CHAPTER 4
(AN: Hey everyone, going to have a longer note at the bottom because I want to keep this one brief. I just want to say thank you all for the support, and sorry for the wait. If it makes you feel any better this is the longest chapter so far. Let's get into it.)
CHAPTER 4
Ganlin’s first night at Silvirtharn moved quickly. Guards took him to a room where they cut his hair so short that running his hand through it felt like touching grains of sand, then they confiscated his armour, giving him a dull brown shirt and some loose fitting trousers to wear instead. After that, they dragged him to the cell where he would spend the rest of his days.
The cell was ten feet by eight, with two bedrolls on the ground, touching opposing walls. There were an odd number of prisoners at Silvirtharn, and as such Ganlin had the cell to himself, at least for the time being. The bedroll was almost as hard as the cold stone it laid on. The thick wooden door closed behind Ganlin, leaving him all alone. He spent some time pacing the cell, trying to get used to the size of it, grateful that he at least had the space to himself. Eventually, soreness came to him, and he laid upon one of the bedrolls, turning onto his side to not agitate his lower back, which was still thrumming with pain. In the fight between exhaustion and the worry about what the rest of his life would be, exhaustion won, and Ganlin fell asleep.
Ganlin dreamed that night. He was standing in that skal again, and the wind was blowing wildly, making the buildings sway and groan. The sky was pitch black, and although Ganlin couldn’t see it, he somehow knew that it was because the three moons had aligned.
There were no people that Ganlin could see, but human bones were scattered about in the dirt. The wind was moving so quickly that the clouds blurred, making it impossible to see past the edge of the skal. There were bright flashes of light in the sky, followed by a loud, deep rumbling that Ganlin had never heard before. The sound drove itself deep within his bones, reverberating through body and soul alike. His body shook with fear of the unfamiliar and the dangerous.
Suddenly, the main building, the one Ganlin had slept in, was completely in flame, and the door flew forward, heading straight for Ganlin. Before he could even begin to jump out of the way, the door was suddenly thrown straight upwards, and disappeared into the blackened sky.
Out of the door came a hulking man whom Ganlin recognized as Ragnov. His head was bound to his body with a thick band of metal, and when he opened his mouth to speak, pained screams came forth instead of words. Ragnov lifted his blade, which was slick with blood and glowing with a sickly green aura, and pointed the tip at Ganlin before running forward.
Ganlin felt a familiar weight settle in his hand, and he looked down to see his spirxe. Finding proper footing, he waited for Ragnov to get a bit closer, then leaped forward and swung the blade directly into Ragnov’s chest.
Ganlin didn’t even process being blown back. One second his spirxe was going to connect with Ragnov, and the next second he was facedown in the dirt, his right arm burning with pain.
He tried to push himself back up, but all he managed to do was flip over onto his back. Raising his right arm, he beheld a horrifying sight: his arm was burnt all the way to the elbow, the skin blackened and charred, peeling back in some parts to reveal pink muscle.
The clanking of iron drew Ganlin’s eyes from his singed limb to see that Ragnov was stalking towards him, the sword’s aura starting to become the only source of light as the fires began to die down. Fear clutched Ganlin’s heart, rooting him to the spot as Ragnov came ever closer.
Ragnov came into reach, and raised his sword high above his head, his mouth opening to let out a gurgling scream as he struggled to make words.
“D-d……Die.”
The sword came down, and images flashed through Ganlin’s brain; The city where he grew up, blood running through the streets; A stone temple that sat above the clouds; being pulled through a gate by the chain around his neck; a bedroom filled with corpses; a dark liquid being poured into a hollowed skull; A woman with straight black hair holding a sword to his throat.
Ragnov’s sword came down, but before it could slash through him, Ganlin was transported. He was suddenly standing up in the middle of a stone hall. His arm was covered in white bandages, and the pain was no longer there. Ganlin began walking down the hall, feeling drawn forward by some unknown force.
The hallway, lit by torches placed at regular intervals, stretched on forever, disappearing into the distance. There were wooden doors to the left, appearing between two torches, but Ganlin didn’t even stop to look at them, some deep inner feeling pushing him forward. After walking for what felt like an hour, he began running down the hall, still inexorably drawn forward towards an unknown destination. His mind was empty, unable to think of anything else except getting to where he needed to be.
Suddenly, he knew he was there. He came to a sudden stop and turned to the left to look at the door. It looked just like all the other ones, but somehow Ganlin knew that this was the right door, the one he had been looking for. The answers to questions that Ganlin didn’t even know to ask were on the other side of this door. He didn’t know why he knew that, all he knew was that he knew it. Reaching forward, he grabbed the handle and pushed it open.
Inside was a simple stone room, furnished with a simple wooden bookshelf on one side and a few shelves over a desk on the other. A bed was snug against the back wall. In the centre of the room was a raised stone plinth, a person sitting cross legged atop it. The person wore voluminous, deep violet robes, and their hood was drawn over their head so that only a long, white beard could be seen poking out from under the cloth. Ganlin stepped forward, the feeling that was inside of him, drawing him forward and telling him what to do was no longer there: he was on his own.
“Hello?”
As soon as the word came out of Ganlin’s mouth, the person’s head shot up, and their wrinkled eyes widened as they saw Ganlin standing there. They reached out with their hand and pointed a long, gnarled finger at him. The person opened their mouth to speak and-
He woke up as the wooden door of his cell was loudly banged on.
“Get up prisoner,” A rough voice said on the other side. “It’s time for you to get to work.”
Skin slack with cold drops of sweat, Ganlin got up from his bedroll as the cell door opened and one of the guards came in.
“Your hands, hold them out.”
Ganlin did as instructed, and the guard clapped bands of iron around Ganlin’s wrists, a length of chain connecting them. The guard then pushed Ganlin out through the hallway and led him through Silvirtharn and back out through the door of the main building.
The courtyard was a hub of activity in the early morning light. Guards were lining up prisoners in a chain of at least a hundred people, connecting their chains through their legs.
“This is your stop, prisoner.” The guard said, leading Ganlin to the back of the line and attaching him to the prisoner in front of him.
“The Warden approved of your build, and marked you as a man who’d be good for mining, so that’s where you’re going. Do your job and listen to the foreman and you’ll be just fine.”
With one final pull on the chain to confirm Ganlin was securely fastened, the guard left. Time passed on as prisoners were secured behind Ganlin, as well as to the side of him. Eventually, the order was given to march, and the prisoners were led four abreast to the South side of the Keep. There, the ground was dug out at an incline leading downwards in an Easterly direction. At the bottom of the incline, under that section of wall, was a wood and iron portcullis that was then pulled up, and the prisoners shepherded through.
The other side of the portcullis led to another incline, this time into a deep open pit that stretched far into the ground. The incline wound around the outer edges of it, leading to the bottom, where Ganlin could see someone standing.
Once the group reached the bottom, they lined up and the chains connecting them to each other were removed. The person who had been waiting, a balding man with a stocky figure, spoke out.
“Alright, you miserable lardworms, I want to see good progress today, you all know where you were, and your picks are waiting for you. So get to it.”
“Yes, Foreman.” The prisoners said in an unenthusiastic chorus. The crowd dispersed, going to various positions and taking up their picks, swinging them into the hard rock. Before he could move, a guard grabbed Ganlin and brought him forward, along with the other two bandits, Ganlin noticed, as the Foreman looked at them.
“Welcome to the mine.” He said in a voice as hard as the stone. “I am the Foreman. I’ll be overseeing all the work you do here.” Reaching into a barrel nearby, he drew three pickaxes, giving one to each of the newcomers. “These are your picks, all you’ve got to do is go to one of the marked sections and start swinging, if you see anything that doesn’t look like the rest of the rock, give a shout and one of the guards or I will oversee the extraction of it. Should be simple enough for folk like you. Pick up crew will come down in an hour and I want to see you covered in sweat by then. Now, get to it.”
Ganlin took his pickaxe and made his way over to one of the designated mining areas, marked as such by a small sign. He decided to go for the one that seemed the least populated, as some of the Northmen were giving him hard looks. Trying to emulate the other prisoners, he copied their stances and swung the pick forward into the rock. The head lodged itself into the stone, and Ganlin then pulled back on it, using his strength to pull it free before swinging it into the rock again.
Ganlin quickly fell into rhythm with the other prisoner’s pick strokes. Even more quickly though, he began to feel exhausted. It was taxing work, in spite of its mundanity. It was sort of like swinging with a spirxe, but having to hold it with both hands felt obtrusive, as Ganlin had never been trained to use a two handed weapon. His back hurt, especially where he had been thrown against the tree, and his arms ached too. Soon enough, sweat was dripping down his brow and back, and he was struggling to keep up the pace set by the other prisoners.
Ganlin felt pain light its way across his back as something struck his back.
“No slacking, prisoner!”
Ganlin turned to see a guard already walking away from him, whip in hand. Ganlin stood in shock for a second, unbelieving at what had happened. The guard turned back around.
“Did you hear me? Get back to work!” He shouted as he cracked his whip across the ground. Guards and prisoners alike turned to watch the scene. Ganlin stood up straight.
“Yes, I will.” And he turned away from the guard, keeping his eyes cast down.
He swung his pickaxe back into the rock, but as he went to pull it free, the whip cracked across his back again, making his muscles tense up in pain.
“I didn’t give you permission to talk, prisoner. If I see you slacking again I won’t be as lenient as I have been thus far. Understand?”
Ganlin opened his mouth to speak, but quickly caught himself and nodded instead.
“Good. Get to work.”
As the guard walked away Ganlin got back to work, his back in even greater pain.
The rest of the day crawled slowly. At about midday some water was brought down, and each prisoner was allowed one cup, as well as some strange food that the Northmen called ‘bread’. After that, it was back to striking rocks. Eventually, a shrill sound rang through the pit. Looking for the source, Ganlin saw the Foreman blowing into a small, hand-held object.
“Alright everyone, get back into lines. You’re done for the day.”
At his command, the prisoners lined up, and were linked back together before being marched back up the ramp and into the prison grounds proper, a smaller group being led down to bring any materials found that day back up.
Ganlin was unchained from the other prisoners and they were all led to a room deep in the interior of the keep. It was large, capable of seating the dozens that inhabited the cells of Silvirtharn at it’s long tables. Long benches ran along either side of each table, and at the far end of the room there was a door that must have led to a kitchen, judging from the noises coming out from it. The ceiling was high up and slanted, and the room was lit by sturdy lanterns that lined the walls of the room.
Ganlin followed the other prisoners and sat at one of the benches, which was hard beneath him. The prisoners talked quietly among themselves as guards leaned on the walls all around the room. Nobody spoke to Ganlin as they waited for the food. Anyone who looked at him just stared until they realized he saw them, quickly looking away from the Ank’haran.
Eventually, cooks came out of the kitchen door and served food to the prisoners. Ganlin inspected his plate, which sagged slightly in the middle, as though it wished to be a bowl instead. Around the rim of the bowl was a collection of strange, mushy food and a strange, white, cup shaped thing that was hard with only a little give. Ganlin saw many of the other prisoners use the white shaped thing to scoop out the broth that lay in the centre of the bowl. Ganlin followed their example and scooped up some of the light coloured, thin broth. Ganlin could see that chunks of meat floated in the liquid. After some slight hesitation, Ganlin gave in to his hunger and took a bite out of the strange food. It had a bland taste to it, which was to be expected; it was prison food after all. Although of poor taste, Ganlin quickly felt the food doing its job of nourishing him. As he swallowed he could already feel it filling up his stomach and somewhat restoring his strength. Encouraged by this, Ganlin continued eating, shoveling the food into his mouth, chewing quickly and only pausing to swallow what was already in his mouth.
In a flash, his plate-bowl hybrid was empty, and Ganlin felt full enough to take on the day again.
After the majority of the prisoners were done with their meals, the guards rounded up all the prisoners again, splitting them into several different groups to perform other menial tasks around the prison. Ganlin was paired up with two other men who were the closest to his own height that he had seen. A pair of guards led the three down some stairs, deeper into the interior of the prison. After going through some hallways, they stopped at a wooden door. One guard opened it as the other shepherded them into the room.
The room was a simple, moderately sized storage area. Large round containers stood piled up at the back of the room.
"Alright let's get this done," Said one of the guards, the one that led them into the room. "Those barrels are full of one of the family's old house-mystae. All us guards are too valuable to go around touching a mystae's things, especially if they've gone untouched. Go through them, make sure there's nothing dangerous in there."
A mystae? Ganlin had never heard of such a term before. From the way the other two men reacted to the word, however, Ganlin figured that it must be something dangerous.
The other two prisoners looked at Ganlin, clearly hoping that the foreigner would be the one to open the first barrel, as if that would make them completely safe.
Before the guards could get agitated enough to get physical, Ganlin stepped forward, grabbing one of the barrels, as the guard had called it, off the top shelf and setting it down beside him. The wood looked like it had aged and fallen apart, so Ganlin reached into a hole in the wood and pulled the top of it open.
It was empty.
Ganlin, perplexed, tilted the barrel towards the door, where the guards and other two prisoners were standing, showing them the lack of objects stored inside. All of them seemed equally perplexed, but one of the guards composed themselves and pushed one of the prisoners forward.
"Well, go on then. Check if the rest of them are empty."
Both prisoners, seemingly calmed by the lack of ill fortune from the first barrel, began working on the next barrels as Ganlin grabbed another one.
The work moved quickly after that, the lack of contents from the first barrel being a fluke. The contents of each were stranger than the last. The first few had old writing materials and some 'books' as the Northerners called them. The 'pages' were ruined, though, and as such unreadable. The majority of them were filled with various strange pieces of glassware and other odd objects, one of them was even completely full with strange scales that Ganlin had never seen on any animal before.
Taking in all the strange apparatuses and materials that they found in the barrels, Ganlin figured that what those of the North-kingdoms called a Mystae were similar to, if not the exact same as, what he and other Ank'harans would call wizards. Those who could bend the forces of the world itself to their wills. Ganlin had only ever seen a few, and had only spoken with one from one of the greater clans of Eastern Ank'har.
Soon enough, they had gone through the entire room and sorted all the items that they found. One of the guards wrote on a small pad that they had, taking inventory of the objects found.
"Alright prisoners, this whole floor is full of rooms like these. Your job every night from here on out is to go through each and every one of these for however many nights it takes you. Let’s get on with it.”
The guards then led them out of the hall and down to the next door, which was very much the same way as the last one. Ganlin and the other prisoners got to work.
The group fell into a cycle over the course of the rest of the night. The guards would lead the prisoners into a room, which was filled with barrels or crates or uncontained junk, the prisoners would sort through it, the guard would write on that pad of his, and then they would be led to the next room to repeat the process all over again. It was slow and tedious work, and by the time the guards said they were done for the night and led them all back to their cells, Ganlin felt agitated from the monotony of all the work.
It was undeniable though, his body did feel drained. He fell onto the hard and uncomfortable bedroll and went deep into unconsciousness, where the same dream would come again.
-End of Chapter Four-
Endnote: There's chapter four everyone, I hope you enjoy it! Like I said up top, sorry for the long wait, I appreciate you guys for sticking with me. Chapter five is on track to be posted next Monday, so be on the look out for that. I'm also sorry for any drop in writing quality with this chapter, I am more than a little out of practice. Also be on the look out for an update post coming soon, possibly today, as I am going to be making another account that's about my other projects. Thank you all so much,
N.H.B.
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