Mythics

Where Angels Fear To Tread

Chapter 13

The inside of the great hall was dark, damp and reeked of death. The few sources of light visible came from torches whose green flames gave the room a sickly, sinister glow; there was magic being wrought here.

"Master." Kai bent the knee, not out of respect but fear. Many people will later ask Kai that if he feared and hated this dark thing so much why didn't he just run away. He did. Kai fled many times before but always, somehow, his dark master always caught up. And every time the punishment would be worse than the last; broken bones, burnt flesh, visions of him strangling the life out of a woman who could've been his mother, all the while screaming "Why did you give me up? You could have saved me but chose to save him instead. Why?". Until he could take no more and chose to swear allegiance to his constant Nightmare.

"Is it done?" Came the voice from the shadows, it came out hoarse and guttural and spoke of violence.

"Mikael will not fail you again, master." Kai heard rustling clothes then footsteps, then felt hot breath on the back of his neck.

"And Bellamy? Is he found? Has he been returned to the fold?" Kai felt his master's sharp nail brush part of the tattoo that peeked out from under his shirt, and tensed underneath the touch.

"No, but I have your best hunters looking for him. He will be found soon." Kai's muscles tensed, his jaw clenching and unclenching. No one had ever seen the man who controlled their lives so well, no one knew what he looked like or even knew his name. Which is why Kai just called him the "Dark Master".

"That is not enough, Kai. Bellamy does not yet know how powerful he can become, I must aquire him." these last words were spoken with a threat, get this other dragon, by any means necessary, or the price is your head. "Kai, once you have turned Bellamy, kill everyone in that camp. Men, women, children. All of them."

His master's voice faded into the shadows as it was before. Kai bowed low and exited the room as quickly as he could. The cries of the little girl had ceased and there was blood where she had been. Too much of it.

"You there." Kai called out to a thrall standing nearby, a thrall was a human or a Mythic who did not make it through the end of their "reprogramming", they were kept on as servants but were treated as little more than slaves. Like me.

"What happened to the little girl?" Kai questioned the thrall.

"Dead. She tried fighting back so Wyrn ate her." The pathetic excuse for a man gazed at Kai with dead, lifeless eyes.

The thralls were mindless drones who shuffle along doing what they're ordered. They also could not lie. Kai was surprised to feel relieved at the thought of the little girl's demise, but shuddered at the way she had to die. Wyrn was as cruel as he was ugly, Kai had experienced the gargoyle's sadistic nature firsthand. The scars that ran around his back and chest were a testament to that fact.

Kai grunted for the thrall to go back to work and slinked silently to the entrance to the cavern, wanting to be away from this place as quickly as possible. What his master wished of him would not be easy; while Bellamy might trust another dragon more than any other kind of Mythic, his rescuers will not. Convince the white dragon the old man wants to use him and he'll take care of that problem himself, corrupting his soul in the process thus killing two birds with one stone.

Kai snorted at his dark humor and Changed into a giant black dragon. While in human form he was smaller than the average Mythic, more slender and less muscular. But as a dragon, no one dared approach him. It was the only form where Kai felt truly free.

Kai's master had made sure he learned Mythic history. Part of that history included the chain of command; the entire Mythic population was ruled by a single Alpha, and the Alpha has always been a dragon. Only a single male Alpha could rule at a time, which presented troubling news for either Kai or Bellamy. Yesterday there was only one contender for that title.

Now there were two.