Caution this story depicts images of torture and murder
She stopped the car at the top of the hill and grabbed the bottle of vodka. She took a deep drink and then worh a towel proceed to wipe the car clean of any trace. Her short hair held tight in a hairnet under her hat left little chance of leaving amy clues. She opened the trunk and pulled an unconscious man dropping him bodily into the dirt. After fastening his arms and legs she took her cloth and covered his face with it vodka over the towel before takign another drink. He coughed and moaned deeply as his concilness returned. His body was marred with fresh marks and skars. Blood caked around his mouth amd eyes. She was impressed. Few left under her care had ever made it this long. “Koz, wake up, your survival demands it.” The man looked about and swore softly. Your arms are attached to this car. You need to keep up with it. If you can make it to the water you might be able to get free. Do you understand?” The man looked around, fully concious now amd aware thre nightmare was real he looked in horror at his captor. This woman had take. Everything amd over what? It mattered not hed get free and hell and fire would reign down n her and her family. He wouldnt underestimate her again. He said as much. And she replied” “Well im not a good judge of things far off. So if you get throguh this you cam stop by any time”.
“One thing” she said. Metric is all messed up for me. Do you reckon that cliff is 100 meters to 150 meeters? She paused for effect and he finally replied, 150. Well thats a shame because i only had 100 meters of rope. He looked down and saw the ropes fastened to hai feet on one end amd secured around a tree on the other. As the realization set in she said everything was and put the vehicle in neutral.
Unfazed by the mans screams sje told him this was easy compared to the horrors hos victims wale to every day. She toom another long drink of vodka and gave the car a mighty shove. Despite Koz’s vest interest the car kept moving forward. Stumbling he fell into the road scrambling to regain his feet, rhe rocks amd road opening wounds old and new.
About 50 meters before the cliff he fell for the last time. The slack taken up in the ropes that bound his feet the car pulled forward. Hi screams carried high into thr air but were cut short as gravity and moment did their job. The pieces of him that didnt make it to the ocean reamined in place for someone else to find.
Disclaimer this story contains depictions of human trafficking, rape and drug abuse
She stood, her strength waning, as blood seeped through her many wounds onto the floor. The pain was biting, searing. Slumping against the wall, She hastily rigged an IV and bound her wounds but her strength failed. Darkness enveloped her.
The light was dim. She recognized the murky haze of morphine, time blurred in the hospital bed. Her awareness returned in fragments, the morphine's grip holding her, binding her. They didn’t speak. The dull, haunting eyes stared empty. She was moved to a new room and a new bed and still the morphine came. It washed over her freeing her from pain and cleansing her momentarily from this new, horrifying, existence. Her wound had healed. Her strength returned slowly. She was bound and drugged. Men came and went. They seemed not to care for her captivity, only for their own, carnal, pleasure. She was beaten, used over and over in an endless, unspeakable, hell.
She grew stronger. The morphine’s grip loosening as her tolerance grew. The horrors of her reality sharpened her mind her training guided her her steps. Slowly the grim details of her captivity came into focus. Each day there was something new. A fragment she could use to escape. The bathroom—ten stalls, two rows of five. This bathroom heavy with despair and decay. The air was thick and smelled of cheap disinfectant, unable to mask the pungent mix of damp humidity and bodily fluids. The stall doors had been ripped from their hinges. Privacy was an unknown luxury, a forgotten word from a time that didn’t exist. The only peace or momentary escape the women here could find came monthly for some lucky ones some never bled and had no respite. The assaults took place daily. Never when the customers were in - that was bad business and there were rules. The dingy bathrooms, the cold damp showers their beds nowhere was safe. The bathroom was trimmed with rust and dirt the floors dirty and mared by cracked ceramic tile. 40 guards 20 on each shift. These were not military soldiers, though some were battle hardened and quite a few had basic training. Their bodies told their stories. The marks they bore carried histories of murder, loss and allegiance. What they lacked in training and discipline they made up with a proclivity for ruthless violence. The men made great sport of the prisoners and committed unspeakable crimes. Among the faces she encountered, the new nurse stood out. Her eyes, heavy with recent tears, betrayed her story. Like many hers was a story of coercion. A tale of horror to commit these acts or face a living death in some form or another. A sad and universal thread binding all those trapped in this nightmare. It wouldn’t be long. The remnants of light would fade to dull apathy.
All of this burned into her mind. Every fragment every detail. Escape was here. Her body didn’t feel like her own. It functioned almost mechanically. She built her strength pulling against her restraints. The human body is remarkable - strength once gained is easily regained with time and resistance- two commodities she had ample supply of.
We go in search of haunted lands To places deep unseen by man Escape escape we are set free By our own strength by our own hand
From the east, the shadow rose,
Side by side we vanquished foes
Together, evil we dispelled
In unity our friendship swelled
But time decays the deepest trust Like strongest iron lost to rust Betrayed by men we once died for Enslaved these years some fifty score
We go in search of haunted lands To places deep unseen by man Escape escape we are set free By our own strength by our own hand
From mountain tall and valley green We flee in darkness, move unseen From north and west, we flee our plight, Our chains and toil left this night South and east, our hopes we cast, to mountains black, our fate recast.
We go in search of haunted lands To places deep unseen by man Escape escape we are set free By our own strength by our own hand
Through smoke and ash, our chains unbound,
In the fire’s wake, safe passage found.
The master's death our freedom bought
By our hand new future wrought
We go in search of haunted lands To places deep unseen by man Escape escape we are set free By our own strength by our own hand
So you’re here to fight the hakaa huh? What in the gods’ many names spurred you to do that? … Yeah well you’ll find no riches here. Dwarves are too stingy to carry gold unless they’re carrying it off the bodies of their victims. And if we capture any we have to return it to the families. … Whats that? No you fool we dont attack their stronghold. Have you ever read anything? … Whats that you cant read? Oh well you’ll fit in fine here and we definitely have a spot for you. Sit down have a pint and let’s talk awhile. … No we haven’t attacked the stronghold since the very first campaigns on the black mountains. It was a death run. Pits, 10 feet accross and 40 feet deep, swalloed entire battalions. We still don’t know how they do that. We think they dig them from below and pull the supports. It’s more sophisticated engineering than we enountered any where. … I wish that was the end of it. But I’d take death pits over the firery hells their war engines create. The pitch they use is unreal its not thick like ours its more like soup. Soup that clings to every part of you while burning explosively. Thankfully we are well out of range of those demonic monstrosities. … No for us it’s mostly arrows tipped with some kind of poison that drives you mad. I’d be fine if we could see the fucking bastards. With their beady black cave-eyes. They always come at night a few days before the new moon. They can see plain as day. Its a fucking nightmare. That’s why we call em night demons. … Haha you cant expect mercy from these beasts. Haven’t you heared about their king? Murdered four generations of a family he served. Women children elderly all in the name of freedom. … No it wasnt a school. Fuck do you know anything? He set the house on fire while everyone slept. Killed his own kin too apparently, they all burned alive. The fire was so hot there was no trace of anything left except the children’s bodies. The family threw some of them off the roof to escape the flames. No one survived. How’d he do it? What rise to power? … Fuck me no one knows. People say it’s his ring but that makes no sense. I think he found a djinn. How else could he live this long and have this much power?
This will do. Thraask gave the order in his gruff voice. The word went quickly and quietly, and they set up camp with little ceremony. He worked methodically but his mind was elsewhere. Each stride carried the weight of decisions made, the lives altered. He paused, allowing himself a rare moment of reflection, feeling the gravity of their newfound freedom yet the heavy cost it demanded.
Here in a dark thicket deep in the forest there was plenty of concealment. Not that they need worry, there wasn’t a soul within two hundred miles that didnt believe the forest was haunted and no amount of gold, silver, or jewels would entice anyone to spend much time in the murky darkness of this forest.
They made surprisingly little noise for a troope this large, 140 able bodies both male and female. More than double if you count the young.
Thraask took a few mental notes for later and then retreated into the darkness. Back along their trail he scanned for signs that would point their path to any who might be seeking them.
The game trails were well worn and left few clues that his party had passed through. They did well considering the haste and sheer numbers.
He jogged back along the path, reaching the road in the darkness the remants of the hunters moon peaking over the mountains in the distance. Not that he needed the light his eyese were sharper on the darkest of nights and he preferred it to the daylight.
As Thraask left the quiet cover of the forest, the familiar sight of the valley unfolded before him. As he moved from the shadowed quiet cover of the trees to the open, starlit sky he thought about the work ahead and the journey to come.
“Three days” he thought “then total darkness.” They’d need to move quickly to make the black mountains by winter. They only had 2 months till they could expect the first snow.
He came over the crest of the hill and looked down into the valley that had been his home for so long.
This was a beautiful place, nearly 400 acres surrounded by cliffs it butted up to the high mountains to the west.
His kin worked in those mountains but he didn’t stop to think how different things might have been if he had stayed in the mining camps. There was work to be done.
Fortunately a lot had already been done. The cordwood and logs were stacked against the southern wall of the manor high and deep - in anticipation of the coming winter. The seasoned logs from a great oak Thrask had felled last summer. This would burn slow and hot - it seemed like such a waste - they could have made great charcoal for the forge but that didnt matter now.
He hoisted the carcasses of the two family dogs onto his shoulders and carried them into his chambers. Dropping them with silent thud to the floor.
The only sliver of emotion Thraask showed was now and it was fleeting - you’d not have noticed the momentary look before he steeled himself for what came next.
Those dogs had protected him, his kin and the masters children from bear and wolves. Killing them had been hard but there was too much at stake.
He turned and headed to the barn. The master was always prepared and these barns had provisions and stores to weather any winter or season or famine. There was hay that would carry them through two winters and Thrask got to work.
He mved silently in his calfskin boots. Jogging back and forth as he stacked the bales around the manor 6 feet high and 15 feet thick. Then he went back for the pitch. They had a natural seeping point in a cavern on the western wall of the valley and the master had barrells of pitch in the shed, as Thrask emptied each one his awareness sharpened - listening intently for any noise within but the house was silent.
The empty barrells he stacked in the slaves quarters with more bales of hay floor to ceiling he stacked it leaving space for the air to flow around it.
Thraask was tired. He only had a few more hours till sunrise and he wanted to get off the road, back under the cover of the forest.
With the doors secured, Thraask moved swiftly to the next task. Each step was precise, his actions a silent dance with time. The flicker of the torch in his hand cast long shadows as he approached the manor the great mountains of stone reflecting his resolve.
As he jogged away, out of the valley, he could hear the screams and calls for help. The fire was truly a site to behold in all its beauty and terrible glory. A necessary sacrifice and a step towards lasting freedom.
The valley would mask the flames from of any nearby farms and the natural mists that hung low on these mountains would hide the smoke until his people were long gone.
It is a strange feeling being free. The brands that scared his body were no longer held by any living person who could lay claim to him.
If they could make the black mountains by winter they’d take shelter and let snow and ice and time cover their tracks for good.
And they all slept. A free people at last .
