Year 2: The Heroes Descend - Chapter 12

Many felt the Demon Emperor’s presence when he first arrived in Aangapea.

Some sought the entity out of fear, dreading what this great evil could do.

Others in their admiration for his power, looked to ally themselves with him.

Then, there were those who tried to hide away from the truth, pretending not to notice the Demon Emperor’s arrival.

Across Aangapea, countless goblin tribes hid themselves deep beneath the earth in their caverns, fearing the power their shamans had sensed.

In the Holy Empire of Themis, the Stone-biters were one of thirty tribes to do as such. They, like their brethren, were petrified of the presence and dreaded it with every passing day.

When the Demon Empire rose across the south-east, each goblin tribe was sought out by Machai, Hysminai and skeletons, and offered a choice.

Submit yourself to his majesty’s rule, or die.

Two of the largest tribes fought back, but all four thousand of them were slaughtered; their corpses now marched under the banner of the Satyr Skull.

The Stone-biters, with only a pitiful one hundred members, quickly bowed to their new liege and welcomed him as their master. Soon after, they learnt that they had been assigned a mine and two hundred human slaves, survivors from villages and towns that had tried and failed to resist the Demon Empire’s forces.

“His majesty seeks minerals, stones, gems and fine ores for his empire,” a messenger in a raven’s head helmet told them. “Bring him these amounts every single week on pain of his vengeance.”

The Stone-biters were all too happy to oblige and set their slaves to work; however, their chieftain, a particularly foul, hunched white-hided goblin, wanted to see his clan prosper no matter the cost.

To Chieftain Raugha, that prosperity rested on the Demon Emperor recognising his tribe’s worth, and so he wanted to have the best materials mined and to gather the most each week. To that end, he had his tribe whip and torture slaves who refused to work or underperformed.

If they passed out from exhaustion before he wanted them to, they were whipped.

If they tried to resist or defy his orders, they were flayed until skin peeled off in large chunks.

If they failed three times in a row, then they would either be tortured or executed.

If they died, then they were a feast for his kin.

In less than a month, ten of his slaves had died and almost all of them had scars on their backs, arms and legs from his punishments.

Most were too wounded  to work and the number of workers started dropping, meaning Raugha’s ambitions would soon be for naught.

Furious, he decided that the next slave to step out of line would suffer the worst fate he could imagine.

***

Willat and Willa were twins, both aged sixteen, and their parents had lost their lives to the Demon Emperor.

Their father died fighting when the skeletons burnt their hamlet down, and their mother had been one of the first victims of the goblin’s cruel torture.

They, like the rest from Newman’s Way, had been forced to watch as the goblins clawed and laughed at her, relishing in her pain, and then they’d seen them preparing her to eat.

Willa was inconsolable and it was only Willat’s desire to protect her keeping him on his feet, swinging his pickaxe at the walls day in, day out. If they didn’t work, then they too would suffer the same fate.

Unfortunately, Willa’s arms barely moved; they were too sore and too tired for her to even chip at the cave’s walls.

When the passing guards saw this, they angrily yelled and cursed at her, before trying to drag her away.

Willat and some of his friends tried to fight them, but more goblins arrived, beat them, bound their hands and dragged them to the centre of the cave; the place where all the goblins’ punishments took place.

All of the workers had been dragged there to witness Willa’s final moments.

She, held and bound by five goblins, was on a raised platform with vacant eyes as her clothes were torn at by multiple hands.

“Vermin!” Raugha screeched, angrily slamming his staff against the dirt. “All of you, useless, disgusting vermin! All of you slaves are useless! Why, why can’t you do what I tell you to?! This one!” He pointed his decaying wooden staff at her. “Defies me and doesn’t even try! And that rabble there!” He pointed his thin finger at Willat and his friends. “Dare lay their hands on us, us Stone-biters, us chosen servants of the Demon Emperor!

“Goblins, what do we do to vermin like that?!”

All of the goblins screamed and cheered incoherently, as Willat tried to break free and rush to his sister’s rescue.

If I could just get a good swing with an axe on one of those damp wooden legs, I bet that whole platform would collapse!

That hope is what kept him moving.

The faces of his parents drove him to keep fighting.

And the warm smile that no longer sat on his sister’s face was something he would reclaim, and nothing would stop him!

“Now, you’ll see what-!”

A dozen arrows skewered the goblins handling Willa.

Then, more arrows flew deeper into the cave, knocking the weapons and whips out of twenty members of the Stone-biters.

“Who did-?!”

Slow, loud steps echoed through the cavern.

They grew closer and closer to Willat and the others, all of whom were scared, confused and lost as to what was even happening.

Had someone come to save them?

Was it a resistance group?

Soldiers from the west?

All they could do was hold their breath as the footsteps drew close.

***

Lilith didn’t know what to expect when she arrived at the Stone-biter’s cave, yet it was far worse of a situation than she could have ever imagined.

Behind her was Commander Hersi and fifty of his men. Skilfully, and to her exact orders, the Gørviligr had loosed their arrows into the cavern and now were waiting for her to speak before acting again.

With a light gesture of her hand, the elves funnelled into the cave, swords and bows drawn, quickly surrounding the Stone-biters and human slaves. As she drew closer to the chieftain, Lilith felt her stomach churn from the smell of rotten flesh and the stench of faeces and sweat.

If Rebecca saw this, she’d faint in an instant.

“Chosen by the Demon Emperor, was it?” She scowled as she smiled at the now shaking goblin chieftain. “Useless vermin? Strange, isn’t it, that you would speak in such a manner that goes directly against my husband’s wishes.”

***

Husband?!

“Then, that means,” Willat muttered, looking up at the beautiful blonde woman draped in fineries.

Others near him had come to the same conclusion and felt their hope die.

They, just like him, assumed the worse.

The Empress herself? Why…why is she here? To put us out of our misery, or-?

“The only filth that I see here are the so-called servants of the Demon Emperor who have disrespected his every wish and will.”

“I, uh, eh, t-t-that’s-”

What?

“Commander Hersi.”

“My lady?”

“Tell me, what is the Slavery Pact?”

“It’s the law that his majesty put into place shortly after the formation of the Demon Emperor, penned personally by his hand to the last detail. It was written in association with the Lady of Dread, Lady Rebecca”

“That’s right. And, can you tell me, what exactly does the Slavery Pact state?”

“In short, the Slavery Pact states that all slaves are to be treated fairly, they are not to be abused they must be allowed to work off their debts to society and eventually become free.”

…huh?

“That’s right.” The empress took a deep breath and then walked towards his sister. “Commander Hersi, what do you and the Gørviligr see here?”

“Blatant violations of the Slavery Pact of the worst kind.”

“Indeed.” The empress brushed the goblin corpses off Willa and gently brushed her dishevelled hair off her face. “Hersi; could you repeat to me what this filth said about themselves?”

“My lady, I would not dare repeat such treasonous bile before you.”

The empress laughed a little. “It’s fine. I give you permission.”

“…Very well, my lady. ‘Stone-biters, us chosen servants of the Demon Emperor’.”

“Thank you, Commander. ‘Chosen’? Chosen?” Lilith lost her smile. “Don’t make me laugh. You rabble, you maggots are not chosen subjects of the Demon Emperor. No, you’re worth far, far less than that. Far less than those in chains below, and far less than the dirt clinging to their rags. You are beneath contempt. The only reason your clan is alive is because you had the good enough sense to bend the knee, unlike the Bronze-teeth or the Unbroken.”

“E-e-e-empress, I did-”

An arrow from Commander Hersi’s bow pierced the goblin chieftain’s throat.

As Raugha spluttered and grasped weakly at the arrow’s shaft, his eyes turned up to the empress, begging her to spare him.

She did not even meet his gaze.

She just glared at the floor until Raugha fell over dead.

Once he was slain, the Gørviligr quickly disarmed the rest of the Stone-biters, killing another dozen in the process, until the last remnants were lined up against a wall, far away from the human slaves.

Willat couldn’t understand what was happening.

Minutes ago, he thought that everything he had left in life was about to be snatched away from him, then he thought he would be rescued, but now he was scared of Empress Lilith and her wrath.

Some of the Gørviligr cut the ropes on him and his friends, and helped them to their feet.

Willat immediately tried to run towards Willa, but was held back at sword point.

“Please, let me-!”

“Is she your lover?” Empress Lilith stood over the platform’s edge with the now-passed out Willa in her arms.

“She’s my sister, empress!”

“Sister?” Lilith looked down and smiled warmly at the girl cradled in her arms. “I can see a little resemblance. Does she take more after your mother?”

Willat bitterly looked away and dug his nails into his arms.

“Answer the empress’s question, slave!”

“No, it’s alright. Stand down and let him through.”

Two Gørviligr did just as she instructed and no one even tried to stop him as he ran towards her, taking his sister from the empress’s arms.

“There’s no need to be frightened anymore,” Lilith assured him. “Whatever foul deeds the Stone-biters did to you and your friends, they won’t do to anyone else. I promise you.”

Willat grunted, then spat to the side. “What, like that’s going to bring back my pa, my ma, or everyone else we lost?!”

A few arrows were aimed at him, but Lilith held up her hand. “What’s your name?”

“…Why?”

“It appears that I’m rather feared, not that I can blame you. The Stone-biters don’t answer for my husband or I, and whatever they did I will punish them two-fold for. Based on your earlier reaction, your parents?”

“…Pa died fighting; ma died after…after.” Tears welled in Willat’s eyes as he hugged Willa tighter.

“…Say no more.” She gently patted his arm, then stepped back onto the platform. “Hersi.”

“My lady?”

“Get ready to take these slaves back to the Dread Keep. Send word to Rebecca about what’s happened, though spare her some of the details; her heart’s too fragile for matters like this. Afterwards start making preparations to check each of the goblin mines in the empire for any other offenders like this.”

“At once! Hyuthar, Ereien, do as her majesty wills!”

“This is your highest priority, Gørviligr. Do this right and I shall support your wishes when you next propose them to my husband. Hersi, leave twenty of your men here, would you? Make the Stone-biters work in this cave until all but one of them are dead. Do not let them stop to rest, eat or drink; keep them working until we have our lucky winner who will get to live to see another day outside of this cave.”

***

The Dread Keep - the bastion of evil, the jewel of the Demon Empire, and home to the Demon Emperor.

Willat didn’t know what to expect when the empress brought him and his whole village there, but he would never would have imagined there would be so many humans, free of bondage, working hard throughout the castle.

There were maids, butlers, blacksmiths, farmers, stableboys and more working without chains, and without skeletons or demons breathing down their necks. They were still there, of course, on the battlements, but the monsters’ attention was mostly elsewhere, on their own duties surveying the horizon.

Not all looked happy to be working at the keep, but then others were smiling and laughing.

What is this place, really?

“Lady Lilith!”

“Rebecca.” The empress smiled thinly at the noblewoman running towards them, followed hastily by maids and terrifying knights. “I suppose Lord Allaric told you.”

“He did, I…” She winced a little, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry, I-”

“Before you say another word, know this.” The empress cupped Rebecca’s cheek gently. “This was not your fault. Don’t worry, I’ll take it from here. Dread Knights, find them some rooms and clothes first, then tend to their wounds.”

“What will happen to us?”

A question many in the crowd asked themselves in frightened whispers, even as the empress ‘saved’ them and promised them aid.

No matter what happens. Willat clutched his sister even tighter. I’ll protect you, Willa.

No matter what!