The Ogre's Pendant & The Rat in the Pit

The Pit of Despair I

The Pit of Despair I

Rumble. Crack!

A wooden groan and jarring motion jolted Wurhi of Zabyalla back to consciousness.

The thief moaned. Her skull throbbed as though trampled by camels, while her belly churned like a barrel of pickled plums roiling in a tempest at sea. An icy wind raked through great rents in her tunic, blasting snow over her trembling body. Something creaked around her. An odour of animal musk, the stink of horse and a familiar incense filled her nostrils.

Her face ached - swollen from a great blow - and her mind moved as though in quicksand.

Blearily, she forced her eyes open.

Whooosh.

The sight that greeted her only brought further confusion.

She found herself in the back of an open wagon on a snow-crusted path. Wind blew a white haze through croaking trees lining the sides of the road, their dark needles heavy with blankets of white.

Above those

She gasped.

Mountains filled the horizon, and she gaped at their size. At such proximity they seemed to eat the sky itself, dwarfing all things she had ever encountered. Zabyallas high walls and grand palaces - and even the trees of the Forest of Giants - would have shrunk to insignificance beneath these titans of skyward stone.

Her mind whirled. Were one of those summits to crumble, they would crush half a city. A tiny, trivial little thief would not even leave a smear.

She shuddered, attempting to turn away and push such thoughts aside-

Ngh! she grunted.

-but found herself bound in place. Her heartbeat doubled in swiftness as she looked over her shoulder. Something had brought her wrists behind her back and twisted a bar of bronze about them, looping it through a metal ring hammered into the wagon frame.

The tight binding left her hands swollen and she could barely feel them. Terrible strength would be needed to bend bronze so thoroughly. What was happening? How did she get here?

Now did her mind begin to waken.

The previous nights horrors returned: images of a great, black-coated beast dazing her and snatching her in its maw. Its powerful form loping over the walls of paradise. Flashes of city streets. A tunnel.

Horror transfixed her. She had been taken. Why in hells had they taken her?

Hey, you. Youre finally awake, came a voice like scratching glass.

Stiffening, she whirled toward the voice.

She nearly screamed.

A wiry, familiar man was curled up, shivering on the opposite side of the wagon. His grey eyes leered above a beak of a nose that would have suited a falcon. Even though she had not seen his face unmasked, Wurhi could never forget the murderous, raptor-like gaze of Merrick the Hawk.

Swelling and dark red bruising marred his sharp features while only a black tunic hugged his wiry frame against the cold. His hands were bound in the same way as hers. For that, she was grateful.

To their horror, she and her mother had found swellings on their own skin.

Her fever broke after several days.

Her mothers never did.

In the lonely years afterward, she had come to rely on the change as a tool of survival. A way to be quicker than the violent men lurking in the alleys. A way to slip into spaces far too narrow for any woman to pass. A way to fight off the stray hounds in the dark.

A tool of desperation and nothing more; she greatly feared its body-shattering agony and the rodents instincts that attacked her thoughts to overwhelm her mind. Unnaturally, they rose even now, balking from the giant man as prey would before a predator.

She grit her teeth even as her heartbeat raced. Now was not the time to lose oneself to panic. Her wits would need to be in order if she had any hope of survival. Still, her eyes flicked toward the snow, and she wished she had a hole to burrow into.

What are you going to do with us? she asked warily. Where are we going?

The large man said not a word.

Crack!

The driver snapped his whip hard and one of the geldings snorted.

I would not test them further, little knave. Haldrych sneered. They are wroth as is.

Wha-

Best listen to him. Merricks eyes watched the two men uneasily. You had them as mad as badgers with splinters in their feet last night. The big one wanted to kill you straight away.

Wurhis mouth closed and she eyed the large man. A multitude of cultists and beasts had attacked Paradise, but she had seen many of them dead before her capture. She could almost feel their hunger to avenge their companions.

And she was their only present avenue.

Keep quiet. They had sacks over our heads for the longest time. Merrick squinted up at the mountains. Theyve taken em off, so I reckon were almost wherever theyre bringing us. His eyes narrowed on something. Look there.

Wurhi turned, craning her neck. Mountains rose to her back as well. Toward the peaks she spied several thin lines of smoke undulating into the grey sky. Had they not been pointed out, she would not have spied them. Beneath each lay a flickering light - the largest of which burned in the bowels of an ancient ruin.

At this distance, the Zabyallan could discern few details, but each of its stone blocks looked as large as the very wagon around her. In a dead age, it might have served as some temple to a forgotten god or grand tower for the Tigrisian Empire.

Theyre watching us, the Hawk murmured, his large eyes drifting all through the mountain tops. His words came quietly and slowly - low enough to blend with the churn of horses hooves and rumble of wagon wheels. Fourfive fires there. Five on the other side. Bold as bucks in springtime. He nodded, half to himself. Theyre not worried about the citys watchtowers: whole valley must be theirs.

She glanced back to the two young men trailing them. They were distracted now, chatting excitedly to each other. Both seemed thrilled. Her lips tightened sourly. If only she had her blade.

Youre right. No ones wearing those shit-looking wolf masks, Wurhi muttered. If theyre not bothering, it means theyre home. Her brow creased. Hey. She took a deep breath. What she wished to say now nearly stuck in her gullet. You tried to kill me, and I wanted you hung by your guts-

Thanks. He scoffed.

-but if were going to make it out alive, I say we drop all that for now. Thiefs Truce until were out.

He snorted. Whatre you, slow? Why do you think Ive been telling you all this?

Wurhis eyes narrowed at his mocking. Once again, she wished she had her blade.