Sett lay on the floor for what felt like both a moment and an eternity, but was eventually dragged to his feet by someone nearby. The Baron droned on but none of the words registered as Sett’s mind collapsed along with the collapse of his world.
Thane was gone. His mentor’s corpse lay just a few metres from him, probably still warm. Just this morning he had learned the trick behind the Ether control exercise Thane had made him do, and in less than an hour both his instructors were dead. That flickering flame of fury seemed extinguished, replaced by a deep emptiness that permeated Sett’s being.
The crowd had turned towards the altercation. Shocked faces stared at the consequences of disobedience. The blood was quickly washed away by the rain, absorbed by the ground below. The girl from before lay still as a corpse, but no one was brave enough to check up on her. Sett gazed at nothing in particular, not an ounce of strength left in his muscles. He was propped upright by a man who was yelling something, but none of it entered his mind.
“What? Again?! Why do you wretches cause so many problems?! You lost my affinity boosting pill last week and now this! The Empire will have to pay for your insult! For the damages to our esteemed guests! I hope you suffer for your crimes, you bastards!”
The Baron was furious, yelling obscenities at the people he supposedly ruled over. The crowd faced him again, the resentment in their expressions tempered by the fear in their hearts. Sett didn’t move an inch.
“Sett! Keidum! Mr Keidum, Listen to me!” The man continued yelling through the rain, and Sett began to register the words as his name. He looked at the man despondently, unable to respond further.
“Listen! Thane is dead! I know you were his apprentice but you need to get it together! We’ll find your father and brother, okay? Please! Don’t do anything stupid! Saecca wouldn’t want that!”
The mention of his mother’s name brought him back to reality for a moment, and he looked at the man closely. It was the same person who read out the words on the invader’s ship earlier, and now Sett could vaguely form the connections to his identity.
“Uncle…Croh?” Sett recognised the man who had visited them a few times when his mother was alive, an administrator at the council office at Mupnal.
“I’m surprised you recognise me. Listen, can you follow what I’m saying? Do you think you can do as I ask?”
“I..yes, no..I don’t know man,” Sett mumbled, his brain unable to process anything.
“Okay, for now, just follow me. From what I understand, they intend to take us away. We just listen to them and follow for now. If we don’t they kill us. We need to survive, Sett, we need to. We’ll search for your family for now, and just do as they say.”
The reminder that he was going to be a slave to the murderers of Tecc and Thane grounded him further, fury rising again. The thought of Mitt and his father being slaves brought back the murderous rage that had been fomenting in his heart, and he clenched his fists. Croh noticed his expression and panicked.
“No! Sett, listen to me! Don’t do anything stupid! This is not like the Rainat, there’s no way you can fight them! You’ll only get yourself and your loved ones killed! Listen to me! We need to figure out what’s going to happen first!”
“Yeah. We need to figure that out. I won’t fight. Not now at least.” Sett had returned to reality, and managed to control himself. His breath shook and his face warped as he processed his situation. Croh was still uneasy with Sett’s words, but relented.
“Yes. Okay. We’ll head to the west now okay? That’s where the school district is, that’s where they’ll probably come from. I saw a bunch of kids running here when I was on my way. We’ll find Mitt first.”
Sett silently cursed himself for not heading out to find Mitt when he reached the park, guilt added to the emotional tempest he was in. He nodded and together they moved westward, when the Baron spoke again.
“That’s enough explanation for you filth, then. Now move. Quickly, into the cargo ship. Rejoice, you’ll be traveling in a high quality D grade vessel, far more advanced than anything you deserve.”
The crowd didn’t move, cautiously waiting. Sett and Croh pushed through the crowd, ignoring the orders of the Krakarian noble.
“Why do you bastards have to make my life so difficult!” As soon as Nosadus spat the words with venom, the armed guards surrounding them took a step forward, their hands on their rifles. The crowd panicked, but every corner of the perimeter was guarded, and no one dared attempt to escape. The guards stepped forward in unison once more, the threat obvious. Sett and Croh stopped moving and watched.
The crowd understood their predicament and slowly pushed towards the ship. The duo were near the very back of the throng, closer to the guards, so they escaped any suffocation. However, Sett hoped a crowd crush would occur or at least that his family weren’t stuck in the middle. Considering the day he had, he expected the worst.
The soldiers marched forward again, the perimeter of their cordon shrinking. Sett stuck close to Croh, who nudged the people in front of him to move faster. Sett stopped him from shoving his way through like many around them were doing, not intending on creating a surge and making matters worse.
The crowd pushed steadily forward. Sett assumed that they had started filling up the ship, though he couldn’t see much in front of him through the rain. The guards moved forward slowly, the immense pressure imanting from them forced the masses to keep moving. He saw many people shoving their way through the crowd to get away from the wall of death behind them, and many more falling to the ground, unable to keep up.
A man to Sett’s right tried to force his way through, but was pushed back and fell on to a stone, crying out in pain. He didn’t notice the steady march of the soldiers until they reached him, and by then it was too late. He scrambled to his feet, ready to keep moving, but the invader raised his rifle and shot, another corpse added to the day’s toll. Sett had grown numb to death at this point but Croh, like many around him, gasped. The crowd pushed forward furiously, and Sett feared a stampede. The murder stepped over his victim’s body emotionlessly, continuing their advance.
Croh grabbed his hand and dragged him forward, pushing through the crowd. Sett didn’t stop him, allowing himself to be taken. He’d given his life to the man at this point, despair, fury and sorrow cycling through his mind. He was certain he would die, if not now then soon. The drive to push through had gone as quickly as it had come, and Sett trudged lifelessly through the crowd pushing and shoving around him.
About 15 minutes later, the crowd stopped.
“That’s all this vessel can take. There are a lot of you, and you’re not worth spatially expanded ships. Wait for a while and another ship will come back for the rest of you.”
The black mass in the distance began hovering upward until the full ship was visible to Sett. It was larger than he thought, probably spanning more than the length of Trent park. They were apparently entering through the flank of the ship, as two massive, triangular wings folded out of the body, spanning over their heads in full stretch. The rain stopped as the wings blocked out the sky. The ship continued its upward ascent for a moment, before its thrusters fired and it disappeared into the clouds.
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A minute later, a similar ship descended from the sky, hovering over the position of the previous ship. The wings similarly blocked out the sky over their heads again, before folding inwards. The ship landed, and the detestable Baron called out,
“Okay, get moving! No need to gawk like uncultured imbeciles and move!”
The soldiers began their march from behind, and the crowd trudged on. Sett wondered if his family were in the previous ship. He didn’t dare hope for anything, afraid that a mere thought of desire for their well being would lead to their deaths. All he could do was search the ship he was headed to, and search for them in their final destination.
Nearly half an hour later, the ship that they were headed to came into full view. A ramp jutted out from the entrance, leading to five large chambers separated by thin, metal walls. The chambers reminded Sett of cargo train compartments, further underlining what they were now. They were at least 10 metres tall, and too deep to measure from his current location. All he saw was a vast darkness inside.
The crowd was being led to the chambers, splitting up haphazardly. He wished he knew where he could find Sapp or Mitt, but searching right now seemed impossible.
“Stick with me. We’ll head to the second chamber,” Croh snapped Sett out of his stupor, and he noticed he was still holding on to his hand.
“Why second?”
“Cause that’s where this part of the crowd is headed, it looks like. We’ll look for your family once inside.”
“What about yours?”
“What?”
“What about your family, uncle Croh?”
“Just call me Croh. I don’t have any. Now come on, let's move. We’ll talk when we’re inside.”
They pushed through, and in a few minutes, stepped on to the black metal ramp. The metal was not sonorous, and Sett guessed from how it felt under his feet that it was an alloy of Rigsteel or something. He hadn’t worked with the resilient metal, but he had been taught of its utility in ship building by Thane.
The thought of Thane turned him nearly catatonic again, his mind replaying the big man’s death over and over. He stepped inside the chamber, a riot of smells of sweat, dirt, blood, urine and feces assaulted his nose. The barrage of putrid fumes snapped him back, and he trudged inside.
The chamber was dimly lit by yellow strips of lights across the ceiling, giving the room a sinister glow. He walked further in with Croh until they reached the rest of the crowd strewn across the floor. Bodies were sitting, lying, curled up into a ball, or squatting in various stages of despair. Loud murmurs and weeping bounced off the walls. The floor was wet and filthy from the rain water and mud dragged in by throng. There were soldiers on guard around the perimeter of the chamber, but far fewer than the guards that surrounded the crowd outside.
A few people who entered with Sett began walking through the seated masses, calling out names. Sett and Croh were about to do the same when a guard shouted in Universal Common, pointing his rifle at the belligerents. When it was clear they didn’t understand, he motioned downwards with his gun, indicating that they were to sit. The crowd dropped to the ground immediately, Sett and Croh included.
They waited in silence as the chamber filled with more and more people, leaving barely any space to move. There’s a small door to the side, and Sett saw people occasionally go towards it. The room is packed to suffocation, the rancid smells in the stale air intensifying. The floor is cold and wet, viscous mud and other fluids providing some cushion. The humidity added sweat to the rainwater on his body, but the oppressive heat was a welcome change to the wet cold outside.
With a loud clang, a blast door closed the entrance out of the chamber, locking them in. There was not even an illusion of escape now, their fates sealed. Sett sat with his arms around his knees and head down, a part of him wishing for death. The room shook as the ship took off, leaving Mupnal behind forever. His hand reached for his mother’s knife for comfort, his fingers restlessly mirroring his turmoil.
He paused as he gripped his knife and realisation dawned on him. The knife is a weapon, and he was certain they would search him once he reached wherever they were taking him to. In the best case scenario they would kill him, but if they took this piece of his mother’s soul while keeping him alive, it would be torture unlike no other. He could never let them see the knife.
He cautiously scanned his surroundings, biding his time. The vessel shook violently as it climbed through the planet’s atmosphere, but calmed down in a few minutes. After waiting a few minutes to confirm that there won’t be any more tremors, he got up and walked towards the door, assuming it to be a toilet. A guard watched him as he went but said nothing. He opened the door and his senses were assaulted by the putrid stench of urine and feces. He gagged loudly, but went in anyway.
What met him was not a toilet in any sense. There was a long, thin pit about 10 metres in length across the room, and that was all. The floor was caked in mud and fluid he hoped was rainwater. He assumed people were to squat over the pit to do their business. He was used to defecating in pits during his time hunting in the woods, but this latrine reeked far more than a hole he dug up himself. He approached it and realised there was no drainage, the refuse just stayed in the trench, rotting. There were no partitions for privacy, and he suspected that the only reason the latrine was in a different room was so that the guards weren’t inconvenienced.
He steeled himself and removed his pants and underwear completely. They were both soaked, but he had nothing else to change into. He removed the knife from his pocket, and squatted on the floor away from the latrine, reaching down towards his bottom. He paused and considered his plan once more. The rectum could possibly be searched, since it was a logical place to hide something. He also expected to be stripped, and there was a chance they’d notice something was wrong.
He didn’t want to take a chance, but he couldn’t think of any other way. Despair welled up inside him at the thought of losing his mother again, to the same bastards who took away uncle Tecc and Thane. A thought occurred, and he sat down naked, stretching his legs in front of him. He thought again, and moved closer to the latrines while grabbing a few metal strips from his trouser pocket, his right leg stretched out next to the putrid pit.
He took in a couple of deep breaths to steady himself, and hoped no one would walk in. He drew the knife and breathed again, before plunging it into his right thigh. He drew a cut about 8 inches long, his skin parting easily to the knife’s blade. Pain seared in his leg, but he grabbed two metal strips and bit down on them. He moved the knife deeper, ripping through his muscles and parting his flesh. Blood poured out in rivers, and pain threatened to blank his mind but Sett persisted.
He could feel his sinews tearing apart, the fibre of his muscles giving way to cold steel. The pain was excruciating and his vision kept blanking out, but he hung to a single thread of consciousness tightly. Blood and chunks of flesh poured out of the wound and into the latrine, his vitality draining. The door to the toilet opened and someone walked in, looking horrified. Sett’s mind was completely consumed by the blinding agony, and he barely noticed the visitor. He raised a trembling finger to his lips, praying that the intruder understood. They apparently did, as they walked out after a few moments and no one else entered after.
The pain reached a crescendo, and Sett couldn’t take it anymore. He took his knife out of the wound and sheathed it, his eyes tightly shut and mouth clenched. A few moments later, he opened his eyes a crack and was shocked by the amount of blood pouring out in fountains of gore. Thankfully, most of it fell into the latrine, not to be noticed by anyone.
He ripped the phoenix pendant around his neck and wrapped the string around the hilt of the knife, his hands trembling violently. He clenched his teeth again, and plunged the sheathed knife into the pocket he carved into his flesh. Pain flared again, and Sett was beginning to lose consciousness. Bright spots danced in front of his eyes, but he wasn’t done yet. He pried open the tear in his flesh, searching for a big enough opening to fit the knife through. The hole he had carved out with his blade was big enough, thankfully, and the knife slid in. With every movement of the object, pain shot up his leg. He could feel his bone with his knife, and he knew he may never walk with this leg again. However, it was worth it.
He haphazardly jammed the knife in, and brought the two folds of skin over the wound, but it still wasn’t sealed. He had a plan for that. He took out one of the metal strips in his mouth and positioned it between two fingers. He took a deep breath to steady his mind as much as he could with the pain screaming in his head, and began circulating his Ether. He channeled it through the strip forcefully, not an ounce of finesse in his work. His concentration waned with the pain, but he persisted.
In what felt like an eternity, he could feel the fruits of his work. The metal heated up quickly, searing his fingers but he held on, forcing more Ether in. When he felt the skin on his fingers sizzle, he placed the strip over the wound. Skin melted, flesh sizzled, and the cut under the metal fused together. The pain was a different kind, as his skin melted and boiled under the extreme heat. Multiple types of pain exploded in his mind in an agonising cacophony, but Sett held on. With half the wound closed and fused to the strip, Sett ripped his fingers off the metal, bits of skin choosing to stay with the heated object.
He repeated the process with another strip, almost failing due to the pain, but in another few minutes a second strip covered the rest of the wound. His mind almost gave out just then, as he closed his eyes tightly, the noise of the pain in his head obscuring the sound of the door opening.