A whip made of dark hair was brought down, falling mercilessly upon a very thin, dark-haired young man who screamed when he felt it crack against the flesh on his back!
He stumbled to a fall on the winding rock steps and balled his hands into fists, grinding his yellow teeth while he trembled as he held back anything more he wanted to say or do.
"Faster you mutt! You're getting lazier with each passing day!" a thick bearded man with a fierce make of a face barked with sprinkles of his foul saliva spraying at the downed young man.
He donned a linothorax armour, complete with a polished brown leather breastplate that had the outline of robust chest pad and abs. His shoulders were free, showing the dark hairs that grew from his thick limbs, with his feet wearing brown-coloured leather greaves.
The man swung his whip again which smacked the young man's back, scraping his skin as it lashed, staining the filthy tunic he donned in blood. He tried to crawl up the large stone steps but his strength waned, for he had not eaten on the previous Feeding Rite.
"Heh, keep lazing on there, mutt! I do not mind swinging a few more!"
Among the other slaves passing by without showing much of a reaction to one of their own getting brutally whipped as they climbed up the steps, one rushed and got between the whip's sudden descent and the struggling slave's back.
CRACK!
The shiny whip which reeked of a disgusting odour struck against different unyielding flesh. One that was dry like the others it always smote, but never flinched even with the cruellest of punishment.
The man in the armour frowned as he saw the intervention. He grumbled and suddenly lost the bloodthirsty vigour he had woken up to on this bright and hot morning.
"Hmph. You again," he grumbled before he spat at this slave's feet. "Carry him up."
The slave who had just arrived did not turn to face the man with the whip. Instead, he picked up his fellow 'work mate' and dragged him up the crude rough steps surrounded by cold and dirty walls, wounding up to the surface seventy meters above.
The journey was profoundly difficult, but soon, just like the others, the two reached the circular exit above where they emerged into the lands of the Ruined Hold.
The slave who had rescued his fellow from certain death looked down the large circular opening they had come from which showed a spiral descent of steps that dug down to the horrid floor far down which they called their living quarters, a hundred-meter hurdle they had to overcome each morning and night before and after arduous labour.
The guards and soldiers called it the Watering Hole. The reason was the simple fact that they occasionally pissed in it, especially when all the slaves had retired from work for the day.
This slave propped up the other and supported him with his arms half gently.
Locks of light brown hair draped down his forehead with sharp, dark grey eyes sticking out from his face which kept a button nose and sunken cheeks.
Ivory-coloured skin adorned his tall yet sickly-looking figure that made the torn tunic he wore look healthy in comparison.
"Thank you, Trodden..." the dark-haired young man said weakly to which the young man who had saved him sucked in a deep breath and nodded.
The two stood amidst the hundreds of other slaves that looked around with dispirited gazes which emitted no life.
The vast space that they looked at, much bigger than their own living circle in the Watering Hole, gave naught by a deep sense of weariness.
Tall, dark walls surrounded the massive city, blocking light in their part of it. From their spot, they could see the thousands of houses that sheltered hundreds of thousands of people in the Ruined Hold, all of them considered their superiors.
"I see we have lost several more in the night. Heh, you can only curse those that have escaped their duty to death. Their burden is yours now," a bulky man with a bald head scoffed. A large scar as if from a burn covered the entire left side of his face, giving him a terrifying appearance.
The same linothorax armour adorned his body, showing off his thick thighs and toned muscles, as it did for all the other soldiers.
At his words, the men around him guffawed while gripping their spears and swords.
The slaves muttered weakly among themselves, thinking back to the twenty that had woken up in the sweet embrace of death this morning.
This made their work harder.
Who were they to leave their quota for others to tend to?!
Trodden looked with emotionless eyes at the soldiers that laughed at their frail bodies.
Four years had passed since he was brought here along with others from his village, most of which had passed some time ago.
He would have perished as well if not for his special trait.
The inability to feel pain.
For this, he respected his friend's tenacity to go on living without an odd disability like his own.
He propped up, Aneus whom he cradled, the young man with the wiry body failing to stand on his own from exhaustion.
"To work, you mutts! The piles of stone at the gates will not heave themselves!" one of the soldiers called while smiting a slave with his whip on a whim.
The group made a single file as they walked over to finish where they left yesterday.
They passed through clean streets of the Hold, fancily dressed men and women steering clear of them with disgusted expressions while even the hawkers in the marketplaces spat at their feet.
The stone houses, lavishly built in a way that gave the image of a prosperous city made every one of the slaves yearn for home.
From where they had been taken.
Even now, they had not the slightest clue where they had been dragged to after their villages had been raided, most not knowing the fates of their loved ones.
However, Trodden among others had an idea of where they were.
Albir, the village he lived four years ago, was in the Inner Ring, away from the Blessed Lands of the Dormant Peak.
Each day that he gazed up told him that he was not under the protection of the graced lands, but probably further away.
In the Outer Ring, farthest from the influence of order.
Even with his inability to taste pain from his flesh, he couldn't help but gnash his teeth at the prospect of his mother's fate that day.
His blood boiled whenever he recalled it. Such cruelty shredded his naive childhood away in a matter of hours.
He had borne hatred so hot that he had wanted to seek vengeance.
However, a single week in the Ruined Hold with these men had taught him that such a dream was best left in folktales.
He turned his head to gaze at one of the soldiers that escorted them.
The hard, bark-like skin with a dark shade like that of a tree on the man's forearm discouraged his burning soul from doing anything reckless.
For it was abundantly clear to him and the other slaves, that these were not ordinary men of simple flesh and blood.
"You seem... rather lively today, Trodden," said Aneus who was now walking behind him, fumbling over his steps.
"Have you finally lost your mind?" Trodden scoffed at his friend's sentiment.
"Nay. Your eyes... they are showing a rare light."
"Is that so. I feel the same as always. Naught but a gaping hole in my heart."
"Perhaps you traded pain of the flesh for cheap poverty," Aneus chuckled, his bright blue eyes twinkling a dying lustre.
Trodden scoffed.
"Have you been graced with Enlightenment over me, then?"
"Ha! You've known me all your life and you start to believe that I am suddenly become a seer after getting a taste of morning whip?" Aneus laughed weakly as he asked.
Trodden was amused. Aneus had always been a fine jester back in Albir. However, with each passing day, his jests grew dry from exhaustion.
The scramble for food was particularly harsh on the young man, as Trodden recalled, Aneus was a lover of meat. Being deprived of it in large amounts all these years had scarred the seventeen-year-old's previous attitude towards life.
From the side, a three-tailed whip suddenly lashed against Trodden's face viciously, three bloody marks being left in the whip's wake!
Trodden remained completely still, ignoring the dripping blood from his face.
Only his eyes moved as they met those of the soldier who had whipped him.
It was a short, muscular man with brown teeth and bulging black eyes. His square face fitted well with his physique, his arm trembling with rage as he fumed.
"Quit your barking and move! What do you think this is, a leisurely stroll?" the man growled in Trodden's face.
Soon enough, the long trail of slaves reached a place where stacks of large blocks of rock were piled near the city gate; wide, dark slates of metal that stood almost as tall as the walls themselves standing closed a stone's throw away from the massive blocks that none of the slaves dared to question whence they had originated.
Slowly, the slaves started walking up to the pile, grabbing rocks and trembling as they carried them away.
The blocks of rough rock, almost as big as their own bodies, strained their weak masses, each one of the slaves looking as if they were nearing death with each step.
They formed a line, each carrying a block from the pile and passing through the streets where well-fed children pointed at them while giggling with their parents, the poor within the city shaking their heads pitifully at these poor souls who were worse off.
Trodden reached the pile, the suffocating fumes of dust that were aroused by the activity assailing his nostrils.
The soldiers glared at him, bitter towards this young man who in his four years in this place had never winced or screamed or complained like the others even when they brutalised him.
Even when he laboured, he never complained and seemingly never tired.
What was he?
Where was the fun in watching him if he did not despair like the rest?
He deprived them of their satisfaction at seeing him down at his knees.
Trodden took pride in this very fact. They had taken something from him years ago. Something important.
These beasts among men.
But he would never let them rejoice at his tears and pain.
The young man gripped a rock that reached up to his waist and hurled it up with all his mortal might.
He propped it up to his shoulder and began walking with sturdy steps, following the long line of slaves that carried their burdens in any way they found easy enough.
Trodden nodded to Aneus who was left behind to try and pull up a burden heavier than the one he already carried.
Trodden could not help.
He had tried, but the soldiers wouldn't allow him to.
Therefore, he had to watch as the soldiers snickered at his friend's weakness with a vast well of bitterness.
As Trodden turned back to the long stretch ahead, he felt ripples on his face.
His flesh trembled, blood vessels wiggling uncomfortably.
He didn't stop moving and kept tracing his way without minding this disturbance.
However, his eye started to itch right after this.
His right eye.
It started as a minor discomfort until it became a burning sensation that caused Trodden to drop the large block he carried and clutch his face.
Burning pain!
Irritation!
These were sensations that he'd never known.
Yet, they only grew worse with time.
Trodden's right eye flared with pain that made the young man tremble and stumble.
Since birth, he had never tasted anything like this.
Neither sickness nor wound. Plague or tear.
These were foreign to him.
Yet, his right eye screamed with pain and a crooked voice echoed in his mind with a high pitch, rattling him to his core, as if rejuvenating something that had died within him!
This experience was not enjoyable for Trodden, however, as with the coming of this sensation, a bellowing call and a familiar, sonorous voice blared within him, prompting the young man to scream out loud his right eye turning dark with its iris burning with a golden glow!
"ARRRRRRRGGHHHHHHHHH!"