The silence in the clearing was oppressive.

After Nate and the other slaves had been forced into the forest, Magnus had ordered his guards to go fetch the usual things he needed for a ‘hunt’. Namely, his small mobile gazebo, complete with a chair and a side table. Anticipating what else he wanted, and afraid of his reaction if they hadn’t, the guards had also brought back one of the manor servants with refreshments as well. Only for Magnus, though.

Now Magnus was idly sipping on juice, reclining in an extravagant chair and watching the tree line in anticipation. All the while his servant did a masterful job of hiding his nervousness behind him. Probably had a ton of practice.

Azarus didn’t care about any of that, though. He was used to Magnus’s egotism, by this point. He’d dealt with it all his life and was tired of it. When he’d been younger, he’d been disturbed by the countless acts of his younger cousin’s cruelty. Even from a young age, Azarus had been certain that the way that Magnus acted was wrong somehow. From the lack of care for others, to the sudden spurts of violence, Azarus had grown numb to it over the years. By now, he had ceased to be merely disturbed by Magnus. He was outright disgusted by him as well.

If pressed, Azarus would have a hard time naming someone that he personally hated more than Magnus. Oh sure, there were people in his life that had caused him more hardship. He held plenty of general resentment for people in his family, either matrilineal or patrilineal. With all the shit his uncle had put him through, he no longer held even the slightest bit of affection for the bastard.

Azarus tried not to hold the same feelings for Ely. He really, really did. But sometimes, even though he knew it was selfish of him, he just wished she would stick her neck out for him even once. He wished that the girl who used to defy her father to play knights with him as a child would use her pull for his benefit for once. Gods, at least she was apologetic about it. More than he could say about the rest of his blood. Most of the fuckers took active delight in taking advantage of him.

Azarus cast a baleful glare over at Magnus, who was eating dainty little sandwiches now. If the heir of Savoy noticed at all, he didn’t care. Gods, he should have known better than to have just waltzed in the front gate. In retrospect, he knew that he should have delayed their return to town until the much earlier morn, when it was still dark out. Magnus, the lazy shite, would have been much less likely to wake up so early in order to ambush them. If he had just been able to get Nate back in his house, he would have had enough legal protection to at least delay Magnus. By dwarven law, anyone who was sheltering under the lawful roof of another had certain protections. He doubted he could have kept Magnus away forever, but Azarus could have at least prepared Nate for this shite better.

Nate…

Azarus heaved a sigh, casting his gaze downward to stare at the dirt beneath his feet. He was trying to be optimistic about Nate’s chances, but it was hard. The guy had little to no training, and now he was supposed to wrangle a high-level monster back here? Azarus truthfully didn’t see how it was possible. The last he’d been able to check, Magnus was around level seventy-two. That meant that Nate somehow needed to find and safely lead a monster that was at least sixty-two back for Magnus to kill steal, in order to satisfy his heartless challenge. That was the only way that Magnus would get anything out of killing a monster. After that, the Aether density released from the monster’s death would be too low to contribute much. Nate wasn’t even level ten, for god’s sake. The man didn’t even have a class.

To the best of his knowledge, only a handful of slaves had ever survived one of Magnus’s ‘hunts’. They’d all been either former woodsmen or professional soldiers. Even then, they typically didn’t survive for long afterward. Azarus knew that of the slaves that had managed to survive one of these hunts, none were still alive. Magnus, the sadistic shite, was frustrated whenever one of his slaves managed to succeed. So much so, that he made sure they were included in the roster whenever he held another one. Given that Magnus held one of these abominations nearly every month, the successful slaves didn’t typically last long. Either they didn’t manage to recover from their wounds in time to perform again, or their luck didn’t hold out.

Azarus was broken out of his musings by movement out of the corner of his eye. Looking up, he could see that the bushes at the tree line were rustling. He could feel his heartbeat pick up in anticipation at the thought of what that might mean. Was it Nate? Was he coming back? Azarus could see that the other people in the clearing had noticed, as well. The guards as well as Magnus. Magnus sat up in his chair while setting his drink down on the table next to him, while two of the guards stepped in front of him protectively, swords drawn.

“Out of the way, fools,” Magnus grumbled. “You’re blocking my view.”

The guards acquiesced, mumbling apologies. Magnus didn’t even notice, just staring at the trembling bush across the clearing hungrily.

A few moments later, one of the slaves stumbled out from the tree line. Azarus tried not to be disappointed and focused instead on the state of the human.

He didn’t look great. The slave was covered in blood and it wasn’t hard to see why. He was covered in wounds, big and small. Scrapes and gashes littered his body, with the largest being the one on his gut. As the slave limped his way into the clearing, Azarus could see that the man had been nearly disemboweled and was barely holding himself together by clutching his stomach. It seemed like something had taken a pretty successful swipe at his head as well, as the man was missing his left ear entirely. By the time the man made it halfway across the clearing, however, it was clear.

The slave hadn’t brought back a monster with him. Nothing followed out of the trees.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Azarus took a deep breath. He knew what that meant. Judging by the malicious glint growing in Magnus’s eyes, he did too. Azarus made the conscious decision to not Observe the man.

He didn’t want to carry the weight of his name.

Slowly and dramatically, Magnus stood up from his extremely out-of-place extravagant chair. By the time the slave had reached the foot of the stairs that led up to the gazebo, Magnus had stood up to his full height and was glaring down at the slave imperiously.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here, hmm?” Magnus said, with a cold smile.

The slave fell to his knees at the foot of the stairs, unable to hold himself up under his own strength. Panting, he gazed up at Magnus standing above him. “Please…please m’lord…” The slave uttered weakly.

Magnus raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Please what? Please show mercy? Please don’t make me go back in there? Oh, please. I’ve heard it all before.” He smirked. “Or perhaps you mean…please kill me?”

The slave was clearly too delirious from blood loss to care about Magnus’s grandstanding. “Please…please…I tried, m’lord…I tried…the beast almost killed me…”

Magnus rolled his eyes dramatically and sighed. “Oh yes, I’m sure you tried very hard.” He waved a hand dismissively. “But that doesn’t matter now, does it? I gave very clear instructions, and outlined the very clear consequences if you didn’t follow them.”

The slave started breathing heavily in a panic that managed to pierce his agony. Bonelessly, he flopped forward onto the stairs. Slowly, the slave started crawling up the stairs. He reached out weakly to grasp at Magnus’s robe hem. “Please…” The slave sobbed. “Please m’lord…show mercy…”.

His words only made Magnus sneer. “Get…” Magnus said derisively, winding back his right leg. “OFF of me, you worm!” He kicked the slave off of him, sending him flying off of the gazebo. The slave flew through the air and landed in the dirt with a strangled moan of anguish.

Azarus clenched his fists at the blatant sadism on display. He stepped forward from where he had been standing off to the side. His movement made the guards snap to attention and stand in front of him, barring the way. Azarus just ignored them to stare up at his cousin. “Stop it, Magnus.” He growled. “If you’re going to kill him, just do it already. Stop torturing the man already.”

Magnus looked up from where he had been inspecting the hem of his robe to sneer at Azarus. “Having a bit of a conscience attack, are we cousin? No longer willing to sit back and watch as I have fun with my property, are you?” He laughed derisively. “How terribly amusing that this new development only occurred after you grew attached to some cattle of your own.”

That actually managed to cause a pang of guilt in Azarus. Magnus wasn’t wrong, he supposed. Not for the reason that he’d said, of course. But it was far easier to ignore the way that Magnus mistreated his slaves when it didn’t happen in front of him. The way that slavery was so prominent in this town disgusted him. Most of the people in this town disgusted him. Before Nate had come around, he’d spent most of his time hiding out in the home he had built for Grey and himself at the edge of town. It was so, so easy to forget that outside of his walls, while he was smithing, his sadistic cousin was routinely subjecting people to sadistic death games.

But what was he supposed to do about it? Even if he wanted to do something for the slaves of Addersfield that Magnus was mistreating, the law wasn’t on his side. Magnus was perfectly within his right under the eyes of the Principality to do whatever he wanted with, as he said, his property. While slavery wasn’t as popular in non-Savoy owned lands, within them slaves were considered little better than cattle. . He would just be throwing away either his life or his freedom if he tried to interfere and stop Magnus. He’d never done anything about it before, as he didn’t know what that would mean for Grey. Probably nothing good. He doubted most other dwarves that his uncle would assign to care for Grey would treat him like an actual person, and not just an artifact and potion machine. Once Nate had entered the situation, his responsibility for the two men had only grown.

That wasn’t even counting his responsibility towards the human kingdom for getting Grey out of here…

Gods, but things had been so much easier back in the Holds, where slavery was looked down upon.

He couldn’t afford to antagonize Magnus, here and now. Not even for a man that Magnus was blatantly torturing in front of him. That didn’t mean the decision didn’t make him feel like slime, though. He scowled, but stepped back from the guards.

He didn’t look at the slave, who had begun sobbing to himself quietly.

Magnus chuckled mockingly. “I thought so. Now scurry away, you feathered half-breed. I’m busy.” He turned back to the slave that was now staring blankly at the sky while he sobbed silently. “Now, where were we…” Magnus descended the stairs theatrically, seemingly for his own benefit. Certainly, nobody else in the clearing was impressed by his self-absorption.

He came to stand above the despairing slave lying in the dirt. Slowly, making sure that the slave was tracking his movements, Magnus reached into his robes. He drew the black tablet he had shown off earlier out of an inside pocket. The slave let out another sob at the sight of it.

“Now…” Magnus said breathily, eagerly. “Let’s see what kind of collar you were fitted with, hmm?”

Bringing the tablet up and scrolling through something only he could see, Magnus smiled sinisterly and looked up one last time to lock eyes with the slave. He didn’t break eye contact with him as he casually reached out and pressed a finger onto the tablet.

The reaction was immediate.

The breaths of the slave gradually began to pick up, as he began to gasp. His hands flew up to grasp at his neck as he experienced a shot of adrenaline, despite his wounds. He managed to crawl to his knees as the color on his face began to change from the pale white of blood loss to a pale blue.

“Oh,” Magnus exclaimed in surprise. “Now that’s a rare one. I didn’t even know I had any more breath-stealers.” He watched hungrily as the slave began to slowly asphyxiate in front of him.

The rest of the clearing was dead silent as the slave was slowly choked to death by the collar around his neck. Azarus couldn’t watch anymore by the time the slave began to dig bloody furrows into his neck in a desperate attempt to get his collar off.

He looked away. Damn his cowardice, but he looked away.

Before long the gasps of the slave ceased as he died. The silence in the clearing was broken by Magnus letting out a satisfied sigh. “Well!” He said, clapping his hands once. “That was a nice, satisfying diversion. But I think we all know which…conclusion I’m looking forward to the most, eh?” He finished, shooting a smirk over his shoulder at Azarus.

Azarus grit his teeth in order to not react to his cousin’s obvious provocation. He wasn’t sure he succeeded.