Original Stories Fan Fiction / Other Fan Fiction / Realism Fan Fiction ❯ Darkness Eternal ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter ThreeDiscovered

 

Broken images chased each other through her minds eye, each more disturbing than the last. She tossed her head from side to side in an attempt to rid herself of them, but to no avail. Murmurs broke through her haze and penetrated her hearing just before ice water splashed over her face, jerking her painfully back to her senses.

She sat bolt upright, smashing her forehead into the face of the person that was bending over her. Scrabbling blindly away she clutched at her forehead until her back knocked against the wall. Pressing her back firmly to the wall she shoved her first initial panic away and dropped her hand to her lap to allow herself an unobtrusive view of the room she was in.

There was an odd white expanse of tarp stretched from each…wooden…wall to the next. Her eyes swept around the room and she was startled to see that there were at least a dozen people crammed into a room that was, at most, 6 by 9 foot. She passed over the grimy people until her eyes came to rest on the open end of the room where the tarp did not reach the walls.

Dread settling in her stomach, she glanced down and saw that she had carved a path along the wooden planks through the grimy straw that someone had lain down. And then it hit her, they were in a wagon and she was sitting among a group of very unfamiliar people. “Where am I?” she asked coolly, secretly proud that her voice didn't crack.

The others merely stared at her, either not understanding or refusing to respond. She focused her attention on the girl that was still holding her nose, the same person that had thrown the water on her. “Where are we?” she asked.

“Slabe caraban,” she replied with a glare.

“What?” Soren asked, modifying her tone to moderate politeness.

The girl had sharp eyes, dark skin, black hair, and a stocky build, everything that had the good makings of a field worker. She dropped her hands from her face and said, “Slave caravan. Congratulations, you've woken to a one way trip to hell,” she said icily as she raised her hand to again try and rub the blood away.

“Sorry about that,” Soren said hastily, tearing a portion of her sleeve away and handing it over to the girl, who snatched it away from her and held it to her nose. “What's your name?”

“You may call me Sara,” she said stiffly. “Not my real name, but what everyone around here calls me. Yours?”

“Fayra,” she replied smoothly, making the other girl blink in surprise. “Now, Sara, will you tell me how the hell I wound up here?”

“You were captured,” Sara said shortly.

“The details?” she prompted.

“Don't know them,” she said curtly.

“Yes, you do,” Soren said, letting anger creep into her voice. “Why the fuck did you throw ice water on me? And just where in the hell am I?”

Sara's dark eyes lingered on Soren's silver ones for a moment before she flinched away at some invisible gesture. “You were found in the desert yesterday, bloodied, and near death. There was no one else in the desert, so you were shackled and tossed in here where we were told to take care of you,” Sara said reluctantly. “They thought you would fetch a good price at market, otherwise you would have been left out there to die.”

“The water?”

“An entire day is long enough for someone to be sleeping. You need to eat something,” Sara said, motioning to one of the other women.

Soren stretched her hand out to accept the food that the woman was holding her, pausing when the sun caught and reflected off the metal that sat on her wrist. Bonds, thought as she turned her wrist over to inspect it. The mark of slavery. Mmm…Whatever, I'll deal with these later.

As her fingers closed around the stale crust of bread she met the woman's blue ones and noted that she flinched away much the same way that Sara had. She pushed it from her mind as she sat cross-legged against the wall and turned her attention back to Sara.

“These supposed slave traders aren't very smart,” she commented, inspecting the metal closer and taking note of the small grooves and scratches that looped around the band in an unusual pattern. “There are no chains to keep us in place.”

“They don't need them,” a male voice spoke up bitterly.

“How so?” Soren asked without looking at him.

“They had these things specially made in Kokutoma.” A low, mutinous mutter ran through the others as though he had said something offensive.

Soren looked up to meet his gaze. Short black hair hung lank at his square chin, a squashy nose sitting over lips that were currently twisted into a grimace and under oval eyes. His short neck tapered into broad shoulders, though he was built in a wryly sort of way.

“Is Kokutoma a new sort of factory or something?” she asked, only mildly interested.

A look of surprise crossed his face as Sara gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Are you that stupid that you do not even know the name of one of our most wretched countries? Kokutoma has been without a ruler for nearly thirty years now and their Riagenkai has yet to be born, leaving them utterly helpless.”

She ignored the jibe at her apparent lack of knowledge as she said, “Never heard of it. What's a Riagenkai and what's it got to do with the lack of chains?”Sara stared at her, utterly exasperated, while the male shook his head in mild amusement. “You are not from a local village are you? If you were you would not be asking such questions.

“Kokutoma is now a wild country unchecked by even its own ministers where once it was a prosperous country overflowing with wealth and people,” he paused and shook his head in a rueful manner. “Their Riagenkai, or dragon guardian, fell to a disease and because rulers are connected to the Riagenkai their ruler soon fell as well. With the two out of the way the ministers-”

“I get that you're trying to explain things to me, but what the hell does this have to do with anything?” Soren asked a little impatiently. “I didn't ask for a history lesson.” She twitched a little at the word, the memory of her history book hitting her in the head still rather fresh. Instead of focusing on her recent memories she raised the bread to her lips and forced herself to eat.

Sadi cleared his throat as another murmur broke around the rest of the slaves before saying, “You asked and I'm telling. If you have patience I will get to the part about the chains in my own time.” Soren merely shrugged and stared at him until he went on. “As I was saying:

“With the ruler and her dragon out of the way, the ministers were left unchecked and they began feuding over who would become the interim ruler. To gain the advantage they resorted to consorting with common bandits and other scum when the general refused to show favor and back any of their claims.

“One had enough foresight to think of how he would control the other ministers once he took the throne and so consulted a local…” here he paused and grimaced in distaste, “…a local imagi. He had made a special set of shackles that drained away any ability that the wearer might have had and route it back into their bodies to lay dormant.

“Now, what this particular minister didn't know was that the imagi was already in the services of another minister and as soon as he handed over the money for the shackles he was swarmed by the other minister's bandits turned guard. The other guards were overwhelmed and executed soon after while their employer was imprisoned. Soon after more bandits were brought in but they cared nothing for the feud and when they grew bored of serving the ministers, they ransacked the imperial palace and moved on, leaving all who might have ruled dead.

“Now, as to how these slave traders got their hands on this particular set of shackles and in such amounts, I've no idea, but I do know that the imagi survived to present and set to selling these bonds as a means to make a living.”

“But couldn't you just take off in the dead of night when they are blinded and unaware?”

“Stupid girl,” Sara snapped, “these shackles release a deadly amount of shukugi into your bloodstream when you get so much as five thousand yards from the one that shackled you. And if you don't know what shukugi is, it is a poison cultivated from the blood of a Reyoken that eats the organs away from the inside out. It has no cure.”

“Don't antagonize her,” a slender woman hastily chided Sara, whom fell instantly silent.

Pretending not to have heard Soren rolled the last of the bread between her fingers, reducing it to crumbs before saying, “Well, thank you. That answers a few questions, but not all of them.”

“You asked none that I have not answered,” Sadi said, slightly taken aback.

“And I didn't ask more than I wanted answered, but there is one other you might be able to answer for me.”

Sara and Sadi exchanged looks and heaved a sigh in unison. “Very well, but this is the last question, understood?” Sadi asked patiently.

“Perfectly,” Soren said. “How did I survive my wounds? I had a hole through my left shoulder and claw marks over my right eye. How can I see and why am I still alive?”

“That's two questions,” Sara interjected as Sadi took breath to answer. “You said you only had one last question.”

“It's the same one.” Her temper was getting the better of her and she knew it. She snapped her attention away from Sara to Sadi and glared at him instead, allowing her anger to siphon off and her usual cold to take its place in her body.

Once her scowl had relaxed into a neutral expression Sadi smiled good-naturedly. “You had no such wounds, but then the imagi tended to you before you were tossed in here with us. Might I inquire as to how your clothes came to be so bloodied before you came to us?”

“No,” she said flatly, turning her head to stare out the open part of the wagon as they jounced lightly along the terrain. “Though you didn't answer all of my questions as you said. Where are we?”

Sadi cast a sidelong glance towards the other slaves as they shifted nervously. The wagon was slowing and the last time they'd been dragged out by the hair and forced to submit themselves to a search for a missing copper that one of them had supposedly stolen. Even Sara hunched her shoulders and scowled at them memory of what had happened to her.

“We are slaves and we are headed to the slave pens of this country,” he finally said as they stopped entirely. “Be prepared for anything.”