I awoke face down on cold, uneven rock, my body aching from head to toe. The first sensation that struck me was the blinding light. The second—far worse—was the searing pain splitting my skull. I attempted to raise a hand to my forehead.

  Only then did I realize my limbs were bound.

  Gritting my teeth, I lifted my head just enough to take stock of my surroundings.

  A small cave, barely two meters high. The harsh light, which I had first mistaken for daylight, came from several torches—not even lumin-crystals—fixed at crude angles along the walls. Thick, choking air filled the chamber, heavy with sluggish coils of smoke that drifted toward an unseen exit, their path hindered by poor ventilation.

  The stench was worse. A miasma of unwashed bodies, rancid tobacco, and rotting food clung to my throat like a living thing, coating every breath with its foulness.

  At the far end of the chamber, half a dozen filthy straw mats lay strewn across the floor, surrounded by what might once have been personal belongings—now little more than refuse.

  A rough, rasping voice cut through my sluggish thoughts.

  “Well, well, look who be up! Come on, now, little hare, don’t be shy!”

  Loud laughter erupted around the cave. Before I could react, two massive hands seized my collar and flipped me onto my back—a significant feat, considering my size. Yet, those hands belonged to a hulking brute whose last encounter with a bath had likely been at birth. A scruffy beard, thick with remnants of past meals, concealed much of his face. Two beady, malicious eyes and a squashed, ruddy nose completed his charming visage.

  The man was massive, his broad shoulders filling my entire field of view. He had to stoop under the low ceiling, yet even hunched, he radiated brute strength. His filthy, ill-fitting clothes had undoubtedly belonged to a smaller, long-dead owner. Over them, he wore a studded leather vest, its once-sturdy straps barely holding together.

  “Make yerself cozy, hare,” he growled, dragging me toward a small firepit, its flames casting flickering shadows across the cave walls.

  Four more men sat lounging around it, their grins stretched too wide, too sharp—like starved barrki sniffing fresh prey. Their ragged clothes and decrepit swords discarded nearby marked them for what they were—bandits, cutthroats, vermin.

  I barely had time to gauge my captors before something cold and sharp pressed against my throat.

  “Try anythin’ stupid, and I be guttin’ ya like a pig,” the brute hissed, his breath thick with rot. “Godit?”

  I offered a slight nod, my head throbbing so fiercely it felt ready to split open.

  Satisfied, he withdrew the naked blade and announced, flashing a crude grin: “They call me Jackoro ‘The Gentle’.”

  A chorus of laughter erupted from his men.

  “Yeah, boss!”

  “Who else?!”

  Jackoro ignored their boisterous approval, his grin stretching wider.

  “Ya know why? ’Cause I only kill when I be in a good mood.”

  The laughter grew louder.

  Jackoro settled beside me, his dagger still angled toward my ribs.

  “Sit tight,” he growled. “Might be I let ya live. Might be I don’t.”

  He bared his teeth—yellowed, uneven, more beast than man. Either way, he was enjoying himself.

  His ultimatum forced my muddled mind to sharpen. After all I had faced in this life, was I truly to meet my end at the hands of common bandits? Where had they even come from? Their crude, guttural speech marked them as northern lowborns, the sort who spent their days scraping out a meager existence in the wild regions adjacent to the Wastes.

  A mixture of helplessness, anger, and the faintest trace of cynical amusement swirled within me. Perhaps I could intimidate them.

  I clenched my teeth and growled, low, menacing, and cold.

  “Pathetic fools. You have no comprehension of what you have entangled yourselves with.”

  For the span of a heartbeat, silence fell over the cave. The flickering torchlight formed mirriad of restless shadows from the silhouettes of the otherwise-stilled men as they exchanged uncertain glances. Then, Jackoro’s meaty paw clamped around my jaw and wrenched my face toward the firelight.

  “Looks like he be some fancy noble, boss,” muttered one of them—a corpulent cretin with two conspicuously missing front teeth.

  “Was supposed to be a mixling or a merchant, not some lord,” another grumbled, his tone laced with unease.

  “Yeah, yeah, he looks a lot fancier than the others.” Jackoro squinted, examining my facial features with narrowed, calculating eyes.

  “Yer be noble, eh?” His grin widened into something nastier. “That means someone be payin’ good coin for yer hide…” His thick fingers traced the hilt of his dagger. “Or I might be keepin’ it as a trophy instead.”

  He paused, as if weighing his options, then sneered.

  “What be yer name, lordling?”

  My first instinct—forged through years of wielding supreme authority—was to declare my identity and threaten him with dire consequences. Jackoro, however, was not the first of his kind I had encountered. A brute like him expected precisely that sort of reaction from an arrogant noble. And even if I managed to unsettle him with the right tone and choice of words, he would never show fear in front of his men. No, Jackoro would lash out, erupting into unchecked violence to reassert his dominance.

  I swallowed the scathing retort and instead answered with a silent, stony glare.

  Jackoro guffawed, his laughter coarse and guttural. In his brutish world, he believed he had already claimed an unquestionable victory—both physical and moral.

  “D’amnos eat yer tongue, eh, lordling?” He emphasized the taunt with a sharp kick to my ribs.

  Pain lanced through my side. Fighting for breath, I gritted my teeth, baring them like a cornered beast.

  The bandits snickered, tossing a few less-than-flattering remarks my way.

  “Boss, let’s just slit his throat,” the toothless one suggested impatiently. “Nobles be trouble—ain’t worth it!”

  “Nah!” another interjected—a skinny, crooked bastard, his limbs gnarled like a dying branch. “Ransom the bastard first, then we slit his throat—” He caught himself, glancing sideways at me, and hastily added, “If he don’t behave, that be.”

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  The others muttered their agreement.

  “We be askin’ for trouble, I be tellin’ ya,” the toothless one persisted, growing more agitated. “The Tribunal be comin’ down hard on us for somethin’ like this!”

  One of the men began nodding, darting uneasy glances toward the cave’s entrance, as if expecting armed guards to materialize from the shadows. The remaining two exchanged hesitant looks.

  These curs were mustering the nerve to kill me!

  A flicker of dread crept in—sharp, foreign, unfamiliar after all these years. It eroded the edges of my resolve.

  “Shut yer mouths!” Jackoro roared. The others fell silent immediately. “I be decidin’ what to do later!”

  While his men bickered, the headman had dragged my travel bags over from somewhere. A wicked gleam flickered in his beady eyes.

  “Now, let’s see what goodies ya brought us, lordling.” He smirked. “We don’t get gifts often, so I be sure to make good use of yers. Godit?”

  The other bandits shifted impatiently, two of them even bursting into nervous laughter.

  Jackoro wasted no time rifling through my belongings. The food packets were tossed carelessly into a corner, joining a growing pile of stolen provisions. My personal effects—insignificant in their eyes—were discarded onto the dirty floor. But then, his hands closed around my wallet.

  The headsman flipped it open and his eyes lit up. With a triumphant sneer, he turned to his men, holding up its contents for all to see.

  “Boys, from the looks of it, we be livin’ like nobles ourselves!”

  A roar of approval filled the cave as the bandits cheered, slapping each other on the shoulders. Fear, concerns, hesitation—all was forgotten in the gleam of gold.

  “Boss, ya got lucky again!” The skinny one grinned. “How’d ya know there be so much money?”

  Jackoro puffed his chest, basking in his own brilliance. “It be my job to sniff out such things, godit? How many times I gotta tell ya—”

  I tuned him out.

  The situation had just taken a lethal turn. With this sum of gold, these bastards could live like lords for months. The need to keep me alive—to ransom me—was now immaterial. Since their survival hinged on avoiding my future retribution, the smartest course was to kill me now and disappear with the wealth. As soon as they realized this, my fate was sealed.

  I had to escape. And fast.

  As my thoughts raced on finding a solution, something shifted in Jackoro’s expression. His brows furrowed, his crude monologue faltering. Slowly, he pulled another object from the wallet—a small leather pouch. He turned it over in his filthy hands, his lip curling in suspicion. A telltale pink light glowed from its partially opened mouth.

  The or’dain. Sensing my distress, it had awakened.

  Jackoro hesitated, then untied the strings and poured the crystal orb into his palm. His piggish eyes widened briefly. Then he erupted into a guffaw of disbelief.

  “Well, well! What do we have here! What be ya, some fortune-tellin’ lordling?”

  This unleashed a wave of merriment among the others, emboldened by their leader’s amusement. Jackoro, ever the fool, twisted his grotesque face into absurd expressions, holding the orb up as though expecting it to grant him visions.

  The or’dain did not appreciate the mockery.

  A subtle pulse rippled through the air. The spark at its center swelled—its hue deepening to scarlet. Within moments, the entire orb was glowing fiercely and with vivid intensity.

  The laughter only grew louder.

  “Bravo, boss! Looks like ya be a real sorcerer!” the skinny one howled.

  The situation was so absurd, I might have laughed myself.

  Instead, I looked directly at the or’dain and spoke, soft but firm: “Dao anastani ke’gao (Kill them all).”

  Summoning every last thread of strength, I threw myself sideways, rolling clear of the fire. My body hit the hard floor, belly-down, among the filthy bedding and refuse in the corner of the cave.

  A heartbeat later the world behind me ignited.

  I buried my face in the rags, clamping my eyes shut with every shred of willpower I possessed. It still wasn’t enough. The searing light tore through my eyelids. A hot wave slammed into my back, so intense that, for a moment—my heart ceased to beat.

  Then—sudden silence.

  The roar of fire vanished. The howls of laughter were gone. A terrible stillness settled over the chamber.

  I sucked in a shallow breath—and immediately choked as my lungs filled with scorching, bitter soot. I coughed, violent and ragged. The pain tore at my throat as if stroked by a predator’s claws.

  It took me a moment to register the muffled groans nearby. At least one of them was still alive then. A moment later, I felt him trip over me, then a heavy weight crashed onto my legs.

  Immediately, I kicked hard, sending the offender rolling to one side.

  Forcing myself onto my back, I opened my eyes—only to be met with a blinding haze of colorful spots and acrid smoke. It stung and scratched, filling them with tears. I blinked rapidly for several moments and when my vision finally cleared, I beheld true carnage.

  Jackoro—or what remained of him—lay sprawled on his back. His entire front was charred beyond recognition, thick, greasy black smoke still rising from the ruined husk of his body. The rest of the bandits lay scattered in various positions across the chamber. A couple were still groaning feebly, their bodies twisted in agony. They wouldn’t be breathing much longer, however, judging from the severity of their burns.

  Ra’maen’s or’dain hovered above the headsman’s remains, its scarlet glow fierce and unyielding, casting a sinister light over the destruction it had wrought.

  I inhaled sharply.

  “Dao ke’suto (Stop)!”

  At once, the orb’s glow dimmed, shrinking to the faint, delicate shimmer that had greeted me so joyfully just two days prior.

  I rolled toward the nearest discarded knife, gripping the hilt and sawing through the ropes binding my wrists. My hands ached, stiff from partitions of restraint, but I ignored the discomfort, slicing through the bindings at my ankles as well.

  The nauseating stench of charred flesh now permeated the confined space. Combined with the billowing smoke and soot, it made breathing nearly impossible. I choked again. With a still trembling hand I found a scrap of discarded cloth, likely a piece of someone’s garment. Pressing it over my mouth and nose, I forced myself to breathe. The stench of sour sweat and something else almost made me gag, but I resisted the urge and kept it on.

  It helped.

  Pushing myself to my feet, I took quick stock of my scattered belongings.

  What little remained was a sorry testament to the or’dain’s power. My spare clothing had been reduced to charred rags. My wallet—scorched on one side—was still usable, however, its contents blessedly untouched. My second travel bag had barely survived, but I salvaged what I could, stuffing in the three remaining packets of dried food.

  Near a pile of assorted stolen goods—likely loot to be fenced in one of the nearby towns, I spotted Aur’Dor and Aur’Sol. I retrieved them swiftly, sheathing them across my back before securing the or’dain into my pocket.

  Only then did I turn my attention to the living. Of the bandits, only one remained conscious. It turned out to be the toothless one. His breath rattled, each exhale dragging wet and shallow from his burnt, trembling chest. I crouched down, grabbing a fistful of his ruined tunic and jerking him upright.

  The movement wrenched a hoarse, agonized scream from his cracked lips. His glazed, bloodshot eyes bulged in pain. I ignored it.

  “Why were you attacking travelers here, in the heart of Amalay?” My voice was cold and precise.

  The bandit grunted something unintelligible, his head lolling back. I shook him roughly.

  “Answer me, and I shall end your suffering.”

  His breath hitched. His swollen lips parted, letting out a faint rasp: “…Fled from the north…”

  A faint chill licked its way up my spine.

  “Fled?” I pressed. “Why?”

  His eyes flickered, barely able to focus.

  “…Too dangerous… to stay… Here be… easy prey.”

  “Dangerous? What could possibly be so dangerous up north?”

  His voice faded to a whisper, each syllable forced from failing lungs: “…Shadows… in the night…”

  Then, his head slumped forward against his chest.

  I shook him again, hard. Yet, it was useless.

  The bandit had fallen unconscious and would likely never wake again. After a brief moment of contemplation, I slit his throat with his own knife. A promise was a promise, though the wretch had left me with more questions than answers.

  His final words gnawed at me as I departed the stinking bandit lair. If there was any truth in them, it compounded the strange occurrences of late. Perhaps something in the Wastes was indeed stirring… But that was a problem I could not address right now.

  First, I needed to ascertain my location and discover my beloved Tarun’s fate.

  Hey, thanks for reading this far!

  I hope you've enjoyed the story until this point and I'd like to hear your thoughts about it. Also, I am trying a new, more contemporary style in my English writing and I am curious to hear some feedback about it. So, let me know in the comments below!

  Boris Khan