Chapter 1: Darkest Nights

The Athkatlan docks were rarely the setting for the happiest of occasions. As a place where a murder could happen at least once a night and nobody would bat an eyelid, it was hardly somewhere the Amnish Guard decided to poke its nose into too often – after all, they valued their noses, and the way Aran Linvail ran the area they'd be lucky to keep them if they interfered with the Shadowmaster's businesses. Nobody did.

Well, almost nobody. Despite the fact that the Shadow Thieves clamped down hard on any independent operators within Athkatla, there were still some individuals foolish enough – or resourceful enough – to challenge the guild. These were people who ran operations in the utmost secrecy, out of fear of Linvail rather than fear of the Amnish Guard.

One such operation was currently being run by people who rather suited the criteria needed to go more than a nanosecond when running an independent Athkatlan criminal business. Down in the darkest depths of the docks, in the most hidden, secretive piers which were all but impossible to access and thus barely used, a boat was settling in to dock.

It wasn't a particularly large boat, for a great ship would not fit in this tiny pier in a darkened corner of the district, yet it was still suitably large enough to draw attention to itself if something went awry. Which is why the resourceful people in charge had made every effort to ensure this didn't happen.

The boat, the Wolf Fang, was little more than a ferry from her mother ship, which was anchored off-shore, just beyond reach of the Athkatlan authorities. Sailing under neutral flags and doing nothing any more aggressive than loitering, the Seawolf had stubbornly resisted all efforts made by Amnish battleships to encourage her to move along.

The Wolf Fang's temporary captain and first mate on board the Seawolf was first to bound down the gangplank the moment his craft settled against the pier. His pace was light and bouncy as he clearly ignored the ominous creaks the plank below his feet gave out at every step.

Two men were awaiting him on the pier. The first one, a massive brute of a man who probably had more than a little Orc blood in him, seemed quite content to gaze at the ship with a rather distant air, his eyes glazing over as the boring wait for the Fang's arrival penetrated and melted his slow brain a little bit.

The second man was far more alert. Small and wiry, with a dark cloak and hood thrown over him which would have made him look inconspicuous if it wasn't made from a fabric so fine that no simple commoner could afford it, he watched the Fang's skipper disembark jovially through his hard steel-grey eyes.

Ramman Thorstein of the Seawolf stepped onto the semi-solid land of the pier and grinned cheerfully at the waiting party. "Greetings, mates!" he declared, a little too cheerfully and stereotypically for the second man's liking. He adjusted his garish sash and shifted his hat so it sat on his head at a rakish angle. "I suppose you're awaiting our little package?"

Baron Geoffrey Ployer resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he pushed the hood back from his head to show his full head of dark, if greying, hair and rather worn face. Thorstein knew him to be only about forty, though he looked considerably older. "You're late," he declared at last, and the attempt to project some malice into the lyrical, educated tones of his voice failed rather magnificently.

"The tides and wind were against us," Ramman Thorstein replied jauntily. These men weren't sailors. They wouldn't know that Captain Bates had wanted to sample their wares for a few extra moments before handing them over. It wasn't as if the goods had been spoiled, or anything. "Do you have the money?"

Ployer turned to the Orcish man, who lifted a large sack and passed it to the jovial Thorstein. The sailor took it with a brief nod of cheerful thanks, before opening it up and glancing inside.

"I trust everything is to your liking," the baron continued lightly, still attempting to intimidate the far taller and broader man. "As I trust everything will be to mine, otherwise I shall be taking that money back, Mister Thorstein."

Ramman raised an eyebrow as he brushed his light brown hair back from where it dangled over his eyes in a way he thought gave him a suitably roguish air before responding. "Hey, hey, hey," he responded soothingly, raising his hands in a gesture of submission. "We wouldn't be wanting to lose your patronage, just as you wouldn't be wanting to lose our supplies. We're all friends here, milord. Neither of us have been dissatisfied with the other on past ventures."

"Yes, but, as I'm sure you're aware, my demands this time are considerably higher than they have been in the past," Ployer pointed out, shrugging. "Everything must be absolutely perfect. I can't afford for things to go wrong."

"And everything is fine. They're all tucked in back there, sitting pretty, just waiting to be handed over into your loving hands," Thorstein assured him, gesturing briefly back at the Fang. "Do you have the carriages?"

Ployer turned to look back at the long stairs along the side of one of the old, run-down buildings of the Docks District which led to the main road. "At the top. My men are waiting up there – they shall help supervise the disembarking. Fortunately, there are not as many items as before, otherwise we would be here until dawn with your late arrival." The attempt to project a slight amount of irritation was not missed by Thorstein, but the comparative master of subtle intimidation ignored the baron's attempts to daunt him.

He turned to face the sailor straight on as his Orcish manservant hefted a large battleaxe in a way which suggested that no wriggling on Thorstein's part would allow him to say 'no' to the next suggestion. "I would like to see the wares before we partake in the exchange," Ployer explained mildly.

* *

For the past few weeks, all dozen of the captured humans had been stuck in a small hold which had gradually filled up with refuse, both from themselves and the inedible portions of their daily rations. There had been no escape from their situation, from their captors, from each other. Within hours, nobody had been able to notice the smell any more. It simply became as much a part of their life as the background noise of the waves crashing against the side of the ship.

Which is why the short move from the hold of the Seawolf to the Wolf's Fang had seemed like an absolute blessing. Some of them were seeing the sky for the first time in months, the feel of fresh air on the face and feeling clean for the first time in what seemed like an age as their captors threw buckets of salt water over them to remove the accumulated grime invigorating them. Yet, none of them had thought that this was the end of their torment. They had already begun to accept their fate; they merely welcomed the brief respite from the hell they were in.

The hold of the Fang was considerably smaller than that of the Seawolf, and they had been exceedingly cramped on the bigger ship. Now there was barely space for them to move. The trip to the docks had taken all of a half-hour, during which time nobody had said a word. Words had long ceased having any relevance.

When the door to the hold had swung open and the big man, the biggest brute of them all after his captain, had stepped in, followed by a small, mousy-looking individual they didn't recognise, it was quite clear things were going to change; that their torture had only just begun.

Ployer looked at the selection of pitiful-looking humans before him, giving each of them the careful, appraising inspection of the expert. Some were dark-skinned, some pale; some male, some female; some younger, some older; some big and muscular, some small and wiry. But they all had one thing in common: the spark of the eye and tilt of the chin that made them of a disposition which was absolutely perfect for what he needed them for. He needed survivors. He needed fighters.

He didn't say that, however. "This is the best you could find?" the baron demanded of Thorstein, injecting absolute disdain into his voice, a façade the sharp sailor picked up on instantly. "They don't look like much to me."

"Ah, that's just a bit of malnutrition," Thorstein replied, not willing to be goaded into playing Ployer's games. "Feed them well and they'll be just what you need for the pits. We searched far and wide for this dozen, picking only the best of the bunches. The others got sold off along the way." He cocked an eyebrow at the irksome aristocrat. "Why'd you only want humans, anyway?"

Ployer smiled a thin, rather disturbing smile, before turning to his Orcish manservant. "Explain, please, Warner," he asked lightly, continuing with his inspection of the goods as if Thorstein was not worthy of another second of his time.

Warner gave a brief grunt of acknowledgement as he turned to Thorstein. The two men exchanged a pained look as both glanced in the baron's direction, before the half-orc offered the explanation he'd been told too many times. "Them nobles don't really want to see little dwarves and skinny elves running around fighting each other. They want to see humans fighting humans – more engaging, Lord Ployer says."

The baron waved a finger approvingly in his manservant's direction. "Very good, Warner, very good." He straightened up, finished in his appraisal, and turned back to Thorstein. "I am suitably impressed. Give Captain Bates my compliments, and aid me in disembarking this rabble, if you would be so kind."

The respite from whip and squalor had been brief, as all dozen of the slaves knew, and as they were driven through the darkest nights of Athkatla to unknown destinations, every single one of them knew that this was not the end of their troubles – merely the beginning.