Private Tales Fleeing from the Dark

[Kassa Lia]

Gasping for breath, Talathan Rook crashed through low-hanging boughs and tall shrubs in a stumbling run. The sun was setting already, the rays of light shining through the tree branches bringing out the bright greens of the tropical vegetation, and one could see the slice of moon in the distant sky. Soon it would be dark, further deepened by the shadow of the Black Fortress of Cerak At’Thul. He would not be able to run for much longer than that.

He staggered over a jutting root and fell to his knees. That was when he heard it – heard them.

“This way!”

“He can’t run forever!”

“Do you hear me, little bird?” This last voice was jeering, mocking, cruel. “I’m coming for you!”

The ground scratched and gouged his fingers and palms. Thorns caught and tore on the slave’s robe he wore as Rook scrambled to his feet and began to run again. He had no idea where he was headed, only that he had to escape. He would never have another chance, he knew, and if he was caught and punished… they might not stop until they killed him. He remembered the whips, the chains, the burning and the freezing cold, the scalpels and clubs… and that was all gentle grooming compared to what they would do, should they catch him.

Abruptly, something hard slammed into his back. The blast of air lifted him off his feet and sent him sprawling. He groaned, tried to get up again, only to be knocked down once more by a firm kick. Scornful laughter sounded around him as the slavers gathered around him. Master Jerdosa was at their head, and traced the tail of his leather whip through long, elegant fingers.

“Thought you could escape me, little bird?” Master Jerdosa smirked.

“Please…” Rook whispered.

The whip rose and fell, and Rook screamed as the whip cut into his back, five times, each stroke harder than the last.

“Say it,” Jerdosa snarled as the five men around him laughed.

“Please!”

“Say it!”

“I… I love you, master.”

Master Jerdosa smiled, blue eyes twinkling. “I love you too, little bird.”

 

[Ll'nael]

Those were Jerdosa's last words, provided two seconds after that he found himself with a "minor" wound to the side of his head I would describe as an arrow to the brain. The arrow came fast and silent from his left, startling the others - now aware of the enemy presence.

One of the other five got the fleeing slave from his back and put a dagger against his throat, making a small cut from which a few drops os blood appeared. He was the next one to perish. The slave found himself with a dagger in his possession and the four remaining captors in front of him hiding behind trees from the unknown threat that Ll'nael posed.

 

[Kassa Lia]

The men were shouting, screaming threats at the invisible enemy that now hunted them. With two already dead, their voices were shrill with fear, thinking there were far more than just one man ambushing them.

Panting hard, Rook snatched up the dagger from the ground, clutching the leather wrapped handle tightly with both hands. From the way he held it, and the uncertainty in his eyes, it was clear he had never handled a weapon before. His eyes, filled with fear and an uncanny hope, flicked from the lifeless form of his master to the trees where the rest hid.

The shouts of the slavers suddenly halted. There was silence for a moment, a short, intense moment before the storm was unleashed. It started with the tropics shivering under a cold wind, a wind that turned into a great zephyr that cut through the woods, tearing up shrubs, uprooting trees, slashing across the ground and leaving great gashes in the bloodstained earth. Rook screamed, as much in surprise as despair.

From behind one tree the mage stepped, his hair whipping around his head from the winds he had summoned and controlled now with perfect and practiced savagery. He was tall, beautiful in the way so many evil things are beautiful. He glared with fearlessness at the unseen threat, and then at Rook.

“You will never escape us, little bird,” he said, a smile playing across his lips. “Be free for now, for when we catch you again… you will wish you were dead.”

“M-master Vansel…” Rook stammered. He got no farther, for suddenly the wind stopped, and Vansel, along with the other slavers, were gone. Rook slumped to the ground, his chest heaving in exhaustion, shoulders shaking with fear that had not yet gone. He stared at the dead Jerdosa, and the slaver beside him, and fingered the cut across his throat that was also ringed with a thin circle of iron tinged with a blue glow. The dagger slipped from his grip, and his hands covered his face as he suddenly broke into heaving sobs.

 

[Ll'nael]

After a few seconds, a tall strong man with a well-done beard, long braided dark hair. He had a small owl face paint, which clearly helped with camouflage. He wore just enough clothes to get by without melting by daytime. On his hands, a bow, and on hus waist, two sheathed swords, one bigger and one smaller.

"Quick, let's go before they come back. You can deal with emotions later"

He said, approaching the corpse of the unnamed slaver and looting it for pieces of money and valuables which he stored in a leather sack tied to his waist. Then proceeding to Rook and putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

 

[Kassa Lia]

Rooks’ crying subsided only minimally as the tall man approached, and he watched the stranger with unabated fear. His apparent savior, with his weapons and face paint, seemed savage and brutish to him, two qualities Rook was all too familiar with. He shivered, watching the man rummage through the body of Master Calvas. Unlike the other slavers, Calvas had on occasion been in the mood to be kind to him, feeding him off his own plate and giving him clean water to drink.

What was he going to do now, with his masters dead? What was he going to do without them to tell him what to do? Was this stranger any better, at that? He cringed as the man drew very near and jerked back when the man placed a hand on his shoulder, clearly expecting a strike. The man might notice then, that Rook had a very strange feature – pale white feathers, tipped with black, appeared to be growing from his neck beneath his hair. They were disheveled, rather mangy, but clearly not synthetic decoration.

When the man didn’t kill him, he dared to glance up, and at the first sign or approval, carefully stood, shoulders hunched and head bowed as he had been taught, and following the man when he decided to leave. Slaves did not disobey or hesitate to obey, and usually, they didn’t talk either unless ordered to… but he couldn’t help it.

“What… what are you going to do to me?”

 

[Ll'nael]

"Only what you'd like me to do for you."

The man dared to smile. It wasn't a big smile. A small, barely noticable smile. But a smile. But the man had an intebt with that smile. Maybe it comforted the slave.

"But first, let's take these shackles off, eh?"

He did not ask of the feathers. He is curious, but it might be a complicated subject for the new free man to talk about. He got from his pouch a lockpicking kit and gestured with his hand for the man to approach him.

 

[Kassa Lia]

It was a friendly smile, but Rook flinched. He had grown up at a place where smiles were signs of pleasure at his suffering, evil smiles that indicated a time of pain to come. Memories flashed through his mind, comprised of all the time Master Jerdosa and Master Vansel and other masters and mistresses had smiled at him… and remembered the knives, the whips, the tools that cut and bruised his flesh. Even Master Calvas, when he smiled, smiled in apology before he punished him for the slightest disobedience.

He backed away, when the strange man gestured for him to come forward. He had seen that gesture all too many times before, too.

“N… no… I mean, I’m sorry, M-master… Master…” What was the man’s name? He didn’t know. He swallowed, look at the lockpicking kit. He felt the collar around his neck, and the manacles around his wrists. A few broken links of chain still clung to them, rusted things that had broken only hours before. Those could be picked open, but the collar was another thing…

But why was he thinking of trusting the man?

He swallowed. “Master… please forgive me… but the collar is magical. It can’t be taken off. It doesn’t even have a… a keyhole.” His shoulders slumped. He wondered what sort of punishment the man would inflict on him for being such a frustration, such a useless, bad person.