Zaine looked down and saw the large hole he’d been dragged from and the scrape marks on the sides of the hole, presumably made by their unconscious bodies. That would explain the piles of ropes lying near his feet.
It had been a trap.
Luckily, he hadn’t broken any bones, and nothing had been stolen, the little girl was staring up at him… Zaine looked around frantically. The Warlock was nowhere to be seen.
‘Zaine...’
Zaine whipped round, his hand on his sword, but found no-one.
‘Zaine...’
He looked at the girl who stared back at him silently. Could she hear the voice as well, he wondered?
‘Down here...’
Zaine leaned over the side of the hole and looked among the rubble and spotted the glow of the rod.
‘Thorne!’ Zaine shouted but received no reply.
‘Is it safe?’
‘Yes, come up, quickly!’
Zaine stared open–mouthed as the rod detached itself from the rubble and floated upwards towards the bandaged man.
Putting aside countless questions, Zaine asked, ‘Where’s Thorne?’
‘Not here,’ the rod replied, ‘he has been taken I am afraid.’
‘Taken?’
‘Yes, by two men in fact. They came after a few minutes to check you both and then they pulled you out with the ropes. One was rather big and burly, and the other was a thin fellow. They argued over which of you to take for a considerable time and eventually they settled on Thorne.’
‘Who were these men? Did they have a recognisable uniform, accent, anything?’
‘I spotted an odd tattoo on the bigger man’s hand – a muscled arm holding a dagger impaling a gold coin.’
‘Skrunai,’ Zaine growled.
‘Indeed.’
‘Why didn’t you do anything?’ Zaine demanded.
‘What was I supposed to do?’ the rod retorted.
‘Fight them! You could have saved Thorne!’
‘As you are aware, I am in no position to fight. No one must know I am sentient AND I have to be wielded by one with Magik, to focus my powers.’
‘And now Thorne could pay the price…’
The girl stood against the frame of one of the huts, her head hanging.
‘You led us into a trap,’ Zaine growled in her language, advancing towards the girl.
‘I–I didn’t m-mean to,’ she whimpered back to the man who menacingly towered above her.
She fell on her backside as he approached and cried, shielding her face with her arms.
He then crouched down onto his haunches and asked in a kinder, gentler tone, ‘are you hurt?’
She shook her head.
‘Did the Skruna– the bad men force you to find us and take us here?’
She nodded this time, looking on the verge of bawling. ‘Have my momma and papa,’ she whispered.
‘So, her story was mostly true.’
‘They’ll have most likely taken him to the same camp where this child’s parents are held,’ Zaine thought out loud.
‘Indeed, perhaps the child could-’
‘No! She’s gone through enough; I can find the tracks and get there myself.’
‘Very well...’
The rod stopped glowing and then attached itself to Zaine’s belt.
‘I’ll find my friend and your parents,’ Zaine promised her, ‘but I want you to hide here and wait till my return, I’ll be back soon...’
*
Thorne pushed forward the white knight on his side of the board and muttered ‘Check…’
The Baron did not keep a clock, and he had no idea how much time had passed.
The Baron had left the cabin to deal with important matters, or so he had been told. Thorne had yet to say a word to the Baron, so he doubted he made good company.
The Baron had left him an ornate chessboard, before giving him another creepy grin and disappearing through the door of his cabin. The Baron had, at least, told him where he was. A Skrunai slave camp. Admittedly, the shrieks coming from outside the cabin had given him a fair indication that it was somewhere unpleasant. The Baron had warned him, in no uncertain circumstances, that he was a prisoner as much as them, albeit currently afforded better circumstances.
Thorne heard the tap of footsteps along wood and looked up to see the Baron stride through the doorway towards him, with a confident, mocking smile, one of his servants trailing meekly behind him. He took the seat opposite to Thorne, with seemingly exaggerated slowness, and then silently observed Thorne’s game.
Thorne ignored him and continued to play with his head down, his face flushing in anger. Now no longer giving himself a verbal commentary of the game but slamming taken pieces down on the adjacent table with more force than necessary. The Baron merely smiled, and folded his hands together as he watched, taking casual swigs from the wine glass handed to him by his burly servant.
When the game had finished the Baron clapped his hands together. ‘Oh, bravo Thorne, bravo!’ he said, ‘however, I’ve never really seen the point of such a game…’
‘Then why are you watching?’ asked Thorne, ‘why did you even bother getting a board and a set of crystal pieces?’
The Baron shrugged, replying nonchalantly ‘why not? It seemed like a good idea at the time. But enough about me, why do you play?’
Thorne paused, reminding himself that he wasn’t talking to this man, and folded his arms.
The Baron barked out a mirthless laugh and regarded the board silently for a while, stroking his chin.
‘Then I suppose you won’t mind if I join you?’ he inquired.
‘Why should I?’ Thorne couldn’t stop himself.
‘Well… this is my board… and being here is so much more comfortable than being out there,’ the Baron said, with a particularly malicious grin.
The servant chuckled sycophantically. Thorne blushed angrily.
Thorne pushed the chessboard to the middle, offering him the white pieces, which he took with a mock bow, and began placing on their required positions.
‘So…’ Thorne began, ‘do I need to show you the rules?’
‘No need,’ the Baron replied pleasantly, ‘I may not agree with you about the importance of chess, but I am quite the player nonetheless.’
‘Hmph,’ Thorne muttered.
The Baron grinned, and with the tip of a finger, pushed a white pawn forward. He then looked straight into Thorne’s eyes, ignoring the contempt held strongly by his opponent and said in an amused tone: ‘let the game begin...’
*
‘I ain’t seen you before,’ the red–faced man said, doing the best he could to reduce the distance from his head to that of the man who towered above him.
Zaine folded his arms and regarded the man through the holes of his mask with extreme dislike, growling, ‘and I have not seen you either. Am I to assume you are, perhaps, an impostor?’
‘I ain’t sayin–’
‘I know who is who in this camp, and I also know what the policies are for dealing with masquerading brigands,’ Zaine said.
‘Masqa– what?’ the guard blustered. ‘What policy?’
Zaine stroked the large scabbard by his waist and in a dark voice he growled, ‘perhaps my sword can better tell you.’ He grinned triumphantly behind his mask as he observed his chosen words strike home with the dim guard, causing the man to go quite pale, astonishingly so considering his usual colour.
The guard glanced at his own sword, seemingly coming to the conclusion, Zaine could tell from his uneasy expression that he was outmatched, both physically and mentally. He nervously scratched at the tuft of hair residing on his cheeks and muttered disjointedly, ‘g–go on in. I’ll let the boys know you’re comin’.’
The man then shuffled anxiously towards the gate, wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of his tattooed arm, before banging twice in succession on the wood of the large gate.
From the top of the lofty, sharpened wooden stakes
another guard emerged examining the pair below with a bored expression.
‘Alright, who’s coming?’
‘Another one of ours!’ the guard bellowed back.
‘Checked him through?’
The man looked anxiously back at Zaine and gulped. The swordsman quietly growled and tapped the pommel of his sword.
‘All checked!’
The other guard nodded and then disappeared from the top of the battlements, and a second later Zaine heard a horn being blown. The sound seeming to vibrate the tall stakes surrounding the Skrunai camp. Then with a metallic whir of gears and the sound of the un–oiled hinges, the gates slowly opened inwards, revealing the horror within. Zaine grimaced and walked into the slave camp.
In lines of twenty, men, women, and children were pulled by ropes, binding their wrists and feet, across the camp. Some were thrown into spiked metal cages and were whipped bloody until they were compliant. Others were directed to heaps of wood, where they were forced to hack through the seemingly endless piles.
Everywhere he walked, the air smelt strongly of sweat, excrement and blood.
‘Move it!’
Zaine whipped his head round, automatically adjusting his stolen uniform. He growled, when he saw the guard dragging the leader of the line of slaves by the scruff of his neck, his knees bloody as they scraped across the uneven, muddy ground.
‘Please sir,’ the man begged in his nomadic language, tears darkening his dirt covered face.
‘Shut up with yer mumbo jumbo!’ the guard spat in response, giving the slave a sharp dig in the stomach with his knee.
Zaine strode defiantly towards the guard and grabbed him by the shoulder, whirling him round to face him. ‘I’m taking over,’ Zaine growled, his fingers digging as hard as they could into the man’s skin.
‘Who the ‘ell are ya?’ the guard demanded, pushing off Zaine’s hand.
The warrior clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking in the process so loudly that the guard and several of the slaves jumped. ‘I’m… taking… over…’ Zaine said, stressing each word individually.
The guard screwed up his face and grumbled, ‘fine... take the buggers,’ and threw him the rope, stomping away in the opposite direction.
Zaine watched him go, his fingers playing across his sword’s scabbard. He decided to ignore the temptation. He then regarded the group before him. Many of the slaves would not look at him, and others stared at Zaine with wide desperate eyes. All of them, he noticed particularly the men had multiple, long, pencil thin, white scars stretching in straight lines over their chests, backs, arms, and legs. Several of the scars intersected and others he saw had clearly not been given time to heal and had formed as bumpy weals. The children, most notably so, were almost skeletal, their skin stretched so thinly over their protruding bones they looked a fall away from shattering.
What madness had brought about this? Zaine thought disgustedly.
One of the children tugged at a man’s arm and whispered something to him, receiving a sharp ‘shhh!’ in return.
Zaine turned to the man with scraped knees, ‘where were you supposed to be taken?’
The man reluctantly pointed ahead of them at the row of cages lying at the end of the camp in a semicircle. The children began to bawl, and the others turned pale, their gaunt bodies trembling.
‘Tell them that they will not be going in the cages,’ Zaine told the front man in the nomadic language.
The man frowned at him, ‘what?’ he asked confusedly, and then became more composed, and leaned forward inconspicuously and whispered in the same tongue, ‘you speak like us?’
Zaine nodded and then, noticing that his group was beginning to attract attention from some of the other guards, he hissed urgently, ‘follow me.’
The man gulped and hesitantly turned to the others in the line, whispering something unintelligible to them.
He saw the uneasy looks on the groups’ faces. This would be harder than anticipated, Zaine thought. He strode on ahead, giving the rope a slight tug. The man at the front nervously looked back at his companions.
The man was silent, for the walk across the camp, only moving his head to glance fearfully at the towering warrior beside him.
The man cleared his throat and then muttered something towards his muddy feet.
‘What?’ Zaine asked.
‘My– my name is Emir… sir,’ the man stuttered.
‘Zaine,’ the warrior replied.
The man nodded, not meeting his gaze.
‘You have no need to be afraid,’ Zaine said.
‘I’m sorry, sir. But we do.’
‘Who do you think I am?’
‘I don’t know,’ the man replied after a pause.
Zaine smiled and then whispered, ‘get on the floor.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Get on the floor!’ Zaine yelled at the man, raising his fist above him.
The man gasped, tripped over his own feet and landed on his side in the dirt. The others struggled for breath, anticipating yet another horrendous beating.
Zaine crouched beside the man and grabbed the front of his tunic, pulling him an inch away from his face, his other hand grabbing the knot by his hands.
‘Don’t ever do that again, you hear me?’
‘Y–ye–yes s–sir,’ the man stammered, his eyes following the movements of his hand.
Zaine released Emir, who slowly pulled himself up to his feet, the hatred evident in his eyes.
‘You are just like the rest…’ the man said.
Zaine pulled the rope causing the man to lurch forward, and come to a halt in front of him.
‘Really? Then how can you move your wrists?’ Zaine grinned.
Emir looked at Zaine questionably, and then turned to his hands, he twisted his arms and with an expression of complete shock, his arms twisted inside the knot.
‘How?’ Emir asked, speechless.
‘It was the best I could do; if I moved on to your ankles people might get suspicious,’ Zaine replied.
The man shook his head, ‘I don’t know what to say...’
Zaine smiled and then discretely lifted the mask up so it only covered his bandaged forehead.
The man gasped as he gazed into the warrior’s eyes, muttering incredulously, ‘Hunter…’
Zaine dropped the mask down, and gave the rope a slight tug again, letting the group trail slowly behind him as they walked.
The man gazed at Zaine open–mouthed in astonishment.
‘How– you–’
‘Tell me Emir: how soon do you want to be out of here?’
‘Right now, sir.’
The warrior smiled, and then tilted his head to his right and whispered something quietly to the man beside him. Emir listened intently, nodding to show he understood, and visibly shaking with excitement.
‘This… if this works…’
‘It will work.’
The man then whispered to the woman following in line behind the pair and turned nervously back to Zaine. ‘What word shall we listen for sir?’
Zaine thought for a moment, and then murmured back, ‘rebel.’
*
‘So, why have you brought me here?’ Thorne asked, capturing one of the Baron’s bishops with his only remaining knight.
The Baron looked back at Thorne with his customary mocking smile, ‘I so rarely get such pleasant company.’
He then took the knight with a pawn, chucking the captured piece carelessly into his pile.
‘I would have thought the reasons for that were obvious,’ Thorne replied scornfully.
Annoyance flickered briefly over the Baron’s face before the familiar sneer returned. ‘My master wants you alive and well… currently. Perhaps you should bear that in mind,’ the Baron snapped, adjusting the cuff of his sleeve.
They continued their game silently, the fire crackling soothingly behind Thorne as he played, encouraging thoughts to emerge from his mind.
Where is Zaine?
How can I get away from here?
Thorne reluctantly faced the Baron and muttered, ‘so, your master wants me to be kept here for how long?’
The Baron smiled, tossing another captured piece into his pile, and replied ‘oh, just until we find your companion.’
Thorne felt his heart skip a beat, and hope flourished within him, ‘he’s alive?’ he blurted out.
‘Maybe, maybe not, we’ll see,’ the Baron said.
Thorne felt suddenly uplifted. The Baron must have noticed it too, as he added snidely, ‘why are you so pleased? I wouldn’t expect a rescue from such a man.’
‘What do you mean?’ Thorne frowned.
The Baron laughed, regarding Thorne with delighted surprise, ‘you don’t even know the truth about him? Ha!’
The truth? Thorne thought, biting down on his tongue in an effort to resist a tempting retort, what did the Baron mean? Was he playing with him?
‘The truth,’ continued the Baron joyfully, ‘is that your ‘friend’ has been rejected by his own people.’
‘What people and why should it matter?’ Thorne said defensively.
‘Dear me, you really don’t know what he is, do you? You don’t have a clue what you’ve been travelling with all this time,’ The Baron laughed, ‘have your people kept you so in the dark?’
The Baron leant back in his chair and stared at Thorne in mock incredulity. ‘What ever does The Shadow see in you?’ he muttered, then suddenly paled at his blunder.
‘The Shadow?’ Thorne frowned, ‘is that your master?’
The Baron quickly composed himself and returned to the game.
‘You misheard me,’ he said, pushing a piece forward.
‘I heard you perfectly,’ Thorne retorted, ‘are you scared of him?’
The Baron abruptly rose, swung his arm across the table, scattering pieces across the floor, and slammed his cane on the table.
In a tone that belied his rage, the Baron murmured, ‘excuse me?’
Thorne withdrew his hands, conscious of how close they were to the wolf shaped head of the Baron’s cane.
‘I fear no–one,’ the Baron hissed, thrusting the cane towards Thorne’s chest. ‘And as for The Shadow,’ he said, prodding Thorne’s chest twice with the cane for emphasis, ‘you will forget I made any mention of him.’
Thorne Grey and the City of Darkness Page 14
