CHAPTER 13: RISE FROM PAIN
After leaving the goblin village the caravan continued on its journey to Grimthorn. As they went on and left the Abandoned plains behind, they were finally able to spot the sun as it wasn’t hidden behind the clouds anymore, which were everlasting on the plains. The other thing that also improved was weather as it wasn’t so cold anymore and it didn’t rain so often.
But except for these small things almost nothing changed for Malakhay. He was unconscious the whole first day after leaving the village. Ruon’ga tried as best as he could to ease his pain and help him heal, but except from applying the herbs which the dark elf secretly gave him, he couldn’t do much. Even in spite of using them permanently Malakhay’s wounds were healing very slowly and he had a constant fever.
When Ruon’ga saw him trembling uncontrollably, with sweat coming from probably every part of his small body and occasionally blabbering in his sleep, he thought he is looking at an already dead body which just didn’t accepted the fact.
The pleasant surprise for him came the next morning when he woke up after the night he shared in Zuran’s cruel company. Malakhay finally woke up for the first time. He still looked like a corpse but he was alive and was probably out of the worst.
Ruon’ga tried to speak to him but he could only get one word answers out of him as Malakhay carefully inspected his wounds. He didn’t even ask about the medicine that he could smell on him, he just quickly ate what the slavers gave them and went right back to his sleep. Ruon’ga tried to wake him up a few times but it seemed impossible as Malakhay didn’t react to his attempts. Even that night Zuran used Ruon’ga for his sick entertainment and being tortured for two days left a big toll even on him. That was one of the main reasons he was trying so hard to help Malakhay because with him alive they could take turns at being tortured, as before the village.
The other reason was the words the dark elf said to him at the village. Those sweet words of making the escape from this hell possible to which he started to cling so desperately. He even called himself a fool for believing in them, but he couldn’t help himself. They gave him a new hope which he had lost a long time ago. He also wanted to confirm her words, but from that time he never got a chance to speak to her again.
Malakhay again woke up, this time looking a little bit better than the previous day. Ruon’ga, seeing him, mentioned that the medicine must have been effective.
“Medicine? Where the hell did you get it?” Malakhay wanted to know when he noticed the remains of it on his wounds.
“The dark elf gave it to me to help you. I have already used all of it and I must say, it probably saved your life.” Ruon’ga told him about his weird encounter with the elf. He also noticed that Malakhay changed a little bit. He was less talkative than before and the look in his eyes was as if he stopped to notice the pain he must have constantly felt even now.
Zuran, seeing that Malakhay is up again, started to alternate between them.
It was only a few more days of travel until they finally reached Grimthorn. The caravan encountered more villages now that they were out of the Abandoned plains. Each time they briefly stopped for the night, sold one or two slaves and at morning continued on. The villages were a weird mixture of races like demonata, goblins, orcs, trolls, gnolls and other creatures. It was actually quite common for a village to consist of more races and those that were like the goblin village, where only goblins lived could be found only rarely.
Malakhay was finally able to look at Grimthorn. He knew, from the knowledge that his master provided him, that it’s a large city but seeing it for the first time he was still quite surprised. It was actually quite humongous. He could easily believe that a few ten thousands of people lived here.
The first thing everybody would notice was the black walls of the city which were circling it. The black coloured stone they were built from was a special one. This stone, called manarite, was created in the distant past with a now already forgotten technique. Mages were able to pour mana into it and seal it inside. The stone became significantly heavier and depending on the element poured into it, it changed colour. When two stones with the same element were put together they behaved as two powerful magnets and stuck together. Thanks to this special ability of manarite there wasn’t any need for other building materials and the structure built from it became sturdier with each stone put together.
These were the outer walls and they could easily reach 30 meters and have a width of 6 meters. There were four main gates: north, south, east and west, through which the people could get in or out. Except for these Malakhay knew there were also some smaller ones, which were hidden and mostly used by the army in the case of a battle or siege.
Around every 50 meters from each other towering platforms were built, each provided with one huge ballista.
Besides the outside walls, there was also inside walls. These ones surrounded the castle and were also built with manarite, only in a smaller scale.
The castle was also built from manarite and the name of the city, Grimthorn, probably came from it as it looked like a black thorn protruding from the earth.
Between the outer and the inner walls most of the population, commoners, lived. One could find countless inns and shops here. Inns were more or less randomly spread through the whole city. Some of them looked expensive, as if only rich merchants were able to rent a room there and others looked more like a post-war building, ready to crumble at any moment.
This middle part of the city was roughly divided into a few parts. There were places where there was a high concentration of diverse artisans. Blacksmiths, alchemists, bookstores, cloth stores, general stores, you name it - you could find it there.
Then there were plazas which were used as market places. Here the before mentioned artisans could find the materials for their work in their raw forms. Ores, herbs, magic stones, spices and a lot of others one could ever think of. One of these plazas was solely used as a slave market and it was also their caravan’s final destination.
The castle looked like a towering giant that overlooked the whole city. It was the place from where the demon queen ruled and where she lived together with her royal family. The most important nobles have also built their villas around it. They were allowed to live behind the inner walls when they were in the city. However, they normally stayed in their respected territories which they governed in the name of the queen. Commoners had almost no chance to set their foot into this part of the city and they needed invitation if they wanted to pass the gates. Everyone who tried to enter without it was dealt with harshly and could be happy if he only ended up in prison.
The only other existences that were allowed to live in the castle, except for the royal family, were lich-lords. The queen wanted to have them as close as possible in case of addressing important matters. They were the most powerful beings right after her and not even the nobles dared to incur their wrath.
When their caravan had finally arrived to one of the entrance gates Malakhay could take a closer look at it. Like the rest of the wall it was huge. Even the biggest creatures needn’t lower their heads when crossing it and four carriages could have probably easily passed through them side by side.
As they came closer they got in line as they waited for their inspection. It took around two hours until their turn finally came.
“Next!” The guard shouted as their turn came. “Who are you and why are you here?” He asked, evidently bored judging from his voice.
“I’m Larkus and I’m a merchant.” Larkus said more politely than was normal for him.
“So a slave trader.” The guard commented looking at the cages loaded on wagons. He called others stationed nearby to help him inspect them.
All of them had imposing looks on their faces and they had that dangerous feeling around them which told you that you don’t want to mess with them. All of them were of the demonata race, looking more or less like a human with the exception of slim tails and their skin colour which was varying from one to another. Light blue, dark purple, grey, brown, red or other shades of these colours. One of them was even pure black. Some of them had small horns growing from their heads right above their eyes. Each one of them was armed with a spear in his hand and a sword at his waist.
Seeing them even the orcs behaved and were just quietly standing and waiting for the inspection to be over.
Larkus looked a little bit nervous when they approached the dark elf but they only took a quick look at her and continued. When they came closer to their cage Malakhay could hear the guard mumbling something like: “An imp? That’s a rare sight todays.” He quickly inspected them and when it looked like he was ready to leave he must have noticed something he didn’t like as he asked: “Hey trader, this one looks ill.” He pointed at Malakhay who still wasn’t fully healed and looked like he went through some kind of illness.
Larkus nervously came over and tried to explain.
“No, no. That’s not an illness. He tried to flee back on the Abandoned plains and the wild animals got to him sooner than we. They almost ate him alive and this is what’s left of him.”
The guard didn’t look like he believed him but still let it slide and didn’t ask other questions about Malakhay.
“And what about them? Were they also almost eaten by animals while running away?” The other guard asked after finishing his inspections and pointing at the fifth cart where the women who belonged to the orcs were.
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“They belong to the orcs and you know how they are.” Larkus tried to talk his way out of it.
“No, please explain.” The guard wanted to hear his answer.
Malakhay looking at a sweating Larkus smirked, ignoring Larkus’s murderous look which spelled a certain and surely very cruel punishment for him later.
“The orcs can be really stupid and perverted monsters I say, but please try to understand me, I can’t forbid them doing something with their own belongings and those slaves are their property. As you can surely see mine are in very good condition.” He tried to take their attention away from the problem, once more pointing at the first three carriages.
“Hahaha.” Everybody was left surprised as Malakhay started to laugh uncontrollably at the current situation.
Larkus would kill him with his glare if he could, but he more-or-less kept his cool before the guards.
“Shut up you useless creature!” He tried to shut him up but Malakhay ignored him and continued laughing.
“I have a little advice for you.” The guard before him said. “It will do you well if you remember that those words about stupid monsters could get you into serious trouble inside the city. So be a wise man and keep them to yourself. Ok?”
“I will surely do as you suggest. Thank you for your advice.” Larkus quickly said as he wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.
“Don’t be mistaken. I quite hate your kind who is all smiles and empty words and I don’t want to deal with you again if you cause some trouble. Are we clear?”
Now Larkus lost quite a bit of colour from his face but still nodded in agreement: “Yes.”
“Good. Now you will pay the entrance tax which is five silver coins for each carriage and I don’t want to see your face anymore.”
Larkus did as the guard asked from him and after he paid the money they were finally enabled to enter the city. Malakhay was still laughing as they entered through the gate, not minding the weird looks from everybody around him.
“Shut up you stupid creature! I promise you that you will beg for death after Zuran is done with you today.” Larkus shouted at him, trying to shut him up.
As they went through the streets of Grimthorn Malakhay could notice that they were actually quite clean. He could see that there lived all sorts of creatures here. He even spotted some humans walking the streets. He was slightly surprised as he expected a tenser atmosphere in the place where so many races lived. There were also quite a bit of the undead roaming the streets which were most likely on some errands for their masters. Malakhay knew from Korpus’s knowledge that lower undead like skeletons and phantasms didn’t really have a will of their own and acted only when their master commanded them to do something.
They slowly went through the city until they finally reached one of the big plazas that was used as the slave market. It contained quite a bit of podiums made out of wood and merchants shouting all over the place as they propagated their wares. The trade was conducted with the auction-like system, where merchants started with the lowest price and buyers were slowly offering more until one of them won. There were all kinds of slaves for sale. Humans, dwarfs, demonata, orcs, trolls, goblins, beast-men, elves, dryads, Malakhay could even swear he saw a fairy and they were the rarest ones of rare. There were children or adult versions of any race, simply said one could find here any slave he needed.
When Larkus gave his sign they stopped near one of the empty podiums. One of the demonata approached them and started talking to Larkus.
“Do you want to rent a place?” The young demonata woman asked. She was probably staff from the city office and was in charge of renting this area to slave traders so that they can conduct their business.
“Yea. How much for two weeks?” Larkus asked calculating how long they want to stay here.
She did some quick math before answering: “Fourteen days, 1 demios gold coin for two days so together 7 demios gold. If you don’t have demios gold, you can also pay with other currency but I will need to calculate the exchange value, so I ask of you to tell me which one you will use.”
Demios gold is the name of the gold coins that are used in demonata lands. It was named after the first demon king Demios Cralux, the Blackhearted king and was used ever since the past times. Human countries and the dwarf kingdom used their own currency and even if they also traded in gold, silver and copper coins their value was different from each other. Beast-men used the currencies of other nations as they didn’t have their own one and elves were the same as they preferred to exchange goods of the same value.
“7 demios gold? Isn’t that a bit pricy? How about lowering it a bit?” Larkus tried to haggle, not liking what he heard.
“This is a price established by the city and it is not negotiable. Either pay or you can be on your way.” She coldly shot him down, already used to people who tried to haggle.
“Tch, here is your gold.” Larkus handed over the money.
After receiving it she wrote down something and handed him the license which allowed him to trade in the plaza.
After taking this out of the way the slavers decided to find themselves an inn for their stay in the city and left the caravan together with the slaves to the orc guards who were supposed to keep a watch over things at night.
“Why did you do that stunt at the gates?” Ruon’ga asked Malakhay when Larkus left. “He won’t forget about it.”
“I don’t care. I wanted to laugh so I laughed.”
Ruon’ga noticed that Malakhay slightly changed after all the torture he received, especially after the village. It looked like he stopped caring about what will happen to him and he also couldn’t hear him scream anymore when it was his turn to be with Zuran. Sometimes, when Malakhay was tossed back into the cage after torture, he had a weird feeling from him like he didn’t even feel any of the pain anymore. He just ate and went to sleep not minding his injuries. Ruon’ga thought that Malakhay slowly started to go mad and probably wasn’t far from the truth.
The night in the city was quite noisy. Most of the other merchants went to their inns or brothels to celebrate their success and the only ones left were those on guard duties. Once or twice an hour a guard patrol could be seen around their part of the city, making sure that everything was in order.
It was when both of them started to think that tonight they will be left out of Zuran’s activities that Larkus showed up.
“You little shit, you think I forgot about you?” He said quite drunk as he started to open their cage. “Take him.” He ordered the two orcs who were with him. They did as he said, tied him up, silenced him with some old rags by stuffing them into his mouth and stuffed him into the already prepared sack.
“C’mon Larkus let him be, the little guy suffered enough.” Ruon’ga tried to help his new friend but it was pointless.
“You shut up, you blue shit! Don’t worry, when I’m done with him I promise you I will think about some great present for you.” As he said this he locked the door again and left together with the orcs to where he came from.
Malakhay couldn’t see anything, only heard as they carried him through the night streets. He tried to puncture the cloth with his sharp nails but one of the orcs noticed him and punched him a few times to stop him. He was carried around half an hour when he heard how somebody knocked on some wood and right after that the creaking of a door opening.
“I did as you requested, enjoy yourself to the fullest.” Malakhay could hear an unknown voice.
“Thanks.” Larkus said cheerfully as he probably went inside the building.
After a few moments he was finally brought outside and had a chance to look around. It looked like some kind of basement or dungeon. The orcs put him on the table in the centre of the room and put his wrists and ankles into shackles.
“You can go. I will call you when I need you.” Larkus dismissed them and stayed alone with him. “You know, from the moment I saw you I didn’t like you. I hoped Zuran would kill you but it seems even he can be inefficient. But I can also be quite generous so if you will beg me really nicely I will leave you only half-dead.” As he said this he undid Malakhay’s gag.
“You are so stupid if you think I will do that.” Malakhay said with a firm voice.
“Oh, you will beg, I will make sure of it. Before we start the fun let me tell you that nobody will hear you scream here except me and those two outside. This house belongs to my good friend and as you can see he has the same hobby as Zuran, so I went and borrowed it from him just for you.” As he said this he took a small wooden club from the table before him and hit one of Malakhay’s hands. He waited for his scream but it didn’t come.
“Is that it? You need to try harder.” Malakhay mocked Larkus, sneering at him.
“You little shit! I will hear you scream!” Larkus started to beat him with the club, not really caring where he hit him.
Malakhay clenched his teeth and refused to scream. After a few moments when Larkus stopped he only laughed at him and mocked him again: “Hahaha, you will need to try harder.”
Then Larkus finally lost it. Quite drunk and pissed off he did everything that he could think of to Malakhay. Cut him with a knife, poured boiling water over him, lashed him, burned his wounds with iron heated in fire, nailed his hands to the table, but Malakhay still didn’t scream. Only when he went as far as sawing off one of his hands at his wrist could Malakhay no longer hold it in.
Malakhay himself was surprised that he hasn’t died yet. He practically bathed in his blood which was everywhere. He couldn’t even feel his own body anymore. He just lied there like a broken toy and this whole situation became funny to him.
“Hahahahahahahaha.” He laughed like a madman, unable to stop, knowing he will die soon.
‘I’m a demon, why should I fear this petty human? I refuse to be his entertainment.’ He thought still laughing.
“So you are finally broken.” Larkus said, putting the saw back on the table. After that he left the room, probably to tell the orcs who waited for him to get rid of the body.
As Malakhay laid there and waited for his end he started to hear a weird voice.
“At lassst wee foouund youuu.” The quiet whisper entered his ears.
Just when he started to wonder if he went mad, thick black mist materialised before his eyes.
“What are you?” He asked with some of the last power that was left in him.
“Not whhaat, but whoo. Wee are thee sshaadowss. Wee weere suposssed to seerve but thee new king isss weeak soo wee reffussse.” The mist whispered again.
As he heard this he remembered something. A promise made in darkness, where he was born. He didn’t remember to whom, but he knew he promised to become powerful.
“No, you will obey! I was born from darkness but I will rise from pain.” Malakhay said with a strong voice showing his determination and unyielding will and before the mist could vanish he bit at it and swallowed it whole.
“Wee see thee old maassster wass right. Thee new king will beee born and thee shaadowsss of old shaal bee hisss power. Show usss thee will and wee shhal obbeyy.” The whispers slowly vanished.
As he swallowed the mist it started to change him. He couldn’t feel the pain anymore. It just vanished as if it weren’t even there. He lifted what was left of his hand which was sawed off and the part that was missing grew back. But it wasn’t the hand of an imp anymore. Now it had four fingers instead of three which were armed with sharp talons. Its colour changed to a weird black-grey and he could see the dark mist slowly emanating from it.
“Thee gift from thee old maasster.” The mist whispered again.
Malakhay only smiled and without any hesitation slashed at his other wrist and both ankles with his new hand, cutting them off in a few quick motions. Without them he was finally able to free himself from the shackles and again the severed hand grew back exactly as the previous one. The same thing happened to his legs but the new ones also looked different. Instead of hoofs, which he had before, he now had fingers. Four of them like on his hands. With three of them facing front-side and one back-side they resembled the legs of birds. The talons which were on his hands were also present on his legs.
Finally free he started to look for the way out when the door opened and the two orcs which brought him over showed up. All surprised they stared at him as if they weren’t sure about what to do. Waking up from their initial shock they tried to catch him, but he was quicker than them. Noticing the small open window in the upper corner of the room he jumped to it, trying to flee. One of the orcs was able to come close enough and tried to grab him but as he wanted to grip his foot his hand just couldn’t take a hold of it. It was like trying to catch steam. Malakhay’s foot changed to mist for a second and reconstructed right after it slipped out of the orc’s hand.
Malakhay didn’t miss the opportunity and jumped right at the window, gripping its frame with his new talons and slipping out of it. The orcs were too big for it and only one of their arms was able to get through. But it was too late to do something else. Malakhay being finally outside ran. He had a map that Korpus left him in his memories and from some buildings around was able to conclude where he was and where he must go. As he ran and the adrenaline started to fade he quickly became tired. After all just a few moments ago he was one step away from death and it still left its toll on him. He was able to get to the main street and with big problems finally made it to one of the inner gates of the wall which was the only thing that separated him from the castle.
“Who goes there?” One of the guards noticed him and became alerted.
“Need… see… the queen.” He tried to tell them, panting as he was trying to catch his breath.
“Yea sure, everybody wants to see the queen, now off with you or we will toss you into prison.” The guard warned him, not letting his guard down.
“No, I need…. It’s important. Let me see the queen.” He said again and tried to slip by the guards.
They immediately became alarmed and attacked him. He was so weakened from the previous events that he couldn’t fight back this time and was taken down instantly. The last thing he can remember were the guards that pinned him down and just as they were to bring him away with them the voice of a young woman appeared out of nowhere.
“What’s happening, who is that?”
That was the last thing he could hear as he passed out from exhaustion.