Dead Hands

Chapter 189

It was curious being in places outside Stromholts territory. Everyone looked at them funny when Remic had neglected to order food for Sellos alongside his own. It was why he was having a not entirely terrible fish dinner to himself rather than having to make due with jerky.

That he was eating it on the floor of Remics room rather than a servants room was because the man was too cheap to rent a better room. This despite him bemoaning having to share space with Sellos.

For all his bitching Remic didn’t use the collars key to punish Sellos, so he considered the matter a victory of sorts. Another benefit of being away, using the slave collar too openly would draw attention.

Sellos finished his fish and sighed. If it were for the damned thing forcing him not to speak nor betray Remic, he’d have just bashed the man's head in and accepted dying for it. Now he was forced to carry random things for the man.

Sellos had been a porter before the chaining. Remic had overpaid for how little he used his service and the simplicity of the work. It was ironic enough to almost make it funny.

“I thought this was a respectable place since so few of your kind are here, but the way they looked at me. Like you deserved a servants treatment,” Remic said bitterly as he drank the cheap wine that had come with his meal. He wasn’t one for spending coin even on himself.

Sellos knew better than to answer back. Remic might be goaded into punishing him, but not killing, spineless thing that he was. The worst he’d do was throw some food or maybe a cup if he was feeling feisty. Sellos closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall to tune out the irritating sound of it.

His memories of his life before the chaining weren’t exactly pleasant. The lutran like himself had made a decent living along the river in various trades. Things had been hard, but not unusually. If you were poor enough it wasn’t that much different from being a slave. You couldn’t do shit and rich people made choices for you they shouldn’t be allowed to. That was just life.

It was the collar that made the situation entirely intolerable. Sellos had thought he’d just get free later when it was first clasped about his throat. Those had been the early days, before anyone knew what they really did. He’d have died fighting to avoid it had he known the truth.

Almost as bad as having to listen was being bought by a man whose business had nothing to do with water. What possessed Remic to buy someone of the river folk rather than one of his land loving cousins was beyond Sellos comprehension.

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It was like having one of the wolves tend a boat. You could with enough coin, but you’d deserve the funny looks it got you.

Things got quiet, but Sellos didn’t bother feeling relieved. Remic was probably whetting his whistle while he planned the next volley of his ranting. Like he was reciting poetry rather than whatever bits of idiocy his brain could conjure half drunk.

There was a sound, a scuffing kind of sound. Sellos cracked an eye, wondering if he was going to get something thrown at him. Instead he found Remic tipped back in his chair, hands scrabbling at his throat where a thin arm was locked around it. The sound was his feet as he tried to drag the chair back down to no avail.

“Hello there, just a minute,” the woman strangling Remic said cheerfully.

Sellos honestly didn’t want to, but he got up anyway.

“Easy,” the woman cautioned as Sellos drew near. She didn’t give up her grip on Remic though.

Sellos passed her by, going to the open door of the room and closing it. Once shut he sat down on the floor in front of it, determined to block it in case anyone noticed anything amiss and tried to get in. He’d die if Remic did, and that was fine by him.

Sellos let out a chuff of amusement. He had to obey Remics orders, but the man had only ever commanded him to carry things and be silent.

“Right gentlemanly of you,” the woman offered cheerfully. Remic stopped moving after a few more moments, his face an ugly shade of purple and spittle oozing from his mouth.

“He’s not dead yet,” Sellos offered, despite the spike of pain it caused. He had orders to be silent when Remic was awake but just quiet while he was asleep. A mistake on Remics part that Sellos would have used against him earlier given an opportunity.

“Mind your manners, I know my trade,” the woman replied with an eye roll.

“He’ll be out long enough for us to finish our business,” she added. With that she started looting Remic and quickly produced the enslavement collar key. She started walking toward Sellos and he felt resignation deep in his bones.

“It’ll kill you and won’t free me. The key doesn’t open the collar for anyone but slavers,” Sellos explained. He’d seen it, the rare occasion where a slave was given a different looking collar for whatever reason. One of the folk who made them had to do it, magic types.

“We’ll see,” the woman replied with a smirk. She was pretty for a human, good thick hair despite her otherwise peltless state and vivid purple eyes shining from sharp features that made her look like she might not be full blooded.

Sellos wouldn’t have ventured a guess as to what, but there was something in her lineage. Enough of it to fuel the sympathy that was driving her to help him. It also apparently made her quite quick because she was already on top of him, reaching for the collar. He barely managed to catch her hands.

“I’d rather not have a blood debt I can't pay. Killing us both would be kind enough, no need to give up your own life,” Sellos said earnestly. His kind and kin didn’t take that sort of thing lightly, debts owed. He wouldn’t be able to face them in the afterlife if he left such an important one unpaid.

“Awe, I might start to like you at this rate,” the woman said. “But I’m a bit past dying.”

Selllos assumed her absurd words were a distraction right up until something shimmered right in front of his eyes. Like the glinting of gold in a river, but purple like her eyes. It was there and gone in an instant, along with her face. A skull with bright jewels in its sockets grinned at him instead.

“Past dead altogether, really,” she added, the left jewel flickering like a wink.