The Break
Prologue to the start of a Mercenary’s tale. CW: screams, abuse, branding
A pair of metallic clangs followed closely by a gruesome scream echoed from underneath the thick steel door that closed off the large gathering room. Dozens of waiting subjects quiver in parallel lines on the cold obsidian tile floor. They stand at attention. Stiff. Rigid. Shivering off their nerves and the chill. A few risk a sideways glance at the other lines, while others kept their wide eyes at the napes of the ones in front of them. Imposing figures glared from the corners of the room, with pairs guarding the two doors out of the room. Every half hour a large Chrim would stride through the door in the direction of the screams. Sometimes, when it was open, a screech of pain would slip through and into the ears of the rigid recruits. The large lizard would prowl the lines and grasp one, seemingly at random, and pull them into the hallways of screams. The door would close. And the rest would wait. One by one. Scream by scream.
A small Farix recruit stood at the front of his line. The line directly in front of the door.
He didn’t dare move in the first few minutes. Arms at his sides. Teeth clenched. Eyes ahead.
He didn’t dare move in the first few hours. Fists tight. Jaw sore. Eyes flicking from bolt to bolt on the thick steel door.
He didn’t dare move in the first dozen hours. Paws bleeding. Tongue tasting copper. Eyes memorising every scratch and indent in the ancient steel door.
He didn’t dare move.
The slam of the door behind him woke him with a jolt. He was being dragged down the hall. No, not dragged. He just hadn’t noticed his feet moving on their own after the large Chrim that had one of his paws in a vice grip. The hall quickly ran into another corridor. Left and right it extended an impressive distance. Large metal doors adorned both sides at regular intervals. They were all closed. There were no more sounds echoing. It was only now that he realised the screaming was still echoing through his own head. The Chrim shoved the small canine against the last open metal door. The small recruit hadn’t seen them approaching it from behind the giant lizard.
Inside the room was a large stone slab placed atop more tinted obsidian tiles. These shimmered a deep red from the lit candles that flickered as they entered the room.
“Lay down.” The Chrim gestured to the stone table. With a bit of hesitation the Farix leapt up and laid on it, resting his paws to his sides. Without a sound, four cloaked individuals slid into the room and surrounded the slab. One grabbed the canine’s arm and held it down against the stone. The Chrim escort did the same with the other arm. The recruit flinched against their movements and desperately glanced from hooded face to hooded face. He knew what was coming. He knew there was nothing he could say to change what was about to happen. Three of the hooded monks positioned themselves around his head and began whispering an ancient invocation. The one at the head of the table pressed its furred paws against his forehead, the thumbs rubbing circles just above the Farix’s wide eyes. The other two flanked him arms raised above their heads. The mumbles turned to convicted talking to almost barbaric yelling. As their voices rose, a fierce red glow began to fill the room. Each of them had begun to form a red spear of magical energy that dampened the light coming off the candles with its own sinister light. As the incantation got faster and faster the blades got deeper and redder.
He gasped for breath after breath, pulling at the people restraining him. This was a mistake. This was all a mistake. He thrust and shook and flailed under the weight of the adult Chrim warrior. It did nothing. Then the yelling monks stopped. They thrust down their mystical stakes into the young initiate and agony screamed its way through the obsidian tiled hall and through the thick steel door into the now empty waiting room.
