The God in the Shadows (The Story at the Heart of the Void Book 1)

by TorVald, Nikolas

  “Take her back to Reigandal. She was part of that light show that just went down. General Atlatraigan will want to question her personally.” Selth almost smiled as everything went completely black. If only they knew.

  23

  Prisoner

  Selthraxadinian, Lord of Light and Darkness, has betrayed us this day. But do we succumb to fear and terror at that thought? No! We fight as we always have! The deceiver may have run back to Az’emon but we will stand strong!

  – Speech by Tel’arib to the Armies of Order

  Selth woke up with a massive headache, feeling as though someone had shoved a large wooden stake through her back and left it there for several days. With a groan, she tried to sit up and realized that she was stuck. A blindfold covered her eyes and the smell of horse was in the air. As her senses returned, she realized that the clop of shod horse feet on stone was resonating through the air. From the uncomfortable swaying she was experiencing, and the fact that she couldn’t move, she assumed she was tied to the back of a horse. As the slow rocking of the animal continued, Selth slowly faded back into oblivion.

  The feeling of falling woke her right before she smashed hard into the ground. She sat up with a groan and a rough hand ripped the blindfold from her head. She saw she was in the middle of a small military encampment and her hands were bound with a piece of rough rope. Selth frowned down at them, she didn’t see why someone would bind her hands with rope when the traiganidorian had attached a massive chain to them.

  A man grabbed her roughly from behind by her hair and, ignoring her screams of pain, dragged her towards the center of the camp. Laughter echoed roughly around the camp at the sight of her and she gritted her teeth in a snarl, clamping down on the screams which had been issuing from her throat. Reaching for her power, Selth readied herself to destroy the whole campsite. Instead she hit what felt like a smooth wall of glass. Her power was visible just on the other side, raging to get out and be used, but no matter how hard she tried to reach it she couldn’t breach the wall.

  In horror, she looked down at the traiganidorian’s chains wrapped around her wrists. When she reached for her power they seemed to glow a sickly green and grow more solid. Selth cried out in shock as the man dragging her threw her into a large pit in the center of the camp. It was ten feet deep and she tumbled awkwardly as she fell, landing on her arm with an audible snap. She screamed but the soldier just gave a nasty laugh and turned away. Dragging herself painfully to her feet, Selth backed her way up against the wall of the pit. She looked around and saw that there were a few other people with her. They each looked desperately thin and wore little but their smallclothes. Glancing down, Selth realized that she was similarly stripped, thin clothes the only barrier between her and the outside world. With a shudder, she saw that most of the people in the pit were men and they were all looking at her hungrily. Swallowing, she summoned her shadow daggers – and nothing happened. She looked in shock at her hands, and the chains binding them, then back up at the approaching men in horror.

  A snarl twisted Selth’s features. She was not some helpless farmer to be abused by these filthy people! Whipping forward, she smashed her fist into the nose of the foremost man. The chain was only about three feet long, making her keep her hands together as she swung, but that was more than enough. The man screamed and collapsed in a heap as she landed lightly on top of him but suddenly the chains of the traiganidorian weighed a thousand pounds. Selth fell to the ground, unable to hold herself up, and lay helpless before the remaining men. They smiled cruelly, and began moving towards her once more, but a voice cut them short, “Gruntle! Reygel! Illic! What are you doing to that poor girl!” An old woman stepped towards the three men who were still standing.

  “This ain't none of your business old woman,” the largest of them said gruffly. He was licking his lips nervously, “We got needs and this girl here can satisfy them a lot better than anyone else in this forsaken pit.” The other two nodded their agreement, each eying the woman with the same frightened gaze the original speaker possessed.

  “Well, Gruntle, perhaps you would prefer if I gave you snakes instead of those useless things you have hanging off you now. Would that do away with your needs? Hmm?” the old woman snarled.

  Gruntle shook his head vigorously, “No need for that Mother Grimsky. No need for that, we got other ways to satisfy ourselves. No need to be turning us into snakes or anything. Please Mother Grimsky.” He appeared close to tears as he finished his sentence.

  Mother Grimsky tapped her chin thoughtfully, “Very well then. I won’t turn your precious pieces into snakes. But you leave that girl alone, you hear me! And tell that useless sod the same when he wakes up,” she shouted, pointing a gnarled finger at the unconscious man lying besides Selth, “although I doubt he’ll need the encouragement.” The three men hurried off to one side of the pit and she bent towards Selth. “Come here child.” she took Selth’s arm and moved her towards the center of the pit. Selth looked the woman up and down. She was an old lady, scraggly gray hair extending just past her shoulders, and she wore a robe when everyone else was in their smallclothes. She had few teeth left in her mouth and walked hunched over, as though a great weight were pushing her towards the ground. The hand that clutched Selth’s arm was gnarled and wrinkled to the point where it looked more like a claw than an arm. Bare feet, twisted in a similar manner, peeked out from under the old lady’s robe. As Selth moved towards the center of the pit she noticed a rancid smell that hadn’t been apparent before. Mother Grimsky noticed her wrinkling her nose, “Aye, this isn’t just the prisoner pit. It’s best if you just stay in the center, that way their shit doesn’t hit you on the way down. Might still be pissed on but it’s better than shit.”

  Selth looked at her, horrified, “Why would they do that?” she asked.

  “Because they’re soldiers, dearie. And low-ranking soldiers at that. They’ll do anything to make themselves appear more powerful than they really are.” Mother Grimsky looked up at the top of the pit and gave an evil look that nearly had Selth backing away from her. “Now let’s look at that arm of yours.” she said, gently taking Selth’s broken arm between her own. Selth hissed in pain and tried to jerk back but Mother Grimsky kept a firm grip. She sucked on her few remaining teeth and peered over the arm thoughtfully, “Sorry dearie, nothing I can do about this. Just try to keep it immobile, eh? No more beating up on men when they try to take you. My threat will keep them off for a little bit but eventually one of them will test it.”

  “Can’t you, you know, do what you said?” Selth asked, horrified at what Mother Grimsky had suggested. It wasn’t that she wasn’t familiar with rape, growing up in the slums had hardened her to seeing a woman taken in such a way, but she had always been able to avoid the men who tried to grab her. She didn’t think she could handle it if one of the men actually managed to do that to her.

  Mother Grimsky laughed, “Don’t be a fool honey. If I was powerful enough to do that I’d transform all these soldiers into snakes and climb out of here free as a bird. No, I can do a few illusions but that’s it. Enough to get me captured for witchcraft but not enough to be useful.”

  Selth shivered and sat down in the center of the pit, drawing her working arm around her to try and stop the shivers that suddenly wracked her whole body. “When do we leave for Reigandal?” she asked, trying to focus on anything but what the woman standing over her had said.

  Mother Grimsky laughed harshly then bent over in a hacking cough that lasted for almost a minute. “Leave for Reigandal? Girl, we never leave for Reigandal! These soldiers say we’re leaving every day but they don’t want to go any more than the rest of us do. Life’s easy for them and at least here we keep out of the Questioners’ hands. This may seem bad to you right now but if you knew what a Questioner could do you’d be begging to stay.” the old lady started laughing again, “Leave for Reigandal. I never thought to hear it!” She stopped talking and slowly lowered herself down besides Selth but the lau
ghter never left her face.

  “Then what do I do here?” Selth asked in a small voice, “How do I get out?”

  Mother Grimsky looked at her sadly, “Ah girl. What do you do here? You die here. You slowly starve to death on piss-ridden bread and the smell of shit in the air. You die from the abuse heaped on you by the four criminals who just tried to rape you. You die and there is no way out.” She bent and untied the bonds around Selth’s hands, “Maybe you’ll last longer than some of the others, maybe not, but everybody who comes here dies. I’m only alive because they’re afraid to let me die.” she cackled wickedly and called out, loudly, “Who knows what happens when you kill a witch!”

  “Shut up you crazy old bat!” A voice echoed from outside of the pit but there was a note of fear in it.

  “See?” Mother Grimsky laughed softly in Selth’s ear.

  She leaned away from the old woman, she may have saved her life but the she was clearly insane. Instead Selth hunkered down onto the floor and thought of her companions, her friends. She thought they had gotten away. It was difficult to know, if soldiers had been so near the traiganidorian they could have captured those three as well, but she hoped they were out there. Maybe they could rescue her, she hoped they could, but Aren was intent on the mountains and more likely than not he thought she was dead, slain by the traiganidorian. They had likely given up on her. Selth fought down a sob as it rose in her throat. She would not express weakness before these people, perhaps if she showed them exactly what she could do they would leave her alone. She tried to rise to her feet, determined on killing everyone in the pit, but the chains upon her arms grew heavy once more.

  She sank back onto her knees, then dropped down into a sitting position. A soldier’s rough laugh sounded above her head. “Hey! Little Girl! You know what I’ve got for you!” he called down. She shifted so she could look up at the man then leapt back in horror as he undid his pants and started pissing into the center of the pit. The urine landed across her body before she could get out of the way and she stumbled and tripped as she moved backwards in an effort to get away, falling into a massive pile of shit that lay in one corner of the pit. She scrambled to her feet then looked on in even more horror as she saw the other residents of the pit, even Mother Grimsky, scurry towards the stream of urine and thirstily try to drink it out of the air. As the stream came to an end the man fished a piece of bread from behind his back and finished pissing on that then tossed it down into the pit behind Selth so that it landed in the large pile of shit. She had to jump to get out of the way as the four other conscious denizens of the pit charged to get to it, ignoring the shit as it splattered their bodies. In an instant Gruntle was up, brandishing the bread triumphantly overhead before shoving it into his mouth without bothering to wipe the feces off. Selth nearly lost what little food was left in her stomach. No doubt they would have eaten that too.

  Mother Grimsky hobbled out of the pile of shit and back towards the center of the pit, scowling angrily. She sat down and glared at the people surrounding her. Selth started to move back towards her but Mother Grimsky laughed and held up a hand, “No, no. This is my area, I won’t let those pigs harm you but you get to sleep along the edges and get shit on like everybody else.” Cackling madly, she pointed towards an empty area near the pile of shit and, with a disgusted feeling in the pit of her stomach, Selth made her way towards it. She thought about attacking Mother Grimsky but if she did that then the rapists in the pit would realize how helpless the old witch really was and that would be far worse for Selth than anything else.

  As she moved towards the side of the pit her chains grew heavier and heavier. They seemed to grow heavy whenever it was most inconvenient for her and they were always draining her energy. When she reached the part of the pit Mother Grimsky had indicated she collapsed on the ground. She tried to force the tears away from her eyes but she couldn’t help herself. Sobbing quietly, Selth curled into a ball and fell into a troubled sleep. She hoped Mother Grimsky would keep her promise of protection, she hoped that Aren or Kant would show up to rescue her. Nightmares plagued her all that night. She kept seeing the traiganidorian’s claw reaching out to rip her apart, she kept failing to use her powers as faceless disgusting men stood over her and did horrible things. She saw Atlatraigan drag her to the ground as Aren, Kant and Mattle stood by with impassive faces.

  She almost sobbed with relief when she woke up. A smear of shit ran down her stomach and the smell of piss was all around her. A brief touch of her hair showed that someone had been particularly careful with their aim that night but she barely cared, anything was better than the nightmares. Selth pulled herself into a ball and resolved not to move for the rest of the day. She sat staring up at the edge of the pit as the sun slowly rose to illuminate the inside of it. Her arm throbbed with a deep pain that told her it was infected, presumably from the conditions she had been forced to spend the night in. She almost laughed; she would probably welcome the relatively quick death of infection over starving to death on shit and piss riddled bread. She still couldn’t believe the scene of four grown humans leaping to drink piss out of the air.

  Slowly the other denizens of the pit came awake. The man Selth had knocked out the previous day was up as well. She didn’t know his name, and she didn’t want to, but she hoped that the other three men would tell him what Mother Grimsky had threatened. If one of those men attacked her today she wasn’t sure she would be able to defend herself. She felt crushed under the weight of the traiganidorian chains, barely able to hold herself up.

  Fortunately, although they eyed her hungrily, none of the men moved towards her. Instead they flicked worried glances at Mother Grimsky and stayed in their sections of the pit. Selth gave a small smile of amusement through her horrified psyche. Even in the worst pit of Hell that she could imagine, there was still a social hierarchy dictating who could do what. Drawing her knees up to her chest, Selth leaned her head forward and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to fall asleep but she didn’t want to look around at where she was either. One of the soldiers came up and pissed directly onto her head but she just kept her eyes closed and ignored it. Another soldier tried to shit on her and the disgusting matter splatted all along her left side. Gruff laughter followed the incidents and Selth tried to wipe the stuff off on the side of the pit but the dirt walls just stuck to the shit and made her feel even worse.

  Selth felt sicker and sicker as the day dragged on. It was more than the infection in her arm, it was the traiganidorian’s chains draining the life force out of her. She looked down at them, they had grown thicker and more visible since the traiganidorian had managed to put them on. A sickly green glow emanated from the chains and they were more solid than ever, despite the fact that nobody else seemed to be able to see them. A dark streak of humor sneaked through Selth’s mind and she had to laugh. Here she was, trussed up like a pig for slaughter so that Atlatraigan could torture her to insanity, and she was going to die in some forsaken pit in a corner of Mardule that nobody cared about.

  The whole day Selth sat up against the side of the wall. She had held out some hope that Kant or Aren would come back for her but if they were going to then they would have done so already. It wouldn’t have taken them long to follow the tracks left by the soldiers to this camp and Kant could probably walk in in the middle of the night and smuggle her out without the soldiers even noticing they had lost a prisoner. As the sun went down though, Selth gave up her last strand of hope that anyone was coming for her. The manacles clamped around her hands grew heavy as anvils and it felt as though her life force was being dragged out of her. Leaning forward, darkness closed in around her.

  Selth’s head snapped up as screams echoed across the soldiers’ camp. She dragged herself to her feet and looked out at what she could see of the camp. Suddenly a burning soldier staggered into view and fell into the prison pit. Selth leapt back in shock and stared at the man, uncomprehending. Why was one of the soldiers on fire? Her mind wasn’t working right, tho
ughts moved slow as ice as she tried to puzzle out what was going on. The thrum of a bowstring pierced the camp and that sound registered as important to her but she couldn’t figure out why. A scream shattered her fatigue and brought her back to the present. Gruntle had grabbed the dead soldier’s sword and in one smooth stroke he’d brought the blade around and chopped into Mother Grimsky. The old witch fell to the ground, dead.

  Gruntle snapped his head towards Selth, a nasty grin appearing on his face, as she stared in shock at the old woman who had offered her protection. “Time for us to have a little fun, sweet thing.” the massive man stepped towards her and she backpedaled until she came up against the wall of the pit. Gruntle advanced, a cruel grin on his face. He was huge and Selth doubted she could knock him out as easily as the other man, even if the chains would let her. Several of his teeth were lose and a scar slashed across his face from right ear to chin. Turning he said, “You each get your turn after me.” The other men laughed and Gruntle turned back towards Selth, “Just us now sweetheart.”

  Selth turned her face into the side of the wall as he leaned in close, his rank breath spilling across her face. She nearly puked and Gruntle laughed cruelly. Reaching up a hand to take her cheek and force it back towards him he toppled back with a scream. Selth stood frozen, uncomprehending, and Raxous leapt off the body of Gruntle, the man’s face more an open wound than an actual face anymore. He screamed again as his life slowly drained away. Raxous gave Selth a wary look then turned back towards the three remaining men. Each of them looked as shocked as she felt at the appearance of the wolf. She hadn’t seen him for most of their journey through Mardule, she hadn’t even been sure he was still alive, but she was more than grateful that he had showed up. Three black fletched arrows appeared out of the remaining men’s chests as Selth stared at the wolf and she spun around. Mattle was standing at the edge of the pit looking down at her with horror written plain on his face. “Hold on!” he shouted then disappeared back towards the camp. She wanted to yell after him, to tell him to stay, but he was already gone. Raxous moved towards her and rubbed up against the side of her leg, ignoring the fecal matter which coated it. She entwined her hand in the wolf’s fur and clutched it as though it were the only thing tethering her to the world.