Prince Sado stood up, then reached down, extending his hand to the courtesan whose name he didn’t even know, but who made the last night on the ‘safe’ side of the border, a happy one. He flashed a broad, charming smile as he helped her rise, then picked the straw out of her hair as she stared at him with curious hazel eyes. “You… didn’t have to do that.” She said as she saw him cast off the straw he’d plucked from her hair as she reached over to the hook and took her golden silk dress off of it.
“I know. I wanted to. I’ve always been a stubborn bastard, headstrong, as my favorite advisor used to say. Made me a good soldier and… evidently, a bad strategist. But it also meant I felt free to do what I wanted, even beyond things that are considered ‘Princely’. And I wanted to do that just now. So I did. Thank you for the night, I’ll carry it with me to the last hour. And thanks especially for hearing the last foolish dreams of one foolish Prince.” he raised her hand, which he still held, and kissed the top of it gracefully.
“If I had any way to thank you properly, I would, but…” He looked around the nearly empty cell and shrugged.
She managed to snicker a bit, and a cynical look came to her eye, “You may have been a foolish Prince, but at least you had a dream. Even if it has destroyed you, it was worth more than the stupid reality the others fought to keep unchanged. I hope your death is painless and quick.” She kissed his cheek, took her hand out of his, and went to pound on the iron door.
“Guard, it’s time.” She said as she put the dress on over her head and secured herself again.
A moment later, the door opened and steel clad guards with steel tipped halberds appeared and allowed the woman to leave.
“Me too, I’m guessing.” Prince Sado said glibly, and held his hands out. They took a set of chains from off the wall outside the cell and approached, securing his arms, then his legs, rendering him all but immobile but for small steps, he followed them out, burdened by the weight of his golden collar.
The stale smell of the cell was left behind, and he moved out into the long hall, various other cells containing less valuable tributes, had weeping, crying people abound, desperate one and all, wailing for deliverance that would never come.
“Let me out!”
“Please!”
“I have a child!”
“You can’t do this!”
Many were the cries and denials, but as he passed them by, he heard the sound of marching feet as other guards went in room by room and dragged the tributes out, more than a few had to be clubbed into unconsciousness and simply carried.
Prince Sado didn’t look behind him, his ears told him what was happening well enough, within a few minutes, he stepped outside into the sun and looked up at the blue sky above, the white clouds. ‘Beautiful day. I wonder if Onimeus made it. Or Kaiji… lords of the stars… please have spared her the fate so many others of our women must have endured. She tried so hard to stop me from my stupid dream… if you spared anyone that, let it be her.’
“Go on.” He felt the mild press of the shaft of the weapon at his back, and realized he’d stopped for his reverie, he shook it off and walked forward. The woman he’d spent the night with was no doubt gone by now, the big portcullis was open to the west, and she’d no doubt ridden east.
‘Tomorrow there will be another for her, and I’ll be forgotten, but… at least I got to tell someone my ambitions one more time.’ He thought resignedly as the door of a containment carriage opened. He walked forward slowly in small steps until he reached the wooden structure, and with great effort due to the chains that bound him, he climbed in and sat on the bench within.
Out the window he could see others being loaded up for the same purpose. He laid his head in the corner of the inside of the cart that was his alone, and closed his eyes. He heard the crack of the whip and the sudden start of the grinding, followed by the slow rocking motion that started the final leg of his journey to the Tlalmok capital. But he saw nothing. There was nothing he wanted to see, and the small window for air didn’t let him see much anyway.
So his eyes stayed closed, and at some point, he drifted off.
Which was why it was such a total surprise when he awoke to the sound of screaming.
His pulse picked up like fire in dry grass and he dashed to the small window to see what was going on. His dark eyes wide, he saw something between the unexpected and the impossible.
A knight riding down on a large horse with sword out, and right behind him a mass of others charged with weapons out, screaming their war cries to attack the escort of the tributes.
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Bracer was ecstatic, for once his idiots had done exactly what they were supposed to. The first volley of arrows had taken out at least a dozen armored men on one side, and when the opposite turned to see what was going on, the next volley from the opposite end took down even more.
He charged over the open ground with gritted teeth and cut down four that made to bar his path, they fell, gurgling and gasping their failed screams while clutching at their throats, eyes still wide with disbelief in their own inevitable demise.
Beren’s group hit almost at the same moment, and as he usually did, the big boy loving bear of a man just picked up a person and used them as a club to beat down the rest, this was made doubly effective when they were men clad in armor.
Still, the guards were professionals and fought back. ‘If only everyone around me wasn’t so damned weak. Then I wouldn’t have to do all this myself.’ He swore as he saw a knot of guards begin to push his men back, the tangled limbs and bloody struggle became chaos as they all went down, cursing and stabbing and throwing up dirt, blood, and body parts left and right. He rode over, jumping off his horse as he approached, and his sword flashed out, faster than their eyes could follow, severing the arms of seven guards and sending them flopping around screaming and clutching with useless stumps at arms that lay forever separated from their former owners.
The knot of his men that survived the struggle cheered and charged another stubborn group of guards in the flank, and Bracer turned his attention to the next key point, while Beren did the same on his side. All in all, the struggle for all its brutality was over in a matter of minutes.
Bracer wiped the blood off his sword, slashed it down at the lock that secured the special prisoner, and sheathed his sword. “You, in there, Prince Sado. Come on out.”
It took a moment for the man to make his exit, and Cerebrate found himself looking up at a very confused, dark, generally swarthy looking figure, his identity given away by the collar of gold.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Good, we’ve been wanting to meet you.” Bracer said with a grin.
“Ah… who are you exactly?” Sado asked, looking around at the slaughter. “Are you… Komestrans, here to rescue me or something?”
Bracer laughed, “No, no, just a man of expensive tastes who sought an expensive product, and… that would be you.”
Sado’s confused expression didn’t change, not until Bracer jumped up, catching the chained wrists on his foot as he came down. As his weight forced the prince to bend forward, Bracer hit him in the head with an armored knee, and knocked the Prince into unconsciousness.
“Tie him up more completely, wrap him in ropes for all I care, and put him on the back of your horse, Beren. Let’s get going, we’ve wasted enough time and I don’t want to be here when questions arise… you know, like in the next hour or three when the ‘lesser tributes’ come back wondering where he is.
They seemed to take him quite literally, as after they gathered ropes, they wrapped him from his ankles and then all the way up his legs, covering his arms, and didn’t stop till they ran out of rope and secured the knot on one side of his neck.
Bracer scratched his head, “Well… I guess… I did say to ‘wrap him in ropes’... whatever works.” He muttered and then mounted his horse, within minutes, the entire band began to head back the way they’d come.
“Only about twenty five dead… not bad. Well, that’s what happens when you catch ‘em by surprise.” He grinned, between that, and the wails of the two white haired toys who started sobbing when they saw him return, he couldn’t have been happier.
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“...So that’s what it’s like in the Minotaur Kingdom. And yes, they really do get that big. But Mu’Ulm was the biggest I’ve ever seen. Exceptionally dangerous, a full blown minotaur champion. And no, I’m not exaggerating about his equipment. It was a gift from the Dark Savior herself.” Nua had a broad, even enormous smile on her face as she told the story.
She looked around at their faces as it was illuminated by the fire, the second day had been in some ways, more tiring than the first. They’d done constant drills to get them into position, and Nua had constantly put them on their backs or on their faces, but right now, they were focused on, at first, what she thought was her chest.
“It’s rude to stare.” She said bluntly and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “If you want to know something, ask.”
“Your… equipment, ma’am, it’s different.” Sergeant Vargas said hesitantly.
“You’re damn right it is.” Nua said proudly with genuine arrogance in her voice. She touched the scale mail breastplate. “This black scalemail is runecrafted. An exclusive art in the Empire of my divine lord. It protects exceptionally well against piercing and slashing damage, and has at least ‘some’ reduced damage against certain types of magic. My boots, endurance and lifting. My gloves, enhanced grip strength and dexterity. My cloak against weather and for stealth. But this…” She took out her precious knife and held it cradled in her hands. “The hilt is made of a human bone… the bones of a woman who crossed me. The flecks of silver… are the coins she got for crossing me. The blade itself is adamantite, and this is runically enhanced to boost applied magic and for bleeding damage. Not that it needs it, with these jagged saw-like teeth near the tip. But even that…”
She held her left hand out to Solution who sat beside her. “Teacher, my glove.”
Solution had a sadistic smile on her face that barely remained human, and when her student held out her hand with the palm up, she tugged the glove off from the tip of the middle finger, revealing the false hand.
The mana crystal knuckles glowed faintly blue, the white metal so flawless that the fire was reflected on its surface, and the black gem drew the eyes and would not let go. “I let a monster eat my original hand… still on my arm, to get this.” Nua said with pride in her voice and humility on her face as she looked down at it with eyes still wide with awe that it was hers.
She looked around at the fearstruck faces of her slaves, and gave them a matronly look. “You all think of the left hand of your mistress as the hand that disciplines… the hand to fear. But I tell you that this hand, which is blessed by the divine’s own power, exists for me to better lead you. I cannot promise you all will live. But I can promise you that you will not charge into a fight that I’m not willing to risk myself in. I wouldn’t fault a one of you for hating the source of your collars. But this is not for nothing. Not a petty vanity of mine, not simple greed. I can’t tell you everything, or really anything. But I will promise that I won’t use you as shields for my own skin. My faith prohibits something so… base. That would be weakness, the gravest of all sins, as like a poisonous garden, all sins grow from it.”
Various looks were traded among her slaves, and Nua cocked her head at them. “What?”
“Mistress…” The elven woman that had given her food the day before, spoke up, “Ah, we don’t know anything about your religion, we’re of the Starwatcher faith. Our religion teaches us the need to endure, to bear up and carry on. Sin to us is rooted in impatience. Suffering is unavoidable, given to us by the will of the gods who ordain all things. These are ‘tests’ of what we can bear.”
Nua looked at her calmly, folding her leg one over the other and resting her hands closed together over top of that. “So… you believe the gods ordained your defeat?”
She nodded with a deferential gaze.
“And that you were sold to me as a test?” Nua pushed further with her eyes narrowing.
“And that… your little girl, the one you struggled to fight me to save, Veena? Veema? That she was taken from you and sold… as a test?” Nua felt her heart pound as she listened.
The elf nodded silently, though her eyes welled up with tears.
“And… whatever she goes through as a slave, wherever she is, is done to her by the will of the gods to test her also?” Nua ground her teeth.
Again the elven woman nodded.
“And it’s… sinful, to refuse to bear a test?” Nua asked, hoping against hope she was wrong.
“Very.” The woman uttered gravely.
“So…” Nua tapped her cheek thoughtfully. “When you were all ‘discipline problems’ before, you were being sinful for your anger over your station?”
The elven woman nodded emphatically, though a few tears trickled down, she remained in control and said in the sort of tone reserved only for reciting lessons learned by rote… “Very. We believe that is why you hurt us, the gods ordained the pain, to punish us for our hesitation to submit to the life that they gave to us. If the gods ordain us to be slaves, then slaves we must be until the gods decree otherwise.”
Nua opened and closed her mouth several times as she tried to process what she was hearing, and found that she couldn’t. ‘I studied these people for twelve years… how did I never hear that it was this bad? I’m going to have to ask serious questions about this when I get the chance.’ She made the private vow to investigate ‘that’ mystery later, while she failed to grasp what she was hearing.
“So… if I order you to bend over that tree stump…” She pointed to the half rotted stump just outside the camp, “and to not move while I just… beat you because I want to… it’s sinful for you to do anything but take it?”
She nodded hesitantly, “You are free, the gods decided you should be. I am a slave, the gods decided that for me also. Whatever you say to me, I must bear. Whatever you command of me, I must submit to. Whatever you do to me, was ordained for me before my birth. I may weep for it, curse my fate, but fate can’t be challenged by us. We must wait for them to give us happiness, or freedom, and accept whatever happens, as if it came from their lips.”
Nua clenched her fists and raged within every corner of her soul, she wanted to howl as if the words of this woman whose name she did not know, but whose blood she shared, cut into Nua’s back. They cut like the knives Hodge’s torturers had used to mutilate her and helped make her ugly.
Her rage at those words boiled over and her eyes turned golden, the elf woman flinched under the unexpected stare, “So if you are ordered to watch as someone were to abuse your child, because both of you are slaves, your sin would be protecting her?!”
“Th-yes… mistress.” The woman quailed under the obviously rising wrath of Captain Aiwenor.
Solution propped her head on her hand and rested her elbow on her leg with amusement as she watched her student’s growing hurricane of rage.
“Then…” Nua said icily, “I am glad, so very glad, that I do not believe what you believe!” She jabbed her finger out at the woman. “If that is a test of the gods, then to me it would be a test of our will to change it! You say they test you to endure, I serve the god of deeds who demands our actions! Will and strength are cultivated so that we do ‘not’ endure what we needn’t. The first right action you did was to be discipline problems. It showed will and courage, good qualities in a soldier. Good qualities in a servant of my god! You are that girl’s mother, the sin is to let her suffer needlessly what you can prevent! You didn’t fail her when I pinned you by the neck and made you submit… you failed because you were weak. Yes, more came to me by my god’s will than you will ever know. But it was not ordained as inevitable. I had to change. I had to work, I had to take action to change myself, and I had…” Nua looked to her left, and laid her hand on Solution’s thigh, “I had a Teacher, one who guided me, even hurt me… in order to make me strong. Your religion… I am glad I don’t share it. What a terrible thing it is… to look at the suffering of your child and say, put up with it, because the gods ordained you to be nothing more.”
Nua swept out her hand and knocked half her bowl over as the rage hit her all over again, scattering the stew into the grass and smashing her fist down onto the rock on which it had sat, smashing the rock and scattering the pieces.
“That stew was not there ‘for me to knock over’ nor was that rock ‘there for me to shatter’. Nor were you born, just to be slaves. It happened, yes. But if your gods are saying, ‘this is what we’ve decided for you’ then if I were you… I’d say tell those gods to go fuck right off.” Nua snarled with anger and faces went downcast as the anger of their mistress turned on them all.
“Are you… are you telling us to rebel against you… mistress?” Vargas asked, deliberately using her ‘other’ title. He looked incredibly uncomfortable, shifting as he was where he sat,
“If you want to, yes.” Nua said sharply. “Challenge me at any time, stand up and tell me you wish to fight me for your freedom, and I will let you take that chance. I’m not afraid of losing, I’m not afraid of dying. If any of you want to buck the gods and fight me for what you want for yourselves, stand up now. If you’d rather submit to whatever they decide for you. Prostrate yourselves to your mistress with your heads in the dirt.”
She then looked out over their ranks, and waited with her golden eyes aglow, her left hand extended out with her palm up and open and the black gem of her hand shining as if it too, were watching for something to step forward ready to die.