The clinking of chains sounded through the tunnel, a foreboding melody that reminded Morne of his imminent demise with every single step.
"Keep moving," snarled a man behind him, roughly shoving him forward and nearly making him trip on his chains.
Morne's short-lived stumble earned a laugh out of his captors, but his expression gave nothing away. He wouldn't give these people the satisfaction of his misery.
"He'll love this one, don't you think?" asked another man.
"Ilnchan is not picky," replied the first. "Blood is blood, a life is a life."
Morne was to be a sacrifice to the Dark God of Blood, Wrath, and War, the God these cultists worshipped.
Ilnchan.
Mere minutes ago, his previous master had cut his losses and sold Morne to cultists. Morne was a rather muscular man, and keeping that bulk required a hefty amount of food.
His master's business had also hit a rough patch, sales plummeting and deals falling through, through no fault of his own.
Nothing made you a quick buck quite like selling a human being to a clan of crazy cultists that lacked any sense of humanity themselves, and his master had seen this as an excellent way to jumpstart the dying heart of his business.
A quick exchange of coin later, Morne was escorted into an underground facility and told, in calm words, that he would be murdered to please their god.
And now he was being ferried to the ritual site, like a lamb to the slaughter. An analogy more apt than any other he could think of.
The maze of tunnels ended after a while, and they came out into a small, unadorned room with stone walls. Other than the plain wooden door across from them, there was nothing in here of note.
"Keep an eye on him, Terr," said the cultist that had shoved Morne, speaking to a man in the corner almost as large as Morne was.
He was only a head shorter than Morne's formidable height of 6'5, and just as burly, wearing the same blood-red robes his fellows wore. It was a strange feature, considering the others were of average build. Chances were, they kept this man around in case their "guests" gave them any trouble.
"He won't be going anywhere on my watch," the burly man, Terr, said with an almost bored tone.
"See to it that he doesn't," the other cultists said snippily. "Or we'll put you the knife instead."
Terr snorted, not taking the threat seriously, and the group of cultists streamed into the wooden door, closing it behind them and leaving Morne alone with their guard.
"You're a big one, aren't ya?" Terr asked, leering at him.
With a malicious chuckle, he pushed off of the wall and strode forward, looking Morne up and down and giving an approving nod.
"A shame," he sighed. "You'd make a great laborer. Those Mage fools don't know a good workhorse when they see one."
Morne stood frighteningly still, the only movements being the steady rise and fall of his chest.
"Oh well," said Terr, throwing his head back and letting out a laugh. "No one will miss you, anyway. I certainly won't lose sleep over."
Still laughing, he turned and walked back toward his spot in the corner, unaware – or uncaring – of the opening he had just created. What harm was a chained slave to him? In his eyes, the poor bastard was paralyzed with fear, too terrified of him to even think of acting.
A belief Morne proved wrong.
Surging into motion, Morne threw his manacled hands forward, tossing the chain binding them over Terr's head and pulling back sharply.
A strangled gasp of surprise escaped Terr's lips as Morne yanked him backward, pressing him against his chest and choking the life out of him. Terr's hands scrabbled at the chain around his neck, but he could do nothing against solid steel.
Seemingly realizing this, he changed tactics, punching and slapping Morne's face and arms in a panicked attempt to break free, but Morne only pulled back harder, a snarl on his lips.
Terr's choked cries for help died down to hollow gasps, before stopping entirely as his legs and arms went slack.
Morne relinquished his hold on the man, letting his body flop forward onto the stone floor with a dull thud.
Panting, Morne bent down, rifling through the man's robes for a key to his shackles. He found it, along with a small pouch of coin, and pocketed the latter as he stood, sliding the key into the first of his manacles.
Thankfully, he had no slave mark to worry about. Each mark was bound to a specific master, and was dispelled when the slave was sold or traded so the next master could imprint their own.
Ilnchan wasn't exactly famous for having the brightest followers, and the cultists had seen no point in placing a slave mark on someone who would be dead soon.
When a rustling sounded from behind the wooden door, Morne sucked in a breath as he willed his trembling hands to still. Haste would only serve to hinder him here.
The last of his bindings fell to the ground with a clank just as the door's knob started turning, and with his heart pounding, Morne turned and fled.
He ducked into turn after turn, having spent the entire walk here memorizing their way in. Somewhere behind him, he heard a door fly open and angry shouts fill the otherwise quiet facility, and he spurred himself on.
Every other cultist was busy preparing for the ritual he'd be the sacrifice for, so he encountered no one on his path of escape.
However, those same cultists gave chase to him now, their boastful cries and bloodthirsty yammering providing a manic tempo that seemed to match the wild beating of his heart and the slapping of his feet against the stone floor.
An immense sense of relief filled Morne when his stone surrounds transitioned abruptly into thorny trees and short grass, but he didn't pause in his steps, only running all the harder once he saw freedom on the horizon.
They were somewhere within the Thorny Woods, a fact Morne had learned on his way here. If he wasn't mistaken, south of here was Cetregor, and with it, his salvation.
Morne heard shouts to his back, but he didn't stray from his current task, pouring his all into putting one foot in front of the next.
...…
Morne stared into the amber liquid within his wooden tankard, looking back at the haggard face reflected within.
The liquid shook occasionally when one of the rowdy tavern-goers – miners back from their shifts, farmers winding down before the early start tomorrow, and the occasional merchant that didn't turn their nose up at mingling with the "common folk" – slammed the door open or closed, or plodded around with heavy boots covered in mud and rain.
But the ripple didn't disturb Morne's inspection of himself. He continued to stare into his mug, lit by the dim fire in the corner fireplace, with a soul-searching intensity.
His shaggy black hair, short box-cut beard, and tanned skin were reflected back at him, tinged yellowish brown by the liquid medium.
His bulky frame shifted, and he propped his forehead on the knuckles of his right hand, his hazel eyes meeting the gaze of his reflection. Within their depths, he saw the same question burning within his mind.
What now?
It wasn't determinable at a glance, but Morne had fought hard to sit where he was now.
Shortly after his twentieth birthday, bandits had attacked his town, killing everyone else within.
His parents had died years ago from a cold that had swept through the town, and he was an only child, but Morne had watched as every man and woman he had known his entire life was ruthlessly put to the sword.
Even Ythreen, the light of his life, the woman for whom he had worked himself like a horse to earn the bride price listed by her father, was mercilessly slaughtered by these vile monsters in human skin.
But for some reason, they had elected to spare him, opting to sell him into slavery instead.
He didn't know if it was because of his muscular physique or if they wanted someone alive to spread the tale of the atrocities they had committed that day, only that it was a way to "balance the scales."
But it didn't matter. Knowing wouldn't change what happened.
Some would call him lucky. Those who had never suffered under the yoke of a master might claim that his fate was better than death, but Morne knew what he felt.
He wished he had died in that raid.
After his capture, he was passed around from master to master, some crueler than others, before falling into the hands of his last, the cultists.
But now Morne was stranded in a town he knew of only in passing with barely thirty small silvers to his name. He didn't know if the cultists were still chasing him or not, but his legs demanded rest after the twenty-mile flight from their lair, and his throat was terribly parched.
Morne sighed, closing his eyes and shutting out the image of himself in his tankard. He tuned out the loud crowd around him, the bard in the corner who had roused the patrons into a popular work song, and the barmaid who was asking if he found the beer okay.
For several seconds, he just breathed, even when the music reached a climax and the barmaid started yelling angrily at him.
Then, all at once, the sounds stopped.
For a moment, Morne was glad for the silence. But as it continued, he realized something might be wrong, and he opened his eyes.
With mild alarm, he found that the tavern-goers had stopped… everything.
They had all frozen in place, including a particular man who was mid-fall from tripping on a discarded mug.
Even the barmaid had frozen mid-rant, her pretty face frozen with her mouth wide open.
Morne waved a hand in front of her face, getting no response.
"Incredible, isn't it?" a voice said.
Morne glanced down at his tankard, brow furrowing when he saw a tiny person within, the alcohol inside gone.
This person had skin so pale that Morne could almost see through it, and dark, empty sockets where his eyes should be, lit up by tiny blue pinpricks of fire. His white hair was slicked back, and he had a friendly smile on his ghastly face as he looked up at Morne.
Morne recognized what this "man" was. He was a Coltha, a demon serving the Dark God Jiklok.
He blinked, and the demon was gone.
"So much life, so much story here, and all of it pauses with a whispered word," the Coltha whispered, his voice coming from everywhere at once. "All of this can end with a wayward thought. These mortals, you, will be dust in the wind before long, and yet still you struggle to delay the inevitable."