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***
Being sentenced to death by public torture is an unpleasant fate. Being forgotten in the dungeons is only marginally better. Both are excellent reasons to grab the chance to live when it is offered most unexpectedly.
***
Being bored had never been a pressing problem for T'lark. There had always been plenty of excitement in his life and when there was a lull, he had always been able to amuse himself by skimming other people's thoughts and emotions. Not as interesting as digging through their memories might have been, but he was too lazy to invest the time and effort to try and train his psionic abilities. It had been enough to tide him over in school when the teacher was droning on and on and had also come in handy when he had picked the correct answer from his teachers' minds.
Not that he had spent a lot of time at school. Mostly, he had skipped class and, instead, hung out in the seedier parts of the large town he had grown up in – much to the annoyance of his mother, who was trying so very hard to make sure that her son would have a proper education and, later, a better life than she had had.
In his unruly teenage years, T'lark had never understood why she was making such a fuss. After all, she was the star at the most expensive brothel in town. They had the best living quarters in the house, with their own bath, and she was showered with gifts from adoring customers.
All that had changed when she was killed. A noble passing through town with his entourage had booked her for a whole night and left her dead, strangled in his passion. He had paid the exorbitant fee and left with a sated smile.
No one had even suggested that he deserved to die for her murder. He was a noble after all, and T'lark's mother just a commoner whore, and a N'Ptalini to boot.
At least, they had given him a generous share of the fee. Blood money which he had to take, since it was suddenly all he had, after being kicked out of the brothel.
That morning, he had changed from a stroppy teenager into a warrior sworn on revenge. His first visit had been to the E'Yla priest in town to have his new life recorded in tattoos reflecting his oath. He hadn't cried about his mother and he hadn't cried about the pain.
The priest had also put him in contact with other, like-minded N'Ptalini. Those unwilling to accept that human nobles could do whatever they pleased and everyone else had to shut up and take the abuse. The human authorities called them terrorists, but they thought of themselves as heroes.
They freed children from slavery and gave them back to the parents they had been stolen from. They sabotaged the households and parties of the nobility, killed those who deserved it. Like the baron who had murdered T'lark's mother. T'lark had watched him bleed and die with deep satisfaction and no remorse.
But things had started to get out of hand. Innocents had died as their leader lost track of doing the right thing and clamoured for more blood to flow. T'lark's friend F'leer had been the one to step forward and put an end to it. The dispute had been settled the N'Ptalini way – with a duel of honour.
Unfortunately, the human authorities had used their distraction to finally track them down. They hadn't submitted to arrest without a fight. Many of them had died that day, but nine had been taken alive. One of them had later died from his wounds.
Because of the damage they had done all over Aylian, they had been tried in the capital. Found guilty, they had been sentenced to death by public torture. Incarcerated in the dungeons below the ducal fortress, there had been nothing to do but wait.
The cell they had been put in was insulated with some sort of psi-blocker so T'lark couldn't use his talents. To him, it felt like someone had wrapped a warm, wet blanket around his head, muffling his perception. It also meant that for the first time in his life, he was cut off from the minds of people around him completely and stuck in his own head. It had taught him what it meant to be bored out of his mind.
The date of their execution had been several days ago. No one had come to fetch them. In fact, they hadn't seen anyone at all but one ageing dungeon guard, who shuffled by now and then and brought them water and bread that was getting staler every day. The old man either couldn’t be bothered to answer their questions or was too deaf to hear them when they tried to find out whether their execution had been postponed or whether they had been forgotten.
T'lark wasn't entirely sure which prospect he considered more frightening, the gruesome death after being tortured for public entertainment or spending the rest of his life locked up in this cell, forgotten.
The others weren't doing any better. Most of the time, they sat around, staring off into nothing. There wasn't much to see in the near darkness of the cell. At first, F'leer had tried to keep up their spirits somehow, but eventually, he too had succumbed to apathy.
None of them were prepared for the sudden noisy commotion of several people in the corridor outside their cell. Expecting that they would now finally be taken to their death, they all got to their feet as quickly as they could.
Time had seemed to stretch endlessly. Now, it suddenly snapped back and became dreadfully short between here and dying.
There was a short argument in front of their door which was cut short by a clear voice snapping, “Just open the fucking door!”
They all instinctively drew away from the sudden light, flinching and shielding their eyes.
T'lark had expected a bunch of ducal guards, but when he squinted at the people outside the cell, he was more than a little confused to find a boy of maybe eighteen years wearing the black with dark, green, feather embroidery favoured by House Quetzal, and flanked by two hulking, imperial Ruby Guards in their unmistakable red armour. Next to the boy, one of the proper dungeon guards was nervously clutching his key chain.
“My lord ... Your Grace ... these are ... terrorists ... dangerous...” he muttered helplessly.
“Shut the fuck up or I will shut you up!” the boy hissed at him and T'lark realised that he was also the one who had ordered the door opened. For his age and stature, he managed to project an amazing degree of authority.
The boy stepped into their cell with the wary caution one would have expected from someone entering the cage of a pack of predators. The two Ruby Guards had their plasma assault rifles trained on the N'Ptalini prisoners, which held them in check rather effectively.
Whatever this was, it didn't look like their executioners.
“Who's your leader?” the boy asked, scanning them. T'lark had no way of reading his expression with the light at his back and without his ability to feel emotions.
F'leer stepped forward slowly, but didn't say a word.
“Right. I'm Thomar Quetzal, the new Duke of Aylian,” the boy introduced himself calmly. T'lark would have laughed at that claim if the Ruby Guards hadn't lent it a frightening weight. “You missed a demon invasion while you were locked up down here,” the boy continued, presenting this even more unlikely bit of news as if it was an everyday fact. “There is a whole, fat load of chaos up there and I don't trust the men who insist they are the ducal guard. I need some bodyguards I can trust and I want to recruit you for the job.”
To say they all gaped at him open-mouthed would have been an understatement. The dungeon guard was the first to find his voice again.
“My lord...?” he squeaked incredulously.
The Quetzal boy's reaction was swift and unexpected. He moved with the speed of a predator, whirling around. His foot connected with the guard's head in a perfect high kick, resulting in an ugly, wet crunch. The guard crumpled to the ground in silence.
“G'tani squet...” the boy grumbled a N'Ptalini curse under his breath.
T'lark didn't know much of the language of his race, but he did recognise that curse as it was reserved for humans. Certainly not what T'lark would have expected to hear from a teenaged, human noble.
F'leer spoke when the young Quetzal turned back to them, “And why would you trust us?”
T'lark envied him his calm. He also wondered why F'leer was asking at all. The boy offered a chance to get out of this dungeon and, if there really was a demon invasion going on, they would surely get a chance to escape completely.
The noble grinned in a fashion T'lark had only ever seen on a feral N'Ptalini showing his sharp teeth as a threat. “Because you are N'Ptalini and, if you discount genetics, so am I. I was raised by a N'Ptalini tribe in the northern mountains, I am a child of the S'batha T'cla. I’d wager I despise humans as much as you do. You fought against what nobles do to our people. I offer you a chance to do so again. Only this time, from the top of the food chain.”
F'leer snorted. “And why would we believe that?”
He seemed entirely cool, or at least he tried for cool. T'lark knew him well enough to notice the waver in his voice, the longing for it to be true.
The Quetzal laughed. “Oh, I don't expect you to. Not now at least. But I'm pretty sure you'd rather come up to the fortress with me and gut some nobles who seem to think my age gives them the right to try and push me around than stay in this cell and rot.”
He sure had a point there and they all knew it.
F'leer slowly nodded.
“Splendid.” The boy had an infectious sparkle in his eyes that promised an interesting time, if nothing else. “If I haven't earned your trust by the end of the week, you are free to leave.”
They followed him with an eagerness that could not be suppressed by caution – anything to get out of the cell and the dungeon.
***
Four days later, all eight of them swore allegiance to Duke Thomar Quetzal of Aylian.
***
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