Chapter 17
I woke up with my neck stretched on a block. I thought I was being beheaded and fought back but I wasn’t being held by human hands–only chains at my ankles, wrists and waist. I wasn’t on a block but a stout table and it was just inside the doors of a smithy. Fire was raging in the forge and a massive human built in the shape of an ogre was working the bellows with one hand and holding a long handled crucible in the other. I heard the sizzling of metal melting.
I groaned. The heat in here was incredible. I wondered how he took it when even I was sweating. I was drenched in it.
“Master Agenor,” the blacksmith spoke over his shoulder. “The creature is awake.”
Agenor, the boy and another Elassai came into my line of sight. This one was pure Elassai, taller than the rest of us by a foot, dark-haired and with the same electric purple irises and cat-slit eyes of the pureblood.
I strained and felt the point where my right wrist chain was pinioned to the ground loosen. Enough for me to pull it free and I heaved for all I was worth. We all heard the crack as the chain snapped, their gasps of horror and then, the Elassai spoke a word of power that froze me in my tracks. He ordered me to hold up my wrists and I did so even though I struggled to free myself from his compulsion. He pulled off the right cuff and handed it to the boy.
“Hurry, Reglos. The spell cannot hold an Yfed Gwaed for long,” he said.
“The Forge cannot be hurried, Master Connacher,” he replied equitably. “The heat, the melting point are all finite and immutable.”
Connacher nodded, pulled a silver blade from his robes and took my wrist. Turned it over as he stared me in the eyes and such was his power that I was almost mesmerized. “Hold still boy, lest I miss this.”
“Miss what?” I asked and he looked astonished that I had answered him.
“You’re very strong for one under spell, in dayied cuffs and wounded. Let us see how strong you are after this.” With one swift move, he sliced open my right wrist and blood flowed from the wound as if it would fly to the heavens. Thick, rich, the smell and enticement made me want to rip open their throats and drink until I was so gorged I would vomit. We watched the pool at his feet grow until it reached the door and the others grew anxious, even the blacksmith stopped to watch.
“Master? Is it not enough?” He asked and Agenor put his hand on the man’s shoulder.
“He just fed, you see. That is not his blood but Dioneses’.”
“Did he die?” I croaked. My body went cold and I was shivering. That glorious feeling of power and energy was gone. I felt as if I were a thousand years old and crumbling to dust. My skin whitened as my blood loss became intolerable and my head sank back onto the table. The chains sagged as if they weighed more than a hundred men were pulling on them.
“Now. Is the collar ready for pouring, Reglos?” Conn asked calmly.
“Yes, master.” He poured the crucible into a cast and the silver flowed white hot and glowing. Conn spoke, in the ancient language of magic and his words hung in the air as lighted runes, swirling with power dripped into the cast. He gestured and the metal cooled aided by the smith’s quick dunk into a bucket of water and then sand.
When he opened it, the circlet was pure, unbroken with no catch to open it nor was it wide enough to go over a man’s head. “Put it in the flame’s direct heart,” Conn said and Reglos obeyed. He left it there for no more than fifteen seconds yet when he removed it, it glowed blue white.
Conn reached out and held my wrist. The blood flowed to a trickle. I was limp, barely breathing yet when he approached me with that thing, I tried to scramble away.
“This will hurt,” he spoke and with one gesture, the ring floated off the tongs, expanded over my head and down onto my neck. The heat was incredible and as it contracted to touch my skin, I screamed in agony. The next second, over the smell of burning flesh, the collar cooled to an icy circlet of metal that soothed the burn and left nothing but an old scar. “He will be very weak for a day or so,” Conn turned to the half-bloods. “By the third day, he will be able to eat and drink. Meat mixed with the blood of animals but only enough to keep him alive. Should he be able to attack a person and drink blood, I’m not sure if even the silver collar with the binding runes is enough to keep him controlled. Even weakened, he will be able to perform tasks that ten slaves could not accomplish. Agenor, he must be chained at night. Keep him apart from the other slaves. Disobedience must be punished immediately.”
“He’s already been whipped by an expert,” the farmer shrugged. “That did no good. What makes you think I can punish him worse?”
“If he gets loose, Agenor, he will murder everyone and everything on this farm,” Conn warned.
“Put a geas on him. Compel him.” Me in the eyes
“Only the Lyr can do that. We are far away from the capital and the King. Besides, do you want Lyr Averon in our business?”
“Then, you take him. I was going to market before I found him, to buy five more slaves,” Agenor shrugged. “I don’t need the extra worry about him, too.”
“It, Agenor, not him. He is neither Elassai nor human. He is a blood drinking creature that is unnatural, an abomination.”
The mage for that was what he must be waved his hand and the chains fell off my hands and feet leaving behind the cuffs. He did not replace the one on my cut right hand. I was so weak, I couldn’t move off the table. He picked up my wrist and with a hot poker from the flame, scarred the wound closed. The smell of burning flesh wafted through the air and was nauseating. I heard several of them vomit. All of them backed up as Conn lifted me in his arms and carried me out to the yard. I saw the stable block, paddocks and further off, a mansion that would rival any great lord’s. Waiting in the courtyard was an enormous bird like a vulture only this one wore a saddle. Into my feeble brain popped a word and I spoke it aloud before thinking. “Condorla.”
“Yes,” he said. “You surprise me once again. I will ask later how you know about our flying mounts.” He tied me onto the bird’s back and within seconds, both of us were in the sky. When I looked down, all I saw was the tiny image of a house and planted fields. I buried my face into the back of his robe and suffered in silent misery.