by Johnny Cycles, April 13th, 2026
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Chapter 9
Ark rode alone. Greenvale faded into the dusk and the distance behind her. The small city was set in the foothills of the mountain range that marked the eastern border of the Empire. It was flanked by twin rivers descending from picturesque waterfalls cascading down jagged peaks. Forests ranged out to either side as far as the eye could see. It was late winter and the few leaves that clung to thin branches were a tepid brown. It was Ark’s second stop since beginning her task of scouting the Empire and its surrounding lands. It had not been a pleasant visit.
She’d chosen the inn with care. It was clean and respectable. It catered to travelers passing through and locals looking for food and drink. Some evenings there was live music performed by the resident bard. The innkeeper, a short, portly man with graying hair and kind eyes, had a wife and kids. What Ark couldn’t have known was that two officers from the Empire’s army were also passing through and had chosen to spend their evening drinking ale and undressing her with their eyes.
She’d studiously ignored them. She was a solitary female traveler. She was alone at a bar. There was no one else but the barkeep. The locals who’d come in had all made a hasty exit upon seeing the soldiers. Ark was not one to flee the sight of lusting males. If she were, she’d have spent her life running. As long as these left her to her thoughts and drink, she’d allow them their ogling. Males considered this their right, she’d discovered. But sometimes they read into her solitude an invitation to talk to her, to flirt with her, to lay hands on her. That she would not abide.
She went over her travel plan one more time in her mind as she sipped her ale. She’d chosen the northeastern most portion of the region as her starting off point, from which she planned to travel south to the capital, where she would spend as much time as needed before moving west in a roughly zig-zag pattern across the Great Plains and to the coast. From there, she would turn north until she reached the border of the Wild Lands, then head back east. The entire journey would take a year, if not longer, but when she was done, she would have visited nearly every portion of the northern half of the Empire. Char was supposed to mirror her movements to the south of the capital.
She was not confident in this supposition.
“What’s a pretty thing like you doing all alone in a place like this?” one of the officers asked, approaching with a grin after he’d fortified his resolve with multiple pints of ale. What had begun as long looks lingering across the bar had slowly evolved into the delusion of reciprocation, never mind that she’d not made eye contact with him once.
Ark cut the duwyn a glance. “Not interested.”
Silence as his ale-befuddled brain and heightened testosterone processed her words. “It was just a question,” he replied, leaning an elbow against the bar next to her. The move brought his face much closer. His breath stank. He expanded his grin into a smile. His teeth were black. “Looks like you could use some company.”
“Not interested,” she repeated and set a coin down on the bar. She stood up.
“Let me buy you another,” the officer continued and placed a hand on Ark’s to stop her from leaving. “I’ll show you a good time,” he winked.
Ark flashed her best smile. “Go fuck yourself.” She snatched her hand out from under his and headed for her room.
“Bitch!” he called after her, spinning to glower at her back. “Ugly as sin, anyway. I’d be doing you a favor!”
Ark suppressed a smile. She was tall and lithe, wiry muscles lacing a graceful frame. She had close-cropped blonde hair and light blue eyes set in a face that could have been carved from marble. She was beautiful. Her few interactions with the duwyns, both male and female, in the Empire told her they thought so, too. This officer’s attempt to save face was cute.
His comrade’s decision to grab Ark by the arm as she passed him on her way out the door was not.
“You need to learn some manners,” he said as his fingers closed around her wrist.
Lightning quick, she twisted her hand around his and bent his wrist the direction wrists aren’t supposed to go. He let out a surprised cry of pain and shifted with the movement to relieve some of the pressure. Ark followed him to the ground where she dropped a knee on his bicep. He grunted from the blow. She bent the wrist more. He screamed. She stood and planted a foot on his throat. He writhed under her, striking at her thighs with his uninjured hand. She twisted his wrist again. He moaned and went still.
The first officer was moving towards them now, his shock finally giving way to fury. He had a sword at his side, but didn’t think to draw it. It was just a female, after all.
Ark pressed her foot harder on the officer’s throat as the other approached. A gurgling sound came from that direction. Then she kicked the one with the bad teeth between the legs. Her speed was something to behold. One second her foot was pressing the life out of the prone officer, the next it was crushing the other’s life-producing testicles. The force of her blow lifted him off the ground. He fell, clutching at himself. A moment later, he was vomiting.
Ark turned to find the barkeep staring at her in shock.
“I won’t need that room anymore,” she said and took a step towards the bar.
“S-, s-, sure,” he replied. “F-, f-, full refund, no problem.”
“These are officers?”
He glanced down at the two writhing and groaning duwyns, then back at Ark. “Yes.”
“They have horses?” She’d already learned of the rarity of such animals. You weren’t even allowed to buy one, should you find one for sale. Only officers and clergy rode horses outside of war.
The barkeep swallowed and nodded. “Make yourself scarce,” she commanded and waited for him to disappear into the back. She turned her attention to the two duwyns on the floor. “Let’s talk about manners.” She wouldn’t kill them. She’d just educate them a little on proper conduct with the opposite sex.
And now she rode alone, Greenvale nothing more than a bad memory. At least she’d gotten some horses out of the experience. Of course, stealing horses was not the optimal means of going unnoticed in the Empire. However, traveling the length and breadth of it on foot was not the optimal means of completing her mission. Ark had to reconcile these two points. She’d taken more than the horses. She wore the dark cloak and brown tunic of an officer in the Lord Dragon’s army. A helmet completed the disguise. As long as she didn’t encounter any actual soldiers, she could travel freely. Luckily for her, there was little by way of guards or troops out on patrol this far from the center.
She rode on. Horses did, however, mean she’d have to adjust her route. The closer she got to the capital, the less likely she could pass as a solitary officer on furlough. Ark didn’t like changing a well-thought out plan. But she could be flexible when circumstances demanded it. So she headed west, eschewing the capital until she’d explored its northern environs. She traveled along dirt-packed roads connecting towns and villages one to the other towards the Great Plains. It was a simple enough thing to conceal the horses outside any populated area, either with magic or without. Once that was done, she could change out of her soldier’s garb and complete her reconnaissance before continuing on.
The Empire was a strange place, she realized as she moved deeper and deeper into it. What she had taken for the lifelessness of winter soon became a spring without rebirth. The entire land seemed to be fading. The duwyns she encountered appeared healthy enough, if not depressed, but how they survived on the kind of crops they got from a sickly earth was beyond her.
Maybe they had magic of their own, she reasoned as she ate her fill of a surprisingly satisfying dinner in a little inn in a town called First Hope. She’d been in the saddle for months. She wasn’t sore from riding anymore. Callouses had grown where needed. The unaccustomed muscles had long since adjusted. According to her map, this town was the last significant spot of civilization until she reached the other side of the Great Plains. From here, she calculated it would take two weeks to reach the coast and a place called Darkmoor. She was on schedule.
“Help you with anything sweetie?” the bartender, a short female with long dark hair asked Ark. She leaned into the bar as she did so, making her already large breasts seem even larger. “I know these parts better than most.”
Ark let her eyes linger on the duwyn’s deep cleavage before meeting her hazel look. It wasn’t leering, like so many of the stares she got from males, but it was suggestive. Ark smiled. “What are the Great Plains like?” She preferred solitude to the company of crude soldiers with fetid breath and rough manners. She wasn’t so sure about plump barkeeps with ample curves and coy smiles. And she’d been on the road a long time. A little company might not go amiss.
❖
“What do you want to go to Darkmoor for?” the barkeep, Cassandra was her name, asked through a yawn and a luxurious stretch a few hours later. They were in bed in Ark’s room upstairs, Cassandra having closed the bar early. There had been few customers and none who weren’t desperate regulars, sure to return tomorrow to begin the drinking anew. “It’s a shithole village in a shithole swamp. And the people there are…well, not bright, to put it kindly.” Cassandra ran a hand through Ark’s close-cropped hair, down her neck, and towards her breasts.
Ark shrugged and said nothing. It was a dodge in more than one way.
“Sure I can’t try again?” the barkeep asked, pulling her hand away and nuzzling into Ark’s neck instead. “I don’t usually have any problems in…that area.” Her hand returned, this time lower.
Ark rolled over to her side, back to the duwyn. The sex had been, well, sex. Cassandra was beautiful and eager, if not a little too loud and showy in her own pleasure. Ark had derived little of her own from the encounter.
Cassandra made a displeased sound. “If you want me gone, just say it,” she snapped, the playfulness gone in an instant. She sat up and turned to go.
Ark rolled back over and placed a hand on her thigh. “You were great, Cass,” she said. “It’s nothing to do with you.”
Cassandra scoffed and stood.
Ark sat up on her elbows and watched the curvy duwyn pick up her things. Any sane male or female would be aching for another round. Ark knew she was sane. But this kind, giving, beautiful duwyn inspired no desire in her, despite both of their best efforts. It’d always been that way for her. As a kid, she’d never had a crush. As a teenager, she’d never fallen so deep into infatuation that her body hurt from it. As an adult, she felt no lust for physical satiation other than the most banal. She’d tried males. She’d tried females. While they were moaning and writhing in pleasure, she may as well have been watching the rain fall. She knew she was sane. But something was wrong with her. In moments like these, she felt it more than normal.
“Don’t go,” she said to Cassandra’s back. “Try again.”
A little while later, they lay once more entangled in each other’s arms, tired and sweaty. “Told you,” Cassandra cooed into Ark’s ear. The shorter duwyn naturally folded into Ark’s taller, leaner frame.
Ark murmured. She’d learned how to pretend. Quick breaths. Some gasps. One long scream. It was easy enough to fool even a female learned in the same techniques, as surely Cassandra was.
“What’s there in Darkmoor?” the barkeep asked again.
Ark squeezed Cassandra to her, but said nothing. Maybe if she stayed silent, the other would assume she’d drifted off.
“A female waiting for you?” She snuggled closer. “A male?”
Ark sighed. “Business. Nothing more.”
“Hmm,” she replied. “What kind of business?”
“Mine.”
Cassandra laughed, but didn’t take offense. “Ooh! Mysterious and beautiful!”
Ark appreciated her discretion.
“What’s this a picture of?” Cassandra asked, tracing her fingers along the tattoo of a scaly arm with sharp claws running along the back of Ark’s upper arm.
“A crocodile.”
“A what?”
“A big lizard.”
“Is it real?”
“What, the tattoo?”
“No, the…what was it called?”
“Crocodile. Yes, it’s a real animal.”
“I’ve never seen one.”
“Have you ever been to Darkmoor?”
“Once.”
“They live in swamps like that one.”
“Why do you have it on your back? It’s huge!”
Ark shrugged and squeezed Cassandra tighter. A few moments later and the kind barkeep was snoring softly on Ark’s chest.
❖
The Great Plains were indeed great, in size and scope, at least. Within a half-day’s ride, Ark already felt engulfed by them, swallowed up whole like a stone sinking in the ocean. On all sides was nothing but sere grass empty of all signs of life. There weren’t even any rodents or birds. It was disconcerting. It was like riding through an endless portrait of yellow on yellow. The dull sky with its lazy, lugubrious clouds did little to break the monotony. If anything, they became part of a tedious mirage that left Ark unsure if she were riding across land or floating below water.
Some time into her stationary crossing, a bank of dark clouds appeared in the distant horizon. A short while later, a high mountain range came into view. Ark looked upon these like a drowning duwyn desperate for a shore too far to reach.
They were the Wild Lands, she knew, and they would slowly come into complete view before she turned due west to make the final trek to Darkmoor. The sight of the wall of mountains with the roiling storm clouds above them filled her not with the sense of relief over the progress their presence signaled, but with a yearning, a longing to turn north. No, it was more than that. It felt as if something was drawing her to that distant, wild place. Maybe it was the tedium of an eternity of dying grass, but when she turned her gaze to the distant cliffs with their churning thunderclouds, she felt something stir inside herself. She couldn’t explain it. She didn’t dwell on it.
She rode on. She reached Darkmoor a week later. Cassandra had been right about the place. It really was a shithole village in a shithole swamp. The air was thick with the stink of rotten eggs. And the village – a collection of scattered shacks mostly – resembled them. There was a bar. There was always a bar. Drink was one of the few joys of these duwyns’ lives, Ark had noticed. There was no inn.
There was nothing here for her. She rode on.
The Great Swamp was indeed massive, running the length of the western coast. To the north it dried out near the white cliffs marking the Wild Lands, while to the south it became sandy beaches and windswept surf before eventually turning into desert. Ark headed north. She followed the Coastal Roadway. The name was a misnomer. Should have been called Mosquito Alley. It skirted the edge of the swamp, connecting Darkmoor to other villages that made that shithole town look like a beacon of civilization. The Wild Lands were growing ever closer. The yearning she felt while staring into that decreasing distance did not diminish. If anything, it grew stronger. She rode on.
She passed small and smaller villages. More conglomerations of wood and mud structures than anything else. The duwyns became strange and stranger. Dark, lanky figures in brown and dirty clothes blended effortlessly into the backdrop of fragile trees and dank dirt. She didn’t stop. They didn’t speak. But they eyed her and her horses with a greed that contrasted sharply with their lethargic movements. They didn’t have the depressed look of those she’d encountered closer to the center. They were just poor, hungry, and desperate.
Cass had warned Ark of the rugged places and strange duwyns she’d encounter in this part of the Empire. She’d been reluctant to provide details, but Ark deduced the sexy female had been born out here. There was a dark beauty to the swamp that reminded Ark of the barkeep. If it weren’t for the smell and the bugs, the place would be more livable than much of what she’d seen so far. Swamps were at least supposed to seem dead and dying.
She passed through a particularly run-down hamlet. Skeletal children stared with hollow eyes from sagging doorframes. Their parents gnawed sticks of something brownish-green and spat in her direction from slumping porches. Great clumps of insects hung in the air. Ark spurred her horse faster.
The attack happened that night. Her ambushers were silent as the ghosts they resembled. They emerged from the swamp to her left with sharpened sticks and rusty blades. There were twenty of them. It looked like the whole adult population.
Ark pitied the children she orphaned that night.
Pity didn’t stop her spear or her magic. She left as many alive as she could.
She rode along the coast until she reached the giant plateau that marked the border of the Empire and what lay beyond. It was like nothing she had ever seen before. Impossibly high, it would take days of skilled climbing with ax and rope to scale the sheer cliff to its flat peak. Storm clouds raged above those. Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed, its sound distant. The pull was strong now. It drove her back east. She rode on.
She reached a narrow gorge cutting a gash through the rock wall more than a week later. Her eyes hurt from staring at the monotonous cliff face for any sign of a break. She marveled at its uniformity. The entire mountain range look carved from some larger rock. It wasn’t like the jagged and dipping peaks of home. It was a wall, but a natural one. She turned up the gorge and began her ascent. The Wild Lands were close.
The storm came upon her in a rush. The roiling clouds above the mountain peaks swept down the ravine like a swollen river bursting a dam. The sun was gone. Darkness fell. The wind battered her. First rain, then hail stung her face and hands. The horses whinnied and balked. Then the lightning started. Flashes so bright and frequent she rode forward half blind. Thunder ricocheted along the gorge walls so loud she thought an avalanche would trigger. She rode on.
The trailing horse died a short while later, struck down by lightning. The hair on Ark’s body stood on end. She dismounted. The remaining horse needed no urging to flee. Ark walked. The path was rocky and treacherously wet. Thunder continued its deafening crescendo. Lightning struck again and again. The first bolt that hit her came halfway up the gorge. The magic coursing through her deflected the worst of it. From then on, she held a shield of energy around her. Lightning rained down like arrows from an enemy fortress. The wind buffeted so powerfully it nearly pushed her back down the path. She walked on.
Time became a nebulous thing in the storm. Vision became all but a memory. Hearing turned into thunder. Constant, crashing thunder. One foot forward. Then the next. Ark’s magic was depleting. She was equal parts deflecting killing bolts and strengthening her legs against the wind. She didn’t think to turn back. She would make it to the end of the gorge. She would reach the Wild Lands.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. She fell when the wind ceased. Her ears rang so long she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps. Her vision was so splotchy she didn’t see the strange feet surround her. But she felt the hands lift her. She drew from her final reserve of magic. Then she passed out.
Chapter 10
Salestia couldn’t believe they’d walked right into a trap. Even more, she couldn’t believe she’d followed Ton into this godsforsaken camp, naively thinking they could pass as traders. He may be handsome and kind, but she was having serious reservations about the viability of a long-term relationship with the strange duwyn. Continuously getting captured or nearly dying had a way of shattering even the most rose-tinted view of things infatuation inspired.
She looked over at Ton and for the hundredth time hoped he was okay. That large soldier had beaten him for what seemed like an hour before finally tiring himself out. He’d then dragged Ton’s bleeding body into a cage and locked him in.
Salestia hadn’t needed such encouragement to scamper into the cage next to Ton’s. Which is where she now sat, the thick wire mesh of the enclosure pressing lines into her back. The filthy ground beneath her had caked over the bottom of the cage, while the top was only a foot above her head. She couldn’t stand or stretch out. The best she could do was sit or curl into the fetal position to lie down. Her will and her back weren’t yet ready for that break.
The same couldn’t be said for her other neighbor, a duwyn by the looks of it, who was curled up and muttering to himself in a cage identical to her own. The large tent they’d so foolishly walked into was full of such cages, each housing dirtier creatures than she. Most of the other prisoners were pathetic looking duwyns, though she spotted a few dwarves and even an elf among the captured. There were one or two things in the distance that she couldn’t quite make out that didn’t look like anything she’d ever seen before, but it was too dark to tell, nor did it matter. They were trapped. Again.
Her eyes found Ton once more. She was sure he was breathing, but he hadn’t so much as moved after being dumped face-first onto the dirty ground by the burly soldier.
“Ton!” she whispered as loudly as she dared. She’d already been threatened for talking by a tall, thin guard who’d appeared from the gloom with a long spear-like thing as soon as she’d first called Ton’s name. The spear didn’t have the traditional sharp point, but ended rather in a blunt end with a multitude of tiny needles protruding from it. They weren’t long, maybe half an inch, but Salestia didn’t need to be prodded with them to understand the pain they’d cause. Pain, but no lasting damage. Pieces were falling into place regarding her and Ton’s destiny.
She sighed and closed her eyes. She couldn’t believe what had happened between her and the hard-looking, hard-drinking duwyn. The fantasies she’d entertained as a form of escapism had been realized and she felt like a foolish young dwarf, side-whiskers only just sprouting and hormones out of control. Well, she amended, her fantasies had never involved nearly dying multiple times or being sold into slavery, for surely a tent full of prisoners in the middle of a market was meant for nothing else, but she understood the role these events played in the out-of-place romance growing between them. Living through what they had, surviving it together had accelerated their relationship by years, it felt like.
She sighed. What relationship? she thought bitterly. Whatever had started would soon come to a forceful and mercantile end.
“Ton!” she whispered again and this time she thought he stirred slightly.
Footsteps and muffled voices froze Ton’s name in her throat.
“Nice looking dwarf up ahead,” wheezed an approaching guard. It was the fat man who’d taken their names. And their gold. Quite the racket he had going.
“Has she been examined?” the second voice asked and in it, Salestia heard the too-familiar sound of lustful anticipation. “Thoroughly?”
The fat man wheezed a laugh by way of answer.
“Ton!” Salestia called out, louder this time.
“No talking you!” the fat man shouted, slapping the cage with a large hand.
Salestia glared at the nose-picker, then glanced at his companion. The second guard was the opposite of the first, thin and tall, emaciated almost, with a long, narrow face and large, strikingly blue eyes.
“Open it up,” he said to the fat man.
“Ton!” Salestia shouted, but he still hadn’t moved. “Ton! Help!”
A hand across her face silenced her and then she was being roughly dragged from the cage by her hair. “He can’t help you,” the tall guard laughed as he groped her up and down. “Yes, she’ll do.”
“So we’re even, right?” the fat man asked eagerly.
“Ye…” the second began, but was interrupted by a voice in the dark.
“Stop.” It was a quiet voice, deep and calm, but the threat of violent retribution in it was unmistakable.
So was its effect on the guards. The fat man shrieked and dropped to all fours, face pressed into the ground, while the tall guard bolted in the opposite direction.
Then something totally inexplicable happened. From where Salestia stood pressed against her neighbor’s cage, she watched the tall guard make a break for it only to suddenly be back where he’d started, one hand still gripping her breast. The man’s face went white and he turned once more.
Blink.
The now familiar feel of his hand was on her again.
Salestia looked on in amazement as the man tried to run a third time, only to glitch and resume his position by her. It was as if he was stuck in a loop, unable to break free from where he stood.
“This is the Empire’s property,” the voice said.
Salestia gasped when she saw the figure that stepped out of the darkness. It was Ral. He looked the same as she remembered him, bald headed with green eyes sparkling from a pale, handsome face. He wore an orange tunic with dark pants and a long, flowing, fur-lined cloak held in place by a golden clasp in the familiar triangle of the Empire’s emblem.
The fat man wept into the ground, while the second guard had finally given up trying to flee. He let go of Salestia and held both hands up in a pleading gesture.
“Meant no harm, your lordship,” he shakily explained. “We wouldn’t have damaged the goods.”
Ral smirked. “I’m sure the dwarf here is relieved to hear you had no ill intent in groping her. In the cage.”
Salestia turned to climb back in when Ral stopped her.
“Not you.”
The tall guard’s face went even whiter. “Y-, y-, your lord…” he stammered.
Ral didn’t say anything, but something changed in his demeanor, in the very air. The guard snapped his mouth shut and clambered into the cage next to Ton.
“Come with me,” Ral said and it took a moment for Salestia to realize that this time he was speaking to her.
She tripped forward, throwing a glance at Ton’s still body. He was staring at her.
Salestia nearly cried out in relief, but by then Ton was out of sight. The fat man’s sobs accompanied her out of the tent as she trailed after Ral, the duwyn who’d stolen her sister.
❖
Ton felt like he’d been beaten to within an inch of his life. He probably would’ve been, if not for the residual magic in his body. It had protected him from the worst of the blows, even if all this meant was his bones hadn’t shattered under the guard’s thick club and thicker arm. He was bruised all over and various parts of him oozed blood. He wasn’t sure he could move. He knew he didn’t want to.
But he had to do something. He’d awoken to Salestia’s cries and strange voices and only just managed to crack his blood-crusted eyes open to watch her being led away by a well-dressed duwyn. Despite the pain he was in, his training took over and he immediately drew some conclusions about who had taken her and what his own fate would be. He groaned and rolled over. The guard who’d been harassing Salestia stared at him from the neighboring cage with eyes full of hate.
Ton grunted and pushed himself into a sitting position. “What is this place?” he managed after he’d caught his breath from the struggle and pain that flashed through every part of him. He hadn’t been this badly beaten since his training.
“Fuck you!” the guard snarled.
Ton smiled. “You’re one of us now. Couldn’t hurt to make friends.”
The guard spat at Ton by way of reply.
Ton quashed the urge to retaliate. He already knew the answer to his question. They were going to be sold into some form of slavery. If he attacked a fellow prisoner, he may find himself facing the executioner. It was a risk he couldn’t take. Salestia needed him. The duwyn who took her was clearly wealthy and powerful, probably a commander in the army here. From where he’d lain on the ground, Ton hadn’t been able to make out what exactly the duwyn had done to stop the guard from fleeing, but he knew the sound of power in his voice. He was used to being obeyed and more than capable of fulfilling the promise of violence that had underscored his words to the guards.
Both facts meant it wouldn’t be easy getting Salestia back.
Ton smirked at himself. He was in no condition to rescue anyone. Magic or no, he was injured and literally surrounded by an enemy army. He would have to wait and watch and be ready to make a move when the opportunity arose. In the meantime, Sal would have to take care of herself. Ton knew she was more than capable of doing just that.
He closed his eyes and tried to find a comfortable position in the filthy cage. Let the waiting and watching begin.
❖
“I remember you, you know,” Ral said as he led Salestia through the market towards the center of camp. He looked at her as he said this, eyes twinkling with what in a normal person in a normal situation would be mirth. With him and with now, however, the look was mockingly predatory, the eyes of a hawk staring at a mouse who thought it’d escaped notice.
“Then you won’t be surprised by my lack of gratitude for my rescue,” she replied coldly. Or by the knife in your back if I ever get the chance, she silently added to herself.
“I heard a female dwarf had arrived in camp claiming to be a trader of some sort and I thought to myself, what are the chances I know this one,” he continued casually, as if he were chatting with a friend about the weather. “There aren’t many dwarves around here. Well,” he chuckled, “not above ground at any rate. And certainly not claiming to be a trader.” He laughed again.
“Where’s my sister?” Salestia snarled, fists clinched and ready to pound this man’s bald head into mush. They were approaching the wooden wall she’d spotted on their way in. Now that she was closer, she saw two- and three-story buildings just on the other side of the barrier. This must be where the army’s officers lived, she guessed.
Ral smiled. “Funny you should ask,” he replied, ignoring the sentries who opened a wooden door set to the left of a large gate in the wall. He signaled for Salestia to step through and followed after her.
“Well?” Salestia prompted when he didn’t continue.
They were walking down a muddy road that ended abruptly against another wooden wall. The buildings she’d seen from the outside ran the length of the short space between the two walls with a few narrow pathways cutting through them in strategic places. It was essentially a ring of buildings bordered by two wooden walls. But what was inside the second wall? she wondered. Probably the general’s residence.
Ral signaled Salestia to turn down one of the side paths, smiling and holding out an arm as if he were a butler showing a guest to the dining room.
Salestia hesitated only a moment as she took in the narrow path, dim light, and lack of guards. She leapt at Ral, fists flying at his pale face.
His smile never wavered and Salestia suddenly found herself back where she started, hesitating as she judged her chances of overpowering Ral here in the alley against surviving wherever he was taking her. Or wanting to survive it, she amended. She blinked. What had just happened? She had a strange sense of déjà vu before once again throwing herself at her captor.
Ral didn’t move and once more Salestia was standing at the turn down the narrow path, assessing her situation. The sense of déjà vu was much stronger now.
“What…” she began but Ral’s fist stopped her mouth from completing the question.
Salestia reeled from the blow, staggered, then regained her balance in time to receive Ral’s next blow, this one to her midsection. She grunted and doubled over in pain, only to find a knee waiting for her nose. She fell then and that’s when the beating began in earnest.
When Ral was done, Salestia lay bloody and bruised on the muddy road, gasping to catch some semblance of breath and gasping each time she tried from the pain lancing through her with each attempt. It was a vicious circle of pain and more pain, accompanied by the sensation of suffocation. She squirmed and writhed in the mud until eventually the need to breathe became more painful than the pain of trying and she wheezed in some life-giving air.
“Get up,” Ral commanded in the same soft, violence-promising voice he’d used with the guards.
Salestia writhed some more.
“Get up,” Ral repeated.
She struggled to her knees, then staggered up to her feet. He’d focused his blows mostly on her torso, leaving her legs untouched. Her face was not so lucky. Her nose throbbed and there was blood in her mouth. Her tongue ached and she wondered if she’d bitten it at some point, or if that first punch had just smashed it against her teeth.
“Try anything so foolish as that again,” Ral began, voice the calm before a storm, “and I will beat you in ways that will make what you’re feeling now seem like pleasure.” He stepped closer and stared hard into her eyes with his shining green ones. “There are things I can do to you that you really wouldn’t like. The Dragon prefers his harem to appear clean and healthy, but it is not a requirement.” He straightened and held his arm out once more, the smile again stretching his face. “Now, if you would be so kind,” he signaled.
Salestia’s breathing was ragged and tears filled her eyes, but she shuffled forward down the alley. From one Dragon to another. The irony would have made her laugh if the depression consuming her had left room for any other emotion.
❖
“Bath time!” the high-pitched voice of the massive guard who’d beaten Ton sounded from the entrance to the large tent. It’d been two days since his capture. They’d fed him twice in that time, a bread bowl of brown, lukewarm liquid with unidentified chunks of a meat-like substance floating in it. Ton’s new neighbor refused to touch his, probably because he knew what was in it, but Ton didn’t care. He drank the soup down and ate the bread with grim determination. Survival, much less escape, depended on him staying as strong as possible, and his body needed to heal.
He still hurt all over from the beating, but he was otherwise whole. It’d take a week for the worst of it to pass.
“Strip down and move to the back of your cage,” the guard continued as she moved down the row of prisoners, cudgel banging noisily against the bars as she went. “Do it now!”
Behind the first guard were a dozen more, each with the augmented spears that could prod painfully without seriously wounding. Ton had so far avoided first-hand experience with them, but he’d seen them well enough to understand their effectiveness. Several of his fellow prisoners were not so astute. Screams and curses filled the tent as the guards jabbed their spears at the reluctant ones.
Ton quickly stripped naked and squatted against the back of his cage. Humiliation was to be expected and to fight against it was a waste of precious resources, otherwise known as health and sanity, for these were all the tools a prisoner had in a situation like this.
Eventually the guards fanned out with their weapons and allowed the mummy-like servants to shuffle silently in with buckets of water. One at a time, the prisoners were brought from their cages and drenched under the watchful eyes and pointed spears of the guards. Once done, the head guard examined each prisoner and assigned them a number. From there, the prisoner was prodded down the row of cages and out the other side.
Ton looked on as best he could from his cage but couldn’t make out where exactly they were being taken. He was pretty sure he knew, though.
When it was his turn, he did as the prisoners before him, gasping at the coldness of the water and meeting the hard gaze of the guard who’d beaten him.
“It’s the tough one,” she laughed, her eyes nearly shutting as she did so. She had short-cropped blonde hair and red cheeks. Ton had only figured out she was a female when she’d passed by yesterday complaining about menstrual cramps to another guard. “I nearly broke my club on you.” She twirled her hand in the air and Ton turned in a circle. “Whoa!” she whistled. “What’s on your back?”
Ton didn’t answer until a spear appeared in his face. “A tattoo.”
“A what?”
“An image painted on my skin.”
She snorted. “I know it’s a picture. But what’s it a picture of?”
Ton blinked. The Empire didn’t have crocodiles it would seem. “A giant lizard,” he said instead.
“It’s not like any lizard I’ve ever seen,” the guard remarked. A moment later when Ton said nothing more, she sighed heavily. “One,” she reluctantly continued. “Wish it was two. I could use a nice strong duwyn like you,” she added with a lascivious wink.
Ton stepped past her and walked the length of the tent. He felt the cold eyes of his fellow prisoners on him as he went. He glanced into the cages as best he could, but it was too dark to make out anything more than shapes. Until the end, at least. As he neared the light signaling the outside, the cages suddenly doubled and tripled in size. The creatures locked in these were like nothing he’d ever seen before. He didn’t have time to linger and stare, but he caught glimpses of massive limbs, sharp claws, and gleaming eyes.
And then he was outside, blinded by the bright light and stumbling forward at the shouts of the guards accompanying him.
“One,” he heard from behind him and felt hands push him to his right. Through the light he could make out the feet of soldiers, butts of spears, and another cage. Before his eyes had fully adjusted, he was shoved roughly into the latter. It was full of naked prisoners, duwyns, dwarves, and two lithe, pales elves, crouched and covering their nudity as best they could in the far corner.
“Welcome to the winning team,” a short, stocky duwyn greeted him with a smirk. Half his face was deeply scarred and he was missing an ear. His hair was patchy and gray.
Ton said nothing. Instead, he scanned his surroundings. They were in the middle of a dusty square. He was in one of two large cages separated by a wooden stage with a make-shift podium at its front. The other cage had more than twice as many prisoners in it, most older or sickly looking. A crowd was gathering in front of the stage. They were as eerily and strangely quiet as he remembered the entire camp being. What was wrong with these people?
The scarred duwyn stared at Ton a moment longer before deciding the latter wasn’t going to speak. He went back to poking the sand at their feet.
Ton turned to him. “What do you mean?” he asked. Information and allies were two more resources he could use.
The duwyn smiled and his eyes danced. “The winning team?” he cocked an eyebrow at Ton. “We get to work for the Empire.” He nodded at the opposite cage. “Those poor idiots are going to feed it.”
“I’m not sure I understand the difference,” Ton replied.
The duwyn started to answer, but was interrupted by a tall, robbed figure approaching the podium and beginning the sale. The prisoners had been sorted and now those locked in the other cage were brought out one at a time and auctioned off to the gathered crowd.
Ton looked on as one naked prisoner after another was appraised by would-be buyers before a final price was reached. Once completed, the newly minted slave was bound, leashed, and dragged off by their master.
Hope came to life in Ton’s chest. Escaping from one master should be much easier to accomplish unnoticed than escaping from an army. He scanned the crowd in an effort to get an idea of the kinds of people doing the buying, but there was little he could deduce from just their appearance. He did note that there were as many poor looking buyers as wealthy. From what he’d learned on his travels, the Empire was not a slave state, but what he was seeing now said otherwise. It seemed all classes and types bought people here.
The last of the prisoners from the other cage, a scrawny woman, all bones and sores, was sold for next to nothing and the auctioneer left the stage and the crowd dispersed.
Ton gave the scarred duwyn a questioning look.
“The winning team,” he said with a smirk.
“I’m still not following,” Ton replied.
“We’re the Empire’s property now.” When Ton said nothing, he continued. “The young, strong ones.”
“I noticed that much.”
“We’re going to work the mines.”
Ton laughed.
The duwyn gave him an appraising look, his smirk gone. “Most don’t have that reaction.”
“What of those…creatures I saw in the tent. The ones in the large cages?”
“The beasties?” the scarred duwyn asked, his smirk returning. “Those aren’t for sale.”
“What happens to them?”
A handful of guards with whips and spears were approaching their cage.
“They fight.”
“Fight?”
The lead guard was unlocking the cage now. “Anyone disobeys and we hurt you, then send you with those fools,” he nodded towards the dispersing crowd of buyers and slaves.
“Get out of jail,” the duwyn answered with a laugh. When Ton said nothing, he continued. “They fight the Dragon’s champion. If they win, they win their freedom.”
“What about us?”
The guard was yelling at the prisoners to file out one at a time.
The talkative duwyn cackled. “If you think you can kill a giant, sure!” He laughed again. “Some try,” he continued. “Get out of jail doesn’t always mean with your life.”
❖
“Your new home,” Ral said as he held the door open for Salestia, his predatory, false friendly smile stretching his pale face. They were outside a large, three-story building within the two circular walls at the center of the army camp. It looked indistinct enough, if a little rugged, and Salestia couldn’t help wondering why the Dragon would keep his harem in such a place.
She stepped through the door into a small foyer. Humiliation and anger warred inside her. Ral had beaten her like a child. Her whole body ached, but her mouth was the most painful. Her cut tongue was swollen and she kept inadvertently biting it.
Ral stepped past her, opened the door opposite the entrance, and signaled her to enter.
She gasped despite herself and forgot for a moment what she was doing in this beautiful prison. The inside of the building was like nothing she’d ever seen before. A massive room stretched before her, its ceiling reaching the very top of the building itself. Twin staircases spiraled off to her left and right to meet across from the entrance, only to spiral off still higher. A massive chandelier hung some twenty feet from the floor, its light reflected in what was the strangest, most impressive feature of all – the ebony walls and floor. No, that wasn’t paint, she realized, it was obsidian. The entire inside of the building was covered in it. The dark glass floor had a gold-embossed image of the triangle and crossed staves of the Empire. Gold lined the doorframes and staircase as well. It would’ve taken Salestia’s breath away if the pain in her ribs hadn’t already done the job.
Just then the doors across from them opened and a group of women spilled out. Leading the way was…
“Talinia!” Salestia cried out and rushed towards her sister. She pulled up short, though, when Talinia and the others prostrated themselves on the floor before Ral. “What are you doing?!” Salestia nearly shouted.
“Alpha,” Ral said calmly.
Salestia gave him a questioning look then tripped back awkwardly as Talinia leapt up from the floor and attacked her, hands grasping at her face. She caught hold of her sister’s wrists and pushed her back. “What are you doing?!” she repeated stupidly, too stunned to do much more.
Talinia said nothing. Instead, she planted her feet and brought out a long, metal rod from somewhere Salestia could only guess. The women were all wearing flimsy, see-through dresses. Talinia swung the rod at Salestia’s head. “On your face!” she shouted.
Salestia cried out in pain as she threw an arm up to clumsily block the rod. “Talinia! Stop!”
Another swing, another cry.
Salestia dropped to her face before her sister could strike a third time. It didn’t stop the beating. Salestia squirmed and cried out with each blow before finally curling into the fetal position to protect herself.
“Enough,” Ral’s voice cut through the haze of pain and shock filling Salestia’s numb mind.
The blows ceased. Salestia writhed. The other women hadn’t moved from their face-down positions on the dark floor. Through tears, Salestia saw that her sister had resumed her place among them.
“The Dragon will be here soon,” Ral spoke into the deadly silence. “Prepare yourselves.” He paused, then added, “And clean this one up,” nodding at Salestia, who lay in a pool of her own blood.