by Riley Keene
“Where did that come from,” Elise asked breathlessly. “I’ve never seen you act like that before!”
“Consent is important,” Athala said. She started walking forward again and this time it was Elise and Ermolt who were forced to keep up with her. The thought squared Athala's shoulders and she walked with her head held high. “It’s a common thing in these types of social situations. People will try to take your ability to consent away to make you freeze up. To make you look weak. Fighting back wouldn’t have helped, either,” she added, smiling over her shoulder at Ermolt. “She might have backed off but others would have tried to take her place.”
“But they won’t now?” Ermolt asked.
“It’s unlikely. I showed dominance over you by protecting you. The woman ran away without me needing to harm her, so anyone bigger than her doesn’t know my strength and likely won’t take the risk, while anyone smaller than her knows they have no chance.”
A bell rang and prisoners started to file inside the two doors on the far side of the prison from where they entered. Elise, Ermolt, and Athala joined the group, but the other prisoners gave them a wide berth.
“Alright,” Elise said finally, “I have to know—how did you know how to react? Did you, er, did you like spend time in, uh, here before?“
“No, I didn’t spend time in Auernheim,” Athala said with a laugh. “I went to school at the Wizard Tower, though. As the new kid, you get picked on. If you want it to stop, you make friends. My friends always stood up for me, even if I was the stronger force.” She reached out and squeezed Ermolt’s arm, smiling up at him. “It’s just what friends do.”
Chapter Sixteen
By the time they made it inside, Ermolt was starting to feel much more like himself.
Ermolt didn’t feel attraction for people in the same way that others did. He noticed physical attributes that were pleasing, of course. But the idea of carnal desires—of spending intimate moments with any person, no matter the gender—was too much for him.
The very idea of someone forcing themselves into his space had caused him to be unable to protect himself. He’d reacted much like a deer when faced with a hunter. He froze and hoped fervently that they’d go away, instead of fighting or fleeing.
But the shame and fear instilled by an unknown person being so close and so forward was starting to fade away. So too was his guilt at Athala’s rescue. She was right. Helping each other was just something friends did. And he knew now that no matter what their work relationship, his companions were his friends. He would continue to spend time with them after this assignment was over, and he would enjoy every moment of their banter and playfulness.
Once inside the main walls of Auernheim, the prisoners broke up into groups of three or four, filing into their assigned sleeping areas. The cells Ermolt passed along the main halls were small and cramped, but a quick glance down a second hallway told him there wasn’t a better option further in.
The majority of the cells were occupied quickly, but with stragglers still coming in from outside, Ermolt didn’t feel comfortable claiming a cell unless it happened to already belong to someone else. Instead, he, Elise, and Athala milled around the major intersection of the two hallways.
Guards passed the group from time to time, but other than a gruff “move along” or a surly glare, the guards didn’t seem to care to deal with them not having an assigned cell. If cells were even assigned, and weren’t just claimed by new prisoners like candy at a children’s party.
After a quarter of a bell of standing around, Ermolt decided no guards were going to assign them to a cell. With Elise and Athala following closely behind, Ermolt stomped down the halls for a few moments until he found a vacant cell for them.
Ermolt knew Auernheim was outside the walls of the city of Khule, but he hadn’t really known what to expect. The prison was a smaller facility, intended more to hold prisoners while they were awaiting trial or serving shorter sentences. Likely no more than a month or two. If Ermolt’s quick math was right, there had to be more than fifty inmates in the facility at the moment, but fewer than a hundred, and the place seemed to be nearly at capacity. So why were the guards so lax with getting new people situated?
With a heavy sigh, Ermolt flopped down onto one of the cots that lined the three walls of the tiny room. “I hate to say it, but today could have gone a lot better.”
“Agreed. All we can hope to do now is to blend in,” Elise said. She motioned for Athala to pick a cot, and the wizard selected the one at the far end of the room. Elise settled into the one across from Ermolt. She collapsed onto the thin mattress, resting her arms over her head. “This place is large enough that if we keep our heads down, we should be able to wait out however long they sentence us for. We just roughed up a couple of guards and wandered in on someplace we shouldn’t have been. They can’t intend to hold us for more than a few weeks.” She paused. “A month at most for the enraged brawl.” Elise smiled at Ermolt.
“I’d do it again, too,” He grumbled as he tilted his head forward and massaged the back of his own neck. The muscles were still sore from the beating he took. “They had no reason to knock you out like that.” He looked up, smirking. “Honestly though, you might be out of here before Athala if we bring that up to the magistrate. I’ve heard you can get a week or two clipped from your sentence if they’re rougher with you than you deserve.”
“Well, I think that only applies when you’re not violent with them,” Athala said. “If they have cause to think you could start a fight with them, they’re allowed to do what they feel necessary in their own defense.” She looked up to Elise with a teasing grin. “You did knock some of them out.”
“Only two!” Elise shot back.
“What were we up to, five total?” Ermolt scratched his chin. “I dragged that one guard down with me at the end and I think he caught a boot that was meant for me, so if you count that, maybe six.”
“Yeah, they were unnecessarily rough with you, too!” Elise complained.
“Oh, not at all.” Ermolt shook his head. “That was a completely necessary level of roughness. They were just doing their jobs.” He shrugged and leaned back against the wall, rolling his head back so he could look up at the ceiling of their cell. “If they hadn’t been that rough with me, I’d have taken out the lot of them.
“Besides, regardless of what happens, when we do get in front of a magistrate, I’ll try and take the fall for more of the fight. We shouldn’t lie, or else we might get in worse trouble, but the more we can pin it on me—I did charge in and strike first—then I’ll get the longer sentence. The sooner the two of you get out of here, the sooner you can get back there and get that spell.”
Elise shook her head. “It might not be difficult to convince them that you’re just a bloodthirsty barbarian mercenary, but it won’t do us any good. I had as much to do with that fight as you did.” The Conscript looked down at her hands and she sighed. “They were Ydia’s guards, too. I wonder if she’s mad at me as well, or if my ignorance earns me a level of forgiveness that mortals can’t comprehend.”
A silence fell over them. Ermolt watched Elise as she battled with whatever internal war the religiously inclined had during moments of tested faith. When he looked to Athala, the wizard only shrugged.
“At any rate,” Athala said, her voice kept low, “I don’t know that we should hurry back to the spell immediately. We may want to—”
A commotion out in the hallway made Athala pause mid-sentence. The three of them shared a confused glance. Ermolt pulled himself to his feet and went to the cell door to peek out and see what was going on. Elise followed, but Athala stayed behind.
A bit down the hall, a group of prisoners were dragging along a sixth man, who struggled, but couldn’t break free. From what Ermolt could tell, they had dragged him out of his cell, and were pulling him deeper into the facility. Ermolt took a step into the hallway to watch them as they approached a door with a guard beside it.
T
here was no exchange of money or even words, as Ermolt would have expected. Instead, the guard looked at the man being held down and immediately opened the door for the group. One of the prisoners intentionally shoved the man they were dragging into the doorjamb, slamming his head roughly as the offender laughed. As soon as the door closed behind them, Ermolt began to follow. Elise trailed behind him, scowling and grabbing at his arm angrily.
“Ermolt! Did you forget already? We need to blend in,” she hissed. “Getting in the middle of a prison brawl is the opposite of blending in.”
“It’s hardly a brawl if he’s just getting pulled into a corner to get pummeled,” Ermolt said. “I need to at least make sure they’re not going to murder him or something.”
Elise hissed something in response but Ermolt ignored her. Athala’s words drove him forward. Whatever was going on, it didn’t look like consent was involved. And if no one else was going to be a friend, maybe it was Ermolt’s chance.
Ermolt walked to the end of the hallway, trying to look as inconspicuous and curious. “What was all that about,” Ermolt asked the guard as he approached, trying to keep casual.
“Prison justice,” the guard said with a shrug. “Guy has been stirring up trouble for weeks. It’s about time someone taught him a lesson.”
“Is that all, then? Just teaching him a lesson?” Ermolt leaned forward slightly. “They don’t intend serious harm, right?”
The guard shrugged and Ermolt wondered if the man was callous towards his duty, or just incredibly lazy. “None of my business. At least, as long as I didn’t see or hear anything directly, it’s not my business.” He grinned slightly, and Ermolt decided it was the latter.
Ermolt bit the inside of his lip, carefully thinking about how he wanted to approach things. “Do—do you mind if I go break it up? Just before someone gets killed?”
“Listen,” the guard said, rolling his eyes. “I’m guessing you’re new here so let me give you a little advice. If a prisoner makes trouble, pisses off the wrong people, and seems to enjoy being a nuisance, he needs to reap what he sows. We’re stretched too thin to make sure everyone plays nice and fair, and so we trust you lot to sort stuff out internally. If we have to get involved, there usually ends up being a lot more headache for everyone. So just let them do their thing and you go about doing yours. It’ll all work itself out in the end.”
“Hm. I see,” Ermolt said, scratching his chin. He glanced over his shoulder to look at Elise, who had been milling around down the hall a bit. Ermolt shrugged at her. She frowned and started forward, so Ermolt turned back to the guard. “I’m really very sorry about this, then.”
“What?”
Ermolt planted one of his massive hands across the guard’s face and slammed the back of the man’s head into the wall. Since the guard wasn’t wearing a helmet, the motion was fluid and painless. For Ermolt. The man slumped in Ermolt’s grasp.
“That,” Ermolt said with a grimace. “I was really hoping not to need to do that.” He eased the unconscious guard to the ground to keep him seated with his back to the wall.
“Ermolt!” Elise yelled, even as she managed to keep her voice low. “What are you doing?”
“Those prisoners are going to kill that guy! He wanted to just let it happen.” Ermolt checked the door and wasn’t surprised in the smallest to find it unlocked. This place wasn’t exactly the most tightly run operation. He eased the door open, attempting to be as quiet as he could. The door itself was for some reason well oiled and the hinges didn’t so much as whisper a creak.
“And?” Elise said, following him. She kept her voice low, and crept forward to check on the guard. Ermolt could see he was still breathing, and part of him viciously hoped the man would have a really bad headache to remind him why it was so vital he actually took his job seriously. “What business of ours is that man?”
Ermolt paused halfway through the doorway, the wooden slab extended in front of him. He remembered the fear and the shame, and the feeling of relief when Athala stood up for him in the yard. When he realized he wouldn’t have to suffer alone.
When he realized his companions were both his employers and his friends.
“It’s not right,” he said after a moment. “And that’s enough for me.”
Chapter Seventeen
The room beyond the door was tall, narrow, and poorly lit. Large windows marked the far wall, starting at about shoulder height for Ermolt, but there were thick metal bars covering them. The room seemed to function as an infrequently-used storeroom, but Ermolt suspected it originally had a much more important purpose. It almost looked like it could have been a place of worship.
Mostly empty shelves filled the space, running from the floor to nearly the ceiling. There was about a fen of space between the top shelf and the beams that ran the length of the room. The shelves that had items on them seemed to be clustered to the entrance to the room, and most of those in the direction of the windows stood completely empty. A long aisle spanned the entire room, leading from the door to where the windows stood, just wide enough to accommodate Ermolt’s massive shoulders.
The group of prisoners and their captive were huddled around the front of the room, where whomever had re-purposed this room realized that having shelves next to giant windows was likely a bad idea, bars or no bars. Ermolt and Elise snuck forward and situated themselves just behind the ends of the fullest shelves they could find. They peeked around the shelves to spy on the group of prisoners and their captive.
“—cheat at cards, that’s fine,” one of them snarled as he kicked, “so long as you cheat to win!” The kick landed in the prisoner’s gut, and the downed man retched, gasping for air. “You ruined my reputation! No one will play against me. You lost and so now I’m the cheater!”
“Not my fault you’re so shifty,” the prisoner said between wracking coughs. His attackers backed off a little to let him breathe, but also likely to avoid any vomit that might be spewed across the floor if the retching got worse. “If it weren’t so believable, maybe no one would have believed me.”
“Get him up,” the apparent leader said, and the other five grabbed the downed prisoner and lifted him to his feet. Three of them spread out to cover the space if he tried to bolt, and the other two held the bruised man up against the wall. The leader bent down, pulling a jagged slice of metal from within his shoe, half-wrapped in cloth to make an improvised knife. “I’m gonna take your lying tongue first. Then those cheating fingers. But don’t you worry, Detlev,” he said, patting the beaten prisoner’s cheek with his free hand, “you won’t live long enough to miss them.”
“See?” Ermolt hissed in a whispered tone, addressing Elise from across the aisle without turning to face her. “I can’t just walk away and let that happen.”
“Go, then,” Elise said. It was obvious she was irritated at him, but neither of them could just walk away at this point. “I’ll keep an eye out for guards.” She started to say something else, but Ermolt was already moving.
Ermolt approached the group, slow at first but then picking up speed as he got closer. He didn’t bellow or give any warning to his approach other than the sound of his massive feet pounding on the group. The narrow nature of the stockroom meant there wasn’t much the attackers could do when they eventually noticed the massive charging barbarian.
His charge took him to one side of the leader, directly past the three goons who stood to his right and left. With the force of his gait behind him, Ermolt forced his shoulder into one of the two men holding up the man they called Detlev.
The impact was violent.
He hadn’t been running at top speed when he hit, but he’d still moved a considerable distance. The man had looked up just in time to see Ermolt charging and hadn’t even had time to flinch. Ermolt’s shoulder connected with the man’s upper chest and he flew bodily backwards. There was a sharp click as the man’s head hit the wall. He slumped to the ground, groaning and clutching his mouth. A rivulet of blood seeped down
his chin, likely from a bit tongue.
With one down, Ermolt immediately took a wide swing at the other man. Ermolt expected him to back off, but he stuck to his post. In fact, he held Detlev to the wall right up until a massive fist collided with his jaw. He spun halfway around from the impact and staggered back, clutching his face with a groan of pain.
“What do you think you’re doing?” the leader said, brandishing his knife. It was almost as if he was unsure how to approach someone almost an entire fen taller than him.
“The right thing,” Ermolt said, rolling his eyes. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Ermolt stepped in front of Detlev as the beaten man sagged against the wall. “You should try it sometime. How about now? Walk away and we’ll all pretend this didn’t happen.”
There was the tiniest bit of hesitation and Ermolt thought he may have gotten through to the men. But the leader recovered first and gestured forward to his remaining henchmen. “Don’t just stand there—get him!”
The three prisoners lunged.
Well, two of them lunged.
As Ermolt was grandstanding, Elise had crept up behind the group. As soon as they tried to move she grabbed one around the ankles. The would-be attacker fell on her face. Hard. Elise dragged her back with a solid yank and slammed a fist into the back of the fallen prisoner’s head, knocking her out. Ermolt grinned as Elise scooted back between the shelves, managing to go unnoticed.
Ermolt was grateful for the downed opponent as the other two attacked. They were trying to outflank him, a task made harder for them by Ermolt now having as many hands as opponents. One of them lunged forward, aiming a punch at his face. Ermolt leaned back, letting the punch fly past.
He immediately turned his attention to the other prisoner, catching an attempted kick to his groin with both hands. Ermolt yanked upward on the limb and the attacker yelped as his back foot was lifted from the ground. He let go and the man landed on his head with a grunt. Ermolt grabbed the other assailant by the shoulder. With a swing of his foot, Ermolt swept the man’s knees out from under him and he was thrown directly on top of his companion.
