The Cursed Lands

by Timothy L. Cerepaka

  And when that day ended, there still wasn’t any sign of Sarzen, Rothel, or anyone else. During the night, Helnia would think she would hear someone she knew walking outside her shack, but every time she looked out the window, she’d only see one of the Draymens slavers patrolling the streets to make sure that none of the slaves were awake.

  As a result, Helnia was beginning to despair. She had been informed that her bead necklace was probably still in tact, but it had probably been taken to the small cluster of houses just beyond the town’s borders, where the Draymens slavers lived. But no slave was ever allowed near those houses unless summoned by the Draymens or worked there as the personal servants of the slavers; and even then, the slaves who worked there had no contact with the slaves who lived in the town, so they couldn’t coordinate an effective rebellion.

  Helnia tried to fight off the despair, but with each passing day, her spirit became weaker and weaker. Every day became more and more monotonous; she even stopped talking to Aroda, who was the only slave she considered a friend. Helnia once even cried herself to sleep, but she didn’t do that often because the Draymens slavers had zero tolerance for tears from the slaves, even tears shed at night when no one was working.

  It was on the fifth night after Helnia’s kidnapping that she was lying on the floor of her shack. She was just lying there; she wasn’t even trying to sleep. It was partly because she was so tired, but also because today, she’d suffered a particularly brutal whipping from a Draymens due to the fact that she’d somehow lost her pick during lunch. Her back burned with pain and it was covered with dried blood; the pain was so bad that she couldn’t even close her eyes.

  I’m so exhausted that I can’t even sleep, Helnia thought. I can’t take any more of this punishment. Sooner or later, I’m going to die, unless Sarzen and the others get here. But they might only just be in time to bury my corpse.

  Tears welled up in her eyes against her will. She sniffled and brushed the tears from her eyes, but she stopped that quickly because she just didn’t have the energy not to cry. After all, she’d already been punished today; it wasn’t like getting whipped a second time would make much of a difference.

  So Helnia just let the tears flow from her eyes. She punched the earth and then shivered as a cold breeze flowed through the open window.

  I need help, Helnia thought. Someone … anyone … help.

  She looked up at the ceiling, which was too dark to see. She wondered if the Dragon Gods were listening. She had not thought about them very much since her first day here. She technically didn’t even really worship them; she never saw any reason to.

  But maybe, just maybe, I should pray to them this one time, Helnia thought. What do I have to lose? It isn’t like my situation could get any worse.

  So Helnia closed her eyes and prayed a brief prayer to the Dragon Gods. The last time she’d prayed to the Dragon Gods had been nearly twenty years ago, when she had been four-years-old. She recalled being taught how to pray by a retired Warrior Priest in her hometown, an old man named Chen. It had been the last thing old man Chen had taught her, because he passed away the next year. Perhaps that was how Helnia remembered the prayer, even though it had been two decades since she last prayed it.

  Silently, Helnia prayed this prayer:

  O Dragon Gods,

  Lords and saviors of humanity

  Defenders of goodness and truth

  Your servant is alone, shattered, and on the verge of death

  Aid me, O Dragon Gods, aid your suffering servant

  Remember the covenant you made with your people

  And do not let your servant continue to suffer.

  That was it. Even just praying that prayer was almost more than Helnia could handle. She had no idea if the Dragon Gods had heard that prayer or not. Sarzen would tell her that they had, but she didn’t have the kind of faith that Sarzen did. She wasn’t sure she had any faith at all, but she hoped that the Dragon Gods might still feel friendly enough to humanity in general to at least consider her request, especially since she used a prayer that was said to have been written by the Dragon Gods themselves.

  That was when Helnia heard a scratching sound outside. She raised her head, wondering what it was, and looked up at the window. She did not see anything, but then a small, white bird flew through the window and landed on the ground before her.

  It was a beautiful little bird and, despite the darkness of the night, Helnia could see it quite well, because its body generated a bright glow. It had a silver beak and amazing golden eyes, golden eyes that looked up at her curiously.

  That was when Helnia noticed a small letter tied around its leg. Despite her exhaustion, Helnia reached over and undid the string around its leg. Taking the note, she unfolded it and read it by the bird’s small glow:

  Helnia,

  If you get this letter, it’s me, Sarzen. We know where you are and we’re planning to break you out. I can’t give you any details in case this letter somehow lands in enemy hands, but don’t lose hope.

  From, Sarzen.

  Helnia blinked back the tears that were coming from her eyes, tears that were actually tears of joy rather than tears of sadness. She looked at the bird and sniffled, hoping that the bird would confirm that it was actually from Sarzen and that this wasn’t just some kind of sleep-deprivation induced hallucination.

  The bird just gave a small chirp and flew away, but Helnia did not care. She looked at the letter again and then looked up at the ceiling.

  Maybe the Dragon Gods were listening after all, Helnia thought.

  And for the first time in five days, a smile appeared on her lips.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The chirping of a bird caused Sarzen—sitting in the darkness of the night in the hills surrounding the slave town known as Reck—to look up. The Slayer’s pet bird, named Shine, was flying through the sky back toward their camp.

  The Slayer, who sat on the edge of the camp with his head down like he was asleep, suddenly looked up. He raised his hand and Shine landed on it. Shine immediately started chirping at him, noises that made no sense whatsoever to Sarzen, but the Slayer looked like he understood every word the bird said.

  All around Sarzen, the other members of the caravan were starting to stir. They lay on the carts or on the ground, sitting up and rubbing their eyes as they looked over at the Slayer, who was still listening to what Shine was telling him.

  “Is the bird back?” said Rothel with a yawn. He was lying on the cart behind Sarzen, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. “Already?”

  “Looks like it,” said Sarzen, whispering because he did not want to interrupt the Slayer’s conversation with his pet bird.

  But secretly, Sarzen was almost too excited to sit still or lower his tone. For the last five days, Sarzen and the others, with the aid of the Slayer, had crossed the border between Yores and the Cursed Lands and traversed the dangerous, rocky terrain. They had had to move slowly and carefully, avoiding paths and roads that the Draymens might walk upon, but more than once the uneven ground would cause a wheel on a cart to break. Thus, they spent a lot of time repairing their damaged carts, which had slowed down their journey considerably.

  And, of course, there was the problem that they did not know exactly where Helnia had been taken. So they had ambushed and kidnapped a lone Draymens they had stumbled upon drinking from a creek, who told them about the nearest slave town of Reck, where captured mages were often taken. The Slayer had then killed the Draymens, mostly because they did not have any way of easily transporting it and they did not want it to escape and warn its fellow Draymens of their arrival.

  When they found Reck, Sarzen had first wanted to charge headlong into the town and kill any Draymens they ran into. He thought that one sudden, abrupt attack would take the Draymens by surprise and make it impossible for them to mount an effective defense.

  The Slayer, however, had shot down that suggestion almost immediately by pointing out
that the Draymens were far craftier than they appeared and that they only had about a dozen people versus the three dozen or so Draymens that their scouts had spotted in the town. The Slayer had argued that it made more sense to observe Reck for a few days and then form a plan based on what they learned before they rushed into anything.

  The Slayer’s argument made sense, so Sarzen accepted it, but at the same time he also wanted to get into contact with Helnia and let her know that they were going to rescue her. That was when the Slayer told Sarzen about Shine, his small pet bird that came out of nowhere. Sarzen thought that Shine might be a Raugian, due to how its feathers glowed with power, but the Slayer insisted that the little bird was yet another gift of the Dragon Gods and that it would be able to deliver a message to Helnia with only basic instructions from Sarzen.

  So Sarzen, using what little paper they had brought along with them from Sinmo, had jotted down a quick note and tied it to Shine’s leg. From what Sarzen could see here, Shine’s leg was bare, so he assumed—hoped—that Shine had successfully delivered the note to Helnia, which meant that she was still alive.

  Finally, the Slayer stood up, placed Shine on his shoulder, and walked over to Sarzen. His expression, as usual, was grim, but he did not seem depressed.

  Unable to stand the suspense, Sarzen stood up and said, “What did Shine find, Slayer? Is Helnia all right? Is she still alive?”

  The Slayer stopped and nodded. “Yes. Shine delivered the letter to your sister without any problems.”

  “How is she?” said Sarzen. “Is she okay?”

  “Shine said she looked like she was in terrible pain,” said the Slayer, “but she wasn’t dead or dying.”

  Sarzen sighed in relief. “Thank the Dragon Gods. I was sure they would have killed her by now.” He put a hand on his sword’s hilt. “Let’s go in now, while the Draymens are asleep.”

  “Hold on,” said the Slayer, “we don’t want to move too hastily. Like I said, these slave towns are always well-protected in order to make sure that the slaves don’t escape and that no one tries to free the slaves within.”

  “But this is the perfect time to attack,” said Sarzen. “The Draymens—”

  “Are probably still awake,” said Rothel, causing Sarzen to look at him. Rothel was sitting up in his cart now, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Remember, Draymens love the darkness. If we attack now, they’ll have the advantage.”

  “Rothel is right,” said the Slayer. “Draymens know how to fight in the shadows better than humans. Attacking now would be foolish even if it gave us the element of surprise.”

  “Then when should we attack?” said Sarzen. “During the day, when they will all be awake?”

  “Yes, if we want to make sure we stab the Draymens and not each other,” said the Slayer. “One thing I’ve learned in my experience as a Draymens Slayer is that you never pick a fight with them at night. That’s why they always attack towns and villages at night; they have no problem taking advantage of their natural strengths and using them to eliminate their enemies.”

  Sarzen bit his lower lip. “What if I just sneaked into the town and freed Helnia myself? We don’t need to save everyone. We really just need to save Helnia.”

  “How good are you at stealth?” said the Slayer.

  “Bad,” said Rothel, before Sarzen could answer. “When we were teenagers, he tried to sneak out of the Sanctuary to hang out with me, but ended up making so much noise that the deaf caretaker of the Sanctuary caught him and dragged him back to his bed.”

  “Hey, he didn’t actually hear me,” said Sarzen in annoyance. “I just knocked over that statue of the Dragon Gods and he felt the vibrations in the floor.”

  “You’re still pretty clumsy, though,” said Rothel. “Not really a master of stealth.”

  “I figured as much,” said the Slayer. “Sarzen makes so much noise when he walks that I sometimes can’t even hear myself think.”

  “I’m right here, you know,” said Sarzen.

  “I know,” said the Slayer. “Doesn’t change the fact that you couldn’t sneak into a sleeping deaf house without awakening everyone inside it.”

  “Then what do you suggest we do?” said Sarzen, throwing his arms up into the air. “Just sit back and continue to let the Draymens treat my sister like dirt?”

  “Of course not,” said the Slayer. He gestured at the small bird on his shoulder. “Shine did not merely deliver that note to Helnia. I also had him do a quick overview of the town’s defenses in order that we might be able to plan our next attack.”

  “Really?” said Sarzen. “Did he find out anything important?”

  The Slayer nodded. “Yes. I think we now have enough information to come up with a useful, workable plan to save Helnia. And the rest of the slaves, too.”

  “We’re going to save all of them?” said Rothel. “I thought we were just going to save Helnia.”

  “She’s our main focus, but the other slaves are in the same boat as her,” said the Slayer. “I’ve made it my mission to defeat the Draymens and protect humanity from them. I’ve never freed a whole slave town before, but if I can, I will.”

  Sarzen folded his arms across his chest. “Fine, then. I’m not against saving everyone else, just as long as we save Helnia, too.”

  “Of course,” said the Slayer. “We just need to be smart about it. Despite their bestial nature, the Draymens are very sly. Besides, we won’t just have to worry about the Draymens opposing us.”

  “Who else is there?” said Sarzen. “Do the Draymens have allies we don’t know about? Another species that is against humanity and the Dragon Gods?”

  The Slayer smiled a grim smile. “Yes. You may have heard of them. They’re called humans.”

  “Humans?” said Sarzen. He glanced at the others, who all looked as confused as him. “I don’t understand. Why would humans work with Draymens?”

  “I’m talking about the slaves,” said the Slayer. He sighed. “Draymens slavery is cruel. It isn’t just about physically punishing the enslaved. It’s also about shattering the minds and wills of the slaves and making them loyal to the Draymens, no matter how badly the Draymens treat them.”

  “But doesn’t every slave want freedom?” said Sarzen. “If I were enslaved, I know I would.”

  “You’d think so, but many simply give into despair, due to the fact that the Elect has failed to send anyone to liberate them,” said the Slayer. “Quite a few slaves tend to think that the Draymens will eventually conquer Yores, so they side with them in order to ensure their own survival. They’ve been known to aid Draymens in enslaving and killing even more humans.”

  “Willingly?” said Sarzen.

  “Very willingly,” said the Slayer. “Smugly, in fact. I’ve met more than few slaves like that in my time. In fact, I was nearly assassinated by one such slave, back when I first started my battle against the Draymens. He tricked me into believing that he wanted freedom and then almost slit my throat in my sleep after I ‘saved’ him from his master.”

  “Do you think the slaves of Reck will fight against us?” said Rothel.

  “Possibly,” said the Slayer. “I’ve never been in the Cursed Lands before, nor have I visited this particular slave town before, so I don’t know for sure whether these slaves would fight for their masters or not. Optimistically, I would like to say that they would simply step aside and let us kill their masters and free them, but it is equally possible that the slaves will pick up their tools and fight us in defense of their masters.”

  “And there’s at least three hundred slaves in that town,” said Sarzen. His shoulders slumped. “That’s equivalent to a large squadron in the Yoresian Army. In comparison, we have less than a dozen mages and Warrior Priests between us.”

  “Exactly,” said the Slayer. He looked up at the sky night, like he was thinking about what to do next. “I still think we can do it, but again, we will have to be careful.”

  “I wish we had known all of this before we left Ars
,” said Rothel, brushing back some of his long hair. “We didn’t even know that slave towns existed.”

  “That’s because the Elect have been making sure that no one in the mountains knows just how bad things have gotten in the plains,” said the Slayer. “There are at least five slave towns in Yores and most likely ten times that many in the Cursed Lands, based on what I’ve heard from those few slaves lucky enough to escape. And no one has come to save them, except for me.”

  “Why would the Elect do that?” said Sarzen. “I know they can be very lazy, but this just seems dangerous, as if they don’t care about the survival of their own people at all.”

  “I don’t know their reasons for it,” said the Slayer. “But I do know that they haven’t helped. If the Elect actually did choose to send the Yoresian Army to free the slaves and defeat the Draymens, they could solve the problem easily.”

  The Slayer sounded bitter about the Elect’s refusal to help. Sarzen understood that, mostly because he was beginning to feel that way himself. He had never had much respect for the Elect in the first place, but if they were knowingly refusing to help the people, then that meant that they were enemies of the people of Yores. That just made Sarzen all the more anxious to find the Dragon Gods; he had a feeling that the Dragon Gods’ aid would be needed for more than just killing Draymens.

  “Anyway,” said the Slayer, his tone suddenly brightening, “that’s a discussion for another time. For now, we need to focus on making plans to invade Reck … and I think I know just the way to do it.”

  ***

  Chapter Twenty-Two