The Scythe and the Blade

Chapter Four: A Flame in the Dark

Shackled and weathered, a prisoner who bore no particular name anymore found himself jolted awake by the loud noise that was his jailer kicking open his cell door. The jailer had never spoken much to him; he was a man of very few words, and words were a futile tool to a brute of little intelligence. This particular brute made for the perfect jailer to guard someone such as this prisoner. Persuasion was not in the brute's vocabulary (among many other words) and so no deal, plea, promise or other verbal attempt made any difference. They flew right past the brute's wide, bald, lumpy head. I'd bet they fly right between the gaps in his teeth, thought the prisoner.

"Time for work," said the brute with a menacing smile.

The prisoner scrambled to his feet from the dusty stone floor he'd been sleeping on. "I've got twenty more minutes to sleep. I can hear the bell when it's time."

The brute shook his head confusedly. "Time for work."

"Is that all you know how to say? I figured you'd learn a thing or two by ordering people around all day. All you do is talk, and yet you've got no clue how."

This struck a nerve for the jailer. He furrowed his brow and puffed his chest, looking down at the prisoner whose size paled in comparison. "Time. For. Work. Now."

"A wise addition for an intellectual such as yourself," snarked the prisoner. "Maybe you are getting better."

The brute grunted, gripping his metal club tightly in his hand.

The prisoner looked his jailer dead in the eyes, then spat at his feet. "Come back in twenty minutes," he said, turning his back to the brute.

Without warning, the brute raised his club above his head and brought it down over the man's back.

He fell helplessly, too weak to catch himself at the bottom of his fall. His hands were of immense weight which he often failed to lift, as they had been sealed in enormous bricks of black mineral. With his now bloodied face pressed against the stone floor, the prisoner coughed, then spoke again. "Come back...in twenty minutes."

As diligently as he tried, the feeble man's attempts at defiance grew weaker—even the brute saw that. He used his right hand to effortlessly pick up his prisoner by the back of his robe so that they faced each other. With the other hand, the brute lifted his club once more.

"Wait," muttered the prisoner in reluctant submission. "I'll go."

"Hm," grumbled the brute, almost disappointed that he would not get the satisfaction of another strike.

He released the man so that he fell clumsily once more, and the man scrambled to his feet in a futile attempt to salvage some honour of his.

The brute kept a close eye on his prisoner as he led him out into the thick cloud of smog which enveloped the many exhausted slaves and workers of the kingdom. All around them was the clambering of hammers striking various metals and minerals, sparks flying about and searing the already overheated skin. For the prisoner, the heat was not the insufferable part, though; it was the labour.

The prisoner and the brute stopped once they reached a mountainous heap of rubble and minerals. The brute nodded to the man to begin work, and the man obeyed. His hands still encased in the bulky bricks which constrained him, the prisoner awkwardly scooped up all the minerals he could sort out of the pile and dropped it into one of the many wheelbarrows scattered next to the pile. The brute gave him a firm shove forwards, and the prisoner began to wheel the heavy wheelbarrow onwards.

His route was a long one; his task gruelling. The brute followed lazily as his prisoner slugged the wheelbarrow up a long, steep ramp which led to the top of the kingdom's walls. They were built of strong volcanic rock, complementing the various black and ruby-red rocks and minerals which decorated the volcanic city-centre.