“No - no! Don’t eat me, please - don’t eat me!” Armun fed them what he felt was a believable enough performance to swallow.
“Shut your mouth!”
Again he was met with a spear tip in his face. “Get back in the cart. Don’t move.”
Armun did as he was asked, his lips falsely quivering. Under the Gorabund sun, it was easy to work up a nervous sweat.
“Where you from?” Asked the gruff voiced feral, obviously the one in charge. The wolf man’s hair was graying on its edges, and he was missing a finger.
“Spade - spade country.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“I was trading with an a’tashi tribe. They stole all my things - and my family. My children - please let me go. Please. I need to get them back!” He stuttered perfectly.
“Shut your mouth. You’re coming with us. Your family is most likely long dead.”
Armun played out a perfected blank stare. The guards seemed to buy it. They clasped his wrists in thick irons.
Armun was immediately thankful for his time in Ysolien’s acting troupes. Ferals, and other beast men, could smell falsity on you, in all of its forms. Either his skills were not lost, or they were simply too tired to sense his lies.
The rest of their travels took three days.
Armun made note of everything he saw. They did not stop, save for restocking at large outposts; massive, circular base encampments three levels high. From what he could see, vision blocked by crates and boxes, they passed them in three-hour intervals. There was not one that was in sight of the other. The Gorabund Desert was a vast place, he knew, and that it was smart of them not to clump into one central stronghold.
He noticed the color and visual texture of the wood. That’s Ya’gah wood, he almost said out loud. To his knowledge, trade between ferals and trolls, who controlled the Ya’gah forests far to the east, had long since evaporated.
On the second day, they pulled inside one such outpost for a long rest. Armun desperately needed to stand. He felt an intense cramping in his legs, and shook them vigorously. Surprisingly, the irons around his wrist hurt very little, but he did feel a disturbing pulse between them that tickled his aura. He noticed the runes on them, though they didn’t give off any magical signals.
From in between the boxes, still seated in the back of the wagon, he saw slaves chained, hammering and sawing, adding to the ferals' fortifications.
The queen’s spies were correct, Armun thought with disdain.
Armun tried to discern a social structure between the ferals, dressed in reds, blacks and purples. Some wore armor, but most of them wore only tunics, scrappy pants, a thick belt or sash, and their blood red cloaks. The weapon of choice appeared to be their spears, which he immediately sensed were too smart a weapon for them to design. He watched slave masters poke at the workers, which were human, as far as he could tell. Every time the tip touched, a spark shot through the body. One victim, a young boy, fell to the ground.
Armun knew his aura would guard against it instantly. It was only another thing that he would have to feign pain from, but he was thankful to have seen it.
Armun looked around at the faces of his captors and their fellow people. Something had clearly put them on edge, but from what, he did not know. Inside the encampment, however, he was able to spy large quantities of armaments, and beasts from all different parts of the land.
Then he saw something that shocked him from his muted mind. An ivory maw, barely alive, chained to the desert floor by heavy hooks. Its mouth was wide open, heaving a breath that turned the air to fetid steam. Its gaping mouth seemed large enough to swallow twenty men at once. Its legs had been cut from it, leaving the creature with blood stained stumps, baked to a muddy brown in the desert heat. Armun prayed that it’s suffering would end soon.
As he watched the ferals, he noted and confirmed the effects of prolonged bloodlust, watching every symptom appear. Many had the deep set eyes, blackened and greyed, the voice tremors, random changes in attitude, and the iron and copper smell of mouths that had tasted blood.
The more he watched, the more Armun saw that the ferals seemed to be a people staring off of a cliff face, balancing just enough that they wouldn’t fall off.
Armun felt torn between sympathy and anger. As vicious as they seemed, there was a sense of desperation in each one of them, as if they themselves were captives, and not the captors.
Armun chose neither emotion, instead fueling his detached focus on the mission before him.
They did not linger for long. Someone was always at the reins, and the ferals slept while sitting upright. Armun slept heavily upon the crooked wood, leaning his face on both the right and left boxes, leaving both cheeks equally red. One guard always sat in the back with him, saying nothing, while the other two sat front and center. They switched every few hours. Not one broke their silence. Armun couldn’t tell if it was discipline or exhaustion that kept them quiet.
Though it is no doubt the discipline of fear.
On the third day, as the sun reached the afternoon sky, he awoke as the wagon stopped short. The ferals unloaded the cargo from the back of the wagon, huffing and growling all the while.
Then he heard the old feral’s voice. “Get out.”
He did so quickly, turning towards the shadow of the Arnaks. The sun was setting behind them, harshly breaking through the mountains’ thin peaks, so tall he could not make them out without blinding himself.
Two twin doors stood before Armun, carved into the mountainside. The exterior curvature was rough, as if a mage had simply blasted the hole apart with fire. Sand and wind had worked away what he assumed were once elegant features. He recognized a few basic elements, like the terria flower, the vine and root, and what looked like text from the Grand Script.
It’s harmian, Armun thought.
It’s height was that of two men. Many metal spikes pointed outwards from it, save for a small space on the bottom where a small slot existed, just big enough to stick a small stack of parchment through. Anger rose in him that the ferals could desecrate such beauty with unnecessary and stupidly equipped fortifications.
Only two guards stood watch outside, riding large, long faced beasts that made a strange, deep yawning noise with every breath. Armun had never seen these before. They appeared like sloths from the eastern jungles, but hairless, and much fiercer in the face.
The armor of the guards was, to any military letter, perfect. The metals were bright and colorful, bursting with color, reflecting the sun’s rays, garish and vibrant.
Like rainbows, Armun thought. Those from the Rainbow Sight in Kashrii.
He could not help the conjecture from forming. Armor from a neighboring country, makeshift ancient gates, and beasts from all corners of the world. Whatever the ferals had been doing in the near century they had split ways with the Laranuans.
Conjecture and questions formed a slow burn in Armun’s mind.
He looked above the mountain side, up to the tips of the Arnaks, shooting high like crooked knives, reaching for the sky in some wild attempt to assassinate the relentless sun.
As they approached, the gate opened just enough, surprisingly soundless, as Armun imagined they would be on the path to the afterlife. He turned his head back slightly, and received a few quick prods from a feral spear.
“Don’t look behind, or you’ll be seein’ this through and in front.”
Armun had almost forgotten his place. He nodded in pretend fear. One of the ferals said something in their indecipherable tongue. Both mounted guards moved forward, revealing long chains connected from the beast’s collars to large rings, unevenly smelted to the gates. They groaned to life, as if asking Armun to, instead, leave.
Darkness poured out from the depths of the cave mouth. A wave of sudden isolation crept inside his mind, as if he were standing in an ocean of it, without breath to take.
“Go,” said the oldest of his captors. Armun pushed the feeling aside, and walked through the gate. As t
he doors shut, he became lost in the darkness, the few flames of torches struck to life by the ferals lighting the way, with nothing else visible but the cave walls.
He assumed the ferals had somehow adapted to see in the low light. His eyes had trouble until they adjusted. When they did, his mind, already overloaded with questions, began to bend further out of shape from new ones.
Armun fought against his natural urge to cast a spell, and found it more difficult to keep his aura in check. Few ferals were gifted with the aura of magic, but all it took was one to see through him, one slip up, and the whole situation was bust.
The tunnel began to drift right, then sloped steeply downwards. The rocky crags became slightly smoother, and he soon began to hear movement, clicks and metal chinking. He faked a couple near slips and some heavy breathing for added effect.
Suddenly, others came into view. Human men and women grunted against shattering rocks. A few sparks flashed from the strikes of pick axes against the walls. Other guards began to appear as their spears randomly lit up.
A guard pushed Armun past this scene quickly, nearly tripping over a large rock. Silhouettes still faded in and out, slave and feral alike, as if they were nothing but ghosts. There were many of them, their faces nondescript as they flashed by too quickly to be seen. The only noises heard were the grunts of men, women, and ferals, and the occasional sizzling sparks of demoralizing power.
The twisted tunnel they took turned into stairs, and the stairs turned into another tunnel. It was then that Armun lost track of his steps. The path became increasingly too twisted and winding, only traceable by pure memorization. In increasing amounts with each descent, the isolated feeling that began with the opening of the gates started to creep more thoroughly into his body. A spell at work, thought Armun. It had to be. He had been in many caves, both beautiful and terrifying, but never before had he felt such dread.
There was, for certain, here in this place, a higher authority pulling the strings, beyond what he saw. He could feel it, like the hot air of a carnivore’s stench blowing on the back of his neck.
Down and down, descending towards an endless bottom, until the bottom did in fact end, and began to widen, and turned into another cavern of the deepest kind. Nothing moved here for a moment, as the guards stopped Armun and themselves. The oldest one pulled out a couple of crinkled, weak papers.
The more Armun saw, the more he realized he was looking at a civilization far beyond anything he had ever encountered, stuck in old ways and mindlessness. Slavery and torture were not new, but this place assaulted all of his nine senses.
Armun felt the complexity of his task like a weight on his mind. If Sir Jerryl Trought was alive, he thought, he might not be the same man he had been.
“Cell one six one is empty. Give him that one.” The feral with the thin papers clasped his hand across his chest, and the other two returned the gesture. He then left the way they came, as the other two prodded him further. As they moved, dirt shuffled in clouds on the ground. Armun traced them with his eyes to the prison bars, which he could barely make out in the dim torchlight. Bodies stepped up like a reverse domino effect. Iron clanked, crusty hands shaking off the clods of grunge that covered their faces.
“Which cell again?”
“The one across from the brothers... give them some company.”
“And why are we givin’ them anything?”
“Because the Warden wants them happy. And when they’re happy, he’s happy… and then we’re happy.”
“Though don’t humans say its misery that loves company?” Quipped the guard that had been at Armun’s left. The older feral snapped at the young one, putting him in his place, and said, “We’re lucky we got that shipment.”
Armun was furiously spun to the right by a powerful pair of claws, and pressed onwards. Rows and rows of roughly slapped together cells faded in from the darkness. Some were small enough for a dog, though there were most definitely people in them. Others were much bigger, large enough to hold a giant, if necessary, chain grabs installed in the friendly heights.
One guard shoved his spear past Armun’s ribs, sticking it into what looked to be an oversized keyhole. He turned it right, and a current zapped through and along the iron bars. Lightning raced to the high ceiling, and dissipated as it came through. As the door opened, the air around him suddenly smelled stale, and he was pushed into his six by however high world of dirt and metal with a violent shove.
Armun whirled around. In less than a second the door was closed behind him, and the guards were gone.
For a short time, all the noise disappeared. A sense of vastness overwhelmed him, so great that he felt there was a hole in his chest, as though the entire world had abandoned him.
Armun took a deep breath, and let go of his aura. It puffed out a bit before regaining its usual shape. Holding it so tightly against his body for three days was exhausting, and he remembered a time when doing so would be no more difficult than skipping a stone.
He could sense many things then. He could see slaves shuffled around him, bending their ears towards the new arrival. The walls were both jagged and even in random spots, as if the project had been given up halfway through.
After allowing himself a short respite, he pulled his aura back in, vibrating against his skin.
Do without magic what you can.
For nearly an hour, Armun did the best he could without magical assistance. He checked the ground, and found nothing magic related. The bars were wrought of some magical substance though, most likely melted down and reformed. He moved forward to touch them, but he could feel a defiant pulse in the irons around his wrists. Touching the bars then seemed a bad idea, though they appeared cool to the touch.
In the middle of his cell was a metal circle with a loop, grafted to the floor, undoubtedly for the chaining of an unruly prisoner.
He took a deep breath, letting it fill his lungs just above the groin, then exhaled, letting the air pass over the roof of his mouth.
Armun looked out into the dark, waiting for a sign, realizing that perhaps he had not completely thought this all through.
Chapter 13
Valor sat in his usual corner with a book open. He wasn’t reading it. He couldn’t read it. There were too many ideas swirling in his head, though each of their twisted paths led to him either leaving the Arnaks forever, or dead.
He looked at Jerryl. Who was sitting across the room with Orrin, an open book of hand signs on his lap. “Alright Orrin,” he said, “run through your alphabet.”
[ Why do we start this way? ] Orrin signed.
[ Because, ] Jerryl signed, [ It warms up the mind. ]
Orrin sighed. [ You always say that but I don’t think that’s true. ]
Jerryl gave Orrin a stern look. [ You want to teach yourself, then? I can go back to my map. ]
Valor tossed out a short laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Jerryl asked him. “You’re supposed to be reading. Instead you’re sitting over there counting how high the books go.”
Valor looked up to the heights of the library, one of Lobosa’s personal treasures. Stacks of bound paper, high as the eye could see, balanced precariously at odd angles, stuffing and overstuffing darkly colored wooden shelves, browns and blacks and blues. The shelving was thick, capable of holding anything, but some of them had warped over time.
“Reading’s just not in me today.” Valor puffed out the words, a statement of truth this time, when other times it had been an excuse.
Jerryl looked at Valor. Earlier, Valor had told him all about what Drake had said; about Lobosa’s secret plan to leave the Arnaks, about Drakes’ offer, and the supposed darkness that lay somewhere beneath the Arnaks. He had also told him of Abassan and Innith’s death, a thing that still wayed
Valor foolishly thought Jerryl would allow him some reprieve.
“Valor,” the old warrior grunted. “Read. I have to work with Orrin today and Lobosa’s given me limited time.”
&
nbsp; “Can’t you give me something more interesting?” Valor asked.
“I would, except that even from here I can see you’ve got Kazahn’s A Warriors Learnable Traits sitting inside of Reiatsin’s Religions of the Races of Men. So the question, really, is why exactly are you asking me to do something you’ve already taken the liberty to do.”
Valor bit his bottom lip.“I’m barely even reading the book I was pretending not to read.”
Jerryl gave Valor just a glance while concentrating on Orrin’s forming of new words. “Nice indeed. Orrin, you’ve got it from here. I want you to study these four pages, alright?”
Orrin nodded compliantly. Valor watched his brother make several new signs, as Jerryl explained what each new word meant.
Abhorrent. Vapor. Dust. Insidious.
Valor turned towards Jerryl, and rapped his knuckles on his book, signaling his mentor.
Knocknock… knockknock… knock.
Jerryl turned away from his map, and looked towards the library door. Valor and Orrin turned their gaze as well, noticing that both guard’s backs were turned. Jerryl moved close enough to whisper.
“There is no way out,” Jerryl said. “Not anymore.”
“How do you know?” Valor asked.
Jerryl moved back to his drawing board, and from behind his current map, slid out a different one of the Arnak’s exterior, bringing it over to Valor.
“Look,” he said. Valor did so as Jerryl took a seat next to him. The map contained the immediate exterior of the Arnaks. Mounts Garzahk and Tek’Tah surrounded Mount Arnak, the largest of them all, the mountain from which the chain’s name was derived. Just outside of Arnak sat the Ring of Scarlett, and to the east, the Golden Sands, Lobosa’s pleasure paradise for all those who could afford it. Further to the east, where the chain broke apart just slightly into two paths, sat Knife’s Edge and Black Breath outposts, blocking the only two safe passageways between the edges of the Arnaks.
There were blue x-marks all across the base of the mountains, tiny dotted lines leading here and there. “These are smaller entrances, some secret, some not.”
Memorias: Deep in the Arnaks Page 13