‘Is it going to be another long day of hard work?’ Kenneth wondered as he woke up, thankfully not buried this time, only spooned from behind in… shifts by the guards watching over him.

  Apparently, his body temperature was rather alluring to them, like a cozy, warm fireplace in the middle of a snowstorm whilst you sit inside covered in snuggly blankets and enjoying a steaming hot cup of cocoa with whipped cream, marshmallows, and sprinkles of chocolate on top.

  He even found out they volunteered to watch over him every night for the foreseeable future.

  However, they were sorely disappointed when, after the first night, he’d resorted to sleeping by the wall and refused to move, limiting their access to him.

  They’d even begun pleading with him, saying they could trade favors.

  It was all well and good to someone else, BUT that didn’t change the fact they’d be slow-roasting him.

  So he flatly declined; however, after seeing some less than agreeable looks that were shared, which made him wonder if they would just drag him from the corner in the middle of the night to crush him underneath their combined weight, he agreed to have them spoon him in shifts.

  It was still like being in a sauna, but at least one with an open door.

  Being as close as he was to them, he did get to know each of them individually a bit.

  The first one with magenta scales was called Noksap. She preferred silence, uttering not a single word and, as far as he could tell, hissily hushed at him whenever he made a sound.

  The second with dark teal scales was called Nokoojab, and like Nokstella, she was a sleep-biter, at one point in the night, having his entire head inside her mouth. She was rather apologetic about it, seeming somewhat embarrassed while the others who were awake to watch teased her, calling her “Shedling.”

  The third with dark golden scales, called Nokamber, was more affectionate than the others, stroking his body almost like a pet owner would, taking a particular interest in his exposed hand, which, at this point, didn’t hurt. With slow, gentle motions, she glided her hand over it continuously from every possible angle, muttering, “So soft… So smooth… So… warm…”

  The fourth one with silver scales was called Nokemera, and he was treated more or less like the teddy bear you loved as a child, whom you just didn’t want to let go of. Ever so often, he woke from her tight grip and had to tell her to ease up, which she did half of the time.

  All in all, it wasn’t that bad compared to the alternative, but that didn’t stop him from feeling an immense sense of relief when the door was opened, and Split came down to say those magical words, “It’s time to eat.”

  As quickly as he could, he left that oven and entered the blissful cool outside.

  “That feels so good,” Kenneth couldn’t help but let out.

  “The food is going to be taken if you don’t hurry,” Split said, watching him and waiting.

  “Yes, yes, you are hungry. You could always get me sooner if that’s what you are worried about,” Kenneth dismissively waved as he and Split walked toward the great pyramid, which apparently doubled as a mess hall for those who wanted it.

  While on the way and finally having the ability to move freely, Kenneth took some time to inspect his finger. There was, really, no pain anymore, even as he gently squeezed it, and any swelling and discoloration had long since vanished. While he hadn’t been keeping perfect track of time, his broken appendage appeared to be as healed as could be.

  He fiddled for a moment with the splint and took it off. It had been some time since he’d last moved it, so it felt slightly strange, and though there was no pain, it was uncomfortable to move.

  Yet he knew that was only due to some slight atrophy. With enough time and a few exercises, it should be back to new, but for now, that meant he could finally put back on his glove.

  He would have marveled at it a little longer if not for the looks he was getting from the surrounding guards and hunters, most of whom pointed at him and talked barely out of earshot, saying words like “that little one” and “that good,” followed by hissing laughter.

  Yes, apparently, word of his ear-cleaning service had spread like wildfire over these couple of days. And when he wasn’t closing wounds, checking for concussions, administering creams to help dry and chafed scales, pulling out black teeth, which they treated as made of gold, and extracting way too many surprisingly well-crafted crystal sex toys, he was dealing with a line stretching from one end of the underground village to the other of people claiming they had ear problems.

  The first five had him question if the problem was just deeper in their ear canal. The next ten of it was just tinnitus. By the next twenty, he had figured it out, but still checked them all since a decent number did have blockage in at least one ear.

  With them, he took his time; with the others, he just gave them the minimum, about ten to twenty seconds.

  But for someone whose fingers were wider than their ear, it was literally ecstasy that left everyone rather friendly.

  ‘To think all I needed to end racism was a Q-tip,’ Kenneth thought to himself as he entered the great pyramid.

  The mess hall was the largest room and was jam-packed and loud, yet unfortunately, the food hadn’t arrived.

  He breathed a sigh and walked up to the largest table, where Nokuji, who now wore Batugta’s feathery cloak, was in mid-conversation with a sneakily affectionate man who had bright golden scales like a wheat field and a slender, shiny tail.

  As he waited, he did his utmost not to make eye contact with certain people at the table.

  For the most part, the unknowns, which he guessed were family and, from the brooches, other commanders, weren’t of much concern, but three he didn’t want to look at was Nokqotir, who sat on the other side of Nokuji with a vacant seat between them, Nokmao, who sat at the right most point of the table, and most importantly Noksafro who sat at the opposite end of her.

  While he hated Nokqotir most, Noksafgro was the most dangerous. Luckily, he was just lying with his head on the table, and if it wasn’t for the eyepatch and enormous amount of scarring, he might not have recognized him since his scales were, in actuality, red. Apparently, they had only been pink when really pissed at him specifically.

  Finally, tuning her attention to him, Nokuji’s sharp features, dark green scales, and pointy snout stood out much more outside of the shadows. However, despite his presence, she didn’t stop speaking.

  He wasn’t rude enough to interrupt, even though he felt slightly vindicated in doing so.

  Eventually, wrapping up her conversation, she turned to him and held out his bag, “Here, take what you need.”

  He leaned over the table and grabbed a handful of his daily vitamins, whereupon she immediately went back to her conversation. However, when Kenneth didn’t leave like he normally did, she asked him, “Was there something more, or will you take a seat?”

  “Have I done enough yet?” He asked.

  “You’ve done so much that I don’t need Split to tell me about it,” Nokuji chuckled. “It is quite a lot and interesting. I don’t doubt that by lunch, I’ll hear something new.”

  “Listen, I don’t know what the point of jerking me around is, but we made a deal,” Kenneth reminded her, hiding his frustration. “I’ve been healing people for a couple of days now, nonstop, and I’m pretty sure I’ve been the entire village round twice.

  “Now, I have no problem healing people, but what precisely do you get of barring me from seeing the hostages, having me work and delaying teaching my craft, and working on finding suitable ingredients for the “Healing water?” because I really can’t see it.”

  Nokuji looked at him for a moment and then gestured for Split, who stood nearby, to come closer, only glancing at her, “How would you say the dear healer has performed as of late?”

  She held her head low, but her tone was the same as always, “He has healed people, many Nokset said were unhealable.”

  “Would you say that it is acceptable for me to agree upon the deal I made with Black Beak?”

  “I am not a commander. It is not my place to say.”

  “I doubt that very much,” Nokuji said with a hint of scornfulness. “Black beak, you have done quite a lot. Healed many of my people. I believe. Yes, you’ve proven yourself adequately. If you want to go see the hostages and claim the little one, you can do so after breakfast before I take my leave.”

  ‘Finally,’ Kenneth thought, feeling a dull sense of relief like working for hours on a task, finishing it, and then being unable to feel any joy about it, “Well then, is there a place I can teach? And shall I send the word out about--”

  “Aren’t you forgetting yourself, Black Beak?” Nokqotir quickly said in a harsh tone. “The commander so graciously listened to you and accepted your deal, and you brushed it off like it was nothing. Have you no manners?”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Every time she spoke, Kenneth just wanted to punch her, but he refrained, instead focusing on Nokuji and gauging her reaction. It was somewhat hard to read, but he thought it best to comply, “Thank you.”

  “Thank you; what?” Nokuji said.

  ‘Proper titles and all that crap,’ Kenneth thought in frustration. “thank you, my lord.”

  “And commander,” she corrected him. “Do not forget it. But this time, I’ll let it slide off.”

  “Yes, and thank you, my lord and commander,” Kenneth said, hiding reluctance and annoyance in his deep voice. At least she opened her mouth in a quick smile before he walked away, handing his bag to Split.

  Having waited so long, Kenneth had half a mind to just skip… breakfast, but in the short time he had known Split, one thing was obvious about her: she followed the law to the letter, and since Nokuji said he could go after breakfast, she wouldn’t go or let him go until after.

  Right before he sat down, the food was brought in on giant metal trays with pyramid-shaped cloche carried by no less than two women. Holding on to his chair, Kenneth scooted to the side.

  Each tray was placed on a table, and with the lid removed, a wave of steam rushed out, moisturizing everyone at the table’s faces and making their scales shine in the crystal light.

  Breakfast was served, an entire animal carcass per table.

  It looked semi-aquatic in nature, and that was about all he could tell before everyone at the table dug in.

  It was a blur of colored scales, teeth, and blood as the poor dead animal was torn apart, each piece gathered in a meat pile in front of the one who’d ripped it off before going in for another.

  Watching the scene from a safe distance, Kenneth thought, ‘How in the world could giving them a table take away what table manners they had?’

  Small pieces of meat and internal juices flew his way and hit his mask. While wiping it off, he noticed Split, like him, did not partake in what was basically a brawl.

  It was the first time he’d actually looked in her direction during the evisceration, and thinking back, she had always stayed back and eaten scraps. At the time, he’d thought she was just a bit more hungry, but now he wondered if that was all she ate.

  It wasn’t long thereafter that the carnage died down, and everyone at each table sat with a pile of meat, bones, and internal organs in front of them.

  Had the savagery been the only part of this breakfast, Kenneth wouldn’t have batted an eye. It was what came next that made him reluctant to eat. Everyone looked around at the table and locked eyes with one another, some only with each other, and others multiple times.

  It was a rather quick and organized affair as he’d come to know of the Nok, and they all traded part of their piles with each other to eat.

  And with his newfound popularity, a decent number of large chunks and heads were thrown his way. Internally screaming at how unhygienic it all was, all he could do was look them in their eyes and say, “Thanks.”

  With nothing more to delay them, everyone devoured everything: meat, organs, and bones, swallowing with no apparent limit until everything was gone. He was given some strange looks when his pile was untouched, with some looking defeated, but most everyone cleared out all the same.

  At that point, Split began, as she had many times before, to eat the scraps from all the vacant tables.

  He watched her for a moment, “You know what? I don’t think I can finish all this alone. Could you give me a hand?”

  She said nothing, ignoring him as she scavenged every table for something to eat.

  His sense of duty trumping every other emotion, he grabbed the dead aquatic creature's head from off the table and walked over to Split, “Here, eat it.”

  Once again, she ignored him as she continued to pick piece after piece like a scavenger.

  “Okay, maybe a head’s too much to swallow all at once, but you can just break it open,” he said, reaching for his bag, already thinking of a medical tool to do the job, but at the last second, she pulled his bag away.

  She turned to look at him, “I eat what the rest don’t want. The disgusting and unwanted parts.”

  Kenneth paused, “…if that’s how you eat, then… you’ll end up malnourished and wither into nothing--”

  “Don’t waste your breath on Split Black beak,” Nokmao said, walking over to the pair with a smile. “She’s never been right even before her tail was split in two, isn’t that right?”

  “…”

  Split didn’t even bother to look at her as she continued to pick scraps from the table.

  It clearly annoyed Nokmao as her scales brightened somewhat, as she spoke in a harsh tone, “I’m talking to you.”

  “…”

  With a growling hiss, she slapped Split across her snout with much more force than there should have been, inadvertently cutting her hand on one of her fangs, not that Nokmao noticed with how angry she was, “You speak when your commander commands it of you!”

  “Want it?” Kenneth quickly said, handing her the head he was holding, and clearly confusing her. At the same time, he noticed a line in her middle finger with the same discoloration as Nokstella's scales.

  “You are not my commander,” Split calmly replied, the short-lived confusion gone in an instant.

  She looked about ready to lose it when suddenly a severed leg landed on the table in front of them.

  Nokmao stopped and only glanced at the one who’d thrown it, Noksafgro, who stared her down. That anger that welled up from within her quickly dissipated as she took her leave harshly, bumping into Split on the way.

  The whole affair left Kenneth with a bad taste in his mouth, but at least it didn’t get as bad as it could have been.

  “How boring,” Nokuji remarked as she looked about, ready to take her leave, too, with the affectionate man close by her side. Yet before she left, she handed Kenneth what looked to be a small heart. “You’ve earned it.”

  Stunned, he could only assume she wanted her ears cleaned as well.

  Once gone, Kenneth placed the heart on the table, but Split quickly grabbed his arm and forced it over the heart, “Take it, then eat it.”

  Her voice was a bit harsher than normal, and though nothing more would ensure him hurling if he ate, he did grab it, at which point she let go and began to wander over to the exit.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Kenneth asked, glancing at the leg.

  She stopped for a moment, “I’ll be leading you to the slaves now.”

  At the mention, he quickly grabbed the leg from off the table, pocketed the heart, and jogged after her, easily breaking into a sweat.

  Catching up to her on the street, he held out the leg in front of her.

  “I’ve already eaten,” She said.

  “He’s returning your kindness; the least you can do is accept it.”

  She glanced at him, her pupils narrowing for a moment as her scales flickered lighter, “I already owe him too much.”

  “Doesn’t change that I have the leg,” he said, rattling it a little.

  Split pushed it away from her head. “You eat it.”

  “Brutalizing a carcass doesn’t really whet my appetite,” Kenneth said, looking at the leg, wondering if boiling it would even mean it was safe to eat. “Regardless, I’ve made do with my daily vitamins and IV fluids so far.”

  Increasing her pace, she replied, “You make do with your; I make do with mine.”

  He easily kept up, “As you wish, but if you start feeling weak or anything feels off, don’t hesitate to ask.”

  She didn’t answer and instead slowed down a bit.

  He assumed it was because they were going down to the village below, but as he stopped at one of the many stairs going down, she continued, “Aren’t we going downstairs?”

  “No,” She replied, heading for one of the rivers that ran through the village.

  The idea of having to swim across left Kenneth wondering if he would get swept downstream even if Split held onto him. Luckly, he didn’t have to picture that idea for long since a bit further away, there was a small bridge for them to cross.

  Even though it was made of stone and felt rather sturdy, he still felt uneasy crossing, especially since it had no guardrails.

  Though he focused little on that and more so on Split's backside as he followed along in silence to an unremarkable but secluded building.

  Inside, Kenneth wasn’t sure what he expected, but seeing Aki in what was essentially prison cells wearing collars and chains in only loincloths reminded him bitterly of the first time he met Nokstel.

  He felt sick to his stomach, so much so that he hadn’t heard someone approaching until they spoke.

  “You Thirsty, Master, not here; how help?”

  Kenneth turned to look but was surprised to see the one who’d spoken was a male Aki, completely bald with pinkish-grey skin and a bit of white peeking through.

  The man was short for an Aki and shorter still as he walked with a hunched back. Like the rest, he wore a loincloth and collar, but unlike them, he was walking freely with no chains, holding a set of keys.

  He glanced at Split for a moment, but she just stood there, her scales having changed color slightly in silence. She hadn’t come here for anything Kenneth had, and he couldn’t remain silent. “I’ve come to see the hostages that should have come here a couple of days ago.”

  The man moved and shifted slightly like he was uncomfortable, “Yes… you… know… new many… here.”

  He turned around and looked down three corridors, taking a moment with his bald rat tail going between his legs before he led them down the middle one. The place wasn’t overly big, though big enough to house a lot of slaves, with four or five in each cell, not only Aki.

  Sil was imprisoned here, too, some sharing cells with Aki and a couple occupying only a single cell. Those who did had every appendage chained, with a couple more on the floor completely unlocked.

  It was a horrid and disgusting sight that left him feeling a swirl of nauseating emotions he barely kept lit on. Though it was about to burst when he noticed every cell had a hole in the floor.

  He could somewhat feel other emotions when he reached the end of the hallway with four cells where the hostages were kept. Three of them were filled, somewhat too much with the inhabitants of the Hijoli and the remaining men from the caravan, but the last only housed three.

  Trafka, who had every appendage chained, along with Jago and Kolu, who were only chained by the neck.

  Kenneth just stood there and watched for a moment, his hot breath the only sound aside from running water, which drew the others’ attention.

  “…Kenneth…”

  “Why don’t you sing us a tune? I’ve missed that voice of yours,” Rafk said in a chipper and joking tone, though it was strained.

  “No attack,” Tragna growled. “Do it. Get behind two tails before that filth can translate. Kill them both and set us free?”

  The suggestion was one that left most looking at both Tragna and Kenneth wanting to see what happens and who would make the first move.

  As Kenneth let out a sigh, everyone held their breaths. “You are too vindictive.”

  “Have they finally decided to throw you in with us?” Trafka questioned the chains rattling as he moved as close to the bars as he could.

  “No. I’m only here to get Kolu,” He answered him as his ears perked up.

  “So you’ve chosen one last act of betrayal. Doesn’t surprise me with your eagerness, but you truly shame your colors,” Tragna said with scorn and loathing.

  “I haven’t betrayed anyone,” Kenneth said back in a meek tone.

  Trafka pulled against his chains as hard as he could and, with a snarl, said, “Lie all you want! It doesn’t make a difference for the rest! They will still suffer when it begins!”

  “Why haven’t you been stripped like the rest? Why are you just sitting there?” Kenneth asked the question, doing nothing to change Trafka’s expression, “You aren’t slaves, only hostages.”

  Trafka’s features relaxed slightly as he darkly chuckled, “You truly believe that.”

  He walked up to the bars, “I have to.”

  Narrowing his gaze, Trafka walked to the back of his cell and sat down.

  Looking at Kolu, he kept his head low, and from the looks of it, he’d lost even more fur, developing a couple of bald spots. “Please just open this door.”

  The bald man looked at Split, who gestured for him to do as he was told. Finding his keys, he unlocked the door and even went ahead, about to unlock Kolu’s collar.

  However, Kenneth stopped him. Uncertain if Kolu would attack the moment he was freed, instead choosing to do it himself.

  He placed the leg to the side and turned the key. As the collar “clicked,” the little guy suddenly lunged, and he had to react, but stopped himself as he realized Kolu only wrapped his arms around Kenneth.

  He could feel him trembling. Uttering not a word or sound, he simply lifted him up in his arms and walked out. They looked at him with mixed expressions of loathing, understanding, and pleading.

  Each look was like a dagger that stabbed him in his heart, but he wouldn’t avert his gaze for not a single second, and not from any of the others, each and every single slave. Even before he left that horrible place behind, one thing above all others was certain in his mind.

  ‘I’m going to get them out, each and every one of them.’