Bound Evil

Emily launched to her feet as the door beyond her cell clattered open. Carrying with it several sets of boots as they clambered into the room. It was the early hours of the morning and Emily had just seen the bearest purple hues beginning to light the world through her air slots. She had decided against escaping last night. While it wouldn’t be too much of a problem to blow the lock and escape with the young man, that would mean crossing the illusionist's boundary again. And seeing as she had no idea of their abilities, she wasn’t taking her only chance of escaping when he was still alive.

Several voices Emily did not recognize filled the space.

“Jailor! We are here to retrieve the prisoners, please prepare them for travel, quickly.”

Making her way to the opening Emily stared out. She saw her warden standing there relaxedly, facing six other robed individuals.

The man she’d seen talking to the captain was here, backed by five others who carried similar scars to his own.

“Alright, alright. Keep yer voices down, it’s early.”

While she didn’t seem too worried by these men, she still began unlocking cells and clapping wooded manacles on each of them, followed by a brown sack over the head.

By the time she got to Emily's cell, she gave her a narrowed gaze.

“You gonna give me problems if I open this door.”

This was it, she thought.

Emily consciously decided not to bash this woman's face, until all that remained was a bloodied pulp of broken bone and splattered brain matter. Instead, she cast her eyes down and nodded meekly.

Emily heard the woman click her tongue and the wood sliding against wood, as the cell door opened.

Holding out her arms, she allowed the woman to slap what were essentially wooden stocks around her wrists. The circular grooves were just wide enough not to cut off blood flow to her hands, and then it was locked in place by a hoop of metal.

Before Emily could react, a burlap sack was shoved over her head blocking out what little light the torches in the room provided.

Stepping forward she felt the woman's powerful grip on her shoulder, pulling Emily out of the cell. Emily's breath caught against the material, bringing with it the smell of moldy cloth. If she squinted, she could just make out the floor, which helped her to stabilize her footing. Moving along she felt another grip on her arm.

“This is the last one, be careful she’s dangerous and I’ve not had the time to work with her. Oh, and my title is only strong enough to lock their skills for about three hours so make the most of it.”

The second grip grew tighter and a male voice shot back.

“Ms. Jailor you have done your job admirably, but now it's over. We will take it from here.”

Emily felt her warden's arm lift slightly, as though she were shrugging her shoulders as she released her hold on Emily.

The moment she did Emily felt herself being pulled in the direction of the door she’d entered last through last night.

The chilly morning air swept around Emily's neck and she did her best to bundle up without the use of her hands. Snow crunched below her boots, but Emily was too busy counting her steps and trying her best to keep an eye on her captive’s blurry form.

The trip was not far because soon enough the cold was replaced by the warmth of another room, but they didn't stop there. Instead, they continued into another chamber and once more the heat grew to almost stifling conditions. Only, now this room was filled with light from multiple torches, and the air hung heavy with moisture.

The scents of burning herbs and citrus managed to pierce Emily’s headcover, along with one more that she was intimately familiar with.

Unable to help herself, a smile broke out across her face. Things just got a hell of a lot more interesting.

By this time they must have reached their destination because her captive pulled Emily to a halt and pushed her to the floor. Unable to balance herself she dropped to one knee, cracking it against the hard ground. She would have gasped in pain if it weren’t for the little treasure she had inadvertently discovered.

In her efforts to balance herself, the bag over her head had readjusted and Emily found a small hole with which to view the room.

Taking a moment while the man fiddled with something behind her, Emily took in the space around them.

The first thing she noticed was the walls of this room were coated in some sort of brown tar-like substance. Weird geometric symbols were etched into the surface, and yet the material still severed to trap heat and moisture. By the looks of things, this was the main chamber Emily had seen the day before, and it was similar to a sweat lodge. With low burning coals in the center of the room, only instead of a normal fire pit, the coals had been pushed outward to make a ring of glowing embers.

In the center of that, a circular pattern had been drawn in dark red. Looking down at her position there was another circle around Emily. It was hard to make out but by the looks of things, there were five more circles placed evenly around the room. The robed people seemed to be watching over all their captives. Assigning one to each of them. By the looks of things, they were painting all of them with dark crimson. Emily could easily tell it was blood from experience but, as if that weren't enough she saw them directly making small incisions on their own bodies to supply the bowls. Others dipped brushes into an awaiting bowl and then began drawing lines on the backs of the surrounding captives.

Taking all of this in, made Emliy think of the blood rituals she had heard of back on earth. The only difference was that maybe, they worked here. From everything she had seen in the last day or so, it was completely possible.

The big question was, what were they trying to accomplish?

That was when Emily spotted the young man she had found last night. While the rest of them were divided among the five outer circles. He was left alone and shacking in the center. Amongst others, the two other captives beside Emily were crying and whining, not that that got them very far. And now, it seemed it was her turn, as a man with a wet bush approached her. When he moved out of her line of sight, she felt her cloak being pushed up, so that the brush might begin to draw whatever mystical lines it needed to.

Once more, Emily didn’t fight it, when the warm concoction touched down on the skin of her back, its vitality began to seep through the pours in her skin ever so slowly.

The buzz of available power in the room was intoxicating and yet so far away.

Refocusing, Emily kept her eyes open, watching the preparations take place in the room. It was because of this that she spotted a short stocky man entering the circle with her kneeling charge.

The man’s robes were only slightly different than the others, but he carried himself with a certain sense of superiority. He was probably the best candidate for the illusionist, but Emily couldn’t be certain yet.

A flick of his wrist caused shackles of red light to rise up out of the circle and tie the young man to the ground.

At the same time, they shredded the simple tunic the young man wore, exposing his flesh to the gloom of the flickering torches. Even while he was bound, the young man tried not to whimper, but his fear was obvious enough to anyone watching.

Though the robed man showed no interest in his pain, and just like the rest, he took out a brush and began drawing markings all over the young man. The difference was that his were far more intricate than the rest of theirs, spanning all his available skin.

It looked like the young man was the focus of whatever ritual they had going here. Emily hesitated, she wasn’t sure what her fate would be if he died in front of her, but she knew it wouldn’t be good.

She was just inspecting the strength of her restraints when a cold draft swept into the room. Trying not to look too obvious about it, she slowly raised he head to get a better view of whoever just entered.

The man who entered was followed by three other men, one of whom she recognized as the leader of the team that had brought her in.

Unfortunately, all of Emily’s attention was drawn to the man at the head of this collum.

The hairs on the back of Emily's neck stood on end at the sight of him, her senses screaming danger.

His features were lithe and slightly unnatural, almost as though the gaunt skin were stretched over muscle and bone. Yet somehow he still had a certain human charm to him. His leather armor was white as fresh snow and he carried what looked like a short spear on his back.

Emily’s eyes shot to the floor as his level gaze swept over her.

There was a pause before he began to speak, but when he did it filled the space his authority.

“... Employer. The Wandering Fangs have completed all the conditions set out by you, and we have come to collect what is owed.”

Emily could just see the feet of the robed figure in the center of the chamber. When his voice came out it was also firm, yet it lacked the same strength. In a one-on-one Emily was certain she could take just about everyone she’d seen so far, but this man was a different story.

“You interrupt our months of preparation for something as trivial as money. Leave, and guard us until the ritual is complete, that was what you were hired for.”

By the end of his tirade, the man sounded downright furious, and yet the leader of the white fangs sounded almost bored.

“Employer. Our duties ended the moment you collected the prisoners from us. As per our contract, we have been released from obligations, and are expecting payment. I wish to have my team behind solid walls before the next nightfall.”

The robed man spluttered indignantly and yet didn’t speak out against him.

Silence descended on the hall as the two groups seemed to face off. After a moment Emily felt the mood shift when the leader of the white fangs rested his hand on the handle of his spear.

The robed man flicked his eyes flickered to the simple-looking spear and back up to the leader's face.

“Alright, you have completed our contract to my satisfaction… Your reward…”

The man's face looked bitter as he reached into his robe and drew out a single cobalt blue coin. By the way, the other white fang's backs straightened, it was either very rare or an incredible amount of money. Emily was banking on the second.

The coin rang out a tiny melody as the robed man flicked it towards the leader, who plucked it from the air.

Emily couldn’t help but follow the mysterious coin’s arc as the flew from one man to the other. In doing so her eyes fell on the leader's gaunt figure again, and Emily saw him glance over at her for just a second.

The next words out of his mouth echoed through the space.

“No hard feeling.”

With that, he turned around and moved toward the open door. Beyond that Emily could see several white cloaks moving about in the snow. Packing up to leave this place, at the rate they were going they would be gone within the hour.

Emily heard one very pissed voice from within the room.

“Alright, finish the preparations. I want this ritual ready post haste, if we can pull this off there’s plenty more where that came from. Get to it you lot.”

Emily turned back to look at the chamber, a smile stretching up the corners of her lips. If her count was right there were around seventeen men in this room. Before this would have been a problem, but by a stroke of luck, she now had everything she needed.

With the wandering fangs leaving, her job just got a whole lot easier. Emily's body flushed with excitement as the door to the outside world slammed shut.