Chapter 8 - Restrained Soul

  The heavy cold steel stung his skin. It drank his warmth, spreading numbness up his arms and legs.

  The rope threaded through the shackles at his wrists jerked tight, and his body lurched forward as the man ahead of him stumbled into motion. One step pulled the next.

  Rink’s smile still burned behind his eyes. Not the fear, not the pain, only the smile.

  Don’t die in vain.

  The words echoed with every clink of chain, every forced step across the stone. Elrin’s chest felt tight, as if something had been buried there and left to rot.

  This was nothing like Helligsol. At the academy, they called suffering discipline. Hunger was training. Pain was purpose. They broke the pupils so they could forge knights.

  But this is not forging, this is disposal.

  The rope jerked again, harder this time. A guard at the front barked an order and tugged the reins like livestock. Elrin stumbled, caught himself, and felt it stir again. That burning heat. The slow, patient pressure coiled behind his ribs, waiting patiently. Inviting him to tear free.

  Images rose unbidden—hands crushed beneath stone, a skull splitting open, red splashing across black armor.

  The boy swallowed hard. Have I always thought like this?

  He forced his gaze down and walked. The guard pulled them towards the large shiny black doors leading inside the cave. He knocked a few times, rhythmically. And for a moment, nothing happened.

  Then the massive doors groaned open, revealing a large green-skinned creature. It stood at least twenty feet tall and had a body riddled with scars; from—one would assume—lashes. His build was strong and vascular, but his back was hunched. A black-metal mask covered his face entirely, save for two breathing holes.

  The creature pulled at the doors with long metal chains that weren't held in his hands, they were embedded directly into his flesh and bone.

  The doors were fully open when the deafening snap of a whip reverberated somewhere from behind the creature. It creature gasped, a wet, broken sound, and staggered aside without a word, opening the path for the shackled men. Despite its size and physical strength, it moved with practiced obedience.

  Humans are not the only victims of this world, thought the boy.

  As the prisoners were dragged forward, cold air spilled from the opening, washing over Elrin’s face. It felt like stepping out into winter naked, the chill seeping instantly into bone and breath. He shivered, and so did the others, their shackles clinking against each other.

  Inside, the cave was quiet. There were fewer guards than Elrin expected but, that somehow unsettled him more.

  After several hundred steps, the tunnel narrowed and the line halted. Ahead stood another door, smaller than the first, framed in iron and stone. Two armored men waited beside it, unmoving.

  The guard tugging the rope stepped forward alone and rapped his knuckles against the metal door in a short, practiced pattern.

  A narrow slit slid open.

  “How many?” came a human voice from within, flat and tired.

  “Nine.”

  The slit closed.

  Then the metal shifted. Heavy bolts slid free with deep, grinding clunks, followed by the slow churn of an unseen mechanism turning somewhere inside the wall.

  The door swung inward and the rope snapped tight. The prisoners were dragged through.

  Beyond the threshold, the air changed immediately. Colder, thicker. The light vanished as the door shut behind them with a final, echoing clang.

  Stone steps descended sharply into darkness. They were uneven and slick with moisture, carved shallow and close together, forcing short, awkward steps. Elrin’s boots slipped more than once, his balance saved only by the pull of the rope and the bodies ahead of him.

  No torches lit the way.

  Deep below, iron rang against iron in a slow, steady rhythm. Hammer strikes, each one echoed up the stairwell, vibrating through the stone and into Elrin’s lungs and bones. Whatever waited beneath them was not rushed.

  When they finally reached the deepest part of the cave, the ceiling dropped low, no more than ten feet overhead. Gone were the hanging crystals. In their place, the stone itself twisted into unnatural shapes, short hexagonal pillars jutting downward, some hanging lower than others, like broken teeth. Thin streaks of green algae clung between the cracks, damp and luminous in the dim light.

  This stone looked wrong. Unstable. As if it were barely holding together, waiting for one unlucky soul before collapsing.

  Good, Elrin thought bitterly. Let it fall. On Gunwald—or Wildree.

  The thought surprised him.

  Wildree.

  He hadn’t meant to think of him, but the image came anyway. A part of Elrin hoped the man had already been torn apart, his body left in some forgotten pit. Another part wanted him alive.

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  Death would be too merciful.

  That realization sent a chill through him. When did thoughts like that become so natural?

  He shook his head sharply, forcing them back. Torture, cruelty. These were not things he had ever imagined wishing on another person. And yet, since waking, such thoughts surfaced without effort, uninvited and disturbingly familiar.

  Elrin stepped forward, and slammed into something solid. He stumbled back as the man ahead of him turned.

  The prisoner was massive. Not tall so much as broad—six feet of dense muscle and scar tissue, his back wide enough to block what little light reached them. Thick, silvery sideburns ran into a heavy mustache. His arms were corded and hairy, skin crisscrossed with old scars, his knuckles bare-boned and crooked, shaped by a hundred fights lost and as many won.

  For a moment, he looked more beast than man.

  Then he smiled. “Easy, lad,” the man said, in a deep calm voice. “I won’t hurt you.”

  His teeth were large—sharp.

  Clank!

  One by one, iron chains struck the stone floor as the guards unlocked the prisoners. The sound echoed through the chamber.

  All around them were human guards, their shapes barely distinguishable in the dim light.

  At the center of the chamber stood an iron cylinder, its mouth glowing orange. Fire breathed from within, slow and powerful. Several iron rods rested inside, their tips buried in the coals, metal turning red. A lone guard stood beside it, face impassive, waiting.

  The massive man ahead of Elrin stiffened.

  His breathing turned harsh and uneven. His lips curled back, teeth bared. The muscles in his neck stood out like cables. His ears twitched, and his eyes—wide, with blown pupils—locked onto something behind the guards.

  Thud.

  The guards stomped their feet and stood upright, saluting. From the darkness, heavy footsteps echoed closer.

  Then figure emerged.

  His armor was black like the others, but thicker and broader. His shoulders were enormous, almost grotesque in their width, giving him a silhouette more akin to a walking fortress than a man. He stood as tall as Elrin remembered Johanne—taller, perhaps.

  His helmet was smooth and rounded at the crown, the visor forming a jagged V that hid his mouth in shadow.

  The prisoner ahead of Elrin let his voice slip out, low and venomous. “Aldwin,” he muttered.

  But Aldwin, the large armored man, paid no attention.

  “You traitor,” continued the prisoner.

  Aldwin did not react. He simply walked forward with deliberate weight and stopped before the first prisoner in line.

  Up close, his presence was suffocating.

  “Hands,” Aldwin said, an authoritative air about him.

  The prisoner obeyed and turned his palms upward.

  Aldwin glanced once. That was enough. “Smith.” He flicked two fingers aside.

  A guard reached into the iron cylinder and withdrew a branding rod. Its tip glowing white-red, the shape of an S carved deep into it. The air filled with the smell of scorched iron. The prisoner barely had time to inhale.

  Tshhh

  The rod sank into his shoulder.

  Flesh gave way with a wet hiss, skin blistering and collapsing inward as the iron pressed deep. The scream that tore from the man’s throat was not loud at first—it caught, strangled by shock—then burst free, raw and animalistic.

  The smell hit Elrin a heartbeat later.

  Burnt meat, hair, blood.

  The man collapsed to his knees, mouth open in a silent howl as the brand was torn free, the letter S left bubbling and ruined in his flesh. A guard dragged him aside.

  Aldwin had already moved on.

  The next prisoner was a thin, elderly man. His hands trembled so badly he could barely hold them out.

  Aldwin did not look at them.

  “Bellows.”

  The guard returned the S to the fire and drew another rod. This one bore a B. The old man whimpered. A sound like a child trying not to cry.

  Tshhh

  He did not scream. His eyes rolled back as the iron kissed his shoulder, and his body went slack before the brand was even complete. He crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

  “Wake him,” Aldwin said calmly.

  A bucket of water was thrown over the man’s face. He gasped, choking, eyes flying open, just in time to feel the aftermath burning through his nerves.

  One by one, they were marked.

  Until Aldwin stopped. He stood before the man beside Elrin. They stared at each other for a few very long moments. The chamber felt tighter.

  Aldwin tilted his head.

  His helmet hid his face, but his voice changed, lower, calmer.

  “Dravan,” he said. “Why are you here?”

  Dravan spat, his fluid struck Aldwin’s helmet. The spit slipped through the eye slit and disappeared inside.

  The guards froze.

  Shing!

  Then swords slid from their sheaths in unison as the guards closed in around Dravan. Ready for a fatal strike.

  Aldwin didn’t flinch. He raised one gauntleted hand, and the guards moved back instantly.

  Standing this close, Elrin understood why the man was feared. He stood a full head taller than Dravan, but it was what he carried that stole the breath from the boy’s lungs.

  A weapon—if it could even be called that.

  It was nearly as tall as Aldwin himself, thick as a tree trunk, a slab of iron strapped across his back at a crooked angle. No edge and no curve. Just mass.

  How could anyone—human or demon—lift something like that?

  “Cloth,” Aldwin ordered.

  A guard hurried forward with a torn rag. Aldwin removed his helmet. Pale skin and eyes blue as the sky. Hair the color of dull gold, shaved close at the sides. His left ear was missing a large chunk—bitten off.

  “I’ll let this pass, Dravan,” Aldwin said quietly. There was guilt in his eyes. “But don’t forget your place.”

  Dravan let out a deep, rumbling laugh.

  “Keep your mercy,” he spat again, sending it straight into Aldwin’s face. “Do something about it, traitor. I dare you.”

  For a moment, Aldwin didn’t move. Then his face darkened as he stepped forward. Deep within his eyes, something flickered, dark purple light. The ground trembled beneath his boots. Dust lifted from the stone floor and hung in the air, motionless.

  Without a word, Aldwin raised his gauntlet, and brought it down on Dravan’s head. The air split with a thundercrack.

  Dravan’s head smashed into the stone, carving a crater in the floor, his skull buried halfway into solid rock.

  Hushed gasps rippled through the prisoners, then the chamber fell silent.

  Elrin stared at the unmoving body, heart pounding—

  Then saw the stone around Dravan’s head begin to fracture outward.

  Slowly.

  As though something beneath it was trying to rise.