A whip made of dark hair fell mercilessly onto the young man. He screamed when it cracked against the flesh on his back and fell on the winding steps, balling his hands into fists and grinding his ugly yellow teeth in agony.

“Faster, you mutt! You’re getting lazier every day!” growled a thick-bearded man with a fierce make of a face; generous sprinkles of his foul saliva sprayed onto his victim. He was adorned in brown linothorax armor, complete with a leather breastplate limned with depictions of fake muscle. His shoulders were free, displaying – to no one’s request – the long, dark hairs that grew from his thick arms.

He swung his whip again at the fallen young man’s back, staining the filthy tunic he wore with blood as his skin ruptured. The young man tried to crawl up the large stone steps, but his strength waned, for he had not eaten on the previous Feeding Rite. His brown eyes were losing to the creeping yellow on his whites, and his dark hair was losing most of its flavor.

“Keep slouching, mutt! I do not mind swinging a few more!”

Among the other slaves passing by without much of a reaction to the brutality, one rushed forth and got between the whip’s descent and its target.

CRACK.

The whip struck against a different back. It was skinnier than others but never flinched to pain. It was known.

The man in the armor frowned. He grumbled and suddenly lost interest.

“Hmph. You again.” He spat at the skinny slave’s feet and turned to walk away after giving the simple command, “Carry him up.”

The skinny slave did as he was told. He dragged the other slave up the rough steps that wound up to the surface seventy meters above.

The journey was profoundly difficult, but soon, just like the others, the two reached the circular exit into the expansive surface of the Ruined Hold.

The young man who had been rescued from certain death looked down the way he had come: the spiral descent of stone steps that dug down to the horrible, uneven floor every slave called their living quarters. It was a hundred-meter hurdle they all had to overcome each morning and night before and after labor.

The guards and soldiers called it the Ring of Piss, fittingly.

The dark-haired slave insisted on standing on his own. He pulled away from his skinnier, taller counterpart. Unlike him, he had healthy locks of light brown hair that draped down his forehead and sharp, hazel eyes that seemed to shine when contrasted against his ivory skin. His sunken cheeks and missing nostril stole the normalcy from him though.

“Thank you, Trodden,” the dark-haired slave said weakly and studied the surroundings.

Trodden gave him a neutral look, pat him on the shoulder, and nodded.

The two stood amidst the hundreds of other slaves who looked about twice as lifeless as them.

They congregated in a vast, dry fenced space much bigger than the Ring of Piss. Yet this place in turn was supremely smaller than the whole of the Ruined Hold.

Tall, dark walls surrounded the massive stronghold absorbing so much of the sunlight that it hardly seemed as though the sun bore down its radiant weight over the world. From right before the Ring of Piss, the slaves could see the thousands of wooden and stone houses that sheltered hundreds of thousands of people in the Ruined Hold; all who dwelt in these houses were no different from them. They were Hormund, Yaowun, and Oerggon like them, but they were all their masters.

“I see we have lost several more in the night. Heh, you can only curse those who have escaped their duty through death. Their burden is yours now,” scoffed a large, muscular, bald. A large scar as if cast from a fire covered the entire left side of his face.

At his words, the soldiers around him guffawed while stamping their spears on the ground and smoothing their gladiuses.

The slaves muttered weakly among themselves. Twenty more of them had woken up in the sweet embrace of death this morning.

Who were they to leave their quota for the living to tend to?

The bitterness of this could be seen in each of the slaves. If the dead could be cursed by normal men, they would have gladly cursed those departed souls, damning them to an afterlife full of greater strife.

But Trodden hardly cared for this.

Four years had passed since he was brought here along with others from his village, most of which had passed as the years slithered languidly by.

He would have perished as well if not for his affliction. He urged Aneus to stand taller and firmer than he was attempting to. The dark-haired young man was close to collapsing from exhaustion and starvation.

“To work, you mutts! The piles of stone at the gates will not heave themselves!” one of the soldiers called while smiting a slave with his whip.

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The drove made a single file and marched to complete the work left from yesterday.

They passed through the clean streets of the Ruined Hold, fancily dressed men and women steering clear of them; they seemed to regard them as plagues with legs. The hawkers in the marketplaces were softer. Some threw rotten tomatoes, onions, and rank fishes drowned in unknown, unsavory juices. The slaves fought for such gifts.

Stone houses lavishly built in a way that advertised the image of a prosperous settlement made every one of the slaves yearn for home – from where they had been taken.

Even now, most had not the slightest clue where they had been dragged to after their villages and towns had been raided.

Trodden, among a few others, had an idea of where they were.

Albiur, the village he lived in four years ago, was in the Middling, leagues away from the blessed lands surrounding the Silent Peak.

Each day that he gazed upward towards the odd sky told him that he was not under the protection of the graced lands, but probably further away; further than he could imagine.

Even with his inability to taste pain from his flesh, Trodden couldn’t stop the stabbing pain that came from his heart – the longing and regret. If only his mother had decided to move from the Middling sooner, he wouldn’t be here right now, and she…

Trodden’s blood boiled whenever he recalled her fate. He turned his head to glare at one of the soldiers that escorted them. The fire in his eyes died immediately though. The hard, brownish, bark-like skin on the soldier’s forearm discouraged Trodden’s eager soul from doing anything reckless.

For these were not ordinary men of simple flesh and blood. That was the only reason someone like him was still a slave.

“You seem... rather lively today, Trodden,” said Aneus who fumbled over his steps.

“Have you finally lost your mind?” Trodden scoffed.

“Nay. Your eyes... They have a rare spark.”

“Is that so? I feel the same as always. Hmm, maybe the gaping hole in my heart is wider today.”

“Perhaps someone traded your mortal sensations for sentiment in the night.”

Trodden chuckled dryly at this.

“Are you suddenly Enlightened, Aneus?”

“I don’t think a Scribe would wake up to some good morning whip on any day of any week. And I’d have better things to do with my Enlightenment than comment on your moods, Trodden,” Aneus said and laughed weakly.

Trodden was amused. Aneus had always been a bit of a charmer with his tongue. He either garnered friends or lovers whenever he spoke; he had himself a bit of a reputation in Albiur. However, with each passing day in the Ruined Hold, his witty lines were ruined by exhaustion and despair. The scramble for food was particularly harsh on the seventeen-year-old as well. He couldn’t fight for it. It appeared someone had traded his basic physical prowess for a sweet, flexible tongue.

A three-tailed whip suddenly lashed against Trodden’s face viciously, leaving three bloody marks. Trodden staggered but remained calm. Only his eyes darted, searching for the assailant.

It was a short, muscular man with large brown buck teeth and bulging black eyes. His square face fit strangely well with his block-like outline. Trodden considered him as blood dripped into his right eye.

“Quit your blabbering and move! What do you think you are? Pups on a stroll?” the man growled most of the way up Trodden’s face.

Soon enough, the long trail of slaves reached their destination; stacks of large blocks of dark, rough rock were stacked near the city gates. The highest of the piles were nearly half the wall’s height, similar to the maroon city gates, which were great mounds of iron almost fifty meters thick roughly designed with patterns of golden coils.

Slowly, the slaves started walking up to the pile, heaving up a block each and teetering as they carried them away. The blocks, nearly as large as their carriers, seemed to drain all their strength with each step. But this was of no concern to either the slaves or soldiers. The work had to be done.

The only ones who pitied the slaves as they passed through the streets in single file with their burdens, were the poor. Legal denizens of the Ruined Hold could enjoy the same level of low living as well, especially in the winter; it just so happened that the cold was fast approaching, and not all within the stronghold would be tended to.

Trodden’s turn up to the pile soon came. He could feel the glare of the soldiers. They loathed him for never satisfying the itch they sought to scratch by getting a screech out of him with a whip or a fist.

Trodden never complained about the work. He never begged for food. He labored better and longer than everyone else. He was the perfect slave, but they hated him for it.

Trodden took pride in this very fact. These beasts among men deserved that much for what they took from him four years ago. He would never let them rejoice at his tears and pain.

The young man heaved a block over his head easily and began after the others.

He nodded to Aneus as he walked past him, a subtle look of worry in his eyes. He could not help his friend.

He had tried to take on Aneus’ share of the work, but the soldiers wouldn’t allow it. They had even tried to use the weak young lad’s failure to complete tasks as an excuse to kill him and hurt Trodden, but Aneus was vivacious. He refused to die so miserably.

Today seemed different though. Aneus could hardly stand on his own.

Even as Aneus gave him a confident smile with his dry, cracked lips, Trodden felt despair creep into his heart. He kept his eye on Aneus as long as he could to see how he would do.

But from the blue, Trodden’s eye suddenly started to itch. It was his right eye. The skin and flesh around it was disturbed. It was as though a colony of warm ants was circling his eye socket, growing in number as the seconds passed.

Trodden was alarmed. He almost stumbled. His hands desperately wanted to reach for his eye and scratch, but of course, this was not an option.

The young man gritted his teeth, and the bridge of his nose curdled.

‘What is this?’ he thought, half panicking.

The itching suddenly evolved to twitching and then burning. Someone might have cast a hot coal in Trodden’s eye. He couldn’t take it anymore. He cast down his block.

Since birth, he had never tasted anything like this. It was foreign and uncanny.

Trodden’s right eye swelled with fiery agony and a voice cast an echo in his mind with a piercing pitch.

And Trodden finally gave in.

“ARRRRRRRGGHHHHHHHHH!”