Disclaimer: I do not own Iron Butterfly or its characters. They are owned by Chanda Hahn.
A/N: Please Review and give me feedback. This is my first story so I need critiques.
Kael's POV:
I awoke in dark, dank room with all of my weapons missing. When I say all I do not mean just the obvious weapons that anyone can see and take I'm talking about the knife I keep in my left boot, the poisoned dart that's hidden in my belt, etc. I felt beyond naked and strangely lightweight without all of my equipment. I took stock of the room I was in by pacing around it and running my hands along the walls. There was nothing interesting about the room, no windows, no weapons, just some filthy straw in one corner and a door in one wall. 'How am I going to get out of here with just my wits and fists? Guess I'll just have to bide my time.'
Then the screaming started somewhere above me. The screams sounded more animalistic than human. As the hours passed the screaming eventually stopped but whether that was to the voice giving out or the voice in question was killed remained to be seen. More hours passed but still no one came near my door. So I continued to wait until I heard a voice outside of my room.
"Where is she? Where is Cammie? What have you done with her?" I heard a raspy, female voice say.
"She's dead. The Raven was very upset that you were not able to play with him last night and so he took it out on your precious Cammie. So if you really must blame someone for her death than blame yourself for being unavailable to him last night." A callous male voice responded back. I could tell that this news shocked the woman/girl because she stayed quiet for some time before she responded.
"YOU LIE!" She screamed back and I could hear a thunk on a door that wasn't mine.
"Do I? Don't take my word for it. When the Raven sends for you tonight you'll see her mangled body, just as you have for all the others. And you will see the Raven tonight." After these words the woman/girl lost all of her fight. Footsteps led to my door and a hand pushed an unappetizing plate of something through a flap in my door.
Once these footsteps left and a door closed somewhere in what I now knew to be hallway the woman/girl started sobbing. I knew that if someone didn't get her under control soon that she would be lost to hysterics.
"Pull yourself together. The only way you'll survive this place is if you keep it together." I said. These were the first words I had said in so long that my own voice came out raspy and gruff.
"They killed her…they killed her and it's all my fault. If I had been stronger or braver, she would still be alive." The woman/girl replied. I could tell that no matter what I said to her that she would believe what that man had told her: that this Cammie was dead because she couldn't take another beating.
"They'd have killed her anyway. Either tonight or later. You know this and there is no use in dwelling in the past." A different voice replied. This one distinctly male and also rough as if he hadn't spoken in a long time as well.
At his words I could tell that the woman/girl pulled herself together. What I wasn't prepared for was her continued conversation. I thought that the grief of losing her friend would keep her silent for a while.
"What is your name?" She asked me.
"Does it matter?" I replied.
"If we are going to die down here than I would at least like to know your name." She said this so matter-of-factly. As if her own death or mine was a past event, her attitude shocked me into replying.
"Kael."
"I'm Thalia." She told me.
As if my answering her one question gave her leave to know me, she started asking me question after question.
"Who are you? Are you someone important? Why were you drugged for so long?" I decided that since I'd already answered one of her questions that I might as well make conversation, I replied:
"I'm no one important and they know that if I ever get out of here that I will kill them all."
"Can you really do it? Can you do it and can you take us with you when you escape?" She asked. I knew that I couldn't give her false hope but at the same time I found myself silently vowing to get her out here at all costs.
"No." I simply replied.
Then I got a crazy mad idea. An idea so insane that who but me would ever think it, much less try to pull it off. But first I needed my guard's attention and since we had only been speaking in whispers I decided noise was my best option.
I started to beat my plate against the wall but that was pointless for it made so little noise. Then I looked over at the door and realized it would echo any sound if something were to be thrown or hit against it. So I did what any sane person would do, I started to beat my plate against my door.
"You cannot break the lock with your plate." The Thalia stated as if she had tried once or twice with little success. I needed more noise so I started to throw myself against the door.
"Stop or they're going to beat us again." The male voice said.
"I'm trying to get their attention."
"What?! You want to be beaten. He wants them to beat us, Thalia."
I heard her small voice again, saying: "Please stop. I can't take another beating."
It was so sad and resigned that my silent vow was coupled with rage against the monsters who would beat anyone like her. Anyone who would take the blame of a friend's death didn't deserve to be beaten by these animals. That's when I heard footsteps outside a door.
"What is going on?" A snarling voice yelled.
"Come here!" I said to get their attention away from the others. "I've got some news for your masters that they're going to want."
"Oh yeah. What information is that?"
"Come closer and I'll tell you." At my words Snarling Voice opened my door. The first thing I noticed was a scar across his top lip, the second thing was his blacksmith's apron covered with blood. All I had to do was imagine that blood as Thalia's and I was so filled with rage that my vision took a slight red tinge to it.
I spat insults at him that were guaranteed to make any normal man so filled with rage that he would have to beat the speaker. I told him my insults with confidence and arrogance in equal measure as I prepared myself for a fight against him and his two goons.
As I had planned they attacked in a rage against me and I quickly overpowered goon 1 and took his sword and dagger. Both goon 2 and Scar Lip stepped back. As I killed goon 1, goon 2 attacked but his robes caught fire. That's when I saw a hand dart back into a cell. I quickly killed goon 2 and turned to face Scar Lip.
He tried to flee but I took the dagger I had 'borrowed' and buried it in his back. After the dangers were passed I looked around the hallway and saw room after room lined with doors just like mine. This hallway led to one dead end and one staircase. I grabbed the keys from goon 1 and started opening the doors. Most of the rooms were empty but I knew that there were at least two other prisoners here so I kept checking every cell only sure of one that held someone.
I reached the man/boy's door first. At my first glimpse of him I was shocked. He was Denai[1], which explained the fire, and young. By his looks he might have been fifteen but with the Denai it is always hard to tell. He didn't speak, he just took off down the hallway to the stairs were Scar Lip had fallen.
'This is the only door left. It must contain Thalia.' Were my thoughts as I approached the end of the hallway.
I opened the door, not quite sure what to expect but what I saw wasn't it. I saw standing next to the door a girl with long raven-colored hair and the bluest eyes I had ever seen. They reminded me of the one time I had seen the ocean, they were so blue. She was also short, the top of her head barely reached my shoulder. Next, I noticed her body was blotted with bruises and cuts and what looked like an infection in one of the cuts on her arm and I also saw that she started to sway from side-to-side from starvation or dehydration. I knew that if she couldn't make it by herself that I wouldn't be able to keep my vow of getting her out of here because I wasn't strong enough to fight and to carry her safety.
"Come on." I spat at her. More annoyed at myself for my weakness than at her for hers. After all I had only been here for a few days, she easily looked as if she had been here for months.
"I would if you would move." She replied with just as much fire. For the second time in as many hours of my life I was shocked into doing what someone else wanted without thought. Here a girl was commanding me to do something with as much fire as any one of my SwordSisters[2]. I almost sighed in relief because that meant that these cravens hadn't broken her spirit just beaten it back for a time.
Once Thalia was in the hallway she followed the path that the boy had taken. I followed close behind her, still amazed that one so small hadn't been broken her first day in this hell. As we walked past goon 2 I noticed that he was still smoking slightly and so I took a torch from the wall and set him and goon 1 on fire to destroy this hell on Earth.
I reached the top of the staircase and watched Thalia have an internal battle with herself. I could tell which way led to freedom by the smell of fresher air coming from the tunnel on our right but she kept glancing to the tunnel on the left as if to see if a friend would come out. I realized that she hadn't believed that man and that she still harbored hope for the girl, her friend Cammie. I do not know what came over me but I pushed her toward the right and told her to go. That I would check the left.
She looked at me with her crystal blue eyes and gave me a brilliant smile, she than turned around and ran into the right tunnel. By this point the smoke from the fire I had set was reaching its way up the wooden stairs and making it hard to breathe.
I took off down the left tunnel. The tunnel went on and on and the stench of fire and bodies became nearly overwhelming but I pressed on because I knew that I wouldn't be able to look Thalia in the eye again and lie.
I wondered at the thought of seeing her again. 'I'll never see her again. So what's the point in checking further? Could you face her again and know that you didn't do as you promised?' Were my revolving thoughts so still pressing forward with a determination that would have surprised even my mentors.
I reached the end of the tunnel and found an open door. I stepped into the room and looked around. Nothing could have prepared me for the instruments of torture and death that I saw. Implements designed to wreck agony upon its victim, but still keep them alive, were lined up next to a machine that looked strangely beautiful. It was shaped like a butterfly but made of iron with straps of leather connected to it. The air smelled so heavily of rotting flesh and blood that not even the smoke from the fire could dampen it. I took one more look around, looking for a body, or a girl, anything to report back to Thalia. In the far corner I saw a little bundle and so I moved towards it, almost without thought. I approached the bundle and knew that this was Cammie and that Thalia would never be seeing her friend again.
With my inspection of the torture room completed I ran out of there and raced to the tunnel that would take me out of this waking nightmare. The smoke was unbearable and when I reached the cross roads between the tunnels and the stairs I could see that the flames were coming and coming fast.
As I ran down the final tunnel I noticed that the ceiling was getting lower and lower. As I stooped I looked behind me and saw the racing flames.
I made it to the end of the tunnel and boosted myself up and out of the hole. As I coughed and caught my breath I looked around and noticed that I was in a stable with no horses. I stepped out of the stall that I was in and looked around.
There in the next stall over was the boy I had helped escape earlier, lying in a widening pool of his own blood. I searched frantically for Thalia but I couldn't find her. This fact relieved and disappointed me. It relieved me because I knew that she hadn't been killed by whomever had killed the boy but it disappointed me because it meant that I wouldn't be able to see her before I left for my home.
Shaking off these strange emotions I headed out. After about half a mile an excruciating pain shot through my body. It felt like a branding iron was being pressed to my skin and was leading me the opposite way I wanted to go. I tried to keep walking through the pain, as I had been taught, but the pain didn't abate if anything it got worse the more I struggled against it. Throughout the night I tried everything I knew to stop the pain but the only thing that worked was to follow the direction it was tugging me.
Giving up on trying to fight this agonizing pull, I took off in the direction it pulled me toward. It led me to a well hidden campsite by a river. As I searched for clues to whomever this campsite had belonged to I saw horse tracks that led to the city named Haven. Deciding that I was going to get answers to this mysterious pull I took off on foot in the direction of Haven.
During this journey I carefully monitored the Pull for any signs that it would change, it didn't. The Pull kept steadily going in a monotonous line. By the time I reached an inn night had descended and the Pull had stopped its incessant tugging.
1. Denai: A race with amazing abilities. They stand out from other races because of their inhuman beauty. They are slowly going extinct for unknown reasons.
2. SwordBrother/SwordSister: A clan of warriors/assassins that have cut themselves off from the world and live in seclusion. They are widely known for their fighting and strategic abilities. If one were to stubble upon the clan's hideout you wouldn't be leaving alive.