Tag: fantasy

The campfire flickered around the feet of the rebels, and shadows flashed over their faces.

Their leader propped his chin on his palm, his elbow on his spindly knee.

“For years, the Wizards have been oppressed,” he started, “forced to kiss the asses of the untalented, unimpressive humans that have controlled us. Well, no longer. We are the beginning of a new movement, a revolution. We have freed ourselves and we will free the rest of our kind. We will draw the blood of those who have harmed us until they draw their final breaths. We will not be defeated. We will only grow stronger.

Tonight is our first victory. Tonight we strike our first blow.” He slowly straightened his lanky body to its full
6’3” and cast a shadow even longer.

“Bring out the slave-driver.”

Two shadowed and hooded rebels wrestled the overseer to the corridor between their fire and their leader. The leader unsheathed his knife and gathered the man’s shirt in his hand. The cold blade kissed the overseer’s neck. His eyes froze and his body shuddered.

A grin snaked up the leader’s cheekbone.

“Any last words?” But the overseer’s tongue was frozen and his jaw locked.

The leader let out a laugh that chilled the air. “Don’t look so scared. We can’t kill you yet; you haven’t even been useful. Now,” the knife bit its single tooth into the man’s neck, “do you know a man named Phobos Dike?” The overseer let a hoarse croak escape his dry throat.

“Yes.”
“Do you know his students?”
“I don’t-“ the knife pressed harder and the overseer. “Fine. One is Hades Poseidon. The other one is just a legend.”

“You’re lying,” the leader growled, punctuating his sentence with another push of his knife.” The overseer grunted through the pain.

“I’m telling the truth. No one has ever found her, and no one ever will. Dike made her up to distract from the other one. He told me himself.” The leader let a sigh roll through his growl as he slid the knife away from his captive’s neck. The overseer held his hands over the blood and looked at the leader.

“Go.” The leader snapped. “You’ve been useful enough. Just don’t tell anyone about what happened here tonight. And if word gets out, I will skin you like a deer and use your pelt as my shower curtain. Understood? Now get!”

The rebel leader watched the overseer scuttle away, but, of course, he couldn’t bring word to his superiors. They would just have to find his body and do their own speculating.

The rebel leader hurled his bloody knife. It landed in the small of the man’s back
with a crunch and a thunk. The overseer slumped forward and the leader turned to his second in command.

“I don’t like taking chances.”

“Hovsep!” Elia answered. “Why haven’t you called before?” Hovsep sighed.

“I’m sorry. I’m a dick, but that’s not important now.”

“Right, sorry. Go ahead.” Hovsep took a shaky breath.

“I need you to help me break out these captives.”

“Wizards?”

“Yes. Will you?” Elia was silent. Hovsep’s heartbeat pounded into his eardrums.

“Of course.” The answer was flat and obvious.

“Come here at 2330 hours.”

“Where?”

“You’re the wizard. You find me.”

Hovsep held his head in his scarred hands. He shouldn’t care. He should tell himself that these kids deserved it. He would have done that a long time ago, before he met Elia.

He heard her voice now. Filling his head with her trembling pain, her trembling
darkness.

I never meant to hurt them. But they had hurt her. Their words had cut into tender
heart and bleeding flesh, but she never struck back. It hurt her even more to see them in pain. To see Hovsep in pain.

Why didn’t you save yourself, Elia? Why did you have to be so good?

He remembered the prisoners’ faces.

They wouldn’t give up, but neither would the captors. It would be answers or death, and no answers would come.

The old Hovsep would have let them die.

The old Hovsep wouldn’t give an inch,
wouldn’t care any more, but not the new Hovsep, not Elia.

His right arm trembled as he drew out his phone, and his index finger shook even harder as he typed in a number he hadn’t called in months. Then he said those words he always hated to say.

“I need your help.”

Randell glared at his captors. He threw every spell and curse he could remember into his human binds, but they all had on gloves lined with pure silver. They took the spells and pulled at his energy, like dead skin sloughing off.

By the time they dumped him on the cold hard cement floor, he was sweating through his white shirt. He propped himself up with his hands, but he could barely raise his head.

The wizard standing over him smirked with his voice.

“Enjoying the silver gloves?” he mocked

“Don’t worry, there’s more where that
came from.” Randell raised his eyes under set eyebrow. His heart burnt with all the fury he kept there. Just in case.

Nobody cared about wizards, not even if they were once commended on superior
skill. Nobody. Not teachers, not friends, not strangers, and not even those who claimed to love you. That’s why he was done. That’s why he joined the rebels. And that’s why he would never talk. Not because he had a duty to his so-called family, but because he was angry, and
because he was done.

The other wizard matched his glare, but Randell felt a small hesitation in his magic, a small twinge of… guilt? Why would this punk care? He obviously got paid for this sort of work. People obviously cared about him.

Randell’s thoughts were cut short.

He felt the pain.

“Whom do you work for?”

A Pi never gives up.

Hovsep hesitated. He wouldn’t get the answers, not in a way that would allow him to sleep after the fact.

But he had to keep going, or at least keep up a show.

He leaned in close to the prisoner’s ear.

“I can do much worse, and I will. I’ll give you one last chance.” He straightened and his eyes were hard. “Who do you work for?” The prisoner looked back, defiance set in his blue-hazel eyes. Hovsep met the gaze and tightened the spell. The boy flinched but his lips
stayed locked.

Hovsep evened out the prisoner’s gaze.

“There will be repercussions.” He turned to the one-way window. “Bring in the other one.

And now Jaumet felt the pain. It didn’t strike his back like it had Randell’s. It snaked around his arms and legs and squeezed. Threatened to squeeze the life out of him, but it wouldn’t loosen the answers. He didn’t betray. Jaumet never betrayed.

But he still felt the pain. His teeth clenched, but they couldn’t hold back the grunts, high and low. The small screams still escaped his lips.

He fell into the dark place of his mind that thought of evil contradictions. He
considered opening his teeth and spilling out the answers. The wizard growled at him.

“Who is your master?” Jaumet squeezed his eyes shut. He pulled the last of his
strength into a binding spell and bound his lips together.

The spell faltered.

Hovsep slammed into the morning. He was awake. Goddammit. He was awake.

There was no reason to pour cold water on his head, but that’s what had happened, and now he was dripping wet and fucking cold. His overseer growled at him.

“Get up, you’re not paid to sleep.” Hovsep glared back and almost reminded his
overseer that he was not, in the strictest terms, paid, but there was still water in the bucket seemingly just for this purpose.

“What do you want?” he snapped.

“His highness has some captives, and he wants answers.” Hovsep rolled out of bed.

He knew the drill.

“The subject, Romulus Lacheses has committed severe atrocity against this institution and the people in it. He has received the thrice-bled pain spell and will be exiled from civil society for life. Leave now if you agree with this punishment.” Randell’s head snapped up. They could save them, if they stayed.

They would stay. He told himself, it was the last shred of hope he had left. All else had been wrecked by his bleeding back.

They could save him and they would.

They started to trickle out. First the ones who never knew him, them the ones who
hated him, then the ones who barely knew him, then his friends. He felt like crying out to the people he had loved. He felt like screaming out the things he had done for them. He wanted them to stay so bad, he wanted them to save him. He wanted to believe again.

But they proved him foolish.

Now only three people remained. One: Calista, his girlfriend. She gave him a hesitant glance, averted her eyes.

And left.

Randell would have screamed.

If he had had any human left. This last blow was cemented as cold hard calculating anger. He was wrong. There was no hope.

Not for him and not for humanity.

Two: A girl he had never met. She pulled herself from the corner of the room and
passed Jaumet giving him an expectant look. He nodded.

Three: Jaumet.

“I’m staying.” And Randell almost believed.