The Hound's Prey (Revolution's Blade Book 1)

Chapter 2 - Name?

My body floats high in the air, hanging weightless and ghostlike in the clear sky. The morning is filled with sunshine, but only birds should be able to reach where I am. It is confusing, an impossibility; the thought occurs that this is a dream? It seems like the only explanation, but then my eyes take in the scene below and all else is forgotten; beneath me is Hell.

There is so much to see, a gigantic vista, but straight away my attention fixes on one thing. At the centre of this nightmare view, commanding from on high, is a Devil. My view takes in fortifications and construction, castles and walls, slavery and war, blood and tears, and it is all a testament to this monster's insane will.

This evil person sits upon a mighty throne, a seat of power so incredible, so ridiculous and excessive that only the most demented mind would consider it appropriate. It is enormous and golden, littered with jewels and surrounded by victory banners. The throne rests upon the flat top of an immensely tall tower, an open platform designed to give an unobstructed view of the surrounding fortress.

My eyes cannot look away from the Devil even though that person fills me with fear and dread. It is as if my gaze is locked onto the throne and my mind has no control, no ability to look elsewhere. Struggling, fighting, using every ounce of my will, my gaze is wrenched away from the tower and the horror who resides upon it. Relieved, my eyes sweep over the amazing fortress that surrounds the tower, and so incredible is the sight, for a long time all that can be done is to stare at it in wonder.

The fortress is a vast complex, built right up against a line of mountainous cliffs that run across the landscape as far as my eyes can see. The cliffs are hundreds of feet high and so sheer as to look unnatural as if they have been carved by giants instead of shaped by nature. They run in a line north and south, disappearing into the distance; an unbroken march of dominating grey stone. Above and behind them, the giddy heights of the icy mountains, impenetrable to all.

Beneath the cliffs and the tower is the central keep, its ramparts as thick as roads, and beyond that are concentric waves of immense defences, multiple walls of stone built in great arcs. They run from the crags, out and around the keep, and then back to the mountains again on the other side. My gaze counts three separate arced lines of walls, each longer than, and encompassing, all the other walls inside it. The outer one runs for miles, so vast is the space required inside for the rest to fit, and all the walls are studded with towers. It would take an army of many thousands to breach the three lines, let alone storm the keep.

The fortress, the keep and the multiple walls team with movement; gangs of people toil across them. Many are involved in construction, the defences ever being developed, strengthened and expanded. Scaffolds cover the sections being worked on, the sounds of mason's hammers drift up into the air where my body floats.

However, there are many more people down there. The smaller towers that rise at regular intervals from the curved walls are capped by guards and their war machines. Endless miles of battlements buzz with the sound of soldiers, their armour and weapons creaking and clanging as they mobilise to their stations.

From high up, gazing down, the fortress looks like an armoured wedge hammered into the rock face of the mountains and then covered in tiny worker ants. Where the long outer wall ends, hills continue downward to plains beyond, and everywhere my eyes can see the thousands of ants, all bent to their work. However, they are not insects; they are people. They are all slaves; they work not of their own will, instead they move to the beat of the Devil's controlling song.

They are the soldiers and the servants, the Captains and the cooks, the men, women and children. All are helpless; each is controlled utterly, with no power of resistance, with no ability to fight back. These people live in a state of puppet like servitude, of endless graft, limited only by their own mortality. They will work until they die, and that is their only salvation. There is no hope of anything else.