The Non-Human Society

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Six - Vim - Plunder

      Chains rattled as I dragged the man behind me.

The ship was swaying a little wildly, but not because it was sinking or in sail. The waters were rough. A storm was beyond the horizon, and it wasn't a gentle one.

"Grihh mah," the man I pulled behind me tried to say something, but I couldn't understand it. His broken jaw and missing teeth wouldn't let him formulate a word properly.

Even if he could speak, it wasn't as if I'd let it change what was about to happen.

Slowing to a stop, I took a deep breath as to sigh... and regretted it.

The stink was unbearable in this ship. The kind of stink that made my eyes water and not because of the smell itself.

Staring at the cages, I gulped as I tried to count them. Four... five... Seven. Seven cages. There seemed to be about five a cage... but...

"Shgop!" he yelled as my grip on his skull got tighter.

I understood that one. It made me only squeeze his skull tighter.

One of the women in the cages yelled out a word. One that at first made as much sense as the man's... but after a moment my mind corrected itself.

"You all speak Glamour?" I asked them.

The caged women all went dead silent, and still.

They did. That meant they were from the far east. Wonderful...

That explained their blonde hair at least.

"He speaks our language," one of them whispered.

"Forget that, look who he holds," another pointed.

This explains the body I had seen them tossing overboard as I swam over to this ship. That hadn't been trash, or a fallen comrade... it had been a woman. A woman who had been broken.

Just great.

Some metal clanked behind me... and it wasn't the chains wrapped around the man's legs I was pulling around. I turned a little and watched a familiar face hurry down the stairs. The young boy had a huge smile on his face as he hurried to me.

"Vim! We've captured the rest of them and the ship is ours! And..." he lost his voice as he saw the scene before him. Before me.

I kept my eyes on Ronalldo as he stopped a few feet from me. He carried a small hand axe, which was still clean of blood. He hadn't used it. The axe lowered to his knee, going listless as he stared at the cages.

Studying his eyes, I noted the disgust within them. He didn't see fortune or treasure, he saw something hideous.

Good. A good man. Or one who would become a good man, as long as no one corrupted him.

Maybe I really should let him join the Society.

"What is this...?" Ronalldo asked with an empty voice.

"What indeed," I said.

The man I held squirmed and I remembered him. I released him, and as I did I noticed that my fingers had sunk a little into his skull. Not so badly that it had killed him, at least not yet, but they had broken and crushed most of what they dug into.

I sighed at the sight of the man. It was the supposed captain of this ship, and the strongest fighter as well. He and his men had been very bold about declaring that I was no match for him. Especially with the whips of chains he had used.

Wonder if he had used those whips on the women...

Turning away from him and Ronalldo, who was now staring at the defeated captain, I walked over to the largest cage. The one that had the most women sealed within.