Chapter 2: Movements
Blood spurted out of the man's face. The maniacal look in Zan's eyes did not stop, he lifted the wooden bowl up once again and brought it down over and over.
Perhaps Zan was finally experiencing his long overdue mental breakdown or perhaps he simply enjoyed beating the man.
Whatever the case, the man had already fallen to the dirt floor, his body thumping as it hit the ground.
But this did not stop Zan.
As he continued, a grin formed on his face as slowly, he started to laugh in joy.
"Hah...haha...hahaha...HAHAHAHA!"
'This is so fucking fun!'
The waves of this scene forced reactions from all who watched and later to those who didn't see.
The slavers looked on in interest as if watching a cock fight, and not a boy bashing a man's head in with a household item meant for eating soup.
The slaves had more variety in their expressions. Most looked on in horror, blood and violence was something they saw frequently but never wished to willingly see. Though a few groups of slaves did. And they eyed Zan with interest. Not the same way as the guards, but that of a gaze looking at a new toy.
The band of youths from before looked at the bloodied mess of Zan and the man before turning to the boy who confronted him. He had a pale face but he forced himself to look strong and unfazed.
The beautiful red haired girl looked at him with a variety of emotions yet her thoughts were unreadable.
The bald man however looked on before glancing away, as if he had already seen the many vicissitudes of life.
The other man who had tried to steal water from the little women watched Zan, unable to make a move. This was not a scene he had witnessed before. He was merely the drunk of his small village and he had only ever abused his family and those much weaker than him. The most gruesome thing he had seen was a pig being butchered.
That was however his past life, before he said the wrong thing to the wrong person, and his bar tab became too much. By a string of unfortunate events, he ended up being forcefully sold off to slavery.
They all looked on, many mesmerized in the worst of ways and many trying not to look. The man's face had already become disfigured, any more and it would become meat paste. This was the day that the quiet and inconspicuous boy earned his nickname, Crazy Zan.
CRACKLE!
The sound of a whip thundered and the lashing brought Zan to his knees. A line of blood ran through Zan's back.
On his way down, Zan punched the ground with his fists. The hot blood inside, kept locked and contained within the dam of depression and apathy, broke through and gushed out like a red river. He carried the weight of pride as he rose from his position again, unwilling to kneel. Unwilling!
The bald man turned his head again, looking at him in approval while the beautiful red haired girl’s eyes shone bright with respect.
Yet, he heard the wind break again and the leather snake struck once more. His skin was torn this time from his legs as he bled and stung, Zan fell to his knees once again.
"Tie him to the post and give him ten lashings! Show them what happens to those who misbehave!"
...
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Zan staggered and limped over to a pickaxe, getting ready to mine some ore. On his back, were fifteen lines of blood and cracked open skin. Some of the lines extended to his legs too, for the slaver did not care for accuracy.
'That fucking asshole...'
His body hurt all over, his back stung with pain so hard it made him want to collapse to the ground, but he knew that would only give him more lashings.
Wherever he limped to, the others would steer clear. Zan took note of this but had no opinion. Maybe he'd do the same if he was the bystander.
He quickly found a good ore vein to mine for his daily quota yet when he lifted the pickaxe, he found his body in deep pain. The wounds on his back brought him great anguish.
Faltering left and right, he desperately struggled to grasp the falling pickaxe and hoist the heavy thing back onto his shoulders.
In the corner of his vision he saw movement and turned his head towards it. One of the slavers glanced at him. He glanced back. There was an awkward silence between them as the slaver eyed his ore vein.
“...”
They shared a brief look before Zan, mustering all his will, brought down the pickaxe on to the ore vein.
"KKKKT, GAH!!."
He grit his teeth to give a few more swings as the guard looked at him and nodded, before turning his attention elsewhere.
"God fucking damnnit!"
Zan huffed and puffed, looking around him to see that everyone avoided his eyes and kept working.
He looked around his surroundings and noticed the bald man he found particularly...peculiar. The bald man seemed not to care about his surroundings at all. He stood of average height for an adult man and his forearms sported cut muscles. Yet that was no reason for him to be able to keep such an efficient and effortless pace, holding that pickaxe for an hour before Zan was freed from his recreational activities.
He continued to mine in pain while briefly but constantly glancing at the bald man. Zan always had a habit of observing, and frequently it benefited him in some way. He felt a weird feeling, a sort of intuition that watching this weird monk-looking bastard would help him.
And so he watched. And he watched and watched and observed the bald man.
‘I can feel that boy's eyes on me...'
'Perhaps? Perhaps he...has a thing for bald men like me...'
'That isn't too weird! The youth these days are always trying new things, I wish him the best and my silent prayers towards him...'
Zan noticed the bald man moving differently, as if giddy.
'Why have his movements changed...'
…
Time passed as Zan observed further, and noticed a few things.
The bald man moved in an efficient and flowing manner, there were subtle movements flowing along throughout his body, starting from his toes slightly grasping the Earth, his legs and hips would slightly shake — no, they vibrated minutely to the eye, snaking the momentum and activating his muscles in his abdomen and chest, lower back and upper back towards his shoulders, arms and neck muscles.
Fully activated they would twitch for a very brief moment, before he swung down his pickaxe. Then! He used the momentum and force of the pickaxe hitting the ore vein to direct the momentum back into his body, but instead shifting his feet slightly so the momentum would carry through his body upward once again. He repeated this until the force dissipated enough to which he would grasp the Earth with his feet again.
His breathing followed a consistent pace with his flowing motions. It was smooth, effortless, yet each breath in was like an invisible vacuum that only Zan could notice as the airflow would change very subtely. And yet each breath out would seem natural, as if mother nature accepted it back into herself gracefully without it ever being stolen. He could not read it at all.
But he could begin to try.
Zan knew now that this man must have had some martial background. Maybe he was a soldier of one of the factions. Who knows? He couldn't care less.
Zan only knew such movements could help him mine with less effort for more gains. And perhaps even help him in a fight. For some reason after today he knew trouble would come.
So Zan tried to replicate his movements from there. He tried and he tried, hour after hour until the sun began to descend from its high throne and the Earth entered the sweet embrace of its three moons. His efforts came to no fruition.
The bald man obviously saw this.
'Crazy kid...'
'His talent is definitely higher than my last pupil's...'
Zan, in the midst of his replication, severely underestimated the profoundness of the bald man's actions and his subsequent motions to copy him.
How could he know this was indeed not some widespread combat art that was taught to low ranking soldiers? No...it was much more.
The malnourished boy did not even notice that the pain from his back subsided more and more during his practice, his breathing became more steady although still ragged, and his movements seemed to flow more as he took less energy to swing the pickaxe yet with more strength than even before he was lashed.
The bald man saw this.
'What a monster...'
'Heh...hehe... how could a slave boy support this expenditure however?...'
...
The horn sounded, and it was time for the slaves to return to their "homes."
The sun painted a beautiful vista of rocky and barren cliffs, of towering mountains and canyons bathed in the blood of sunset. It could be described as quite beautiful if not for the poor sods who walked barefoot on its still seething ground.
The trek took some time, but it was better to walk for miles than it was to mine ore for hours.
In the distance they could see it. Tall, red, iron-like peaks, standing tall as if they reigned supreme even after the tiny little ants beneath it made their civilization.
The slaves moved forward. They passed through a natural stone tunnel entrance spanning 100 feet tall, 50 feet wide. It took 5 minutes of walking in the dark tunnel, the dim torches barely showing the way to pass through. It was almost like a grotto entrance, except much much bigger and brutal, and what awaited inside was not pretty.
The group reached their destination. A wide circular crater enveloped the sloped ground. All around the circular depression, rocky mountains formed a natural cage for the slaves.
Some buildings could be seen in the distance but those were not their homes.
No...their homes were already six feet deep. Their residence was below the mountains themselves.