by Jada Fisher
But the more her head cleared, the more she observed, and the more she observed, the angrier she got.
There were at least three large cages stuffed with at least ten witches each. She didn’t see a single face that wasn’t damaged in some way, featuring bruises, busted lips, cuts, and bumps. They were all bound, hands and ankles in manacles, but only a few of them had muzzles on. Ukrah didn’t know what made some of them dangerous enough to silence and others not, but she didn’t have it in her to puzzle it out.
No, the edges of her mind were too full of rage for that. And that anger only grew as she looked at the dozen or so smaller cages, most of them barely big enough for a dog. And yet there were young women and men shoved into them as well, their hands and feet chained together outside the bars to keep them in cruel positions. They were definitely hurt the worst, and gazing over them made Ukrah’s eyes blur with tears.
She saw one girl with a bloody bandage wrapped around her head, blocking out one of her eyes. There was another with their arm purpled and twisted at a weird angle. Yet another with what looked like part of their head viciously shaved with little caution. It was all so much violence, so much hatred, that it made Ukrah just as sick as she was angry.
How could any of it actually be happening? How could people be willing to hurt other people just for being born? None of them had asked to have dragon’s blood. Many of them had just been normal, magicless people before the cleansing. And yet none of that seemed to matter. The witch hunters and followers of the sect didn’t even see them as human. Just things to hurt.
But they weren’t things. They were people. They deserved to live. And not just live, but prosper. To be safe and secure and surrounded by people who loved them. But all of that was being ripped away, and for what? For what?
For gods that weren’t even alive anymore, devoured whole by Eist to restore the world.
She worked herself into such a frenzy that by the time another guard game close to her, she was fully awake. She was all ready to swing her legs up and try to hurt him, to make him feel even an iota of what she felt, but then she felt something tapping against the back of her knee.
It was just enough to break her conversation and she glanced down to see that the girl had reached one of her feet over and was trying her best to get Ukrah’s attention. The desert girl gave it to her, and the girl just shook her head slowly.
Ukrah wanted to argue, to say that she was done with playing around and trying to do things stealthily, but she couldn’t. The stupid muzzle kept her silent.
Why hadn’t the girl warned her about them? Surely, she had to know about them! She should have warned them, should have told them about the strange bonds the witch hunters used.
But maybe…maybe she didn’t know? Although Ukrah was almost certain that she was a vessel, it was clear that she wasn’t ‘awakened’ in any form. Although it was obvious she was affected by the spells, it didn’t mean she understood it or was even aware.
That was enough to cool her and the magic inside of her simmered just a bit. She could do this, if only for all the witches around her. Because, as awful as the scene in front of her was, she had a feeling there were more witches to see.
6
Throw the First Punch
Ukrah’s entire upper body ached by the time they were approached again, guards coming out from some hallway and passing the men who were eating and drinking at a small table. There were more than three of them this time, nearly a dozen, and Ukrah had to wonder if the men they had sent on a wild goose chase with Sleipffynor were still out or had returned while she was incapacitated. She really had no way of knowing, considering how occasionally different witch hunters would just wander through, but she felt like there would have been more to-do if they hadn’t returned emptyhanded from their great dragon hunt.
The moment her wrists were let down from the pully that kept her on her toes, she was falling forward. No one moved to break her fall, and she found herself crashing onto her numb, burning arms.
If she had control of her mouth, she probably would have let out a long, long line of curses. But instead, she could only make a muffled sort of cry before she was hauled roughly to her feet.
The girl and then Elspeth came soon after, but it wasn’t just them that were rearranged and chained into a line. No, apparently, they needed company, because the men wrangled four more witches from their cages, all of whom struggled at least a little. It wasn’t enough to break free, but it was enough to show that they were much more alive than any of those upstairs.
Ukrah didn’t want to think about what could happen to any of the people chained behind her to make them become the borderline husks that were in the room above. She was doing a whole lot of ‘not thinking’ lately.
There wasn’t much pomp or fanfare as they started moving forward, going through an entryway that led deeper into the cavern.
It would have been impressive how large the manmade space was if it weren’t used for such incredible evil. They passed several rooms, and she saw the rough makings of a camp kitchen, another armory, and a couple of barracks.
Then the floor started to slope down, similar to the ramp, but wider. It was a very short descent, however, and then they were being walked through one more hall between rooms and finally into another large room.
Except it was clear from the moment they stepped inside that it was the last room they wanted to be in.
Several other witches were lined against the wall, on their knees with their heads down. There was at least another dozen guards standing casually about, their eyes affixed on the small campfire in the center of the room, a waist-high table next to it.
And yet it wasn’t the fire that demanded attention, but rather the man who was standing in front of a witch, the young man bound to a chair while the other stood over him.
Ukrah swallowed hard, her gut dropping as she knew they were about to witness something she would not like at all. The witch was quite battered already, one of his eyes swollen shut, and blood down his chin. His entire face seemed to be one big bruise, or at least layers and layers of bruises all on top of each other.
The standing man knelt, in profile to Ukrah. He wasn’t a massive man by any means. He wasn’t overly thin either. He was decidedly average, with a nose that looked like it had been broken when he was younger and a shock of dark, dark hair. Freckles were dappled across his rather extreme cheekbones, giving his otherwise chiseled features a more boyish charm.
And yet there was nothing charming about him as he grabbed the witch’s hair and jerked his head down to look at him.
“Look, I know you didn’t ask for this. I know you don’t want to be corrupt, but it’ll be so much better for us if you could just help us find what we’re looking for.”
“I…don’t know…what you’re talking about,” the young man rasped, far braver than Ukrah would expect anyone in his position to be.
“You see, that’s where I think you’re lying. I think you, or at least something in you, knows exactly what we’re looking for. And I think it’s hiding that thing. So you and me are going to have a little talk until you tell me. Sound good?”
The young boy put his lips together, the muscles in his jaw working like he was going to spit. But before he could, the man backhanded him, the witch’s head jerking to the side.
The man had to be Roaric. She knew it without a doubt. Especially as he reached toward the table and pulled a metal length from it. But what she didn’t know was exactly what he was going to do with it. It was just a blunt stick, after all.
Until he set it in the fire, that was.
Her spine jolted straight, even when she was being pushed into a kneeling position on the floor. He wouldn’t… He couldn’t!
And yet the distinct scent of overly hot metal filled the large room, sizzling and popping in the fire. The witch bound to the chair began to try to writhe away, his eyes flicking between Roaric and the fire. As his panic grew, so did Ukrah’s, until she could
feel a cold sweat.
The man reached back toward the fire and grabbed the stick out of it, the red tip glowing brightly. Like he was doing something banal, he brought it close to the witch’s face, letting it hover just over his cheek. Ukrah could see the skin reddening, beginning to welt even without the metal touching him.
“Are you going to let me know your secrets yet or not?”
“I don’t have any secrets,” the boy spat valiantly.
In response, Roaric just sighed and pressed the length of metal to the young man’s cheek. The resulting sound, the resulting smell, made Ukrah retch, and she was lurching forward before she even knew what she was doing.
Only to get smacked right back down with the back of a gauntlet. The magic in her sparked up, fighting the hold the muzzle had on her, and she urged it on. No more waiting, she was going to destroy every last one of the witch hunters.
The young man’s screams were awful, ragged and pained and crying out for some sort of relief. Just when Ukrah was sure she was going to explode from the cry, Roaric pulled away and set the small pole back on the table.
“Now, would you like to try again?”
He was so calm, so collected, that it was utterly horrifying. Ukrah didn’t think he could be human. She had seen a lot of awful things in her time, but usually when someone was hurting someone else, there was a malicious sort of glee to it. But the man in front of her just seemed mildly amused at most and slightly inconvenienced at worst. There was no enjoyment. There was no reveling. It was just collected, pleasant, and entirely unnerving.
The witch didn’t say anything, although Ukrah could hear the whimpers and sounds of anger from the others kneeling around her. They all knew that whatever was happening to the man was liable to happen to them next.
And clearly that thought didn’t sit well with any of them.
“No? Still nothing? That’s a shame. I really thought you had potential, with how you almost managed to kill one of my men with your curses.”
“He murdered my sister!” the witch spat, trying to surge forward. But Roaric just stood and kicked the young man square in the face, knocking him against the back of the heavy, almost throne-like chair.
“No, not quite. You see, murder implies a human life, and I think we can agree that you and your kind aren’t human at all, are you? No, you gave that up when that heathen’s curse entered you.”
The witch opened his mouth to retort, but suddenly, Roaric was surging forward, a dagger laid across the man’s mouth so that the witch had to snap his teeth shut across the blade to keep it from cutting his cheeks.
“No, no, no, you don’t get to speak now. I know it’s not fair, because you didn’t ask for her curse. But somehow, it got inside of you and this is where we are now. I understand resenting it. I understand wanting to be anything else. I can help you find that absolution you’re looking for, but I need you to help me too.”
Roaric pulled the knife from the witch’s mouth, letting him spit blood before trailing it down his sleeve and to his hand. There, the man let the blade rest over one of his fingers, pressing down just enough to make a line of blood well up.
“So I’m going to make this simple,” Roaric continued, voice dryly pleasant. “You have ten fingers. I see that as ten more chances to reach deep inside of you and grab onto what you’re hiding. And if we run out of fingers, well, I suppose our conversation is over, isn’t it?”
Ukrah couldn’t take anymore. She wasn’t about to let the young men lose his fingers to a witch hunter. She surged forward again, but before she could so much as headbutt the man closest to her, the girl beside her ripped off her muzzle and screamed.
The sound was so sharp, so piercing, that the entire room seemed to shake for a moment. Those who were unbound clapped their hands over their ears and stumbled slightly. The witches all either flung themselves to the ground or tried to lean away, falling back onto their rears and scuttling as far as their chains could let them.
But Ukrah… Well, Ukrah could only stare, a strange, completely foreign feeling filling her. Because she knew, without a single doubt in her mind or body, that she was seeing a vessel awaken right in front of her.
And it was beautiful.
For a moment, she was whisked away somewhere else, and yet she didn’t move at all. Her vision bloomed gold and sparkling and vibrant, as if magic itself was bursting to life in front of her. It was like her dreams all over again, but instead of them calling out to her in terror, this golden spot was burning bright in her vision.
And just like that, the real world blinked right back in, leaving Ukrah kneeling in a room while the girl was standing at full attention, her body crackling with energy.
And then there was silence, the kind of uncertain quiet that came from everyone being too shocked to understand exactly what happened, as quickly as it was unfolding. But then the man, Roaric, lunged to grab something from his little torture table and it was like something snapped.
“Stop,” the girl hissed, her chains falling to the ground. “I think it’s time for you to be afraid.”
Roaric’s lips curled like he was going to smirk, but then a ripple flowed through the room and it froze on his face. In fact, every guard in the room was suddenly stock still, with different looks of shock and horror splayed across their features.
“Boo,” the girl said before breaking into a manic, haunting sort of laugh.
And it was as if her words triggered something. Out of nowhere, the men started screaming, some flinging their arms up as if to protect themselves, while others just turned and ran. There were even some who stood completely immobile, their faces turning grayer and grayer until they fell over into unmoving heaps.
It was chaos. Screaming, thrashing, and weapons being drawn. The witches all pressed themselves against the wall, huddled down to be the smallest targets that they could, trying to avoid the flailing, the running, the swords clashing against stones.
It was beautiful to watch, in a macabre sort of way, but her awe and rapture quickly decreased when one of the panicked men picked up a crossbow and fired it into nothing.
Except right behind that nothing was a group of huddled prisoners.
Ukrah grabbed that burning energy within her with both hands and yanked it upward, casting what felt like a wide net over the figures. It was the first time that she had done anything like that in ages, and for a brief moment, she was absolutely sure that it wasn’t going to work, but then the arrows hit the shield and popped into ash.
Relief flooded her, but she didn’t let herself relax, because the cacophony around her just seemed to be ramping up that much more. A man ran by them and slammed himself into a wall, falling back and trembling. Another pitched himself right on the fire. There were three fighting each other, cursing and saying things that didn’t make any sense.
And the sound was only growing louder.
It didn’t take any sort of soothsayer or seer powers to know that whatever spell the girl was casting, whatever curse she was enacting, was spreading out to the other levels of the underground prison.
“Come on,” Elspeth said, gripping Ukrah’s wrist and pulling her out of her reverie. “Let’s get these witches out of here before something bad happens.”
Ukrah nodded, not quite sure what to say. She wanted to stay and watch, to revel in the power the girl was giving off, and to see from the outside what it was like to watch an old spirit work so intensely through a vessel. But it was important to get the prisoners free. She needed to protect them, after all.
Hurriedly, she helped Elspeth free the witches one by one. The woman used a pick that she pulled from who-knew-where, and Ukrah gripped the chains to turn them to ash. It fought her a bit, and she felt the metal bite at her skin, but she ignored the pain until all of them were free.
“Follow me,” Elspeth said, unclasping the back of a gag from the witch nearest to her. “We need to free the others as well, but try to stay out of the paths of the guards.”
&
nbsp; “What is happening?” the just-freed witch gasped, her face pure white. “Are you all witches?”
“Something like that,” Elspeth said quickly, motioning for them to march forward, all of them still crouched low, but moving quickly. Ukrah brought up the rear, and she stopped when she noticed that the girl wasn’t moving from her spot.
“Hey, come on!”
But the woman didn’t budge, rooted to the spot with her hands partially raised. Ukrah could feel the power pouring from her, flooding the air around them with so much…so much…fear.
It wasn’t aimed at her, but if she concentrated, she could taste it, black and rancid on her tongue. It was malicious and angry, rolling out around them like whip cracks.
Ukrah almost wondered if she should leave the girl to do what she needed. After all, Ukrah had certainly done her fair share of nonsensical and violent things in the grips of her spirit. But then a massive explosion rocked the entire floor and they were both thrown from their feet.
She managed to catch herself, rolling like Ale’a had taught her so she hardly took any damage. But the girl didn’t fare as well, seemingly completely unaware that she was even falling until she slammed face-first into the ground.
“Hey, are you alright?” Ukrah asked, rushing to her side. She helped the girl sit up and her stomach twisted when she saw blood trickling down from her nose.
“W-w-what happened?”
Before Ukrah could even open her mouth to reply, a figure crashed into the girl, sending them both to the ground. She dove forward, gripping the shoulders of who she realized was Roaric and yanking him back with all her might.
She supposed she could have just used magic to turn him to ash right then and there, but she wasn’t thinking. She just needed to get the man off the girl.
But as soon as they stumbled backward, the girl was on her feet, her eyes glowing with energy and her teeth bared.
“You,” she hissed, and Ukrah was all too familiar with the tone of an old spirit speaking through its vessel. “Torturer.” Then her hand was on his face and she jerked his chin down to look right into her eyes. “Your trade is using fear and pain to get what you want. I wonder, though, how well you would react to the same being done to you.”
