by Rosie Scott
The entire basement was filled with slaves, stuffed behind bars of large cells. Only one of the cells was empty, and I supposed the males usually held within were the ones we'd already freed up by the lake. Alderi males of all ages watched me through anxious eyes, before tensing at the sight of Nyx. I couldn't begin to imagine how confused they were. None of them spoke yet. Perhaps they simply didn't know what to say or ask.
“Do not fear,” I told them, watching as Nyx scrounged around a nearby cabinet for keys, to save time from having to lock-pick. “We are here to free you.”
“Free us?” One of the men asked, standing from the floor. “Who are you? Are you at war with our sisters?”
“I am now,” I replied, simply, watching as Nyx gave up on finding keys, and hurried to help Jakan unlock the cells. “I am Kai Sera. These are my friends, including Nyx, who is tamed. You have nothing to fear from us.” I pointed toward the ceiling, since we could still hear the sounds of battle. “Many of my allies are Alderi males. Most escaped from Thanati or Hazarmaveth. You may know them. We'd be delighted if you joined us. We will teach you magic for free.”
My name meant little to these men, but that was fine. All they needed to know was that I promised their freedom, and offered them benefits and revenge. Even as their doors unlocked, they did not run.
“Join you in this battle for Thanati?” Another slave asked, for clarification.
“We will take over Thanati. Our next step is Hazarmaveth, and then Quellden. After that, I will leave my beastmen allies to the rest of the underground.”
“If you could take over Quellden, you would control the underground,” I heard one comment.
“Exactly. And we need as many allies as we can get to go that far. Within a year or two, we may have changed the way your homeland works forever.”
Glances were exchanged. Unlike the group near the lake, none of these men ran.
“Will you join us? You are free to leave at any time,” I stated.
A few of the men nodded. Those that didn't still refused to leave, even as they piled out of the cells. I took that as a good sign.
“We have no weapons,” one protested nervously.
“Yeah, you do,” Nyx retorted. “A few dozen of your sisters were nice enough to drop theirs when Kai felled them outside the door.” She pointed upstairs.
One of the men looked to me, his black eyes searching for weapons at my belt but finding none. “You are a warrior?”
After I nodded simply, Jakan added, “She is a god, friend. Stay out of her way and do what she says, and you'll be just fine.”
I smiled at the Vhiri for his support. My friends were getting smarter when it came to this game of politics and war. In the span of a few seconds, both of the people I was with had expressed admiration or support of me. It helped to cement the idea that our army was one built on camaraderie and something these men would want to be a part of.
And it worked. When we went back upstairs to rejoin the battle, not one of the dozens of slaves decided to flee.
Twenty-four
The craggy streets of Thanati were now rivers of blood. While my friends and I had been freeing slaves, the beastmen had been committing absolute slaughter. Given the nature of the beasts, the evidence of their kills was astounding in its brutality and gore. Bodies had been ripped apart, limbs and heads of various assassins lying in seemingly random places. Claws and talons had torn through armor and guts alike, leaving the organs flowing in puddles of blood like a stew from hell. Even the most intact of bodies had been mauled.
Our army had not been immune. Bodies of various beasts slain by the assassins stuck out like a sore thumb, their corpses at many times the size of the Alderi. Arrows had been shot through eyes. Some of the beasts had simply been overwhelmed. Perhaps even others had been the victims of friendly attacks after fellow soldiers were charmed.
The slaves following us had told us the location of Thanati's armory, so we headed there as soon as we healed our wounds, including removing the arrow which had been content to make its home in my breast. The northern part of the city was now mostly a ghost town, though the sounds of combat still rang out from farther down the main road at its center. Catching up to the beastmen was proving difficult, since we were freeing men every time we heard signs of them, and it took us time.
We finally reached Thanati's armory. Hundreds of footsteps splashed through blood as the slaves hurried inside, equipping themselves with the weapons they preferred. Cerin stood in the middle of the street, his palms to the ground. Within the span of a few moments, hundreds of recent corpses rose, assassin and beast alike. He sent them onward into battle as we waited for our new recruits to finish in the armory. The rock beneath our boots trembled as the corpses rushed out of sight, trampling over the bodies of their comrades.
Cerin moved forward, raising even more corpses. The Alderi started to file out beside me, holding new weapons. Some of them were wearing pieces of armor, though it appeared that much of it was ill-fitting. This armor wasn't meant for men. During my time in Thanati thus far, I found no males wearing armor. I'd once heard Calder mention that males were sometimes used for hunting parties in the tunnels, so I had to assume it existed. If we succeeded in taking over Thanati, perhaps we would give Anto the time to make some for the recruits.
Once the armory was picked over, we hurried down the main road of Thanati toward the bloodshed. It had been hours since the initial attack, and the others were tiring. I still had the last remnants of my prior high, so I gave Anto, Nyx, and Jakan extra energy, since Cerin could replenish himself. My eyesight then returned to normal, but I didn't ask Jakan for his spell. The main road here was the most lit of the city, mimicking the late night streets of Sera.
We finally neared the war in Thanati's southern half, coming up behind a wall of Cerin's undead. The ceiling had sloped to double the height here, so the buildings were taller, and both sides used the air and rooftops as their playground. From slits of windows, balconies, and rooftops, assassins pelted the beastmen below with arrows. A blood-kin wyvern soared above us, before dipping low and grasping an Alderi woman in its talons, carrying her as she screamed to the top of the cavern, before letting her go. Her screams rose as she fell out of our sight a street away, before we heard her body hit the stone floor in a crunch which ended in a splatter of blood.
The beastmen were tiring. They'd been fighting for hours, and the assassins were so spread throughout this city that fresh reinforcements were constantly arriving. My main concern was refreshing and aiding the beastmen. Cerin had already reinforced them with the dead, and we had collected almost two hundred male Alderi recruits since the beginning of the battle.
The recruits rushed into battle behind us. Very few of the slaves knew any magic at all, so they relied on melee and range to pick off their sisters. I was thankful for that, since our only methods so far of combating the assassin archers on the roofs were flying beasts, and there weren't many of them in comparison to the entire army.
As Anto, Nyx, and Jakan clashed with the assassins in melee, Cerin and I rushed into the thick of the fight, leeching from as many as we could, recycling the energy from our foes into support and healing for our soldiers. As we fought, I saw Calder in the distance, tackling an assassin and knocking her down, before grabbing her head with his jaws and twisting it, snapping her neck. Many of his blue-gray scales were broken and chipped with trauma, but at least he was safe. I hadn't seen him for hours.
We were making progress. The beastmen were refreshed with the energy we offered them, and our undead were swarming the Alderi like they had once done to us. Cerin continued raising the dead throughout our battle, only further populating the streets with those who were on our side. The assassins started to panic as we kept pushing them back, and many of the women became enraged with adrenaline and a refusal to be beaten, fighting ever harder to defend their city.
Our army found itself skirmishing in a city square of sorts. The main road had opened u
p into a wide, square area aligned on all four sides by stores and taverns. Wood was rare in the underground, so instead of hanging signs, the names of the stores were engraved straight into solid rock. One of the largest buildings of the square was labeled The Easy Rider Whorehouse, and I was sure many slaves would be found there. I nearly broke away from the battle to head to the brothel, until I heard a moan of pain to my right.
I spun toward the noise. My senses were once again magnified due to leeching, so it was possible that whoever made the noise was out of sight. A line of buildings was in my vision, since I still stood along the edge of the main road as it fed into the square. Between the constructions and I, there was nothing but bodies, and all of them were very much dead, so they hadn't been the source of the noise. My eyes rose to an open doorway before me, and I headed through it.
It was dimly lit in the building, but my sharpened eyesight made up for it. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the room. There were full tables dedicated to alchemy experiments against one wall, and all sorts of spell books on a shelf against another.
Once again, I found myself drawn to a set of stairs leading into a basement carved straight into the ground. As soon as I took just one step down, I started smelling an awful mix of old sweat, dried blood, bodily fluids, and the sickly sweet smell of both decay and infected wounds. As I went farther into the basement, I was nearly suffocated by the residual energies of fear and agony that bounced through the air. I had been a mage for many years; I was used to feeling the residual energy of battle or emotional events. Never had I felt energy as strong as this.
When I dared to look, I found a basement full of torture. There were six tables in this basement, and on each one was an Alderi male. Along the walls and hanging from racks were an array of torture tools. Knives, clips, pliers, and other utensils I didn't want to begin to guess the use for.
I swallowed hard as I walked up to the first table, pulling the man's long black hair from his eyes. The eyes were red, open, and cloudy. Rigor mortis had set in a long while ago. My eyes swept over the man's body, since he was mostly nude. Cuts and incisions were all over it. Some of the wounds were infected, and had leaked over his skin in streaks of yellow and white. Given their severity, I surmised this man had never gotten any sort of medical attention for the injuries since they were made.
Dear gods. I was horrified. What was the point of this? How could someone treat another living being like this? Was this the Alderi culture? Or had they simply become so lenient when it came to their own women, that even the insane among them were free to carry out such evils?
Another moan of pain echoed in the air. It startled me so badly I jumped in place, having been in the midst of looking over another corpse. I hadn't thought any of these men were still alive. Evidently, one was.
He was in the middle row of two tables. He had been here for so long that his hair was long and greasy, hanging off the edges of the table toward the floor. Stubble was rough along his jawline. Stabs and cuts from all over his body were leaking blood and fluid, and he'd been cut across the face, much like Ricco. The blade had punctured his left eye, and it had since gone white with scar tissue, blinding the organ.
I rushed to him. I hovered one hand over his head and another over his chest, using my promote immunity spell to give him an immediate boost. He flinched a bit as he felt the warmth settle into his body, before he whimpered. Using water magic, I started to clean his wounds. As he felt the liquid run over him, carrying a sludge of bodily fluids with it, he started to sob.
“P-please,” he stuttered, shaking within his restraints. “Please, stop hurting me. Please just kill me.”
My eyes heated with the overwhelming sympathy I felt for the man. When I spoke, my voice was thick and heavy. “I am here to heal and save you. Please don't fear me.”
The man's black eyebrows dipped together. The stench from his infected wounds was nearly unbearable, but I continued to heal him all the same. I reached over at one point, using the mute senses spell over his forehead. His facial muscles instantly relaxed, and he murmured, “I feel nothing.”
“You'll be fine. Can you see out of your right eye?”
“...yes. Barely.” His voice was much alleviated since my spell had taken his pain.
“You are probably malnourished and in trauma. The eyesight should come back to you. I'm sorry, but I can do nothing for your left eye.”
“Who are you?” The man managed.
“My name is Kai Sera. My friend and I have amassed an army that is taking over Thanati as we speak. My friend is Alderi, and his name is Calder Cerberius. Do you know him?”
The man shook his head slowly. “No. Is he from Thanati?”
I hesitated, realizing my mistake. “No, he is not. We have a man in our army from here, though. His name is Ricco Mara.”
The man stiffened. “Ricco is alive?”
“He is, and he has led the charge for us today.” I watched the wound beneath my hand slowly mend to a close, as I thought of the tortured around me, comparing them to Ricco. “He was in here with you,” I deduced.
“Yes. He was in here for the better part of two years.” Two years. I couldn't imagine staying in here for an hour, let alone two years.
“Why are you all kept in here?”
“You all? Are the others alive as well? Maurus stopped speaking to me days ago.” There was a hesitation. “I think it was days ago.”
I glanced around at the corpses in the room. “...I don't think anyone else in here is alive. I am sorry.”
The man let out a shaky exhale.
“Why does this room exist?” I repeated, closing another wound.
“For fun. Experiments,” he answered. “The woman who runs this place is insane. She claims she is furthering alchemy and science, but she repeats her experiments on man after man ad nauseum.”
“And everyone else lets her do this?” I questioned, moving to another injury.
“...she is a woman. They let her do whatever she wants.”
I could not begin to understand the logic behind that. Not only was the Alderi culture rooted in the worst case of sexism I'd personally witnessed outside of my mother's own Whispermere, but I was beginning to learn they were lawless here as well. It was a dangerous mix for a society that was left alone by the surface countries.
“We will change that,” I promised the man, finally healing his last wound. “May I have your name?”
“I am Kyrin.”
“You are safe, Kyrin,” I murmured, moving to the rows of torture tools along the wall. I had nothing on my person with which to cut his restraints. I grabbed one of the knives, before turning back to him.
“Please be careful,” Kyrin said softly, as I started to free him. “Anaxarete is a horrible person. If she catches you doing this—”
“The woman who did this is probably dead,” I assured him. “My army is outside the door.”
“Yes, but Anaxarete is a recluse. If she heard chaos outside, she would probably stay in here.”
I cut Kyrin's last tie. His words bothered me. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck in here with a crazy woman, particularly now that the energy used to heal the man was out of my system, and my senses were back to normal. It was almost pitch black in here, save for some candles which were burning over on a table.
Paranoid, I turned back toward the steps. My heart rose in my chest as I saw the figure of a woman, already halfway down the stairs. My normal hearing hadn't picked up on her. I built fire energy in my right hand, and the basement started to glow with its light.
Anaxarete built emerald green energy in a hand. I assumed the worst, that she meant to paralyze me. She threw the spell, and I dodged to the side. The energy sizzled out against the wall behind me. I threw the fireball, and she dodged that as well, rushing up the steps to the main floor. My fire hit the staircase, rippling out in flames and leaving the stone scorched.
“What is happening? What is happening?” Kyrin rambled behind m
e, in fear. I knew he could see almost nothing.
“Anaxarete is here. You were right. I'm going after her.”
“Oh, no.”
“You're free, Kyrin. I will come back for you later if you feel too weak to get up now.” With that, I rushed toward the stairs, murmuring a spell in my head, putting a magical ward protectively around me to combat any more of the woman's alteration spells.
At the top of the stairs, the main floor opened up around me, and my eyes darted around. They found Anaxarete, standing in the far corner of her room, black eyes crazed and trying to decide what to do. She clearly didn't want to go out into the streets. As hard as her sisters were fighting, she didn't care to help them. Her eyes traveled behind me, where stairs led to the upper floors.
I followed her line of thought. I wasn't going to let her flee. Not when she'd tortured and killed so many men.
Creatius les fiers a nienda de material. Fire energy once again flickered over my right hand. Anaxarete became fidgety, preparing to dodge another fireball. But that was not what I wielded.
I thrust my palm at the base of the staircase leading up, directing the flames to the stone. The magic stuck to the first material it came across, building flames from rock. Moving my palm across the wall above the rising steps, I created even more fire. I dispelled the magic only when every visible section of the stairs was aflame. I stepped back from the spell, uncomfortable with its heat. The entire first floor was now glowing orange with fire light.
There was a reason many mages called this spell fire wall, even though it would stick the element to any material object. Its greatest use was creating barriers. Right now, Anaxarete had only two options. Fight me, or run into the battle.
She chose to run. I threw an icicle toward her torso as she ran, but it missed and shattered harmlessly against the far wall. I ran after the woman, determined by a need for retribution. As the torturer fled through the open doorway, she threw a hand toward the ground, releasing a handful of gray powder.