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Vir stumbled into the clearing, screaming through his mouth gag. His wrists were bound together, making it difficult to run. His feet caught on a vine, and he fell over, his face scraping against a root.
He desperately regained his footing… and ran headlong into a barrel-chested brute of a demon.
Vir looked up at the tall red demon and paled.
“Well, well,” the demon said, cracking a toothy grin. More than a handful were missing. “What do we have here?”
Vir took in the Ash’va, pulling not canvas-topped wagons, but cages. Cages filled with demons of all kinds. His panic-stricken expression devolved into pure horror.
“Here. Let me help you with that.” The demon reached out and yanked off Vir’s gag.
“No. No, please!” Vir begged, stumbling away from the demon. But with his hands tied, there was little he could do.
The demon smashed his stomach, sending him doubling over and writhing in agony on the ground.
“Looks like we’ve got a runner!” he shouted to the others, who encircled Vir. He’d curled up into a fetal position, his eyes wrenched closed against the pain.
“What’s the story with this one?” someone asked.
“Dunno. Just ran right out of the forest.”
“Think it was another group?”
“Nah, shouldn’t be anyone else around here.”
“Oi! Where’d ya come from?” one of them asked, wrenching Vir up and onto his knees.
“I-I didn’t. I didn’t mean to! It’s not my fault! I swear!” Vir said, pleading with them. “Please, just let me go.”
Several rough-looking demons surrounded him.
“A runner, then,” one of them—with an especially gruff voice—kicked Vir’s stomach with his boot, sending Vir to the ground, crying in agony.
The demon grabbed Vir’s Calling badge. “See? An Outcast. Must’ve run from Samar Patag. Then was caught by the guards, like.”
The ruffian put his boot on Vir’s head, driving his face into the soil. “Grakkin’ chal‘s what he is. Didn’t learn yer lesson da first time, did’ja? Well, yer mine, now.”
“Aspect of the Final Sanctuary,” someone said, rudely lifting Vir’s shirt.
“Good. He’ll fetch us some coin, then. Not a bad gift from the gods. Not bad at all.”
Someone snapped a collar around Vir’s neck, and he felt it glow with prana. Only then did the demon remove his boot and turn away. “Throw ‘im in with the others,” Vir heard the demon say.
Vir grinned, his face still plastered against the dirt.
Well, that was easy enough…
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Vir was rudely shoved into a cage housing with a half-dozen other demons. But before he could even grow frustrated at his treatment, his eyes landed on a creature he hadn’t expected to see. A creature he’d once fought in the Ashen Realm, on the Mahakurma’s back long ago.
“What?” the creature hissed, its forked tongue flicking out as it talked. “Got a problem, kid?”
“No. My apologies,” Vir replied calmly, with a tone that lacked even a trace of the fear and anxiety he’d shown his captors.
It wasn’t a humanoid bipedal who spoke those words, but a naga. A red-skinned half-demon, half-serpent creature that formed the majority of clan Panav’s population.
Contrary to their bestial looks, most Panav tended to specialize in healing magic, and most of their bloodline tattoos skewed that direction.
Vir scanned his fellow prisoners, finding them all to be able-bodied males, who, like him, wore similar metal collars. Vir noted that they were both smaller and more basic in design than the Artifact collar Cirayus wore in the Human Realm. After analyzing them with Prana Vision, he concluded they were far less advanced as well. Likely not an Artifact, but rather a creation of demonkind.
Surprisingly, not all demons wore the collars. Prana Vision gave him a clue, and the tattoos confirmed it—only the small minority of demons who lacked a tattoo went without.
The situation was the same in the other wagons he could see. Collared prisoners and dead looks. Given their destination, it made sense.
Finding no place to sit, Vir stood in a corner, squashed between a four-armed red demon and the naga. The naga’s tail took up a quarter of the cage on his own.
“So?” the naga gruffed. “What brought your sorry soul here? You looked like you were running from something.”
“From the Chits,” Vir replied. “I was captured escaping Samar Patag. Figured I’d try my luck and make a run for it.”
Several of the demons in his cage snorted or shook their heads.
“A pity. Where we’re bound, well, you’ll wish for that safe Kothi prison, that’s for sure.”
There was a hollow emptiness to the prisoners’ expressions. As though they’d given up on life itself. Which, Vir reflected, wasn’t entirely unsurprising.
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“Why?” Vir asked innocently. “Where are we going?”
“This is a slave convoy, boy. Use your head. Only one place we’re needed. The Boundary.”
“We’re to become fodder for the Ash Beasts, that’s what.”
Vir’s expression darkened. “But… I thought they’ll train us as warriors?”
The naga snorted. “Training. Sure. They’ll give us some rusted iron, have us swing them around for a week, then send us into the Ash.”
“Into the Ash?” Vir asked, eyes widening in horror. “I thought we were defending the Boundary!”
“And what better way than to defeat the beasts before they can venture across the Boundary, eh?” the red demon said. “Not a terrible idea. If we were well equipped. If we had a way to get back.”
“They send us into the Ash… without any way to get back?” Vir asked. This wasn’t what Cirayus had said.
“‘Sright. Dem Kothis got this great idea that we don’t need no feedin' if we’re off fightin’,” a third demon, a two-armed red demon, said. “This way, dey don’t e’en need to clean up our corpses. The beasts’ll do a fine job of that.”
“Oi!” a Kothi guard said, slamming the cage with the haft of his spear. “Shut yer traps before I make you.”
The conversation ceased, and Vir’s expression darkened. First, the slavery, and then condemning people to death by throwing them into the Ash… These practices never existed under Maion’s rule. They must’ve been new, instrumented by the Chitran in the endless fight against the encroaching Ash.
Just when Vir thought the Chitrans’ crimes could get no worse, they seemed to surprise him in the worst of ways.
The next several days passed in discomfort as the caravan trundled its way to the boundary, meandering through several villages, both to procure supplies from the locals and to buy more slaves.
Vir half-expected the slavers to raid the settlements, but they paid with coin. Had it not been for the nature of their cargo, Vir might even have called them polite in their dealings.
Of course, with the prisoners, it was another story altogether. They were entitled to a single meal a day, and that was only for the well-behaved among them. Those who acted out—or didn’t grab their food fast enough when it was thrown through the bars—starved.
The food was usually a cooked potato, and if they were lucky, some rice. Hardly even a single meal, let alone a whole day’s worth. They didn’t skimp on water, however, which Vir felt was shrewd of them.
While the slaves’ worth was dependent on their physical health, the journey only lasted a few days. Not long enough for demonic bodies to wither. It cost the slavers less to feed them only a single meal instead of three, but water? That would kill them.
By the time they happened upon a family caravan on the third day, Vir felt as though he’d be sick. The only silver lining was the increasing prana density the closer they drew to the Ash.
The flora grew thicker and taller, and the air felt more alive, though the difference wasn’t as drastic as the human realm. Whether less prana bled out of the Boundary compared to the human realm, or whether they were still far from the border, Vir wasn’t sure.
The slavers stopped to interact with the passing family—a group of five demons. A mother, a father, and three children of various ages.
Vir had thought nothing of the encounter until he caught one of the demons in a nearby cage staring intently at the family, his hands gripping the bars.
“What’s going on?” Vir asked. His cagemates looked away.
“Great. Even less room for the rest of us,” someone muttered in irritation.
Vir glanced back at the family. The slavers had surrounded them as they spoke, their hands resting on the pommels of their weapons.
So that’s what’s going on.
The slavers were planning to claim yet another victim. The father, and likely his eldest son, would be captured. As for the females… Vir didn’t want to guess what would happen to them.
This is what passes for law in this country, Vir thought darkly. Even if the father of this family ever escaped, he’d be considered an escaped slave by the Chitran. Rather than punishing the slavers, Vir suspected the opposite would be more likely; they’d reward the slavers by delivering the poor demon right back to their hands.
The prisoners’ reactions told Vir much. Most sat dazedly, their hollow eyes gazing deep into nothingness. Others gave the confrontation no mind. Some, like the one who’d spoken earlier, complained about the inconvenience another slave would cause the rest.
There were only three among them who behaved differently. Who saw what was about to happen, and ground their teeth in frustration. Who visibly spurned what was to come.
Vir made a note of them. One was a clean-shaven, bald red demon in another cage. Another was a gray demon like Vir, though scrawnier, like how he used to be.
The last, surprisingly, was the naga beside him.
Vir looked up at the warrior—for it was clear by his movements that he was capable—who looked away.
“To have fallen so far so fast,” the naga said, gnashing his teeth. His tail thumped upon the too-small cage, eliciting shouts of irritation from the others.
“I know the feeling,” Vir murmured.
“That family’s future is over. Not through any fault of their own. But because they happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. A twist of Fate… a slightly late morning, or perhaps a different route taken, and they’d never have encountered us. Now…”
Vir understood—he’d sometimes wondered about such things. Chance encounters seemed so fragile. Meetings that changed lives, that forged lifelong friendships, or wrought unspeakable tragedies… all hinged on a particular series of events going exactly right. Or exactly wrong. Any one difference—any tiny nudge in any direction, and the whole sequence would be broken.
It was something even Maiya had never thought about. Vir wondered what twist of Fate allowed him to find someone who’d mused about the same thoughts, here, of all places. In a slaver’s caravan, bound for certain death.
“It’ll be alright,” Vir whispered, soft enough so only the naga could hear. A short, sudden pulse of Ash prana erupted from his palm, lancing off into the grasslands. “Trust me.”
The naga scoffed. His eyes remained trained on the encounter.
The father was on his knees, pleading with the slavers, though Vir couldn’t make out what the man was saying.
“He’s pleading for their lives,” the naga said. “He’s a good man.”
Ah, right. Nagas have enhanced senses. Cirayus had mentioned this to Vir in the Ash, but Vir hadn’t considered just how enhanced it was. The exchange was taking place several hundred paces away. Not even the boons granted to Vir from his incredible prana density allowed him to overhear their words.
The slavers surrounding the family finally acted. One rushed up to the man, pressing a talwar against his neck, while another three surrounded his children.
His son, as expected, was roughly pulled from his mother and sisters, who all cried out in panic.
“They’ll kill the women. They’re of no use to the slavers,” the naga said softly.
Plop. Plop. Plop.
Blood dripped from the serpent warrior’s clenched fist.
The guards closed in on the women, tightening the noose.
The naga whispered a prayer.
Vera answered.
The slavers—both those who had surrounded the women and the ones holding the father’s life hostage—fell to their knees. Dead.
Their heads rolled on the ground, eliciting screams from the terrified women.
The father looked around dazedly, as did the slavers. None could understand what had just happened, but it was the father who reacted first. Grabbing his wife’s hand, he barked an order, breaking his children out of their trance.
They sprinted to their Ash’va.
The slavers moved to pursue but their leader called them back.
Even from this distance, Vir could see the abject terror etched on his face. His eyes were wide, and he stood as still as a statue. Looking off into the distance, as if transfixed by the afterimage of a ghost.
The father and his family mounted their beast and rode off.
None dared follow.
“Looks like Vera answered your prayers today,” Vir said.
The naga turned, staring at him with eyes wide in fear.
“It wasn’t Vera I prayed to, but Yuma. That their passing be without pain.”
Vir smiled awkwardly. “I suppose there’s some justice yet left in this world, then.”
The naga’s eyes narrowed, appraising Vir. “So it seems, friend. So it seems. I am called Balagra, of the Panav.”
“Neel,” Vir replied, clasping the demon’s arm. “Pleasure to meet you.”
Then the naga did something Vir couldn’t have possibly expected. He transformed.