Shadow Phantoms - H.P. Mallory Page 0,55

tried to move my head and a terrible pain accosted me in my neck.

“Are you certain he is adequately restrained? I shall be very put-out if we are forced to tackle the brute.”

The woman’s voice again.

I opened my eyes.

I did not know my surroundings. I was lying against the cold and damp earth. When I attempted to sit, I heard the clanking of iron upon iron and felt the cold weightiness of the metal tight about my throat, wrists and ankles. From what I could decipher, I was within a pen inside a cave. There was a heavy iron gate bolted into the stone floor before me. And a lone clay chamber pot stood in one corner of the sparse room.

I was collared and shackled. This did not bode well.

“Where am I?” I demanded, my voice scratchy.

“You are in the slave pens of Demondis,” a woman responded. It was the same woman who had spoken earlier. She stood before me, robed in silken garments of deep purple that brushed the ground. She wore velvet trousers beneath the robes, of the same aubergine hue. She was tall and thin, almost gaunt.

“What are ye?” I demanded, having never seen her kind afore.

She laughed, but the sound came out as a hiss. “We are the Veits. The original inhabitants of Fatalia.” She was flanked by two male Veits, one younger than the other. The elder of the two was missing multiple fingers on his left hand and bore the scars of a blade across his face. His scar had disfigured him, taking a good portion of his nose and the flesh of his cheek. The skin of the male Veits was as orange as the woman’s, but the younger male possessed white hair while the older had black. Both shared the same physique as the female—tall and narrow.

The two male Veits were dressed as if for combat, wearing black leathers and metal chainmail atop. Their ears rose to tall and narrow points, much longer than the female’s.

“I am your mistress,” the woman continued, eyeing me with pleasure. “You may refer to me as Mistress Ermolai. I am the commander of this outpost.” She paused as she inhaled deeply. “If you are intelligent, you will heed my command and accept your fate as my prisoner. Your life now belongs to me.”

“Where is mah companion?” I demanded, remembering Scrote.

“He is alive,” Ermolai responded with little interest.

“Where is he?”

Her eyes narrowed slightly at my tone. “In another of my slave pens.”

“I wish to see him.”

“Your wishes are not of interest to me,” Ermolai nearly spat at me, her bright green eyes wide with anger. “Attach him to the floor,” she instructed the younger Veit. The elder moved as if to obey her, but she turned her fiery gaze on him and stopped him cold. The younger male approached me and gripping the chain attached to the collar about my throat, yanked me down. He fastened the manacle to the floor and I was forced to sit upon me arse.

“Mistress?” he asked.

“Come, Brottor,” she responded with a clipped nod. She said nothing to the other male, but simply turned on her toes and started for the iron gate that separated my cell from the rest of the cave. They both followed her.

“You will be fed shortly, slave,” Ermolai announced, holding her small nose up in the air. “I suggest you finish your rations as you will only be fed once daily.”

I did not respond.

THIRTEEN

MORSE

My supper arrived mayhap an hour later. It consisted of a thin, tasteless broth served in a red clay bowl. Some form of mushroom floated in the broth and while the taste was not offensive, neither was it enjoyable.

The elder of the two Veits I had seen earlier brought me my rations.

“What are ye called?” I asked him, wanting to learn as much as I could about my jailers in order to ascertain what their weaknesses were.

“Adrik,” he responded. When he spoke, his mouth appeared pinched on one side, owing to the unforgiving scar that passed through it.

“What is my fate?”

“You will be moved into a pen with the other prisoners shortly,” Adrik responded.

“And after that?”

Adrik shrugged. “The mistress will most likely sell you when we reach Voltare.”

“What is the distance to Voltare?”

“Perhaps three days from here,” Adrik said. I found it curious that he was responding to my questions with such ease, but I was not entirely surprised. There was something lacking in him—a certain melancholy I imagined was born from his wounds.