When his mind swam back to the surface and re-emerged into the waking world, Aiur found himself being dragged by the collar of his mail across hot sand.

  He squinted under the glare of the blazing sun, which now hung directly overhead and cast everything in harsh shadows. He squirmed against the force tugging him as he attempted to re-orientate himself, unsure of how long he had been unconscious.

  Before he could get his bearings, he was thrown forward and left sprawled face-first on the sand. He grunted and groaned, forcing himself up onto his hands as he spat out a mouthful of sand.

  The shadowed figure responsible lowered onto one knee. “My lord Agyrimithras, this one appears to be their leader.” Its voice was naught but a placating whisper.

  The serpent loomed over him. Aiur made sure to commit that infernal name to memory as he raised himself onto his knees to glare at this abomination. Its tongue flicked out as its bulk lowered and coiled, bringing them face to face. It hovered there for a tense, uncomfortable moment.

  “You do not fear me,” The beast said matter-of-factly, letting its voice tease out every word into a rattling hiss.

  One of its hands gripped Aiur by the chin, forcing him to glare into one another’s eyes. The urge to spit was unbearable as a sadistic grin tugged at the corners of the serpent’s mouth. “But you do hate me,” it cackled. “Good…perhaps it will make your screams all the more entertaining for me.”

  Aiur scowled, though before he could reply his face was shoved into the sand again, and Agyrimithras slithered away from him, reclining upon its coils. “Bring me some rope and a rusted blade! I would make an example of this one…” it demanded of its kneeling supplicant, who scurried away before its master had finished speaking. “And to the rest of you…” it said, turning on its quailing peons. “Find the last of them! I want every living thing in this pitiful mud-hole in chains before this one bleeds to death!”

  Aiur pushed himself onto his hands as subtly as he could, getting his first proper look at his surroundings. Armoured figures and cloth-clad peasants were huddled together near the mining office, limbs bound with rope, chain or cloth as they were shoved towards the outskirts of the hamlet by the beast’s slaves.

  The rest of the hamlet was entirely overrun. The dead lay unceremoniously where they had fallen, soaking in their own blood. Slaves in their dozens were ransacking every building in sight, driven on by the commands of the Unchained.

  The Unchained were scum, of the worst possible kind. Once slaves themselves, the atrocities they had committed with eagerness rather than compliance had caught the attention of their sadistic masters. Now they held the whip, cracking it upon those they once called friend, had once called family, to spare themselves the lash.

  Aiur knew them by reputation; when the influence of the Naga was felt, it was most often through Unchained agents, wreaking havoc in their master’s name.

  “Which one of them will give up everything to be free of their chains first, do you think?” Agyrimithras asked absent-mindedly, as if able to read his thoughts. The beast was still reclined on his own coils a few meters away, his face an arrogant smirk.

  Aiur scowled, biting down any reply as he turned back to the scene of carnage. There were a few faces missing among the dead or the captured. Daiss was the first one he noticed, Rexis another. He quietly hoped his friends had avoided some other gruesome fate.

  Angered by his silence, Agyrimithras loomed over him again, gripping the back of Aiur’s head and forcing him to look up. “Come now, take a good, long look. We both know one of them will turn on the others…but which one will it be, and why?” it cackled, holding his head in an iron-clawed grip that made Aiur’s head burn with the pressure, blood trickling down his cheeks as his skull threatened to burst. “It’s almost a shame you’ll be dead by the time I find out, isn’t it?”

  Aiur gasped as it lifted him off his feet and into the air without warning, bringing them face-to-face once more. “At least you have come to terms with it quickly. But if you are going to remain silent, I am going to draw out your pain.” It grinned at him, forcing its clawed digits deeper into his flesh with every moment. Aiur tried to resist, grasping at the arm and trying to wrench himself free, but every movement only brought more pain.

  Helpless against its strength, the only thing Aiur could think to do in that moment was spit his defiance into the creature’s face.

  Agyrimithras’ smirk faded as the gobbet of spit slapped against its scales, and it abruptly released Aiur from its grasp, letting him thump to the ground in a puff of sand.

  The beast reached up, wiping the spit from its face, the picture of utter calm. Aiur’s breath came short and sharp, looking for an escape. It held one of its hands delicately out to the side as its minion returned. “Knife,” was all it said, curling its fingers expectantly as the requested blade was carefully placed into its grip.

  “Your kind truly are pathetic,” the beast scowled, glaring down with contempt at Aiur as he began to push himself to his feet.

  The moment Aiur was upright, Agyrimithras slammed into him with frightening speed, forcing him backwards against the well and pinning him in place with a stomach-churning crunch. “You are slow.” It growled, but not loud enough to drown out Aiur’s shout of pain as he felt several ribs break.

  Aiur attempted a swing for one of the beast’s vulnerable eyes, but before his strike had even reached halfway, it grabbed his arm and cracked it against the well. Aiur shrieked again, groaning at the pain that pulsed in too many parts of his body now.

  “You are weak.”

  Before he could take another breath, the beast grabbed the sleeve of his chainmail and ripped it away. “You rely on this junk to protect you. You are soft!” it bellowed, punctuating its statement by cleaving into the meat of Aiur’s right arm with its rusted, blunt blade.

  Aiur screamed, as he felt it tearing through his flesh, ripping out scales with every tiny movement. It had sunk deep enough to hit bone, but not with enough force to crack it. Not yet.

  “Oh dear,” the beast cackled. “It seems it’s just not sharp enough for a clean cut.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  It dragged the blade up, down and then out of the new wound, grinning as Aiur screamed and attempted to staunch the sudden flow of blood with his uninjured hand.

  The beast pulled back, taking a breath as it prepared another degrading comment. Yet, with hand raised at the apex of its next strike, it paused, taking a second breath and flicking its tongue out to taste the air.

  Its face screwed up into a frown. “Something is burning…” it muttered, its attention turning towards the acrid, smoky scent drifting through the air.

  As the beast twisted upon its coils, one of its peons rapidly approached, managing to stumble out a “My lord” before receiving a savage backhand that sent him sprawling into the sand. Jaw hanging slack and head twisted at a sickening angle as he tumbled to the ground.

  “I can see it!” Agyrimithras bellowed, pausing only for a moment to point at another of the slaves sprawled before him. “Keep this imbecile pinned. If he moves so much as a muscle I want to know!” he added, before slithering away with a string of curses and to force orders upon its unkempt hordes. Relief flooded Aiur’s system, adrenaline fading as he kept his wound pressured to stem the bleeding.

  What it had seen was half the village engulfed in flames.

  Even delirious from pain as he was, vision swimming and every fibre of his being howling in pain and horror, Aiur could clearly see the pale flames licking up the walls of buildings. The flames were dancing and spreading with enthusiasm to destroy everything in their path. From his pain-addled perspective, the fire almost looked…alive.

  The slave that had been picked out, a bruised and shabby creature, pulled himself to his feet. The moment his master was out of earshot, he immediately began to wield the meagre authority he had been granted. He shouted another slave over, nursing some wound on its wrist as he moved to examine this surprisingly brave captive. Even as the serpent slithered away, the rest of the captives were still huddled together in fear.

  He cackled as he watched Aiur writhing in pain and pulled a “dagger” from the tattered cloth simulacrum of a belt draped across his waist, though it was nothing more than a sharpened bone-shard with leather wrapped around the hilt.

  He gurgled a threat in some alien tongue laden with throaty sounds and consonant-heavy words, clearly thinking Aiur was helpless against him. But this slave was no Naga, and he didn’t appear to have noticed his ally had not appeared at his side. He lay motionless in the sand.

  Aiur braced himself, subtly shifting his feet as the slave loomed in, blade poised with malicious intent.

  Aiur kicked with both feet, hitting the slave in the abdomen and forcing him back, if only briefly. By the time Aiur had scrambled to his feet, bracing himself to fight, the slave was gurgling on its own blood while being guided silently to the floor.

  By Rexis.

  The scout motioned with his finger for quiet as he carefully slid his blade free, rising to his feet as gracefully as a cat. But laboured breathing, grinding metal and grunts from the oozing wound in his right arm accompanied Aiur’s every movement. He’d lost a lot more blood than he expected, and his battering against the well made every breath a sucking wheeze.

  With adrenaline the only thing keeping him upright, he lumbered to Rexis’ side. “What now? I hope we have a plan,” he managed to utter.

  “We do. You stay put; you’re not running anywhere in that state,” Rexis said, glancing at his superior only briefly before darting across the sand to the captives.

  Aiur swayed on his feet and almost collapsed. From the waist up, everything except his left arm pounded with pain, and even breathing shot stabs of agony through him. He refused to let himself fall, however. Using his one good arm he held himself upright and skirted around the well, following Rexis as best he could over to the few prisoners still nearby.

  The scout was busy freeing them all, pointing them off in seemingly random directions, not wasting a moment to glance at any of them as soldier and peasant alike scurried away.

  “We have to get the wounded out. Splitting the healthy up in as many directions as possible will be the best way to do that,” Rexis said in hushed tones.

  “Wounded like me?” Aiur said, managing a chuckle that jabbing pains made him immediately regret.

  “Precisely, sir,” Rexis said without humour, jerking his head back towards the large inferno the Naga and his slaves were still struggling to contain. “The fire was Callia’s idea; it’ll buy us the necessary time to get you away from here.”

  “So, we’re running,” Aiur groaned, clutching his chest with his good arm.

  “I prefer the term retreating, but…yes, and in a damned poor state too.”

  Aiur grunted, taking one last long look around him. To think a training exercise had turned to this. “Let’s get this over with then and get far from here.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Rexis said matter-of-factly, dropping a final pair of now-empty shackles to the floor before rising. “Follow me…as quietly as those wounds will allow.”

  Without another word, the pair moved away from the well and headed south towards the outskirts of the hamlet.

  ***

  Pushed against a wall, at the opposite end of the hamlet to the raging inferno that was consuming the settlement whole, Daiss waited obediently. Though he couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to.

  He was quite surprised to be alive, if his current state could really be called living.

  Where there was once lovingly crafted, diligently cared for scale-mail, there was now a fused mess of molten slag still so hot it stung to move. At times he could still see wisps of steam rising from the hot metal.

  The state of his body underneath that armour was a mystery to him. All he knew ever since regaining consciousness was pain. So much pain.

  He had woken up lain out on the sand, with Rexis crouched over him. The scout had dragged him here, and once he was awake, simply shoved Daiss’ glaive back into his hands and ordered him to stay put. From there he’d managed to drag himself to a nearby wall and prop himself up against it. That alone had been one of the most painful experiences of his life.

  Which, for a man who had been stabbed, gutted and pierced enough for two soldiers’ lifetimes, it was probably impressive that he remained conscious. Daiss only hoped he would live long enough to impress someone with it.

  As he sat there and mused on the nightmare they’d found themselves in, he attempted to stay as absolutely still as his battered form would allow. Even going so far as to hold his breath for as long as he could muster each time, not to remain quiet, but to spare himself the dragging pain that now accompanied breathing. In the silence that surrounded him Daiss heard encroaching footsteps.

  He was in no condition to fight, even with his weapon he stood a better chance of a peaceful walk through the depths of hell than inflicting damage on anything else.

  With the creaking protest of tortured metal, he twisted his head to observe their approach, surprised and relieved in equal measure when he saw it was Rexis and Aiur. He sighed heavily as he realised they would be moving again soon, that he would be moving again soon. Taking the few moments he had before they reached him, he began to look for hand-holds to pull himself to his feet.

  Slowly, clumsily, and with another impressive feat of fortitude, he pulled himself upright.

  Every movement was accompanied with the grunts and groans customary of ruined flesh, twinned with the squeals and screeches of equally ruined metal being forced to bend and flex.

  With this chorus of pain, Daiss rose.

  Snatching his glaive from its place propped against the wall, he jammed it into the sand and leant upon it. He managed to stand with some modicum of pride as his superior approached, becoming ever-thankful for the chainmail hiding his face, even if half of it was stuck fast against his cheek and jaw.

  “Can you walk?” Rexis asked with urgency in his tone, glancing back at the inferno.

  “No idea. But I think we’re about to find out.” Daiss groaned in reply, slouching as he leaned an increasing amount of his bulk on his weapon.

  “Not exactly the answer I wanted, but it’ll have to do,” Rexis grumbled. Pinching his chin between thumb and forefinger, he slipped into thought for a moment. “I don’t think we have a choice. It’s into the desert with us.”

  “Which way? It’s sand for miles in every direction but west.” Aiur sighed, trying to support Daiss as best he could.

  “East is full of bandits and beasts. We’re meat if we go into the mountains,” Daiss grumbled between winces of pain.

  Nodding, Rexis set off with grim determination and perhaps a little hope they wouldn’t be alone. “And we have no idea how far north or east this horde extends, nor do I intend to find out. We go south.”