Slave Pits of the Tyrannical God (Path of Transcendence Book 2) (7 page)

The Throd'nahk almost looks like he going to smile. “Clothes are for men, not trash. When you survive your first bout in the arena you will be a gladiator and earn clothing.”

Turning his back on me, the Throd'nahk goes to inspect the training of the gladiator and the new slaves.

I sit down cross-legged on the sand and start circulating ki through my body, mind, and soul. Using the ki to drag mana and psi along with it, I try to heal as much of the accumulated damage as can be done quickly. Still, it takes more than half an hour for the pain to start to recede from my soul.

“Gladiators! Break for the midday meal.”

The thump of boulders hitting the ground is followed by the grunts and moans of the new slaves.

“TRASH! Who told you to stop! You don't eat until the training day is over!” The raw violence in the Throd'nahk's voice would probably make a bull orc hesitate.

“Brand! You eat with the Gladiators!”

Rising to my feet, I head toward the passage leading to the ready room and the mess hall beyond it.

“Throd'nahk, what about the slaves collar?” The DokkAlfar's voice sounds nervous.

The Throd'nahk's sneer is audibly reflected in his voice. “What's the matter guard? Are you afraid a naked human, who does not even know where the exit from this stable is, will escape? Leave him as is. He will be training with me again after his meal.”

Seeing the guards fear, as he looks at me, I understand what type of creatures these stable guards are. They are almost certainly from the bottom of DokkAlfar society. They are nothing but bullies, given power over the lives and deaths of the gladiatorial slaves. If they had to face us with our Power released, they would probably shit themselves.

Sitting in the same place as I ate breakfast, I eat my lunch. It consists of soup made of mostly vegetables and a little meat, with more of the two or three day old bread. This time it is a step or two above hospital food, but that is not saying much.

A thin, drab, supercilious human male enters from the passage opposite the one leading to the infirmary. He is wearing a grey, sleeveless tunic, with a patch on the left breast. The patch has a blood red rose, with silver shackles over it, on a black field. He walks up to the nearest guard.

“The Mistress has summoned the slave called Brand.” The man's nasal voice has an affectation of gentility, at least as much of one as the Slave Tongue can convey.

“Brand, come here!” Even though he has to be nothing more than the gutter trash of the DokkAlfar society, the DokkAlfar's voice still sounds far more cultured and noble than the little man's.

I rise and walk over to the two.

The little bitch of a human looks like he is ready to piss all over himself, as he stumbles back against the wall. His shaking hand is pointing at me.

“His collar! His collar! It's not working! He's dangerous!” The man's cultured airs are gone, replaced by the whininess of a low class menial.

The DokkAlfar guards are all snickering. Whatever this human's position, he seems to have earned the guards' enmity.

Taking out the black metal rod, the guard points it at my collar. There is no noise and no sensation of any Power that I can recognize, but my collar's runes flare to life again.

This time I am close enough to get a good look at the rod. It is about eight inches long, tapering so that it is narrower on one end. A little more than half way from the large end, a line of three small characters run along lit. I do not know the language, but the characters appear to be the same as the ones in the book from the house of the priest on Earth. Perhaps, it is the written form of the DokkAlfar language.

Trying to recover his dignity and take an imposing air with me, the man stands up to his full height, about 5'5”, and tilts his head back to look down his nose at me.

“Come with me, slave. The Mistress has summoned you.” The man starts walking toward the hall he came from, without waiting for any response.

“Hey, guard. Who's the little worm?”

Hostility and surprise on his face, the guard stares at me for a couple seconds. His expression changing to a nasty smile, the guard looks at the little worm's back.

“That little worm is Keratin. He's what the Mistress uses for a butler. He thinks that his position makes him immune to the dangers of Gor'achen, but with his attitude, he's going to offend the wrong DokkAlfar and wake up in a blood pit one day.”

I wonder what the little worm would think, if he knew what his meant in English.

Keratin leads me down the hall to a locked gate, with DokkAlfar guards on both sides of it. The ones on the far side unlock it, and Keratin leads me up the stairs beyond the gate. At the base of the stairs, another passage heads off to the right.

Doors close off the landing at the top of the stairs, and when Keratin opens them, a lavishly decorated hall is revealed. While only about ten feet wide and twenty long, the quality of the floor tiles and the detail of frescoes decorating the walls catch me by surprise. Nothing I have encountered in the Battleground of the Damned or the Lands of Despair has been close to this level of craftsmanship.

Keratin turns right at the end of the hall and follows it to the end. There are few closed doors along this hall, but there is no indication of what might be behind them. Turning right again, Keratin leads me down a hall about a hundred feet long. There are closed doors on both sides of the dead end, and he knocks on the left side doors.

“Mistress, I have brought the slave, Brand.”

The doors open without anyone touching them. Elan'fer'sha is near the middle of the room, stark naked. She is standing next to an obsidian alter, set in the center of complex pattern, made of gold inlaid into the black marble floor. My armor is laid out on top of the altar.

“You are dismissed, Keratin.”

As the little worm walks past me, I can see him trying to keep his eyes on Elan'fer'sha's naked body as long as possible.

“Come to me.”

As I walk into the room, the door close behind me again, but I cannot determine how Elan'fer'sha closed them.

Without her boots, Elan'fer'sha is about an inch shorter than I am, if that. Her silver ponytail is disarrayed and stuck to her shoulders and back in places. Except for her face and hands, her entire body is covered with intricate black tattoos, and their complexity makes Menton's tattoos look downright crude in comparison. Her tits are so small, she could almost be called flat chested, but with inhumanely slender build, they look just right on her, and her pale pink nipples are exquisite. There is not an ounce of fat on that body, and even though you can see every one of her ribs under her skin, her the perfect tone of her musculature makes it look natural. Right now, her hair is tied up in a pony tail and matted to her back. Despite being skewered by more than a dozen piercings, her ears, with their slightly pointed shape, are so delicately shaped that they are nearly perfect in proportion to her head. A wide brow and tapering jawline give her face an almost fragile appearance. Her large almond shaped eyes are like amber gems set in her snowy skin.

Elan'fer'sha is not human and is inhumanly sultry. She is probably the most beautiful Alfar, the most beautiful female, that I have ever seen. She has something about her that makes me want to fuck her brains out and not be gentle about it. I am starting to get hard just looking at her, and without being able to manipulate my ki, I cannot control it.

With a lurid smile, Elan'fer'sha raises her hand and traces a black pattern in the air. The murky Umbral Power is nauseatingly gut-wrenching, but Elan'fer'sha does not seem in the least affected by it. As she languidly draws the pattern, more Umbral Power flows erotically along her tattoos. When she completes the spell pattern, Elan'fer'sha launches it at me with a flick of her wrist.

I do not know whether or not the Throd'nahk was lying about the collar debilitating me if I attack a DokkAlfar, and this is not the time to test it. I try to dodge the spell pattern, but the Umbral Power is faster than it appears and follows my movements. As it hits my chest, tendrils spread out encircling my chest and throat. I can still move my head, but for all the feeling I have of them, my arms and legs may as well not exist.

Elan'fer'sha's lurid smile turns into a snarl, and she clenches her fist.

Everywhere the Umbral Power is touching me, it feels like acid is burning into my body. My chest and neck are filled with agonizing pain. It is worse than being burned alive, but I clench my teeth refusing to scream.

As Elan'fer'sha whips her arm toward the altar, I am slammed against it. I have no control over my body and cannot resist in any way. It feels like three of my ribs crack on impact with the altar, but the pain is nothing compared to what the Umbral Power is doing to me.

Stalking over to the altar, Elan'fer'sha picks up the helm of my armor, with the mask attached to it, and smashes it into my face a half-dozen times. Her strength is nothing compared to a combat adept, but she still breaks my nose and tears up the skin of my face.

Her voice is an enraged shriek, but still beautiful. “You are the Maker of this! Why is Talon's face cast into your helm? What is your connection to Talon?”

Talon? Oh, Fuck! That vision of Talon fighting in the arena. Was this cunt his owner?

“A memorial for the dead.”

Shrieking wordlessly, Elan'fer'sha pounds my face with the mask some more, until the mask has turned red with my blood.

My head is ringing, and dizziness is making it hard to focus.

“What is your connection to Talon? Why did you make a memorial for him?”

I stare at Elan'fer'sha dazedly, trying to think of a coherent lie. I have slipped up too many times, and too many people have already figured out that I was Talon. I do not want this psychotic cunt to know it too.

“He saved my life. More times than I can count, he saved my life.”

Elan'fer'sha's eyes narrow coldly. “I had agents keeping track of Talon. There was never a report of a scarred freak like you around him. Unless . . . the Possessed. Talon became a Possessed. You are not a Possessed, but you are connected to them. How are you connected to the Possessed?”

Fuck me. This cunt is smart and knows too many things for my own good. What do I tell her? How do I lie my way out of this?

“I am right. You know about the Possessed. I can see it in your eyes.”

Elan'fer'sha shoves my armor off the altar, and with a wave of her hand, she lifts me into the air and drops me on the altar. After she moves out of my line of sight, the sound of stone grinding on stone reaches my ears twice.

When she comes back into my field of view, Elan'fer'sha has two vials held negligently between her fingers. Her lurid smile is back on her face. She pokes her finger into one of the cuts on my face and paints her pale lips crimson, with my blood.

“You are going to tell me what I want to know. You will tell me everything I want to know.” She unstoppers the two vials. Forcing my jaws open with the Umbral spell that is controlling my body, she pours the contents of both vials down my throat.

Searing pain fills my face and my broken ribs, forcing me to clench my teeth.

“One of those is a healing potion. It is far more effective than the trash you monkeys make in the Battleground of Slaves. The other is an aphrodisiac. With pleasure and pain, I will learn all that you know.”

“It will only require ten or so thousandths for the aphrodisiac to take effect. When that happens, your senses will be focused to razor's edge. Pleasure will become so intense it will be pain, and pain will become unbearable.” Elan'fer'sha's voice is a lustful, mellifluous, susurrus in my ear, as her hot breath washes over the side of face.

A thousandth is a thousandth of a day, in the method DokkAlfar use to keep time. Usually it is about 1.4 minutes, but it is actually fluid depending on the zone they are in. The LjosAlfar I encountered in the Lands of Despair use the same method.

“Did you know that every time a male ejaculates he gives up some of his life and some of his Power? They are only minuscule amounts, but you still give them up. It is a completely natural process. It is part of the cycle of life, part of procreation. A female gives up far more when she bears a child, but that is just as natural. Over time, those small amounts of life and Power will naturally replenish themselves.”

Elan'fer'sha disappears from my line of vision again, only to return after the sounds of more stone grinding on stone. In her hands, she is carrying a black metal tripod and milky white crystal. The crystal is cut in the shape of a stellated dodecahedron. I cannot tell why, but that crystal gives off an unpleasant chill.

“I am a Wytch. I use mana and the Umbra to manipulate the cycles of the world around me, to pervert them outside of their natural bounds and order. When I make you cum, I can steal from you far more than just the minuscule amount of life and Power you would naturally release. I can steal your physical prowess, your abilities, your skills . . . even your most closely guarded secrets.

“Kra'cha'len wants your Power, and I have a bargain with him to take it. I want to know everything about your connection to Talon, and I will take everything from you to get it. Even if you are left useless to me in the arena, I will have that knowledge.”

Elan'fer'sha disappears behind my head, and metal clatters on stone. Following a soft clink, she approaches the side of the altar on my left. A cruel, lustful smile twists her lips, as her fingertips brush over the burn scars on my body. Her breathing is heavy, and her skin starting to become flushed.

With lust, cruelty, and avarice filling her eyes, Elan'fer'sha stares into my eyes. I do not know what she is looking for, but her eyes are mesmerizing. The rich honey amber orbs are half again as large as human eyes. Epicanthic folds and the sharp tilt of those almond shaped eyes clearly distinguish the non-human cast of her face and skull.

My arms and legs may as well not exist, with that Umbral spell wrapped around my chest and throat, but it is not affecting my dick at all. Even with without the aphrodisiac, she is more than enough to give me a hardon, but with it, I feel like an iron pole standing up above my balls. I cannot control myself. With the drugs driving my sense of touch to an extreme level of sensitivity, I want to scream. I want to throw Elan'fer'sha on the altar and fuck her brains out.

“You have felt pain, and I will make you feel so much more pain, exquisite pain that will make you scream in agony while you cum inside of me.”

“Fuck off, bitch!”

Elan'fer'sha's smile broadens. “No. I will fuck you.”

Climbing on the altar, she mounts me, with a moan of pleasure. Her body feels hot like she has a raging fever, but Alfar have naturally higher body temperatures than humans. I cannot stop myself from shivering with pleasure from the touch of soft skin against mine and her hot cunt wrapped around my dick.

My lips pull back in an enraged snarl. I want to kill her! She is using me like a sex toy. I am actually being raped by fucking female!

As she rides me, Elan'fer'sha pants and moans, as she draws a complex three-dimensional pattern in the air.

The proximity of the Umbral Power makes me want to puke, and the raw physical ecstasy of Elan'fer'sha fucking me makes to howl.

Looking down at me with half lidded eyes, Elan'fer'sha smiles cruelly. “Bestiality is the finest form of pleasure. Alfar dicks are just pathetic. Animals like you humans are much more satisfying.”

The revolting Umbral pattern sinks into my chest. Somehow, I keep from screaming in agony, but I still growl like an enraged animal. The pain worse than anything I ever imagined. Even the mind-numbingly pleasurable sensation of her cunt riding up and down my dick becomes torturous. It feels like I am being kicked in the balls when I cum.

“Can you feel it? Your own body is being turned against you. The natural process for procreation is being used to take the very Power that makes you what you are. Oh, Frija! Yes! Oh, the Power! Give me your Power!”

It feels like all the energy and stamina is draining out of me, as a torrent of silver-gray Power flows from Elan'fer'sha to the crystal behind my head. As the Umbral Power burrows through my body, drawing out more and more Power, something else stirs inside of me.

“AAAARRRRRRRRR!”

My scream of agony fills the room, as Power floods outward. Rising from somewhere deep within me, the Od drives outwards. Light and Dark, the merciless Power destroys everything alien to my body it encounters. The Umbral spells are shredded and torn. The aphrodisiac is burned out of my blood. Od streams out through my skin, the same as when it burned the drugs out of me, after Perzey's death.

“NNNNOOOOOOO!”

Elan'fer'sha screams as she is hurled across the room. She hits the floor rolling, until the wall stops her cold.

“AAAARRRRRRRRR!”

More of the Od floods out of me, attacking the collar around my neck. The light of the sigils tint the air around me with a brilliant sanguine glow for a few seconds before the collar shatters.

Springing to my feet, I charge toward Elan'fer'sha. As she precariously turns over and rises to her feet, the fear in her eyes inflames the malicious anger in my heart. Before she has the chance to weave any spell patterns, I grab her by the throat and slam her against the wall.

As Elan'fer'sha struggles, her raw physical strength surprises me. In a contest of pure strength, I am not sure which of us would win. How can such a skinny delicate looking body contain so much brute power?

Slapping her in the face hard enough to twist her head to the side, I shift my grip to her wrist and pull her off the wall. She stumbles forward as the resistance she was fighting against disappears, and I twist her arm into a wrist and elbow lock. Using the pain and pressure of the lock to force her onto her toes, I kick her feet out from under her and slam her onto her ass.

“Ow!” The pain of her slender ass hitting the floor makes her squawk out in pain.

Pushing her back onto the ground, I sit on her belly, pinning her legs with my feet. As she tries to free herself, Elan'fer'sha's squirming is rubbing her soft, smooth skin against my dick, making me hard again. I want to fuck her almost as much as I want to kill her.

“Get off me, you bastard monkey!” Elan'fer'sha's voice is shrill from fear, but she probably does not recognize her own fear. Even high-pitched and harsh, her voice is still one of the most beautiful I have ever heard in my life.

“NNNOOOOO!” Struggling to free herself, Elan'fer'sha bucks and twists wildly underneath me.

My hand closes around her throat, cutting off her air supply.

“Oh, this is good, bitch! I'm really going to enjoy this! Seeing the horror in your eyes, while your lips turn blue, and you struggle for air. You're going to die. It'll be slow and painful, and the last thing you'll see is my face.”

No matter how she struggles, Elan'fer'sha has no hope of escaping. Even though her strength is surprising, she is not a trained fighter. Her fingernails claws furrows in my arm, but I ignore them, keeping my death grip on her throat. Only when she tries to claw out my eyes, do I slap her hands aside.

“You cannot kill her. For now, you still need her alive.”

The deep bass voice shocks me. I never noticed anyone else in the room with us. Turning my head, I see a man standing in front of the closed doors to the room. There was never any sound of the doors opening or closing, so how did he get in here?

The man is probably not a tall as the Throd'nahk, but his massive build out-masses the Throd'nahk's by a considerable amount. There is no collar on his neck, but he has the scars from long years of wearing one. His arms are covered with hundreds of burn scars, the sign of a blacksmith or a Smith, and his wrists and ankles have thick scars from manacles. With this man's presence, he is probably a Smith, but there is no sense of Power about him. His broad, hard face could be that of a man anywhere from thirty to fifty years of age, but his thick hair and beard are still dark brown, without any sign of greying. His only clothing consists of sandals, a kilt-like garment around his waist, and a wide leather belt.

As we stare at one another, I do not get any impression of hostility, but the man's blue eyes are hard and unyielding.

“You have no chance against me. Your Shadow Fist is incomplete, and your mastery of it is pathetic. If you cannot even crush the Throd'nahk, you are less than nothing before me.”

He knows how to recognize Shadow Fist? He was watching me fighting the Throd'nahk?

“Who are you?”

“Release the Alfar slut. You would have more fun tying her up than killing her. She is twisted by the DokkAlfar ways and will become a wanton whore begging for you to use her, if you dominate her.”

Elan'fer'sha's hands are uselessly clamped around my wrist, but her murderous glare is focused on the man. As I release the pressure on her neck, she draws in a huge lungful of air.

“Damn you, Smith! Why didn't you stop this animal sooner?! We have a bargain! Are you thinking to escape from your end, by letting me be killed?!” The venom in Elan'fer'sha's voice is strong to kill someone with a weak heart.

When I turn my eyes back to the door, Smith is still looking at me. As I surmised, the man is a Smith. Smith seems more like a title than a name.

Smith stares expressionlessly at Elan'fer'sha. “I warned you not use your Umbral arts on this man. He has been chosen by the Od. It will respond to his emotions, whether he consciously wills it or not. Your spells are not strong enough to overcome the Od. You have more to gain from working with him than he does from helping you.”

The look on Elan'fer'sha's face is venomous. “Do you really think I would make a deal with something I own?”

Smith sneers at her. “Are you certain you own him? You're naked on your back, and he's straddling you with a hardon, ready to choke you.”

Elan'fer'sha turns her glare on me. “Get off me, animal.”

I grin at her, but she does not flinch or show any signs of disgust. The only thing in her eyes is pure contempt.

“I think I'll just sit here a little longer. I haven't decided, if I'm going to kill you or not.”

Smith chuckles grimly. “You cannot afford to kill her yet. Do you know the way out this compound? Do you know how escape from Gor'achen? If you stay, you will advance some of your goals. She also needs you. Her plans revolve around claiming the Gladiatorial Championship for the Atran'ler Empire. Without you, she has no hope of claiming the Championship. I will even train you in the full art of Shadow Fist.”

No matter how hard I stare at Smith, I cannot see any hint as to whether he is saying what he believes or lying. At the very least, he at least knows Shadow Fist by sight. No, I told the Throd'nahk the name. He may have just overheard or been told by the Throd'nahk. Whether or not he really knows Shadow Fist, I will find out quickly enough.

I look down at Elan'fer'sha. She is still glaring up at me, but at least, she is not haranguing me any longer. Her face is clearly not human, but it is still beautiful beyond belief. Though, the needle through her nose does nothing for her.

With a twist of my wrist, I free it from Elan'fer'sha's grip, and snake my hand around her wrist, grabbing it tightly. As I rise to my feet, I pull her up with me. Forcing her arm behind her back, I use my hold on it to pin her against me. If she tries to move or attack, I will feel the tension in her body long before she becomes a threat.

Smith makes a come-hither motion, and the fragments of my collar float into the air and hover in front of him. Orbiting an empty center point, the shards of metal form into a ring of debris.

“There is no collar in the Atran'ler Empire, let alone Gor'achen that can hold this man. If he uses the Od, he can shatter any tool you attempt to bind him with. If the two of you work together, you can both come closer to your goals.”

I stare at Smith. “You seem pretty insistent on bringing us together, but what's in it for you?”

Smith frowns. He suddenly gives the impression of being much older than he appears. “If one or both of you succeed in your goals, it may jar the balance of power that has kept the factions inside the Labyrinth of Yggr in a stalemate for fifty thousand years. For good or ill, the balance must be broken so that events can move again.”

Elan'fer'sha cannot be trusted. She is DokkAlfar. Whether or not I can believe Smith is immaterial. I cannot trust him, but I am in no position to refuse him. Even without the collar, I am still a prisoner, until I can find a way to escape from this Great Citadel.