Convict Fenix

by Alan Brickett

Crippled, he lay there gasping for breath, heart hammering, and body shuddering from the overwhelming stress.

  They let him lie there, his wounds all sealed and numbed while the pheromones were breathed in. The entire pack prowled around him, yowling and calling out, some lying on their back to twist and turn in pleasure, legs in the air with the sheer abandon of the high fueled by his terror.

  It seemed he had calmed enough to reduce the effect after a while, so two of them came in to bring him back to the peak.

  Each Larantis pushed against one side of his head as if they were a vice and he was caught in the middle. Then they open their mouths and licked at his ears, checking the shape of them. Sharp teeth closed in behind the lobes, close to his skull in the painfully sensitive flesh adjacent to the bone.

  Then the tug of war started with his ears as their holds.

  He had thought he couldn’t feel more pain than he had before.

  He had been wrong.

  He lost his left ear first, the whole thing torn from him with a wet sound of fleshy chewing. The sounds were different now, but he could, unfortunately, still hear. The Larantis set off into their howls and joyful coughs.

  The one with his right ear shook him with it, pain striking down his neck and up into his brain. In a pique of having lost the contest, it took its frustration out on him, trying to get him to flinch or go rigid at the treatment.

  But he stayed relaxed, letting it pull him along the ground, trying to keep it going for as long as possible while the other side bled out. If he could just bring it to an end!

  But one of them, perhaps more experience than the rest, interceded and chased the other off his ear before licking the left side wound closed and numbed it at the same time. Then it put a paw down on his forehead and one over his chest.

  Others came up to grab and hold his ankles and wrists, holding him down quite effectively.

  The one standing over him looked into his eyes, and he realized then that everything he thought he had experienced thus far would be enough for them, he was so very wrong.

  They were quite smart, and adept at prolonging the life of their meal, prolonging the resulting fear as far as possible. To create it over such a span of time, they had become adept at the means with which to create new heights of terror in their prey.

  The Larantis bent its head and chewed off his nose, slowly nibbling down to the cartilage. And then it ate that as well, right up to the skull.

  The slow progression was excruciating and prolonged. His piercing screams lit up the silent of the night.

  Even then, it wasn’t done.

  With clotting blood slathering his face, he had a picture perfect view of the Larantis’ mouth, the rows of sharp teeth, and the rough tongue when it closed over his left eye and sucked out the eyeball. Pain such as he had never felt before was cut off with a slick tongue that probed the now empty socket.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, it then moved over to the other eye and did the same.

  Blinded, maimed, and injured, but all numbed over, the Larantis left him to suffer in darkness. But they would return, prodding and clawing at him before once again disappearing. They would go eerily silent and then surprise him at opportune moments.

  His existence was reduced to waiting for the next slashing claw, the next bite of teeth. It was amazing that they kept him going like that for hours before his body finally gave up, unable to produce any more fear.

  Finally, there at the end, when the madness had utterly taken hold, and he was just a broken husk of meat and bones, the Larantis finally granted him the mercy of death.

  **

  He returned to consciousness within his own body, the pulsating, utter terror of those final moments still pulled at him in sympathy from the divination magic.

  A connection forged with the victim as it was happening, putting him in exact proximity to the mind of the slave sent out to die. He was covered in sweat from the horror experienced by the slave, the unending sheer panic, and uncontrollable surges of helplessness.

  This was the twenty-sixth night in a row of the same thing being done over and over, each time a new slave, each time a new way for them to experience fear and die horribly. Not that the manner of death disturbed him, which was precisely the point.

  A lifetime of discipline in the warrior’s arts had made him into an instrument of death, one without fear.

  What Aurelian taught him now was the intensity of real fear, something he could only experience through another.

  For twenty-six days he trained in the morning, honing his martial skills, and afternoons were spent in practice with the new magical levels he could reach. Arcane study, rigorous and demanding, as ever before and more. No lapse allowed, no weakness.

  Then at night the next part of his training, filled with the fear of others; depending on how long a slave lasted, it might be as many as six a night.

  One after the other until the next day dawned.

  A trial of endurance, of pushing his limits ever further and growing stronger by it. The intensity of his primal talent required the full range of emotion to be truly harnessed. She intended this period to be all about fear, and his overcoming it, controlling it and learning exactly how to use it. He could expect it to go on for quite some time. The thought nearly brought back a fresh bout of terror, so the exercise was working.

  “You are doing well.” Her voice caressed his mind, succored the ache, and drove home Her core of unshakable will that he succeed.

  “I watch, you know. I also experience it, the delicious nature of their terror, as it affects you. I see you improve, you come to immerse yourself in it, understand it, and it will no longer have this effect on you. Become one with it and add it to your gift.”

  He listened, and his mind received the impressions She sent, the ways to bolster his magic and what it would do. Promises of more, so much more.

  “Shall we start the next?” She asked.

  He could try to refuse, but She would just smile and carry on anyway, then punish him later. He could resist, but She would easily overpower him and then punish him for it.

  But why would he?

  He wanted this, this was the path to every desire he had in life, and it was what he wanted.

  Day 59…

  Two days after dealing with the strange fey women found Fenix and Convenient looking out from the deep forest at the cathedral fortress of Joanne.

  From their position, the two men could see very little activity going on in the building. It sat a squat tone structure with battlements and long walls, on top of an island in the middle of a small lake.

  The forest land mass covered a lot of ground and contained a river that went from the northwest to the southeast, along the way the river expanded or narrowed. Strong currents would form, there were some waterfalls, and it had carved out quite a few diverse channels from the forest itself.

  Due to the speed of the water’s flow and the size of the trees, the banks would inevitably widen, and the soil would be held together only by the roots of the plants. Erosion was an ongoing battle between the forest life and the river’s constant cutting away.

  As such, the river wasn’t a reasonable means of travel, the current flowed downstream to the southeast, and the sides were packed with dense undergrowth.

  In this area, however, the group that followed Joanne had been at diligent work with amazing results. The natural lake had formed at some point when the river current, along a tight bend, wore away into a stream, then a more extensive flow and finally as another river around a more substantial chunk of rock.

  That chunk of rock being roughly half a mile long on all sides, with regular wear being more natural away from the foundation, a lake formed around it.

  Fenix couldn’t be sure from this distance, but it seemed the rock itself was a different texture from the ground and stone he had seen so far. Almost as if something was buried deeply into the land mass and the river had exposed it.

  Whatever the cause it was a
n excellent foundation for a fortress, and Joanne’s group seemed to agree.

  A stone bridge was constructed from the central island to the outer land mass proper, mostly it was a set of railings with a stone base on both sides. A drawbridge spanned the gap, with long thick ropes connected to giant wooden winches on the island side building where it could be raised. The walls were all twenty feet or higher, crenelated with long slits for the sentries to look out of.

  No towers, but the island was narrow enough not to allow for a building that would need them, but there was a central building. Twice the height of the walls, the primary structure had a peaked roof and platforms for sentries.

  Seen from afar it seemed a fortress constructed around a cathedral, that building in the middle exuded an air of formality.

  “It doesn’t look like she is here.” Convenient was saying, crouched down in the bushes at the edge of the forest. There was an apparent effort by the inhabitants of the fortress to keep a clear area around the entire lake, tree stumps and furrowed ground showing where they harvested timber.

  “Why do you say that?” Fenix asked.

  The old knight pointed out the sentries and the raised drawbridge. “Not enough men, the soldiers on the walls and the raised drawbridge. See there the ground on the other side where they use the road is recently churned as well.”

  Fenix nodded.

  “I’d say she took a large contingent and went off on some mission or another. And also see up there, on the flagpole above the cathedral roof?” Again the old knight pointed for Fenix to see a long metal pole with a flag flying on the very top, the tip pointing due west in the direction of the wind. “A yellow flag, I’ve seen it fly there before when they are notifying their own at the far fortress and outposts that all is fine.”

  “Clever.” Fenix had already covered Convenient’s knowledge of Joanne’s group, he had apparently spent some time observing them in the hopes they would be similar to his order. A faint hope but one he had cherished until learning otherwise.

  “Then I’ll just need to find a way to get her called back if they have a signaling system it works in my favor,” Fenix mused.

  Convenient looked over at him. “How do you plan on doing that?”

  “I’ll find a way, tonight when I sneak in to get the lay of the place. I’m sure there will be some means available to get her attention.”

  **

  The guards were indeed diligent, they patrolled the outer walls and sentries stood on the inner platforms at all hours.

  Small lamps in iron cages were kept down low to the ground to preserve night vision, while every guard was also encased in full steel plate armor. It meant that they didn’t move at all silently, although quieter than he would expect new recruits to move.

  How he knew that was locked away in his mind, but Fenix was learning to trust his instincts even more.

  In the dead of night, he had snuck through the cleared area around the fortress lake, Convenient stayed behind since although he could hide his presence and move silently, he didn’t sneak well.

  Or climb the walls as easily as Fenix, who was stuck to the outer wall like a leech, listening to the rounds of the guards on the walkway above.

  With the blue flame, he drew tiny cilia from his palms, the skin of his elbows and his knees, through the tips of his boots. The intensity of the fire drove it into the stone wall with ease, he then hardened the cilia, and they gripped into the rock. Like a spider or fly, he could grip onto any surface this way with a little magical effort.

  He counted the steps, listening to the strange metallic sound of steel on stone echo from above, rebounding from the water below.

  As cold as it had been he was able to stay warm from within, he could still smell the mud from where he had crawled out as it dried on him. The guard came to a stop in the crenellation above, and Fenix moved, lurching his palm upward into the gap between the stones.

  From his palm, he projected a thick pointed blade of blue fire, it burned into the soldier’s neck as quickly as it did the stone and Fenix grabbed on to pull the being into the opening. Whatever it was, inside the steel armor, it was dead from the searing agony that severed its spine and burned away everything in its throat.

  Only the musculature on the side of the neck kept it from being decapitated, but Fenix wanted it to look humanoid for a while longer.

  He quickly climbed up and over the wall, leaving the armored figure apparently standing and looking out over the lake. Silently he dropped in beside the dead being, the last wisps of white and black smoke seeping from within the armor.

  A useful thing, encased like that in steel, which could still hold a form even while the Prison reduced the contents to nothing.

  A surreptitious slide of his hand in under the breastplate and he got the Vitae. The soldier wouldn’t be missed for a few minutes; it was the only being patrolling this wall. Seemingly, Joanne took most of her group with her, or she didn’t have enough followers or a combination of the two. Either way, security here was probably based more on reputation than effectiveness, so Fenix had free rein to explore for a while.

  Having a dead guard found would likely serve his purpose, but he wanted more reasons for Joanne to be called back and with haste.

  **

  Twenty minutes later and Fenix had a much more concrete plan of what to do to attract Joanne back to her base.

  Through stealth and astute maneuvering, he had managed to kill another two of the would-be guards. It wasn’t their skill, or lack of it, that interested him as much as their armor. It was all masterfully forged, toughened steel with framed edging, leather worked buckles and belts and limned in runes of protection.

  Whoever forged the implements of war used by these beings was highly skilled; these items did not come from the mines although the Ore likely did. Fenix had explored all of the Warlock’s available resources, and none among them could churn out this high quality of work for so many.

  So Joanne must have her own blacksmith, and since he had spotted the chimney with the atypical smoke of a forge, he was sure of it.

  Losing the means to make war would surely get her attention.

  Which brought him down through some extensive passages into the depths of the cathedral building, where the corners were sharp and angular. The stone was layered together from pieces and cemented in place. It would have been a lot of effort to cart large slabs of the stuff from the mountains, although the cornerstones seemed to have been worth that effort.

  The rest of the buildings were made up of smaller pieces mashed together.

  He got a brief look inside the round room at the end of the long building that seemed to serve as barracks and armory.

  It was the most resplendent of the entire building so far, as expected of a fanatical bunch their place of worship had received the highest attention, their cathedral. But off through a side passage from the main corridor he followed the sound of a bellows whooshing air, coupled with the smell of soot and iron.

  One floor down, where they had obviously sunk their foundation stones and dug into the rock around which the lake outside had formed, Fenix found the smithy.

  A massive chimney dominated the shorter wall on one side, inside of it burned the forge fire with coals stacked beside it for easy access and addition. Mechanical bellows hung from the ceiling along the opposite side from the pile, while the far wall was dominated by shelves of tools and materials.

  The blacksmith was obviously humanoid, two legs and two arms dressed in leather trousers, a blacksmith’s leather apron and cotton shirt underneath. His skin was sallow, like melted wax and an ivory color going to a light gray in wrinkles and joints.

  The man beings’ face was all angles with a jaw that could double as a chisel. Eyes of granite peered out from a lowered brow, and they were actually the color and texture of granite, a very interesting feature.

  A pair of long chains were embedded within one of the walls, the thick links of some smooth metal connected to
rings in the back of the blacksmith’s knees. It looked like the rings had been shoved through the flesh between the back of the bones and the tendons that ran up behind the knee joint, then been allowed to heal.

  Fenix saw the bolts poking up from the trousers through the front of the kneecaps, and he understood why the blacksmith didn’t just free himself by tearing the rings out.

  An effective means of keeping a prisoner who also had to work, he was impressed with this Joanne, if nothing else for her practicality.

  Seeing no other guards and having disposed of the sentry who walked the halls above, Fenix decided that a prisoner wasn’t going to cry for help on first glance. He stepped out into the room with its sconces of oil lit by tapers.

  The blacksmith was working a blade against a grindstone, his sharp gaze rapt on the turn of the wheel.

  Fenix coughed to get his attention.

  “Put it over there.” The voice was garrulous, deep and flecked with echoes of rock moving inside his throat. The blacksmith gestured at an open table to one side.

  Fenix put on a friendly smile for when the man looked over. “I’m not a delivery. I have altogether something else in mind.”

  “Humpf. More torture then, while your mistress is away?” The blacksmith looked up and then did a double take when seeing Fenix was not one of the armored soldiers he was most used to seeing.

  “Who are you?”

  “It doesn’t really matter, does it? What you say confirms my suspicions, and you would be very valuable to me gone from here. So could I do you a favor and free you?” Fenix replied.

  “Uh, why yes, that would be lovely. Wish I had thought of it before now.” The sarcasm came out thickly with the man being’s heavy tone. He reached down and pulled on the chains attached to his knees. “Care to wonder how it is that I can forge enchanted swords and axes though I’m still a prisoner?”

  Fenix’s smile turned feral and grim. “Oh I think I’ll manage. You can walk can’t you?”

  “It’s rough going with these bolts, but yes, I can get up a good shuffle. What are you doing?”