by Jamie Davis
“I’m not telling you, Norak.” Hal summoned up what he hoped sounded like bravado in his voice. “What are you going to do? You’ve already said the Emperor wants me sent to him unharmed. You’ll just have to find them the hard way.”
Norak threw his head back and laughed for a few seconds before he turned and fixed Hal with a wicked grin plastered across his face.
“Hal, I think you misunderstood something I said earlier. The Emperor specified he wants you brought to him alive. His Majesty said nothing about unhurt. What I do to you in between here and there is entirely up to my discretion.”
Hal tried not to show fear. He tried to keep the look of bravado on his face and stare back into those dark eyes without flinching.
“You can try and hold on to your false sense of devotion and bravery, Hal, but believe me, I can be very persuasive. I will find out what I need to know. Then I’ll make you stand beside me while my army crushes your little slave rebellion once and for all. I have a special weapon I’ve been looking forward to trying out in battle. You’ll get to see it used against an opposing army for the first time.”
“Eventually, Hal, those who survive will surrender. I’ll parade the survivors past us in review and they’ll all see you standing with me and know you betrayed them. Then, as I put each of them to death, they’ll curse your name with their dying breath.”
Norak took off his black cloak, unhooking the black metal clasp that held it in place on his armor. He handed the cloak to one of the two officers standing nearby and reached up past Hal’s head, picking something up from the table beyond his view. When the baron’s hand returned to view, it held a long thin knife that looked like it had a razor’s edge.
“Now, where shall we begin, Hal? You see, I like to see how much of my victim’s skin I can remove in one piece. Perhaps I’ll have it tanned and make a shirt of your own skin to wear when you are taken into the presence of the Emperor. That’s the beauty of having a healing mage at my beck and call. I can take as much as I want short of killing you. He’ll just cast a spell and heal you just enough to grow new skin so I can start all over again.”
Hal set his teeth and told himself he wouldn’t scream or call out as Norak bent over him and set to his grisly task. It didn’t take long for Hal to lose his resolve, though. As the health damage messages played across his vision, Hal knew he’d reach a point where he couldn’t stand it anymore.
After a time, it seemed as if all he heard were his screams, echoing in his ears until they sounded like they were coming from someone else. It was then he knew he’d reached the point of no return. He would betray his friends, betray the slaves he’d promised to free and lead against their oppressors. It was only a matter of time.
31
Someone kicked Hal hard in the ribs, waking him with a start. He groaned as the pain and shame of his torture returned to him.
“Get up, slave. The baron wishes to show you his new toy.”
Hal rolled over and sat up. Two imperial guards stood over him. The bigger of the two brought his foot back to level a kick at Hal’s ribs again. Holding up his shackled hands in front of him, Hal scrambled to his feet. He felt weak and unsteady but he managed not to fall over.
A quick check of his health status told him the mage had only healed him just enough to keep him alive and no more.
Health: 10/112
Hal’s rough-spun shirt rubbed against his open wounds where his skin had not fully regrown. The burning pain brought tears to his eyes but he managed not to cry out. He knew his torso looked like a giant scab where Norak had peeled the skin in long thin sheets from him again and again.
That evil man was going to pay for this, among many other things he undoubtedly had done to others in the past. Hal didn’t know how, but he was going to take his own revenge against the baron in due time.
The guards each grabbed Hal by an arm and took him half shuffling half dragged in his shackles. A chain ran from the metal cuffs on his wrists to similar bonds around his ankles, making it difficult to walk upright.
The chain was not long enough to let Hal straighten completely and he shuffled along hunched over between the two imperial soldiers. The bent position pulled at his wounded flesh, sending burning ripples of pain through his torso as he struggled to keep up with the pace set by the guards.
The camp around them was bustling with activity. Tents and pavilions were being struck and packed for the march westward. Now that they knew of the valley where the rebel army hid and trained, it was just a matter of moving the imperial forces westward against them. Hal looked around, trying to see anything that might offer him an opportunity to escape.
He focused his mind, hoping his lucky slots would start spinning again and set in motion a series of unlikely events in his favor that would allow him to free himself. It had worked so many times in the past, he’d come to rely upon it. Nothing happened.
The guards took him to the center of the camp where a large area had been cleared with no tents. In the center, a giant pit was dug in the earth. Norak stood perched on the edge of the pit.
He must have been waiting for Hal. The baron turned and smiled as Hal was dragged up to where he stood.
“I’m glad you were well enough to join me, Hal. I have something I want to show you.”
“Well, it would have been rude of me to turn down your invitation, delivered as it was by these two fine gentlemen.”
Norak chuckled. “Good, you still have some fight left in you. The Emperor will appreciate that. It would have been a shame if I’d broken you completely when I questioned you yesterday.”
“What do you want to show me, Norak? I still have to plan my escape and then complete my oath to kill you with my bare hands.”
“Ho, ho, so you plan to kill me, do you? Get in line. There are many who have sworn such an oath. A few of them are even still alive.”
Norak waved to the guards and they brought Hal over to the edge of the pit.
Hal looked down into the center of the hole in the ground. It was at least fifty yards across and perhaps ten yards deep at the center. There were a cluster of about ten men and women at the center.
They’d all been stripped to their undergarments but Hal recognized some of them. They were more of his troops. They must have been captured as they fled with Kay and the others. He looked carefully among them, but didn’t see any sign of Kay, Otto, or the others.
“I brought you here to witness the first test of my new weapons against human targets. My pet mages and alchemists have come up with a concoction they call fire sand. Let me show you.”
A robed man came over as Norak gestured to him and set a ceramic bowl down in the dirt at the edge of the pit a few feet away from them. In the center of the bowl was a pile of dark gray granules. It looked to be the consistency of coarse ground grain or corn meal.
“This is fire sand, Hal. It is what is going to help the Emperor’s armies complete their conquest to the east and bring the rebellious cities here in the west back under the Empire’s control.”
“It looks like a pile of dirt,” Hal remarked.
“It does but watch what happens when a flame is applied to it.”
Norak pointed to the bowl and the robed man waved his hands in the air for a moment then pointed at the bowl, muttering under his breath. A thin jet of fire extended from his outstretched finger and lanced straight at the granules in the bowl.
There was flash of flames and a bang and a whoosh of rapidly expanding air. A cloud of black smoke billowed upward. When the smoke cleared, the bowl on the ground had been cracked into dozens of fragments, all blackened by the explosion.
My God, Hal thought. They’ve discovered gun powder.
His mind raced as he thought about what a game changing development this would be for warfare on Fantasma. There would be few who could stand against the Emperor’s forces if they developed widespread use of firearms here.
“It’s impressive, is it not?” Norak said.
“I’ve seen its like before,” Hal said.
“Really?” Norak sounded disappointed. “You must tell me more. Another time, perhaps. If you know what it is, you can help me develop more weapons and military applications that can use this fire sand. Of course, we have already created a few innovative methods of delivery. Watch.”
A squad of six crossbowmen moved to the lip of the pit and leveled their weapons at the prisoners in the center. Hal thought they were just going to shoot them with crossbow bolts until he saw the bolts were shaped with an inch-thick metal tube affixed just behind the arrowheads. A thin strand of cord extended back along the shaft from each of the tubes. Each man had a quiver of similar projectiles at his waist.
At a nod from the baron, six other men moved forward and held flaming brands up to the strands of cord, which sparked to life, burning towards the metal tubes at the ends. The crossbowmen quickly shouldered their weapons and fired down into the pit. Each struck one of the prisoners.
Before they could fall from the deadly bolts embedded in their chests, the fuses reached the charge of fire sand in the tubes and the heads exploded. The explosions opened gaping wounds in the prisoners they’d struck and wounded the others next to them with shards of metal from the tubes.
The assistants handed a second set of cocked crossbows to soldiers at the edge and they set more of the exploding projectiles in place. Once again, the fuses were lit and the bolts fired down into the few prisoners still on their feet. When the smoke cleared this time, all the prisoners were down.
Norak clapped his gauntleted hands together and smiled at Hal.
“Imagine what that will do to a closely clustered group of pikemen or a shield wall, Hal. No one will be able to stand against us now, and that’s not all. We’ve come up with larger projectiles that can be thrown by catapult or ballista. City walls will crumble before us once we have a large enough supply of the fire sand.”
“What, you haven’t got storehouses full of the stuff ready to go?”
“Unfortunately, one of the ingredients is hard to come by, something to do with bat-shit I’m told. All the fire sand we have is stored in those two wagons over there. But we will solve the problem of supply soon enough, Hal. Once we do, we’ll be an unstoppable force. All we have to do is prove the efficacy against real troops in the field. That is where your rag tag army of slaves will come in handy.”
Hal could see the explosions impacting his closely packed formations up and down the line if his troops were drawn into a pitched battle with Norak’s forces. It would end in carnage unlike anything this world had ever seen before.
Norak let loose a gruff chuckle.
“I can see by the look on your face you know what my new weapons will do to all who stand against me. This will usher in a new age here in Fantasma and you will be here to watch its beginnings before you are sent to the Emperor for your spectacular execution in the Imperial Square before the entire palace court.”
“I can’t wait.”
The baron turned to Hal’s guard detail. “Take him to the front of the column and tie his lead rope to my mount. I will enjoy leading him like a dog on a hunt. After all, he is the one leading us to our quarry.”
The others around Norak laughed at Hal’s expense. The guard beside him gave him a rough shove that almost toppled him over. In his weakened condition, he still couldn’t keep his balance very well and it showed in the way he stumbled off in the direction of the rapidly forming army column.
Hal steeled himself for a long day. If he didn’t manage to remain on his feet, he was sure Norak would have no problem dragging him along behind his horse until the column stopped to rest. He had to conserve his strength and look for a chance to escape. He had to get away and warn Bilham, Kay and the others that the Baron’s army was on the march.
32
The imperial column began a slow march westward for five days until it reached the forested foothills of the western mountains. Hal kept his eyes open, trying to find a way to escape from his captors.
Quest accepted — escape the imperial camp
Hal’s elusive luck continued to be missing in action.
He pulled up his stats. He was confused to see his luck attribute grayed out for some reason. He concentrated on it but was unable to gather further information. All he could surmise was his luck was somehow being dampened by something Norak had done to him or by something inside the camp itself.
Whatever he was going to do, it was going to have to rely on normal chance and not his own unusual luck. His wounds from the torture still bothered him and he was sure some were becoming infected despite the initial treatment from Norak’s pet healing mage.
Each night, the guards chained him to a metal stake driven into the ground with a sledge hammer behind Norak’s pavilion. The fifth night there was a tree close enough to offer him some shelter from the misting rain that had fallen all day and into the evening. Hal was soaked to the bone and shivering uncontrollably as the guard locked his chains to the stake.
“Stop shaking, you fool.” The guard swung the back of his gauntleted hand, striking Hal in the back of the head. “I’m trying to get this done so I can get out of this rain.”
“I-I-I can’t h-help it. I’m f-freezing. Aren’t you supposed to k-keep me alive? If I die of exposure, your boss won’t be t-too happy with you.”
The guard finished locking him to the stake and stared down at his quivering prisoner.
“Fine. I’ll get you a blanket, but that’s it. If you want to survive the night, you’ll have to make due as best you can.”
The guard stormed off and returned in a few minutes with a thin, moth-eaten woolen blanket.
“Here, it’s the best I can find. Make sure you’re alive when I come back to get you in the morning.”
“Or w-what?”
“Just don’t cross me.”
The guard launched a kick at Hal’s hip that jarred him to the bone. Hal glared at the guard’s back as he disappeared into the swirling fog that was forming throughout the camp.
As darkness fell, the fog thickened further until Hal could barely see the glow of the nearby campfires. The few soldiers still up and about in the dismal weather were mere shapes stalking past in the darkness.
Hal pressed his back against the tree trunk, feeling the rough bark press into his back. He pulled the thin blanket up about his shoulders and draped it across his chest, drawing his legs up under the makeshift covering to try and keep warm in the damp cold of the night.
He dozed fitfully, his intermittent dreams filled with visions of his friends being blown to bits by explosions in the battle Norak sought with the slave army. Each time he’d startle himself awake and stare about in the foggy darkness trying to orient himself to the real world.
This last dream was really staying with him. It had shown him Kay’s lifeless eyes staring up into the sky after an explosive crossbow bolt had blown open a hole in her chest. When he woke up and opened his eyes from the painful vision of his friend’s death, he still saw her face floating in front of him.
It was strange and he blinked several times to clear the vision of her smiling face from his eyes. Why was she smiling anyway? She was dead.
“You shouldn’t be so happy. You’re dead.”
Kay turned and spoke into the darkness around them.
“He’s burning up with fever and delirious. Rune, get over here and see if you can do anything for him.”
Kay’s face faded from view and was replaced with the bald-head and clean-shaven face of the eastern monk.
He hadn’t been in Hal’s dream this time at all. Why was he there?
“Where’s Kay? I need to tell her it wasn’t my fault, Rune. I have to tell her they forced me to tell them where the army was hidden.”
“Shhhh. Easy, my friend,” the monk said. “You are very ill. Let me tend to you and then we can get you out of here.”
Hal reached out, touching Rune’s face with his fingertips.
&
nbsp; “You’re here. You’re really here, aren’t you?”
“Yes, we’re here, Hal. We’ve been close by all the time, we just couldn’t come get you until we got more help.”
Someone placed a heavy cloak around his shoulders. Hal looked up to see Otto smiling down at him. Behind Otto, Junica stood, searching the foggy gloom around them, her bow at the ready with an arrow nocked.
Strong, callused hands gripped his face, turning him forward again. Rune held him there, eyes closed while he murmured something under his breath. Hal felt a familiar warmth spread through him, but he was still struggling to focus on his surroundings
.
“That’s all I can do,” Hal heard Rune whisper. “We must get him to the mage for more healing.”
Quest accepted — find the mage
“Mage? She has to send me home,” Hal managed to mumble. “I need to play…manager training.”
Kay shushed Hal, “Don’t worry Hal, we’ll get you to someone who can help.” Kay turned to the others, “we need to get him out of here.”
Hal managed to open his eyes long enough to see his friends dressed in the uniforms and armor of imperial soldiers, heavy red cloaks pulled around them.
“Junica, find us a way through the sentries.” Kay ordered. “Rune, watch our backs while Otto helps me carry Hal out of here.”
The three captains nodded at Kay and set about their tasks. Hal felt Otto pick him up, but even though the large man was gentle the pain was too much for Hal’s fragile consciousness and he passed out.
