Chapter

Two

Ten years later…

 Once shining as the light of hope now dimmed to nothing more than the cold coals of a desolate fire. Dimming with the idea of ever being free again, even if there had ever been such a thought left. Such thoughts were worthless to have. Abandoning them as soon as they formed was best, for the soul wrenching pain of them being lost drove one to insanity.

I’d given up a long time ago. Shifting to lay my head against the wall to look out at the small piece of dark grey sky flecked with dark smoke through the barred slit of window was the only pass time given to me. It wasn’t much to look at, but neither was anything in the hell hole of a wasteland.

 My chains clinked and rattled as I shifted around trying to find comfort against the cold stone to ease the pain of my recent wounds. They were hollow sounds that kept what little of my sanity I had left intact and reminded me of why they were there. I was covered in a cold sweat, itching to move. They had chained me after a battle with the Elves and humans had passed not long ago, scared of what I might do otherwise while battle maddened.

 There had been thousands of them screaming war cries over the vast land they had wished to conquer. Wishing they could wipe the beasts from the continent. However, they came on to the Black Blood land unprepared and that was all it took for the turned wizards to take it as a challenge.

 The humans had wished to cross the vast territory of the beasts, conquering as they went to lay claim to the narrow sea on the other side. However, the Black Bloods had been prepared calling out in their bone chilling howls. Running from their dens of dark debauchery to fight and cut down their newly founded foes.

 Their king, who was called Colas the Slaughter, ordered my release upon the mortal army. I had been tortured until I was on the edge of changing into my true form, the form of a silver dragon in a fit of madness. As I was released from my stone prison, chains slamming to the ground in clangs of iron, the sounds of men yelling only heightened my blood rage.

Screaming women, roars of the Black Bloods and metal clashing against metal pushed me over the edge. With a roar of bloodcurdling fury at the sounds piercing my skull like a white-hot dagger I shifted into my other form, skin splitting, blood dripping to free silver scales. Bone bending, breaking and cracking into new shapes as my skull elongated, fangs dripping through snarled lips.

I remember slaying and slaughtering everything and everyone that was placed in my way.

My long silver claws and fangs ripping anything that came in contact. My silver scales splattered in a glistening ruby red spray of blood and shining as if encrusted with millions of red diamonds. My teeth covered in deep crimson in a snarling grin, my neck dripping ribbons of dark colored blood, making pathways down my body. My mind was raging in so many directions I couldn’t focus on one path causing me to wildly lash out against things both real and imagined.

 Human, Elven and Black Bloods alike in my way perished.

It hurt; it hurts so badly!

 When all were dead the remaining beasts spent hours trying to get me back in human form clamped in these cursed enchanted iron chains. I raged until my mind calmed through sheer exhaustion, hung in my chains against the cold stone wall awaiting them to torture me again as they worked their forbidden magic over me in their ghastly experimentations.

 The sky was now black, and I was only able to see a single star far off in the distance, a star shining in the darkness all on its own.

One day I will be able to see the night sky freely, millions of stars burning bright rather than just that sole star winking at me. I had heard someone talk of the moon in the dungeon and someday soon, I will see that moon even if it kills me.

A cool breeze came in my window welcoming me with its chilled breeze. It flowed in the circular stone chamber washing my body in its coolness Smelling of far-off ocean and rain. Those were my favorite smells, in this hell. For a short time, it dulled the stench of blood and rotting corpses. It was late spring, almost summer here in the Black Lands, though nothing grows in this barren wasteland.

The locks up above rattled as a key slid home in the lock of the doors that led to my stone cell. The creak of old wooden stairs, stressed under the heavy weight of my torturers sounded to me as they descended. I stood tall as best I could in my chains, waiting. The ugly face of Gore came into sight. His big bulk of muscle paired with his fugly green-gray skinned face covered in warts looked me over with his beady black eyes.

“Master was so pleased with you he told us to take extra care of you today”, he sneered in his thick smoky voice which sounded as if he were drowning in mud. His wet breath befouled the air close to my face.

 When I wrinkled my nose, he laughed. I stiffened for I knew what was coming next. He picked up a whip from a nearby table littered with all manner of tools and his grotesque friend tightened my chains above my head with a howl of glee. The air hissed as the whip flew, then cracked as it wrapped its icy fangs around my bare middle. I didn’t make a sound though the pain was blinding. I had withstood ten years of this torture, and I knew it only encouraged them to do more if I showed any signs of pain.

The whip came again and again, never in the same spot, after two hundred strokes I sagged in my bonds unable to withstand more as my legs gave out. My vision dotting black around the edges.

 The pain almost too much to bear but never enough to kill me.

They laughed. “Good thing Master thought of those enchanted chains. Otherwise, you could easily break free,” he taunted between his blackened teeth.

The enchanted chains took all the magic and energy from the person who was trapped in them and used that to strengthen the cuffs so they could not be broken.

Next came the filleting knives. Gore flipped my long-matted hair over my shoulder, tracing the scars from the fangs of his leader before ripping the rags from my upper body. Pulling out two foot long, wickedly curved knives. They slid them slowly down my shoulder blades cutting deeply into my back before slowly peeling my flesh from my body in long strips of ribbon. They flayed my entire back in crisscross patterns.

 My mind screamed in agony, but I bit on my lips to stop the screams that wanted to come forth, biting through my lip, blood flowed from my mouth down my chin. I felt the sting of fresh blood pour from the wounds running down my legs to the floor pooling with blood that already stained it from years before. Telling and retelling this bloody tale anew. They worked chanting their foul spells under their breath fusing them into the flesh of my body. I felt the bite of the black magic seeping into not only my body but my very soul.

It was bitter tasting of heavy metallic death. My body swallowed the dark magic greedy for more as it shivered shrieking in pain as it fused into my soul. It felt as if I was being burned alive while being burned to death inside. It could have been forever or just a minute, but it was over soon. When I came to myself once more, head lulling to the side, they wrapped bandages around me to stop the bleeding.

“Wouldn’t want our slave to die now, would we?” Gore asked his companion.

When he was done, he lifted my chin with a finger to make me look in to his face. “Be good and soon we may find it in our hearts to free you, for a while,” he promised and left, laughing evilly.

When he closed the wooden door, I thought of what I would do to him when I broke free. I laughed, a twisted evil sound wrenched from my throat, the broken sound of a madwoman.

It made sense, I was insane after all. I grinned a wicked twist of my lips. They all would die. I shall press upon them a punishment a thousand-fold worse than they have dealt me.

 With one last look at my star in the fading night sky, I started to plan.

The next day was the day I was to be released from my bonds to wash as they let me do every half-year. This time they were letting me outside; it was my first time since I became their captive many a year ago.

Freshly wounded as I was, they did not fear I would act out. Barely able to move, stiff with both old and new pain.

 I knew the moment I was out of my chains would be my only chance to act. If I failed, they would do worse than kill me. So, I will wait.

They walked me to a pond out in a nearby barren field. It’s brown, steaming water churning like slop in a pot.

Five…

They pulled dragging me along by the iron chains that bound me.

 Four…

They stopped at the edge of the watery pit.

Three…

They started to loosen my bonds; my hands shook with the need to be free.

Two…

The chains fell to the ground, clanking together. I smirked.

One!

I shot into the air shifting to my dragon form quicker than I ever had as a scream ripped from my lips. It held the same burning release as if lava had been poured into my bones and I flew up into the air, before down diving for the ground breathing spitting white hot fire at everyone and everything it could touch. Everything was set ablaze casting harsh light onto ruins.

As soon as the panicked cries of others were heard the Black Bloods shifted shapes to come after me, but they could do nothing more than howl unearthly sounds as I soared above them, roasting their already blackened flesh. Their bodies caught fire in roaring infernos. Columns of fire dotted the lands below. Flying over the camps, buildings and castle, I lit them all a flame. The glorious burning blazes had smoke billowing to the sky like a signal of death.

Landing on my hindquarters, I ripped the last of the beasts to come near me to pieces like they had my mother. As I slaughtered, blood bathing the earth, the King of the Black Bloods came out of his den roaring in fury.

 When his glowing gaze alighted on me at my work and saw the sight before him, he gave a cry of infuriated rage shifting as he ran toward me, black smoke trailing in his wake.

We would fight to the death I knew. My claws against his and his magics against my own. I fought out my grief, my hate, and my internal rage. Pouring the last ten years I’ve lived in this squalid hell into this final fight.

He faltered only for a moment but that was his mistake and undoing. I wrapped my great jaws around his middle, twisting my head tearing him in half, his oozing black blood dripping from my jaws. I mangled him, shaking him like a rag doll so nothing was left but a pile of bloody meat and bone, just like my mother.

 As I shifted back to my mortal form, half-crazed, I screamed my victory into the air, holding his severed head above mine to show all my victory.

I am free!