The Champion of Ailua
.Excerpt).
Chapter 1
My thoughts are licked by flames and shadows. Sulfur and smoke blight the air while the light of liquid lava flows through the veins of the earth. I almost know where I am, my eyes blindfolded as I'm made to kneel. The bare skin of my knees and shins grinds into the heated rock beneath me. I feel hands hold me still against the sudden, searing pains at my shoulders and lower back, blades sawing through flesh and bone. Through my screams I can hear my judgment cast upon me in officious tones, punctuated by the dead weights falling to either side and behind me. Heat cauterizes the wounds as I struggle, sweat beading on my ashen skin. They've been starving me to keep me weak, or so they tell me. Animals, torturous, brutal animals. The ungainly feeling of being shoved into a sack and then hoisted onto a winch is nothing compared to the slow, agonizing ascent through a narrow shaft cut up into the stone of the world. In the jolting, lifting dark, I ponder my fate as my consciousness slowly fades away.
I wake up some days later to canvas flapping violently in a dawn flurry. Through a torn seam in the tent I can see the sun rising up behind the snowy mountain peaks, setting last night's snowfall to glittering. Cirrus clouds cling to the black peaks like smoky drool on the teeth of wolves. The air is biting and thin up here, and the views from this camp are breathtaking. My hollowed cheek rubs on the cold dirt as I strain to see more of it, fascinated by the view and unable to truly take it all in for a variety of reasons. The foremost is that I'm a captive here, and my hands and feet are bound. The only source of heat in this small construction are six other people stuck in here with me. My breath twists into playful coils in the cold air leaking into this tent, the light from outside shining through the fog and giving it a lilac glimmer. My nose is filled with the scent of soil, body odor, and the sickly-sweet smell of human vomit and bodily waste within this tent.
The other people in the here are captives too. They're all women, and it doesn't take a very clever person to divine just why they've been spared. All of them are terrified and miserable, and these are the ones who haven't become playthings yet. Their features are typical of the people of the mountains – moonfaced with red cheeks, narrow eyes, dark hair, and suntanned skin. My own features aren't like theirs, though my skin typically bears a similar hue. Now I'm quite pale and look sick and malnourished, which I am. As I curl up and shift within the dirt, tearing my own rags a little more (though how could anyone tell by now?), I take a better look at the others. Young girls in their mid-teens are present, clinging to older women who are at the far end of childbearing age, and all are dressed in torn woolen dresses in blues and reds. The fabric looks comfortable and insulating, and I wish I was wearing something like it. My light gray eyes take them all in, though the women seem oblivious to me. I was just a wanderer who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. These people probably have names and long and beautiful histories but I have no idea what they are.
One of our captors walks in, flicking the tent flap back as if to show how easy it would be to strive for freedom. None of us can, of course, given the ropes that bind us. His eyes light on me, and I take him in as he paces towards me. The man is grizzled even in his prime years. Malnutrition has yellowed the whites of his eyes, and his nails are horn-like, capping calloused, chubby fingers. A sparse beard marks him as a man of low standing, an errand boy probably. Thick furs and hides are fashioned into clothing, with a wide belt that holds it all to his body and boots that strap up to his knees. A cap sits on his head with flaps to cover his ears, though even with so much on I can see that he's from the same region as his captives.
A few words are grunted my way but I have no idea what they mean as he hauls me over his shoulder. My chocolate brown hair is tangled and filled with dirt and straw, my full lips chapped, and my bare feet filthy and aching from the cold. I'm so hungry, but I can't stomach the sort of food these people eat. I've been wasting away for a day or two since our capture, and as his eager stride hauls me away to another tent I can feel my empty stomach gurgle with want. Maybe he'll feed me. I can only hope.
Instead of another ragged tent, I'm brought to an opulent setup that's much larger than the other constructions I've seen. Inside this one sits the fur-clad chief of this ungainly rabble, the man sporting a long and braided black beard and a scowling look beneath a balding scalp. A scar runs over his left eye rendering it milky and blind, leaving the task to his other eye to slide its gaze over my body as I'm set down on the ground before him. My escort leaves us alone, closing the tent flap behind him and taking up his place as a guard just outside. Ah, so I'm the spoils of the chief. Perhaps I should take that as a compliment.
The man doesn't waste time with small talk as he unfastens his pants. My bonds are cut away from my legs so that he can stand me up and shove my chest against the central pole. I don't bother to look as he takes what he wants, the rhythmic shoves into the pole bruising my shoulder and collarbone, but I hardly care about that. Slowly my light eyes close as the man begins to breathe harder and harder, my bottom lip caught in my teeth lightly as he starts to wheeze. Before too much longer he clutches at his chest, collapsing behind me onto his lovely rugs with his pants around his ankles.
I sigh with relief, my chapped lips filling and smoothing out. My coloration is a sweet sunset amber once more, and my hair has retained its beautiful dark luster. After a luxurious stretch, I move away from the post and crouch by the still form of the chief. “You went through all those other women before me? I'm hurt.” There's a knife in a sheathe at his belt, so I nudge it out with my foot and then lie down near it. I can feel the ivory grip with my fingers and I take it up, turning the blade to cut at the ropes at my wrists. My eyes are always on the entrance flap, hoping against hope that the guard won't be listening to the silence and grow curious.
The very last fiber snaps, and I quickly roll back to my feet with the dagger in hand. I'm dressed in rags that reveal more than they cover, and I evaluate my situation quickly. With a dead chief I can't imagine the rest of the men will be that happy with me. He's fed me just enough to get me on my feet, but my powers feel withered like leaves in winter. Against a healthy, lucid human I don't stand a chance, but maybe I can tilt the odds in my favor. I come up with a quick plan and grab the rope that had been around my legs, then quietly move over to the flap before I tap on it with my hand. My escort comes in and looks down at the body of his chief with great confusion, his eyes widening as I loop the rope around his neck and pull it tight. While he fumbles for his weapon I stab him with the ivory dagger in the side of the chest, his breathing whistling out the gash as he falls weakly to the ground.
And I use him. I have the ability to entrance my prey, though in my starving condition I'm just barely able to keep him tamed to my needs because I'd weakened him first. Yet tamed he is, thankfully just willing enough to place this use of him within the bounds of my own moral code. And yes, shockingly, I do have one. My dirty hands hold his shoulders down as I straddle his moving body, though as time passes he settles and stills. The man dies as I feed, cutting my meal frustratingly short; his lack of consideration only makes me irritated. Well, if that's the sort of reception I can expect from my captors, I might as well find better, more rapacious bandits when I have the chance. I take what I can from the bodies, pulling off pants that fit and tightening the belt around my slim hips before tugging on my escort's boots. A tunic and a hide shirt later and I'm nearly finished. And I'll be taking that hat, thank you.
After rooting through the chief's gathered items, I soon wear two swords belted at my left hip, one at my right, with another strapped to my back. The axes I found are small and light, and I heft them in my gloved hands as I step out of the tent. There are five bandits in total, starting to strike camp in preparation for moving down the mountain. The man putting out the cooking fire and the one tending the horses each get an axe hurled into the back of their heads, and as the other three prepare for a fight I unsheathe the silver sword at my left hip and the steel one on my right. I can't even begin to imagine where this lot got their hands on a beautiful sword like this, but now really isn't the time to ask. The style of my swordsmanship is fast and light while theirs is all about clumsy power, and soon enough one is hamstrung, one is left with no hands, and another's head looks up from the ground as his body collapses next to him. The handless man kneels in the bloody snow in disbelief as I head into the captive's tent.
I really have no time to explain, and it'd be pointless for these women to just die up here. My blades cut through their bonds, and I hold the tent flap open as they run out. Yet the sight of the man with no hands and the other man clutching his leg catches their attention, the hate in their eyes at a boiling point. Pursing my lips, I walk over to one of their wagons and nudge a large canvas bag strapped to the side with the hilt of my left sword. The sound of metal objects clinking together confirms my suspicions, and I cut out the bottom of the sack. A collection of stolen axes, daggers, and swords tumble to the ground, and while I appropriate one of the shaggy black horses from its post, I can see the women all take up a weapon and converge on the two wounded men. Their screams follow me down the valley as I ride my new horse at a walk down the path, taking in the world around me.
Perhaps there are easier ways to feed in this land. I've heard that humans accept money for such a thing, and I do have a few coins in my pocket now. While I was able to overcome my captors without being found out, I can't possibly hope to settle all confrontations like that. I'm an exiled demon in a world of humans, elves, and other creatures of the light. Were any of them to identify me for what I am my life might very well be forfeit. What shall I do and where shall I go? The path before me meanders down the side of the mountain to the green world below, so I suppose I will go that way. I'm not eager to start this, but it has to be done.
I have to live undercover as a human being or die. This is going to be hell.