'You down there. Grab hold of this and tie it about your waist.'
Why is the light still here?
Hern didn't know who to reply to first, being bombarded by two types of communication was disorientating in this weakened state.
He felt the rope touch his shoulder and ran his fingers across it, there was plenty of slack. Tying it around his waist as instructed, he felt it bite into him as he was hauled upward.
Closing his eyes tightly, he sent a final thought out with all his will.
I will help you escape.
He knew nothing but darkness then.
The cage he woke in was crude at best. Were he not feverish and wasted away by his time with Re'tak he could have probably broken free of this captivity. He pictured himself doing so, wrecking havoc upon an unsuspecting Dyson and his cronies. Stealing his way back to the hole they had flung him and letting loose the beast below.
He chastised himself harshly. He could not allow his weakened physical condition to give him delusions of grandeur as opposed to rational plans of action. Clearly they had discovered him alive in the hole once before, Dyson had no doubt been informed and had told them to leave him in there. Had the man now developed a change of heart or was his stay meant to torture him?
Footsteps approached, it was the one called Yalem, flanked by a pair of guards that seemed wary of Hern in spite of his state.
The man approached without any apparent fear and unlocked the cage door. He beckoned Hern out and the guards closed in to keep a close eye on him as Yalem turned to march away. It would seem that he wanted Hern to follow him.
He took a few doddering steps and his legs gave way underneath him. The guards let him fall to the floor, thinking it some ploy to get them to lay their hands upon his person. He landed awkwardly and the world seemed to spin dizzily. He heard a grunt and then a pair of arms lifted him and carried him bodily as if he weighed nothing, which probably wasn't far from the truth.
He passed in and out of consciousness during the journey, his eyes growing more accustomed to the light each time. Objects were becoming more solid around him and it all seemed like less of a fever dream.
The guards let him go and he staggered to his feet, reaching out and steadying himself on one of the walls nearby. He retched but nothing came out save a wheezing sound.
Yalem dismissed them with a wave of his hand and approached Hern as he agonisingly pulled himself upright once again.
The punch came from nowhere, sending him careening into the wall, which somehow seemed more yielding than Yalem's fist. Spots danced across his sight as the familiar feeling of unconsciousness beckoned to him.
The dream-like state returned in a cloud of pain as he was hoisted bodily by the torn rags covering his chest. He vaguely followed the bearded man's brawny hand as he pointed at the door ahead.
'No tricks,' Yalem said.
The punch to the gut doubled him up, he reflexively curled on the ground as Yalem released his grip.
He caught sight of the man walking down the corridor and leaning against the wall, apparently an eye was still being kept on him lest he stagger in the wrong direction.
Seeing few options remaining to him, he agonisingly found his feet a final time and half-stumbled, half fell toward the door swaying groggily within his sight.
He fumbled for the handle and fell through the space as it came open, the stone floor rushed up to greet him and darkness threatened to impose itself.
'I can't help but notice that you don't seem quite so sure of yourself any more. Deprivation does that, it eats away to the very spirit if one isn't careful. Please feel free to join me, I was about to have some dinner.'
Hern crawled inexorably forward to the table and somehow eased himself into the chair. There was a vague scraping noise and a wooden goblet was pushed into his hands.
He looked down at it, the cup contained a clear liquid and that was all the prompting Hern needed.
It was only after the third gulp that he realised just who he had accepted this drink from.
As if sensing his hesitation, Dyson laughed. 'If I had wanted you dead I'd have left you in there. No, the water is clean, though I advise you to drink it otherwise it'll just come right back up.'
Sipping it slower as instructed, Hern's vision came back to something resembling normality. He took in the spread on the table with an aching hunger, a small voice in his head sounded warning and confusion. It wasn't anything like the banquet that Dyson had tempted the other strangers with, this was much more standard fare. A crusty loaf of bread and some salted strips of beef with what looked like red wine and a small chunk of butter.
Not that the nature of the food mattered to Hern, in his famished state the bread could have been mouldy and the wine vinegar and he still would have considered it a feast.
There was a vague and distant voice in his head warning him about accepting food from this man but his current state necessitated immediate action.
If Dyson seemed put out by Hern tearing a hunk off the bread and grabbing a fistful of meat strips he didn't show it. Not that he had much time for the man's face even when sitting in his quarters.
'I'm glad you're enjoying my meal for me, it's doing little for your previous air of sophistication. I didn't bring you here to eat but I know the pains of starvation too well and will permit you this brief insubordinate streak.'
Hern finally slowed his eating, his parched mouth now moistened and his insides full for the first time since his indeterminable hours of darkness.
'You wished to discuss matters with me?'
Dyson formed a steeple his fingers, observing the remains of his dinner as if it were a scene of carnage. 'I assumed that you had some measure of control over the beast in order to make it perform tricks.'
Hern grimaced at the word, remembering his treatment at the hands of Yalem, he'd never taken blows of that magnitude before, even from a master. It marked this Yalem as a danger he had yet to contend with should he manage to negotiate this conversation and still live.
'So you put us in the hole together to test that theory?'
Dyson nodded. 'You're surprisingly perceptive even now, an admirable quality. That was not the sole purpose of your captivity however. There was also the matter of your survival, you're a man of resource and though you may not have done so in style, you managed to subdue a hungry beast while being the prime course.'
Hern knew what Dyson was asking even though the man hadn't phrased anything as a question. He wanted to know how he had managed to communicate with Re'tak. He knew his life was on the line but he needed more information before deciding what to reveal.
'Why do you keep a creature like that locked up here if it's simply going to kill your men?'
He shrugged in response. 'The loss of life is acceptable given the circumstances. As for the beast's captivity, why do you ask? Are you going to try and make your way back to the hole and inform it of what I've said?'
He rapped his fist on the table twice and the door opened, revealing Yalem on the other side. Hern hadn't forgotten about him.
'You really wouldn't make it beyond this room if you attempted such a thing. Why are you so keen to know of its purpose?'
He turned back as Dyson spoke and searched the Corporal's eyes, seeing if the man would give any hints. There were none whatsoever, he may as well have stared at the wall.
'You train people for the arenas here, do they fight lizards in your capital?'
Dyson laughed, then realised that Hern was entirely serious with his question. 'Of course not, that would be a terrible waste of fine men.'
'Yet here you fight lizards, you're seeking someone that can kill it, aren't you?'
The flicker on Dyson's face indicated to Hern that he had struck gold, he continued quickly so that he didn't risk speaking over the top of the man's potential response.
'You've been searching for a single man that could kill one of these lizards? There is no such man alive.'
Thi
s was met with a bitter snort. 'My superiors have told me otherwise and task me with finding him in this barren waste. I plan to cheat.'
Now Hern had all the answers. 'You plan to stage a fight between the creature and myself, one so convincing that they would think I had killed him with my own hands.'
Dyson nodded. 'Perceptive once again, that could become a very irritating quality. I don't like being irritated. You have two choices, either you comply with my wishes and we develop a working relationship or we kill you here and now.
Yalem advanced into the room, Hern saw his options rapidly dwindle. Dyson might not like being irritated by the likes of him but Hern liked being blackmailed even less.
'I accept your proposal,' he said, clasping the man's outstretched hand with what little strength he had left.
Dyson smiled back at him, constantly looking into his eyes.
Hern was going to have to kill this man, very soon.
77
Jakob
If the cloak The Hermit was wearing caused him any degree of suffering in the desert, he gave no indication of it. After the dismantling of his fellow prisoners nobody but Jimmy and Jakob went anywhere near him.
While Jakob felt a general distrust for the man and was unconvinced by his motives, he still didn't sense any irrational hatred as he had with Gooseman. For all the man's mystery and power he seemed unrelated to the quest to kill The Six.
Every time Jakob thought this over he stopped short of questioning the motives of the stranger he had met wanting him to kill six people. Any internal inquiry resulted in a searing pain passing through his skull and conditions were bad enough already in the cage without his adding to it.
The lack of cover that had previously caused no end of complaints due to the chill of the nights had now presented them with the agony of being cooked alive in the desert sun.
The guards surrounding them had removed their armour in an ordered fashion and it served to humanise them somewhat. Not that Jakob felt like being overly personable to the people that had ordered Jimmy's execution.
The boy was growing more disconsolate with each passing day and Jakob didn't blame him. Being forced to sit in silence and endure the worst conditions the land could throw at them was an intolerable situation.
The cage ground to a halt. Jakob heard the sounds of a whip cracking and a low keening sound that must have come from one of the Urtakas. For some reason the guards couldn't get them to move any further. An impasse seemed to develop as they puzzled over their mount's refusal to continue.
The silence was broken by one of the slaves at the front of the cage. He pointed wildly out into the desert and started to panic, demanding the guards acknowledge whatever it was he had seen.
At first Jakob thought the man delusional, he had witnessed visions of a number of strange things in the heat himself and had not thought to raise the ire of the guards by voicing his concerns.
Then a few other men saw it and they too started warning the guards. Initially they had ignored the slaves, thinking this was some kind of desperate ruse but as more of them joined in the clamour and risked their hides, one of them finally looked to the spot they were pointing.
It was a dark speck on the horizon, moving swiftly over the lip of a dune and approaching their location. The pulsating heated air made it difficult to ascertain what it was but the guards had now spotted it too.
'Oh fuck!' screamed one of the guards, losing all composure and dropping his weapons as the shape grew closer.
The other men formed a line in front of the cage with spears facing outward and despite the determined expression on their faces, they looked shaken.
The leader eyed the approaching creature with a snarl, as if he felt put out that it had dared to encroach upon his work. He then took a look at the cage and signalled that the door be opened.
Sensing that the cage was more of a protection than a prison in the current climate, none of the slaves made any attempt to escape or waylay the man as he stepped in and walked up to The Hermit.
'You, stranger,' the man said, making it clear exactly who he was addressing. 'Out of the cage, now.'
As if he had paid the previous screams no heed, The Hermit rose and strode over to the side of the cage, staring out through his hood at this new threat.
It was growing in size and its movements were oddly splayed and at great speed. Jakob had never seen anything like it, how large was it going to be when it reached them?
The guard watched the man nervously as the creature drew nearer, it was still relatively indistinct, aside from a distant thudding noise that grew louder.
'Stranger, out of the cage now.' There were definitely some nerves creeping into his voice now.
With a methodical slowness The Hermit walked to the cage door and eyed the quivering line of defence. He then proceeded to join them, neglecting to take the weapon offered to him. Staring out at the large creature as it approached he proceeded to set out in its direction.
The prisoners had all congregated at the side of the cage but the guards in front paid them no heed. The lead guard prodded Jimmy roughly with his spear. 'Let's hope your friend is tasty and it settles for just him.'
If Jimmy had heard the remark he chose not to respond. Jakob turned back to the scene unfolding before him, climbing the front of the cage for a better view. The sound of the door shutting and their imprisonment once more was largely forgotten about by the other slaves. The importance of the sound wasn't lost on Jakob, he knew that if none of the guards survived they'd be trapped inside here until they starved.
Assuming whatever was approaching didn't tear the cage apart first.
It slowed as this singular figure approached, seemingly confused as the rest at The Hermit's audacity, and in doing so it finally gave them a good chance to look at it.
It was easily twelve feet long, with blackened scales sheathing its body like some impenetrable armour. A dark grill of blackened teeth lay beneath piercing eyes that seemed to face oddly forward for a reptile.
The Hermit also slowed, though his movements didn't seem to be hampered by the thick sand surrounding him. There now appeared to be a brief stand-off between the two, or perhaps Jakob was reading too much into it and this was a prelude to an inevitable meal. Yet the man had moved so quickly in subduing Jimmy, was he really thinking he could do the same here?
The giant lizard gazed at him as it padded forward, was it waiting for The Hermit to make a move in response?
It got within feet of the man and halted, tilting it's head forward and gathering breath with a strange croaking.
The scream it let out was ear-splitting, a white ringing noise pulsed into Jakob's ears and he fell from the cage in shock. Some slaves cowered, others let out screams of their own and ran to the other side of the cage as if it would make a difference. Jimmy stood there silently, gripping the bars and watching The Hermit, he had no eyes for the lizard at all.
Jakob picked himself up and stood next to Jimmy, eyeing him curiously. It was almost as if the boy was in a trance, then again with his life in the balance who could blame him?
The lizard creature started forward once again, picking up speed at an appalling rate. Jakob steeled himself for the worst, waiting to see what the man had planned.
The Hermit raised his hand and the lizard started to slow. It let out a howl of frustration and kept trying to push itself forward. There was a great sense of heaviness in Jakob's head, as if he were balancing some large object inside his own skull.
The Hermit raised his second hand and this time the effect was profound, the creature let out a high pitched keening noise and attempted to retreat.
He advanced on it then, matching it step for step and clearly causing the animal a great deal of distress. Finally he lowered his hands and stood staring at the creature. It sniffed the air briefly, then fled with a yelp.
Jakob felt a gentle nudge on his ribs, Jimmy's face was turned in his direction with a question on his lips.
'Jakob, what just happened?'
He said nothing in response, this kind of man could threaten Empires.
As The Hermit turned and made his way back to the cage of his own volition there was complete silence from guards and prisoners alike. Silence and fear.
78
Gadtor
An uneasy truce had fallen between the two men. They both knew that their current predicament didn't allow for conflicts of interest.
It had been a wretched journey, not just because of their cramped conditions and near-perpetual darkness. Neither man had been able to sleep much with the constant grinding of the wheel beside the box they'd been forced into.
They were treated to gruel twice a day which seemed to be watered down enough to keep them hydrated. Aside from that they were allotted a few moments each day for ablutions, a humiliating task when joined at the leg.
Gadtor had made several attempts at conversation with Thom during their journey but the man was unresponsive at best and downright ill-tempered at worst. For all his underlying threats they both knew that it would be the death of them if they were to fight each other in such a state.
They had just been packed into the box again when Gadtor was met with a most unexpected sound.
'Go on then.'
Initially he thought that the voice had come from a guard outside or that perhaps he was hearing things.
'Well, you obviously want to talk, so talk. I'll try to keep it civil.'
They shifted positions to avoid limbs falling asleep and Gadtor pondered over what to say to the man first.
'You don't like me, that much is painfully apparent. You also know that we have to co-exist for our own mutual benefit. Why risk my angering you now with conversation?'
Thom seemed to ponder this for a while. 'If we're stuck here in this box for much longer in silence it will be to our detriment. I know a lot about where we're going so why not ask me about that?'
Gadtor shrugged, it was as good a start as any. 'What is it they're fighting up there in Sah'kel? I know it's a desert and I know there's some conflict but nobody ever told me what we were conflicting with.'
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