2k words
***
“Wakey-Wakey, putrid scum!”
The echo of the guttural voice was chased by the crack of a rifleshot, Skyseeker jolting out of her sleep. She sat up, the features of the pit fading through her bleary vision. By a couple crooked slivers of light beaming in through the ceiling, she could tell it was morning, the brown rocks on all sides bleached beneath shafts of sunshine.
The pit was far larger than she had initially thought, the prior darkness giving away to expanses that thinned up and away into a larger cavern. Cages were prevalent, and they ranged from tall and broad, able to hold twenty Skaven inside, to tiny boxes that even Skyseeker would struggle to squeeze through.
There was an air of disorder about it all. The metal bars were rusted, and those who’s locks hadn’t been destroyed had been battered apart, and the slaves present elected to sleep outside them. For being Ironsnout’s personal prisoner pit, there was a distinct lack of security, but she supposed that didn’t matter with the exit being barred.
Just thinking about that metallic monster made her fur bristle, but at least she had no fear of running across him for now. She had spotted him sometime in the night, his exosuit clunking out of his chambers and into the pit. She had slunk behind a rock close to Kretch’s cage in under two seconds, holding her breath as his suit strut in her direction. He had come close enough that she’d heard his raspy breath, but the warlord had past her by without incident.
The doors thundered aside at his approach, Skyseeker observing him take something shiny from his belt. As she’d suspected, he possessed the key to freedom, and he had to wait a little longer than usual for the doors to swing apart enough for him to pass.
Watching him blend out into the daylight had tempted her. The rising steps were not too steep, and she would only need a sliver to get through, it would only take a moment to make the sprint. It looked so easy.
Yet Ironsnout blocked the way beyond, and he stood there in giant battlesuit until the doors closed, probably by guards standing on the other side. Perhaps he had detected her on some baser level, or perhaps he had some sensors in that suit of his that could pick up on her movement, or maybe even her thoughts. Whatever it had been, she hesitated too long, the echoing clacks of the shutting gate marking the missed chance.
She was brought out of her reminiscing by another loud crack and a shout. “Wakey-Wakey! The Snout’s things won’t build-make themselves!”
She turned to see Kretch had also been awoken, the rat man contorting in a tired stretch. He didn’t’ seem too bothered by the all the noise, reaching back to scratch his hairy bum.
“Who and what is that?” Skyseeker demanded, peering round for the source, which seemed to be in every direction thanks to it bouncing off the spaced walls.
“Our lives,” Kretch replied. “Better move-move, breeder, they don’t let slaves have big window.”
Skyseeker shoved him as he tried to move by. “I’m not a breeder, Kretch. You shut your fat face, you want every slave to hear you-you?”
“But… you have snatch. That makes you breeder in Kretch’s book.”
“It’s called discretioning, you donut. You only one who knows I am breeder. Better keep it that way.”
“Kretch thinks you should look in mirror. Even dumbest rats will know Skyseeker is Sky-breeder.”
She suddenly remembered her lack of clothing, though she felt no urge to cover herself up. Kretch had already seen more than enough of her. Looking was fine, but if he went a step beyond that, they both knew she would make him regret it.
The other slaves were starting to wake and move, plodding along in the direction of the shouting. Kreth joined the wave, so she did the same, the slaves moving across a rough crest on the save floor. The source of the noise turned out to be a big Skaven stood before a passage built into the eastern wall, the entranced flanked to two mounted torches. He wasn’t as large as Ironsnout, but he was full-grown and covered in leather armour that almost matched his brown fur, and in one paw he held not a rifle, but a length of knotted rope with a handle on one end.
The whip was so much l alike the pistols Roderick and the other humans used as weapons, the cracks making her ears ring as the slaver smacked the head of a passing slave for seemingly no reason. “Quick-Hurry!” the big rat snarled. “Too slow, too slow!”
“Could you shut your hole already?” Skyseeker asked from across the pit. “You making ears bleed with all the shout-yells.”
The slaver was marching her direction before he’d even turned his head, a pang of fear coming up her throat. Kretch looked at her in disgusted bewilderment, and she didn’t have to ask why. Since the morning call to wake, no other slave had spoken.
Skyseeker turned to run, but Kretch laid a paw on her arm. She balled her paws, barely supressing the urge to strike. “No run-flee,” he hissed. “Skaven will see you, then you never get out of pit. Stay, and put thing on.”
He unwrapped a roll of soiled bandage from his arm, Skyseeker peeling back her lips in disgust as she took it. “You hide breeder teats with thing,” Kretch added. “Maybe you get lucky.”
She elected to instead cover her crotch. The mild darkness blended with her black fur, there was a chance nobody would notice her pronounced chest. On the other paw, if she made it obvious that she didn’t have a member, then the jig would be over in a second.
She looped the bandage round her waist, securing it into a knot not a second too early, the snivelling guard rounding a nearby cage. He stood head and shoulders above the other hunched slaves, who shied away from the guard as though from a bad smell.
“Who said thing?” the guard demanded, turning his yellow eyes down on the slaves. Her heart leaped as his gaze briefly met hers, but it was only cursory. “Which rat said that? Which! Hmm… now gone all quiet, have we? Methinks I should start guessing!”
Without warning, the guard lashed out his paw, and their was a string of blurred movement. One of the slaves fell back with a yowl, clutching a giant red line that had appeared on his snout. The whip soared in a reverse, the guard striking a second slave who failed to react in time. Crack crack crack, the guard began to harry the other rats with sharp blows, never staying on one target for long.
The guard was outnumbered fifteen to one, yet the most resistance the slaves gave was to cover their snouts with their arms. All her instincts screamed for her to flee, but she couldn’t bear to watch the miserable display any longer.
“Hey, Pinkface!” she yelled. “You leave those saps alone right now-now.”
Pinkface paused mid-lash, turning to glare at her, the slave he was about to hit taking the moment to scurry clear. There was a distinct lack of fur growing along the sides of his snout and brow, his pink skin standing out against his patches of fur. His flesh was wrinkled with scars and welts, giving him the look of a rat half-decayed.
“You the rat who squeaked out of turn?” Pinkface grumbled.
“Gee! How you figure that out, Pinkface? Of course that was me, you not recognise my sexy voice?”
There was a sudden explosion of pain, and before she knew it, she hit the cave floor hard. She tired to blink her eyes clear, but half her vision was black and red, a terrible stinging bursting from her socket. Her eye… something was very wrong with it.
Pinkface loomed over the side she could see from, and he brandished a paw, the braids of his wip dragging across her torso. They left trails of blood in her black fur, some it hers, some not.
“Six, or two?” Pinkface asked with a sniff.
“W-What you on about, Pinkface?”
“Pick, slave! Six lashes, or two? Two hard, six not.”
“Uh… How hard is hard?”
“Let’s find out-out.”
Skyseeker filled the pit with her screams as Pinkface summoned all his strength. Later on, when she turned in for the night, she would still be able to feel the deep lines of his whip as they imprinted along her ribs and stomach in two long lines, leaving an ‘X’ shape in her flesh and fur.
“You must be new slave to my pit,” Pinkface muttered when it was finally over. “In here, you get only once choice – two or six. You squeak back, you disobey, you slow down my work, you get two or six.”
“Correction,” Skyseeker said, raising a claw. “Is not your pit, is Ironsnout’s.”
“You love to chitter-speak, don’t you, slave?” Pinkface chuckled. “Methinks we get along just fine-fine. Two or six?”
“Let’s… try six this time.”
By four strikes she was howling again, and there was a worrying amount of blood coming out of her back when it was finally over., tbu she was more concerned about her eyeball. She could not feel it, even when she blinked, and that half of her sight remained a deep red colour.
“Well then, slave? Which you prefer?” Pinkface asked. “two or six?”
Everything was hurting, but her pride was too strong for pain, and she forced herself to stagger to her feet. “Skaven… may need to go again, can’t decide which is better.”
Pinkface tilted his head, confused by her answer. He had clearly never met a slave like her, stupidly fooling for her act. This was all a ploy, naturally. She may be a captive, she may be surrounded on all sides by enemies, but on the inside she was still free.
“I would be glad-happy to indulge you, slave,” Pinkface said, his cruel laughter almost as bad as Ironsnout’s. “but you have caused me enough late-delays already. Move-Move!” he snapped, turning to address the crowd of onlookers. “You want to eat? Make line, make march! Move tails!”
Pinkface moved off to make order for the procession of slaves, Skyseeker taking a breath through a bloodied nose. She felt paws on her arms, turning to see Kretch helping her to her feet. “Kretch, answer me straight. Is my eye gone?”
“No,” he replied, leaning down to peer closer. “Lash hit you in the brow right above it, blood is gushing down, drippy-dripping. Point snout down, you drain it out that way.”
She did as he suggested, watching drips of crimson drop between her feet.
“Kretch thinks you are fool, breeder,” he added. “Why you say all that right to his face? You took three two or sixes, that’s like… a thousand lashes!”
“He was going to kill slaves,” she said. “Skaven could not just sit and watch. Rats couldn’t help themselves, so I did it for them.”
“But that’s… Oh!” he exclaimed. “Wait a pickle! I know why! Mercy. You helped slaves escape punishment, because you want slaves to help you, yes-yes? You make them your friends, not your enemies. Like what you told Kretch last night!”
“Uhhh… yes-yes!” she declared. Haivng slaves for friends wasn’t all that handy, but maybe they had information she could use. One of her more brilliant ideas, honestly.
“Are all breeder’s so… intelligent?” Kretch asked. “You not act like any Skaven Kretch knows.”
“Then you don’t know a lot of breeders - which shows,” she said with a pointed look, but her meaning seemed lost on him, judging from his expression. “Come-Come,” she added. “Should probably see where Pinkface is taking us. What’s that he said about food?”
“We work, we eat, is simple rule in pit,” Kretch elaborated. “Kretch not know how he keeps track of slaves, but he seems to know which slaves work hardest and which don’t. Kretch thinks he can read minds.”
“Only Skaven Lords and man-things can do that,” she said, remembering how swiftly Roderick had deceived her, during the first days of their meeting.
The joined the rearguard of the slave column, which marched their way into the side passage, the tube of holloed-out rock wide enough to let Kretch walk along side her, supporting her while her knackered body recovered. Somewhere up ahead she could hear Pinkface shouting above that clicking sound of his whip.