw the blaze of his home village burning. The plume of smoke quickly disappeared, obscured by the thick bows of the trees. That inky black smoke was the last he ever saw of his village, his home.