The Slave Knight Part 1: The Dagon

Chapter One: The Scaffold

In the distance they heard the banging of a hammer on wood and metal. The slight tink of a nail being forced into wood and the whaling of the hammer to clasp it all in. A scaffold was being built, no one knew what truly for, not expressly, but implicitly everyone knew what it was for.

Someone was to die.

Not just any someone, but a slave knight for sure. The slave knights who were tasked with building the scaffold were those that were seen with much angst and with much ire. Executioner slave knights. Bedecked in black cloaks and some of the biggest and strongest slave knights the warbands could muster. Deadly and dangerous slave knights, vile and cruel in manner and demeanor. They had no ties to any true warband, as they were solely loyal to the meisters in their laws. They were no brother to any slave knight, and knew nothing save for the law and the word of the meister They were unyielding and unrelenting in their cruelty, as they had to be, as they were tasked with killing those who acted beyond the laws of the meisters.

The meister's laws were absolute. They were also arbitrary and virtually unknowable and usually their laws were solely what they wanted at that particular time. They ruled the slave knights and controlled them, with the authority imbued by them through Overlord Baal. They were also the keeper of the magics, at least the magics held by men and women, and through their strength and abilities they controlled any all magics that came into the hands of men and women alike. It was a fairly great position for a man or woman to be in, as meisters were more likely to have money, have fame, have favor of Overlord Baal, and their power was second only to the Overlord.

Who, you may ask, were the meisters hell bent on killing? The answer was mainly rumor and speculation, but usually that type of hearsay was the closest to the truth anyone had been able to fashion these days. The rumor mill had been churning a lot, as the warbands had sat around their nightfires, talking nervously about nothing in particular. Not wanting to acknowledge the coming hanging or skinning or savagery ahead. While the slave knights were accustomed to savagery, seeing one of their own brothers, or sisters, for that matter, stripped and unbound and murdered, always reminded them how fickle the meisters can be and how expendable the slave knights were.

Slave knights, they were, but before all else they were slaves and the magics that bound them reminded them of their position in life. Since a young age, between seven and twelve winters, these boys and the occasional girl, would be stolen from roaming bands, or unprotected towns, or the callous youth who lost their way coming home from the inn, and were conscripted into the service. It was a vestige of the old world drafts they used to have, but this was more violent and dastardly than any draft you would think they would have.

Those who were just stolen away were the lucky ones, to

say they least, as they were to only suffer the kidnapping and abandonment that accompanied the slave knight warbands stealing them away. Some suffered far worse than just the nightly abductions. Some suffered their entire families being murdered in front of them. Being ripped away from their mother's bosom, crying and bleating away like a goat being dragged to the slaughter.

You were counted lucky if the kidnapping did not include a violent thrashing, that left you bloodied and helpless, or raped and ravaged. Some had lost an eye or an arm or some other meaningless limb. Others were killed and brought back from the brink of death to serve in a warband they cared not for. That usually created mindless dolts that listened and obeyed, but had no heart in it. The vast majority were stolen away and sold off and bound to a meister, that they cared not for. Bound to an armor that they could never be without, left to lead a life of servitude and death.

The first binding was terrible and terrifying and was done specifically to prevent unbinding. It was a spell with hot irons, burned around the neck, above the adam's apple and touching the base of the skull. The only true way to remove the binding is to cut the throat with an iron dagger, which would usually result in death, as the binding was deeper than just skin and muscle. Many of the children could not handle the smell of their burning flesh, or the pain that accompanied the binding, and most suffered from fits of fainting, convulsions, biting their tongue off, or other maladies that left the child crippled and useless. It helped not that all the slaves, young and old, were forced to watch this perverse ritual.