Chapter 6 - Malkor's Offer

I'd been chilling in the dungeon for what felt like forever, the kind of forever that makes your ass go numb and your back cramp in places you didn't know could cramp. The guards who grabbed me had meaty hands and breath that smelled like they'd been gargling with week-old ale. They weren't exactly gentle as they hauled me through a massive oak door that creaked like it was auditioning for a haunted house.

"Easy on the merchandise," I muttered as one of them twisted my arm behind my back. He responded by shoving me harder. Some people can't take criticism.

The chamber they dragged me into was fucking massive, like someone had hollowed out half the mountain and decided to throw a party for people with terrible taste. Guttering torches lined the walls, spitting and hissing. Red candles, hundreds of them, dotted the space, their flames dancing and throwing shadows that looked like they were performing some demented ballet across the walls. The tapestries hanging around the room were a real mood killer, all grim scenes of torture and sacrifice that made my stomach do an uncomfortable flip.

But it was what stood in the center of the room that made my blood go cold.

A young woman lay spread-eagled on a horizontal board, her limbs secured with thick leather straps that bit into her skin. She wore what I could only describe as a quartered outfit, torn fabric that covered enough to make the uncovered parts more obscene somehow. Her chest was bare, criss-crossed with fresh knife marks that wept dark blood. A pool of it had formed at her side, thick and viscous in the flickering light.

And somewhere in the back of my skull, I thought about the women in the dungeon. The blonde girl who'd asked if I was from Oakhaven. The older ones who wouldn't even look at me. Was this what waited for them?

My throat went dry. "Shit," I whispered. The guard to my right cuffed me across the ear.

"Quiet," he growled.

On a raised dais near the woman stood the infamous Blood Warlock Malkor. The guy I was supposed to kill. Great. Long white hair spilled past his shoulders, framing a face that looked like someone had drained all the color out of it. The guy was dressed like he was compensating for something. His fingers were adorned with rings that probably cost more than everything I'd ever owned. In his left hand, he gripped that crooked staff of his.

Behind him, displayed like trophies, were what I assumed were the failed rogues who'd come before me. They hung in twisted, restrained poses, their faces frozen in expressions of agony. I couldn't tell if they were dead or wishing they were. Either way, I had no intention of joining their little gallery.

"My, my," a cultured voice interrupted my thoughts.

Malkor wasn't even looking at me as he spoke. Instead, he was focused on a small bowl of red wax, which he methodically dipped a finger into before letting it drip onto the woman's exposed nipples. She whimpered, the sound echoing in the vast chamber, but didn't scream. Either she was too far gone or she had the pain tolerance of a fucking saint.

"The last one at least made it to my private chambers before being caught," Malkor continued, his voice a raspy purr that made my skin crawl. "Though I suppose that's why his intestines now decorate my eastern wall." He gestured lazily toward one of the tapestries, and with a sickening lurch, I realized it wasn't a tapestry at all.

As Malkor continued to drip wax, he began a low incantation. The words weren't in any language I recognized, but they made my ears hurt and my teeth ache. Each syllable seemed to hang in the air, vibrating against the stone walls. The blood pooled beside the woman began to bubble slightly, like it was coming to a gentle boil.

"Wrong inflection, you pretentious hack!" A loud, grating voice cut through the chanting from somewhere behind the dais. "It's 'vex-NAR,' not 'VEX-nar.' Amateur hour! I swear, you still butcher the pronunciation like a virgin at his first orgy."

My eyes darted to the source. The massive book sat on a stone pedestal near the dais, its single eye swiveling toward me. It narrowed.

"You again? The skinny thief with more balls than brains? At least this one's got a nice ass. The last one looked like he'd been sitting on a waffle iron."

The grimoire vibrated as it spoke, brass corners scraping against the pedestal's surface.

Malkor's rhythm faltered momentarily, his pale lips thinning in annoyance. "Silence, you wretched tome. Your commentary is neither required nor appreciated."

"Oh, I'm SORRY," the book shot back, its eye rolling dramatically. "Did I interrupt your big scary warlock moment? Should I sit here and be impressed while you mispronounce basic sacrificial rites? Back in MY day, blood warlocks could at least get the fundamentals right!"

Despite my predicament, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from snorting. If I wasn't potentially minutes away from becoming part of the decor, I might have enjoyed the bizarre domestic squabble playing out before me.

The woman on the table moaned again, drawing Malkor's attention back to his work. His eyes gleamed with sadistic pleasure as he resumed his chanting, this time with the correct inflection, judging by the lack of commentary from the grimoire.

My heart was racing, and not in the fun way it did when I was about to get laid or pilfer something valuable. I glanced around, looking for possible escape routes with the instinct of someone who'd spent their life slipping in and out of places they shouldn't be.

"I can hear you thinking from here, boy," Malkor said without looking up from his ritual. "Calculating your odds? Planning your escape? They all do. It's tedious."

"Can't blame a guy for trying," I replied, figuring if I was going to die, I might as well die with my mouth intact. "Nice place you've got here, though. Love what you've done with the, uh..." I gestured vaguely at the displayed corpses, "...everything."

The grimoire let out a bark of laughter. "This one's got spirit! Usually they're pissing themselves by now. Remember that noble's son last winter? Created his own little puddle right where Skinny's standing."

Malkor's lips curled in a cold smile that never reached his eyes. "Spirit is meaningless. The spirited ones bleed as easily as the cowards." He turned to face me fully, his movements unnaturally fluid, like he had extra joints or none at all. "Though I do admire your attempt at bravado. It will make breaking you all the more satisfying."

He waved his hand, and the incantation seemed to complete itself. The air thickened, turned sour, the kind of stench you could taste on the back of your tongue. The woman on the table stopped moving entirely, her chest barely rising and falling. The blood that had pooled beside her began to move of its own accord, crawling up the side of the table like some sentient slug.

"Now then," Malkor said, stepping down from his dais with the slow deliberation of someone who had all the time in the world. "What shall we do with you, Samuel Thornwood?"

Malkor stepped closer, his sneer the kind reserved for something you'd scrape off the bottom of your fancy warlock boots. "Another fool who thought he could steal from me." He made an idle gesture with one ring-laden hand. "Disarm him."

The guards were rough. One maintained his iron grip on my arms while another started patting me down with all the gentleness of a bear searching for honey in a beehive.

"At least buy me dinner first," I protested as rough hands dug into my pockets and belt pouches.

Out came my prized set of lockpicks, masterwork tools I'd saved for months to purchase from that shady dwarf in Ashbourne. They clattered to the stone floor, the sound oddly final. Next they found the small knife I kept in my boot and the garrote wire concealed in my belt.

"Now the armor," Malkor commanded.

One guard grabbed the collar of my leather jerkin and yanked. The laces at the sides strained and then snapped, and I winced at the sound more than the rough handling. That jerkin had saved my life more than once. They tore at the bracers next, yanking them off with enough force to leave red marks on my forearms.

Then a guard's fingers closed around my enchanted brooch, the one Ashara had pinned to my cloak after my final test. You've earned this, boy. Don't make me regret it. I could still hear her voice, that low, clipped tone she used when she was trying not to show she was proud. The guard ripped it free, the pin tearing a hole in the fabric, and tossed it aside like scrap metal.

Something hot flared in my chest. That brooch was mine. She'd given it to me. And these assholes had chucked it on a stone floor next to a pool of somebody's blood.

"Ashara always did have excellent taste in blades," Malkor commented, his crimson eyes fixed on me. "If not in apprentices."

The world tilted. I stared at him. He smelled like expensive incense layered over rot, and those crimson eyes watched me the way a cat watches a mouse it's already caught.

He knew Ashara. He knew my Ashara. Not "some rogue trainer in Ashbourne" knew her. Knew her name, knew about the blades she gifted, knew enough to throw it in my face like it was nothing. My mouth went dry and my hands balled into fists behind the guard's grip. This wasn't some random warlock pissed about a break-in. This bastard had been expecting me. Ashara had sent me here, and Malkor had known I was coming.

I stopped laughing. The jokes dried up in my throat like spit on a hot stone.

"What do you know about her?" My voice came out low. Flat. No jokes, no smirk, nothing. The guards must have felt me tense because their grips tightened.

Malkor smiled, and it was the worst thing I'd seen in a room full of terrible things. "More than you, boy. Far more than you."

The grimoire cackled from its pedestal. "Oh ho! The condemned man makes jokes! Well, made jokes. Much more entertaining than the last fellow."

With my outer armor gone, I was left in my thin undershirt and trousers. The chill of the chamber raised goosebumps on my exposed skin, and the wounds I'd accumulated during my infiltration began to throb anew without the padding of leather between them and the cold air.

I'd been watching the guards since they started stripping me. Looking for openings, gaps in their formation. The problem was, these weren't your average hired muscle.

Still, I wasn't going down without a fight.

When one guard leaned in close to check my collar for hidden weapons, I headbutted him as hard as I could. The crack of impact sent pain shooting through my skull, but it was worth it to hear his howl of surprise. His grip loosened enough for me to wrench one arm free and deliver a sharp jab right below the ribs of the guard on my right.

For one glorious moment, I thought I might have a chance. I spun away from their grasp, dropping into the low stance Mistress Ashara had drilled into me during countless training sessions. My hand closed around the knife they'd tossed on the floor, the one from my boot.

"Predictable," Malkor sighed, not even bothering to step back.

I lunged at the nearest guard, but my grip was wrong and my angle was worse. He parried with his armored forearm, the impact sending vibrations up my arm. Before I could recover, another guard tackled me from the side, driving me to the hard stone floor with enough force to knock the wind from my lungs.

The knife clattered away, spinning across the polished stone until it came to rest at Malkor's feet. He looked down at it with mild amusement.

More guards descended upon me, rough hands grabbing my arms and legs, pinning me with force. I was already exhausted from hours in the dungeon and the earlier struggle. My resistance weakened. I was flailing and I knew it.

"Fuck," I gasped as a brutal twist of my arm sent a jolt of pain through my shoulder. "You guys ever consider a different line of work? Flower arranging, maybe?"

But the joke felt hollow now. My head was still spinning with Ashara's name on Malkor's lips.

A burly guard with a nasty scar across his nose grabbed my wrist and yanked me upright, the motion so sudden it made me dizzy. He began dragging me toward the center of the chamber, away from the ritual table where the woman lay motionless.

It was only then that I noticed the pit.

Circular and about ten feet across, it gaped in the floor like an open mouth, its edges lined with what looked like teeth. A foul, putrid smell wafted up from its depths. Decay, rot, and something else, something alien and wrong that made my nostrils burn and my eyes water.

"Oh shit," I whispered. My legs went weak, that rubbery feeling you get when your body figures out what's happening before your brain catches up. I dug my heels into the floor, a futile gesture against the guard's immense strength. "Wait, wait! Can't we talk about this? I'm sure we can come to some arrangement!"

Malkor turned away, his interest in me apparently exhausted. "Feed him to the Pit," he commanded, his voice bored, as if he were ordering a servant to take out the trash.

I guess I'd expected the ritual table. The knife, the chanting, the whole sacrificial thing. But Malkor didn't even glance at me as he passed the bound woman, one hand trailing possessively over her shoulder. "She is my offering," he said, like he was correcting a child. "You are refuse."

The grimoire let out a delighted cackle. "The Pit! Excellent choice! It's been AGES since we've had a proper feeding. The last one barely made a mouthful."

"Mouthful?" I repeated, my voice rising an octave. "What the fuck is a..."

The guards pushed, and I was falling, the air rushing past me as the pit's darkness closed around me like a fist.