Warlock of Ashmedai: The City of God [Progression fantasy/LitRPG]

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Beaten and bloody, Yakubu's ten-year-old son, Itoro, hung from the wall like a grisly ornament. Thick lengths of chain connected his chafed wrists and ankles to the gray stone of the prison's third floor, holding him aloft just high enough that the kid could barely brush the floor with his toes.

A single waning oil lamp dangled from the ceiling, casting the scene in a yellow glow.

"Itoro," Yakubu gasped and lurched forward. For one surreal moment, Oak felt real jealousy towards the child. The last person to say his name with such love was his old man, who had died a decade ago. Ten years was a long time to sit out in the cold.

By the Corpse-God, I need to talk to someone. Or drink myself stupid? Maybe both?

"Hey, Dad," Itoro croaked. The Nkruma family's firstborn didn't look quite so mischievous as the last time Oak had seen him, but there was still some steel in the lad's tired eyes. A thin, wrinkled slaver in his late fifties pressed a small knife on the boy's throat and gave a pointed look towards Oak and Yakubu. The message was quite clear, but he spelled it out for them, anyway.

"Not a step closer, or the boy dies."

Yakubu froze, and Oak followed his lead. "Who are you, slaver?" Yakubu asked.

"They call me Cusmaan of Lagash," the thin man replied and smoothed out his brown robes. "I am the overseer of this little slavepen."

"Why?" Yakubu asked and pointed at the state of his son.

"This one was…insolent. The guards taught him manners." Cusmaan cleared his throat, but his gaze didn't hold even an iota of shame. "Discipline is important. I am sure you can agree, no?"

Yakubu ignored the barbs in the slaver's words with impressive poise. "Talk to me, Cusmaan."

"I understand tempers are running high, Yakubu, but we can help each other." Cusmaan smiled the smarmiest smile Oak had ever laid eyes on. The knife he held on Itoro's throat did not waver, but Oak spied a drop of sweat on the thin slaver's dark brow. "You want your son. I want to leave this place alive and unharmed."

"Not ideal, but acceptable."

"A pragmatist. How refreshing. Of course, I will need more than just your word, Yakubu." Cusmaan licked his lips with his viper's tongue. He tapped the flat of his knife against Itoro's throat. "You and everyone you brought with you will stand aside and let me walk out of here with the boy. You will not assail me. You will not follow. I will release the boy in my own time, after I have put some distance between us."

Itoro groaned and pulled himself up a bit, chains clinking, surely trying to ease the discomfort in his shoulders. The boy didn't seem enthused about the idea of spending more time in Cusmaan's tender care.

Behind Oak and Yakubu, the other members of their colorful retinue spilled into the hallway from the staircase. The Sakyi siblings, eyes feral and blades dirty with gore. Sadia, clutching her new long-knife, face pale. Ur-Namma, holding a human heart in one palm and a longsword in the other. And finally, Geezer, chops wet with blood and drool.

The hellhound trotted over to Oak, his red eyes never straying from Cusmaan. Languid and unhurried, Geezer sat down at Oak's feet and opened his massive jaws wide. A low growl spilled forth, echoing menacingly down the hallway.

Cusmaan stared at the hellhound and swallowed. "So, what say you, Yakubu?" he asked. The hand holding the knife on Itoro's neck trembled.

"No."

"No? What do you mean, no?" Cusmaan's eyes bulged in astonishment and rage, as the mask of indifference slipped, revealing the terrified man beneath it. "I don't think you quite realize how these things work! If you don't do as I say, I will fucking kill him! I will gut your son, like a swine!"

Yakubu's calm was otherworldly. He spoke unhurriedly and without raising his voice, as if disciplining an unruly child. "Let's make sure we understand each other, you and I. Listen closely. Do you hear that silence?"

Despite his rage and fear, Cusmaan stilled.

"All of your friends on the first and the second floors are dead. So are the guards outside." Yakubu leaned closer, staring Cusmaan down. "No one is coming to help you. And if you kill my son, I will feed you alive to that giant dog, starting with your feet."

Geezer licked his bloody chops.

"And if you don't let me go, I will open your son's throat and bleed him dry!" Cusmaan shouted. Sweat poured down his forehead, gathering at his graying eyebrows and dripping down his skull-like face. Nervous. Jittery. Courage hanging by a thread. The slaver wiped his brow with a jerky swipe of his sleeve, clammy fingers clenching and unclenching.

Yakubu was steadfast. "You will not walk out of this place with my son, Cusmaan of Lagash."

"Well, what do you propose we do then? Seems to me we are at an impasse," Cusmaan replied. He looked tired and exasperated beyond measure. A man of his stature was surely used to sleeping at this hour of the night.

"You will open those shackles and release my son," Yakubu said, his voice as soft as the smoothest silk. "Once you have done so, you are free to go. I will not harm you; of that, you have my word. I swear it, by the Hounds of War."

For a time that felt endless, but could only have been a handful of heartbeats, Cusmaan stared at Yakubu, breath wheezing in his lungs, trying and failing to regain some semblance of calm indifference. "Well, I know when I am beaten. I guess I will just have to trust your word," the slaver eventually said, looking none too pleased with the arrangement.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"So it seems."

Releasing Itoro from his chains was a quick affair. Cusmaan produced a key from his robes and unlocked the cuffs on the boy's wrists and ankles with practiced ease, making sure Itoro didn't fall on his face. He treated the boy like a piece of livestock and made it all look routine, like he had done something similar a thousand times before and would do so again another thousand times in the future.

I wonder. How many times do you have to shackle a person before doing so becomes second nature? Not too many, Oak suspected. I only needed to wet my blade once to develop a taste for killing. Why would this sin be any different?

Once freed, Itoro stumbled away from Cusmaan, into Yakubu's arms, and the muscled Koromite held his son tight against his shoulder. "I am here, Itoro. I am here and you are safe," Yakubu muttered in the sobbing boy's ear. Then he covered his son's eyes and nodded to Oak. "Go ahead, pale man."

"What? No–!" Cusmaan screamed.

With relish, Oak called for the fire roaring inside his soul, and his infernal engine answered. He spun a long telekinetic spike inside a lance of flame and blew a hole the size of two fists in Cusmaan's chest, splattering gore and burning spine fragments down the length of the hallway.

The slaver fell over, deader than a doorknob.

It was beautiful. He had turned the bag of meat and bone into a tapestry of gore with flame and a thought, stretching away from the point of impact, like a flower coming into full bloom. My, my, the Butcher whispered from the Pit of Oak's mind. Who is our burgeoning little artist, eh? Go ahead. Stretch your wings, my dear.

Self-expression is good for the soul.

Oak licked his lips and sighed. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. He shivered, cold all over, and snapped back into the present. He became aware of Geezer's wet snout, pressing insistently against his palm. Oak gave the huffing hellhound an absentminded scratch behind the ear.

Ur-Namma stood over Cusmaan's corpse, poking at the dead man with his longsword and taking bites out of the heart he carried in his left hand. Needle-like teeth sank easily into the sinewy muscle, and the elf chewed with a thoughtful look on his wrinkled face, as if his conduct was perfectly normal and not a sin against Creation itself.

Elves. Fucking elves.

Since Yakubu still knelt on the floor, hugging his son and whispering words of comfort to the young lad's ear, Oak walked over to the elf and gave the freshly united father and son some space.

Ur-Namma swallowed the mouthful of manflesh caressing his tastebuds, and poked the corpse on the cheek with the tip of his blade. "Words are fickle things, aren't they, Cusmaan of Lagash," the elf whispered. "Yakubu only ever promised he would not harm you. He gave no oath on behalf of his companions."

"A gap in comprehension. A serious, but sadly common problem among all who walk in Mother's Garden," Oak said and tried not to stare at the blood dripping from the elf's lips. His old man had always said it was not polite to ogle while someone ate. Manners above all, young lad, manners above all. Unless of course you mean to knife the fucker, then by all means just stab away!

The old man had been a riot of laughs and a well full of good advice.

"We followed the letter of the pact, but not its spirit. Which of the two do you find more compelling, Northerner?" Ur-Namma asked, gray eyes twinkling with mirth. Drip. Drip. Drip. Blood from the human heart seeped between the elf's fingers and pooled on the stone beneath their feet. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Oak chewed on the inside of his cheek as he gave the matter some thought. "Neither," he finally said. "There can be no pacts between wolves and sheep."

"Only the hunt, then?" A fleeting smile graced Ur-Namma's ancient face, raising the corners of his bloody mouth upwards. "It is good to know we are of one mind."

Oak nodded. "Only the hunt, and the moment when the blade sinks into soft flesh."

***

In a stroke of luck, the rest of the children stolen by the slavers lay behind bars on the third floor, where they had found Itoro. The Sakyi siblings took up the task of freeing all the prisoners, children included, and taking them outside. Ur-Namma volunteered to aid them and watch over the process.

"I know a thing or two about opening locks," the elf had said, and no one could argue with that.

While the elf and his two maniacally violent, but strangely gentle helpers saw to their task, Itoro led everyone else down the hallway, to the quarters of the

While the Sakyi siblings and Ur-Namma freed the rest of the children stolen from the caravan from their cells on the third floor, Itoro led everyone else down the hallway, towards the quarters of the leader of this God-forsaken operation.

Apparently, the captain of the Tafari mercenary company spent her nights under the same roof as her merchandise.

They passed a stained supply closet and a few rows of cells filled with the aforementioned merchandise, thin men and women dressed in rags hiding in the shadows of their barred prison, suspicion writ on their grimy faces. Oak ignored the poor souls and paid the chipped and stained cupboard no mind, until he saw Sadia stepping towards the supply closet from the corner of his eye, hand outstretched to open the door that was already slightly ajar.

Alarm bells rang in Oak's mind. "Wait–!"

But he was too late. Sadia ripped the door open, and a screaming young man fell upon her, stabbing at her neck with a knife. By the grace of all that was holy or unholy, Sadia's shield enchantment held against the frenzied assault. The pair fell on the stone floor and rolled against the wall in a tangle of limbs, flashes of golden light sparking from the impacts of the mercenary's knife against Sadia's skin.

Before anyone could cut the man down, he croaked and fell on his side, hands clutching at his chest, the handle of Sadia's long-knife sticking out from his sternum. The young man's ruined knife clattered on the stone floor. There was a sense of finality to the sound. Like a door clicking shut.

Sadia stared at the man's surprised face and glistening eyes, her own pair of peepers wide like dinner plates. The man had soft cheeks. A hint of scruffy, dark stubble. Carefully groomed eyebrows and not a wrinkle in sight.

Oak pulled the shocked spellsinger to her feet and squeezed her shoulder. "You alright?"

"I–I didn't know it would be so easy," Sadia replied, her voice faltering. "It–the blade just sank in. I didn't even–I just–" she laughed, the sound bordering on hysteria. "Guess Nadire knows what she is talking about. I grabbed hold of the bastard and stabbed him. And now he is dead."

"That tends to happen when you stab people," Oak said. It is the entire point, really.

Geezer cackled like a hyena, Yakubu snorted, and even Sadia herself managed a timid, watery smile.

The fact she didn't immediately tell him to go fuck himself in reply was a clear sign Sadia was more rattled than she let on.