by Ben Wolf
Calum rubbed his forehead with his fingers and closed his eyes. “Why? We’ll both eat well for the rest of our lives. Does anything else really matter?”
“Absolutely.” Axel smacked the table with his palm, and Calum’s eyes opened. “I want to get out of here, find some adventure. I want to make some coin, learn to fight, and live life the way I want to live it. I want to find a beautiful woman and feel the warmth of her body close to mine. I want children of my own someday. Doesn’t any of that matter to you?”
Calum thought back to the stash of gemstones he’d found under the walkway board. If he could get ahold of those and get a bit of a head start, maybe what Axel was proposing was possible.
Or maybe Axel’s big dreams had infected them both long enough, and only a dose of reality would cure them.
“It sounds good, but I can’t have any of it.” Calum sighed. “I might as well stay here, do good work, and honor the King—with a full belly every night.”
“You want to honor the man responsible for your parents’ deaths?” Axel shook his head. “That’s no way to live. Not all slaves wear chains. You’re no different than that Saurian. You’re a slave.”
Calum exhaled a furious breath through his nose and clenched his teeth. If he weren’t so sure Axel could pound his face in, Calum would have taken a swing at him.
Why did he have to be so weak? Why hadn’t he been born stronger? Would he always be this way?
Calum’s chest filled with frustration. In the end, all he’d ever be was a quarry worker.
Axel put his hands up. “Hey, don’t get mad at me. I’m not the one who sent you to the quarry when your parents died. I just want something better for you. Better for us both.”
Calum slung the satchel over his shoulder and stood up. “I need to get going. I gotta get up at sunrise, and I still have to eat. Good night.”
“Come on, Calum. Don’t be like that.”
“No. You’re right, Axel,” Calum said, allowing his anger to underpin his words. “I’m a slave. I know I am. But I don’t know how to be anything else, except maybe foreman someday. It’s good enough for me, so maybe you should be happy for me instead of bringing me down.”
Axel folded his arms, still sitting. “How can I be happy for you when being foreman is still being the King’s slave? Just with more perks?”
Calum shook his head. “Fine. Then don’t be happy for me. But don’t talk to me about it either.”
“Calum, I—”
“Enough. I’m leaving.” Calum reached into his satchel and extracted the pouch of peppers. He tossed it on the table in front of Axel. “Here. A slave shouldn’t get special treatment.”
“Calum, those are for you,” Axel hissed. “Take them.”
“No. I don’t want any favors from you.”
Axel stood up and rounded the table with the pouch in his hand. He glanced around the room and uttered, “I don’t care if you’re mad at me. Don’t make a scene. You’re going to take these.”
“No, I’m not.” Calum ground his teeth.
“Yes, you are. Do you have any idea what my parents would do to me if they found out I took these for you?” He eyed the nearby workers, but as before, no one appeared to care. “Or what they’ll do if I bring them back and they find them on me or in my room? You’re taking them.”
“I said I’m—”
“I will beat you senseless if you don’t take them.” Only a hint of humor lined Axel’s threat. “I’ll beat you senseless, stick them back in your satchel, and dump your unconscious body in your tent if I have to.”
Calum glared at him and clenched his fists, powerless to do anything other than refuse.
“You know I will. Take them.” Axel extended the pouch again.
Calum loosed an angry sigh. The only way he was getting out of there was with those peppers in his possession. Might as well get it over with.
He snatched the pouch from Axel’s hand and dropped it into his satchel. He turned to leave, but Axel caught his wrist.
“Like I said before, you’re like my little brother, my best friend.” Axel clapped his hand on Calum’s bare shoulder, just as Burtis had done earlier that day. It awakened the aches in Calum’s body from his fall into the Gronyx’s pit. “I only want what’s best for you.”
“Good night, Axel.” Calum twisted out of Axel’s grasp and headed out of the tavern.
Back at the camp, Calum noticed the Saurian chained to a thick wooden post about twenty feet from the nearest tent. Even in the faint light of the dying campfire, Calum could see the red lines that streaked across his green hide. He hunched forward with his head leaned against the post.
Calum glanced at a few of the nearby tents then took a tentative step toward the Saurian. Then a few more. He got within ten feet before the Saurian looked up at him. When he did, the dismay in the Saurian’s golden eyes sharpened to fury.
Calum stopped. The Saurian had his muzzle on again. Had Burtis and Jidon bothered to feed him anything after the whipping?
“Hey,” he whispered.
The Saurian’s gaze sank back down to the dirt, and he leaned his head against the post again.
After another quick scan of the camp, Calum took another step forward.
The Saurian’s head swiveled toward him, and he gave the same low growl he’d given earlier that day.
Calum stopped. What was he even doing there in the first place? Maybe this was a bad idea.
But Calum had to continue forward. The Saurian had saved his life, after all. He swallowed the lump in his throat and stepped within five feet of the Saurian.
“Hey,” he repeated, even quieter this time. “Did anyone feed you anything?”
The Saurian didn’t move, didn’t blink. He just projected golden-eyed anger at Calum.
Calum reached into his satchel and pulled out the potato. “Do you want this?”
Nothing.
Calum squinted at him. He dropped the potato back in the satchel and pulled out the slice of barley bread. “This?”
Still nothing.
What did Saurians eat anyway? Calum tried the peppers next.
Zero movement.
The only thing left was Calum’s roasted chicken leg. It was a big piece too, for once. About half the thigh was still connected, plus the drumstick was a good size. He didn’t really want to offer it, but… “How about this?”
The Saurian tilted his head, almost indiscernibly.
Shoot. That’s what he wanted. Calum wished he hadn’t offered it.
But after how things had gone that afternoon, the Saurian probably needed it more than Calum did. “Well… I guess you can have it.”
Now the Saurian glanced around the camp just as Calum had a moment earlier.
“I’m serious. I’m not trying to fool you.” Calum stepped closer. “I owe you at least this much.”
The chain that connected the Saurian’s shackles stretched around the post, but the silver talons on the tips of each of his scaly fingers gave Calum pause. Nonetheless, he took another step forward and extended the chicken leg.
His hand shook. Calum blinked and tried to calm his hammering heart. Hardink and Burtis had both warned him what the Saurian was capable of, and he’d seen it in action up close.
Calum stopped, and the Saurian huffed a sharp breath through his nostrils. Was a piece of chicken worth his life?
He was overthinking it. If the Saurian had wanted to harm him, he would’ve abandoned Calum at the bottom of the pit.
He was a slave. Just like Calum.
And even slaves needed to eat.
Now only three feet away, Calum took another step.
That’s when the Saurian lunged forward.
Calum recoiled, but he was too slow. The Saurian grabbed his arm and pulled him forward. The chicken leg dropped to the dirt.
Something sinewy and strong pressed Calum’s back and pinned him against the post, and the Saurian’s other hand clamped over his mouth before he could cry out.<
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He’d made a mistake. A terrible mistake. And he was far too weak to pull free.
He should have listened to Burtis. To Hardink.
Too late now.
A long hiss overwhelmed Calum’s hearing, and the Saurian’s hot breath heated Calum’s face. How would the Saurian do it? Would he snap Calum’s neck? Would he jam his talons into Calum’s gut and let him bleed to death on the ground next to him?
Nothing happened.
Calum just stood there, his heart racing, his breaths short and quick. Wide-eyed, he craned his neck to look up at the Saurian.
The beast nodded at him, then slowly pulled his hand away from Calum’s mouth.
What was going on?
The pressure on his back subsided, and the Saurian released Calum’s wrist. Calum staggered back and stared at the Saurian, who bent down and reached for the chicken leg, but it lay too far out of reach for him to get it with his hands.
His long green tail, which must’ve been what he’d used to pin Calum to the post, snaked through the dirt and pulled the chicken close enough that he could grab it. He held it up to his mouth, still covered by that muzzle, and tapped his snout with one of his fingers.
Calum didn’t move. He still didn’t understand what was happening.
The Saurian rotated his body around the post and tapped his snout with his other hand, the one not holding the chicken. He growled again, but it didn’t sound as angry.
Now he wanted help? He’d just attacked Calum—kind of—and now he expected Calum to help him?
The Saurian turned again and tapped the back of his head.
Calum blinked again. “You want me to take off that muzzle?”
The Saurian nodded.
After what just happened, Calum didn’t know whether he should trust the Saurian or not. Yes, he’d saved Calum’s life, but why had he behaved so erratically when Calum had drawn near? And if Calum got that close again, what would happen?
“You’re not gonna hurt me, right?”
The Saurian shook his head.
So it did understand Calum.
But if it understood Calum, that meant it could be lying, too.
Calum glanced at the chicken leg clutched in the Saurian’s talons. He couldn’t just leave the beast there with food in his hands but unable to eat it. It wasn’t fair, wasn’t humane.
Humane. Did that word even apply to Saurians?
Hardink had called Saurians a type of people, but Burtis’s words resurfaced in Calum’s head: Do not be nice to him.
Whatever, Burtis. He’d already gone this far. And Burtis was an idiot.
Calum swallowed and hesitated, then he closed the distance and started to unfasten the straps on the back of the Saurian’s muzzle. A moment later, he pulled it off the Saurian’s snout.
The Saurian opened his jaws wide, as if stretching them out, and Calum stumbled back at the sight of his long sharp teeth, his red tongue, and his gaping throat. Definitely a meat-eater.
The chicken leg and half-thigh disappeared in one large chomp, bones and all.
Calum realized how far down his jaw was hanging and shut his mouth. He looked at the muzzle in his hand, then back at the Saurian. “Do you have a name?”
The Saurian squinted at him.
“Do you speak?”
Nothing.
“Do any Saurians speak?”
Still nothing.
“Fine. But now I need to put this back on you.”
A familiar low growl rumbled from the Saurian’s thick throat.
Calum glanced around again. “Look, if they find you without this in the morning, you’re gonna get whipped even worse, and then Burtis will start asking us questions. That means no more food for you, at least not from me. Is that what you want?”
The Saurian exhaled a long breath through his nose then motioned with his head for Calum to come back over. The Saurian stretched his jaws once, then he allowed Calum to secure the muzzle on his snout.
Calum stepped back and assessed his work. Good enough. “Well, I’m off.”
As he turned away, a snort sounded, distinct against the crickets chirping somewhere in the moonlit woods beyond. Calum glanced back, and the Saurian gave him a slight nod.
Calum allowed himself a timid grin and nodded back, then he headed for his tent.
Inside, Calum set his satchel on his bedroll and sat next to it. Good thing he’d gotten a whole potato tonight, or he would’ve gone more hungry than usual. He unpacked the peppers Axel gave him plus the potato and the barley bread, then he tucked the satchel under his bedroll.
He picked one of the peppers up and studied it—red, with a tinge of yellow and some green close to the stem. He couldn’t let them go to waste, no matter how much of a jerk Axel had been to him. Food was too precious a resource.
Still, he couldn’t shake the idea that Axel was right. What if Calum just… left? What if he abandoned the quarry and tried to make his own way in the world?
Whenever other quarry workers—other slaves—had fled in the past, Burtis, Jidon, and some of the other men chased after them. They looked at it almost as if it were a sport, a welcome interruption to the everyday grind of quarry life.
Thus far, no one had ever escaped. Markham was the last one who’d tried, and it had gotten him sent down to the Gronyx’s pit—and he never came back out.
Even if Calum had some of those hidden gemstones, he didn’t stand a chance against Burtis and Jidon. So what was the point of even trying?
What he’d said to Axel back in the tavern was true enough: He’d be stuck in the quarry forever. That was the reality of his life, and no amount of dreaming would ever change it.
Calum lay on his side and took a bite out of his boiled potato, and within fifteen minutes of finishing his dinner, he fell asleep.
Light penetrated the darkness until it washed out Calum’s vision. He tried to shield his eyes with his hands, but nothing he did could block out the brilliance. It shined through him as if his body were made of glass.
From deep within the light, a figure emerged. White armor covered his strong limbs, and a silver-and-gold sword hung from his belt. A golden crown glistened atop the figure’s head, and his eyes flickered like two balls of fire above a white half-mask that covered his nose and mouth.
Calum’s jaw hung open. What in the—
The figure drew his sword and traced a circle made of white fire. In the center appeared an image of three lakes with a path that ran through the middle.
Calum could’ve been looking at a map, except the image moved as if he was seeing it while flying overhead. The view narrowed onto the path, followed it from one side of the lakes to another, then it centered on the base of some red mountains.
A black hole appeared in the rocks like a yawning mouth.
“Go, Calum. Find the Arcanum. Discover the way to set me free.” A voice resonated around Calum. Within him. “Go, Calum.”
Calum blinked awake, and the figure and the map vanished. What had he just—
“I said wake up, Calum.” Someone shook him by his shoulders.
Calum blinked again. Rather than the ethereal face from his dreams, Burtis’s ugly bearded mug hovered over him, and the sound of men chattering and shuffling around the camp reached his ears.
“What?” He tried to push Burtis’s hands away.
“Get outside.” Burtis straightened up, his head almost reaching the ceiling of Calum’s tent. “The Saurian’s escaped.”
Chapter Six
Burtis stormed out of the tent, and Calum rubbed his eyes.
What a weird dream.
Calum pulled on his old wool shirt, then his trousers, then he stepped outside.
Sure enough, the camp buzzed with quarry workers, most of whom held torches and pointed in various directions amid a peculiar mix of yawns and frantic conversations. Some of them held ropes, and others held thick tree branches as makeshift clubs.
The weirdness of Calum’s dream still lingered in his m
ind. The blinding light, the white figure who’d appeared, and the map—none of it made any sense.
And what was an “Arcanum?”
Maybe those peppers he’d eaten hadn’t agreed with him. Whatever the case, he could sure use a few more hours of sleep.
A yawn stretched Calum’s jaw, and he rubbed his eyes again. When Calum’s vision refocused, Jidon stood in front of him. Then his fist plowed into Calum’s gut.
Calum dropped to his knees and clutched his stomach, overwhelmed by pain and the sudden lack of breath in his lungs. He sucked for air, but his lungs felt like they’d shriveled to a fraction of their original size.
“Where is he?” Jidon spat on the ground only inches from Calum’s head.
“I don’t—” Calum wheezed and looked up at Jidon, wide-eyed. Why had Jidon singled him out? “—know.”
Jidon grabbed Calum’s wrist and yanked him to his feet. “You sure ’bout that?”
Calum glanced past Jidon at Burtis, who stood by the campfire talking to several other men, including old Scrim and Hardink. Burtis wouldn’t be around to intervene this time.
That meant Calum would have to handle this himself… or he’d pay the price by himself.
“Hey.” Jidon’s stubbled, sour face filled Calum’s view. “I asked you a question.”
“I said I don’t know.” Calum tried to pry Jidon’s hand free from his wrist, but Jidon wouldn’t release him. “Let me go!”
“You spent more time with ’im today than anyone. He didn’t say nothin’ to you? Didn’t drop no hints?” Jidon flicked Calum’s cheek with his fingers. “Huh?”
“Cut it out!” Calum dug his fingernails into Jidon’s wrist. He doubted it would be enough to make him stop, but to his surprise, it worked.
Jidon retracted his arm and stared at the red marks Calum’s fingernails had left. Given their size disparity, Calum only had one option now: he threw a kick square into Jidon’s groin, and Jidon doubled over in pain.