The Leader looked down upon the dirty, grimy dwarves. They were a miserable lot, the youngest a mere fourteen or fifteen, a boy. The oldest was no better, seemingly eighteen or so, the Leader approximated. A little bit of magic was useful every now and then, to deal with those miserable dwarven knights. Miserable bastards them; they were the reason his troop had to live on the run. Then again, Lord Balthazar would have made them run about anyway. If the Lord wished it, it would happen, and in any case, the Lord was the one who freed him from the tedious job of being a gladiator. In a fashion, Balthazar owned him. Frankly, he would rather have been a gladiator than be owned by Balthazar. But it paid well, and he had couldn't avoid it, so it had to be done.

His band of bastards was full of idiots, all of them scheming against him, waiting till he let his guard down so that they could pounce upon him, and devour him whole. That was except for Mort and Buck. Those two were loyal bastards, miserable but loyal.

He glanced at Mort, who kept on fiddling with his sheath. He was naive, Mort was. Buck was better in that sense. Buck could kill a man without blinking an eye, or feeling a thing, but Buck was loyal. Mort was stupid and Loyal. Buck was smarter and loyal. As a subordinate, The Leader valued Mort more than Buck.

Mort wouldn't rebel even if he led the whole lot of them straight into the mouths of the Craigs of Telmanar, or charged into a demon horde. Mort would follow, but Buck? That bastard was loyal, but he would betray you when you least expected it. The Leader felt his position weigh upon him just a bit more as if it wasn't weighing upon him enough. He sighed and walked forward, and kicked that bastard, Clay. Clay was a miserable, sadistic bastard, straight out of the torture chambers of Balthazar. He had been hired a sane man, and by the time he walked out, he most definitely was not sane, and judging by the amount of hair that covered him, his humanity was questionable as well.

What experiments that Bastard Balthazar did inside the torture chamber confounded The Leader as well. If he'd rejected the Lord's proposal, he would have been thrown right into the chambers, and before he knew it, he would be leading this merry band anyway, only he wouldn't exactly have a choice in it. Not like he had a choice in it anyway.

He scowled once more, more menacingly this time, and kicked the Clay again. This time the bastard spat a good amount of blood out. He stopped once he was sure the man couldn't wield a sword anytime soon. That was one of the priorities in this. The Leader had to not only transport the living cargo all the way back to Valk'in, he had to ensure that he made it there alive, and that the cargo made it there alive. As per the Lord's instructions only the cargo needed to make it there alive. Him making it back was really only secondary.

It was something that puzzled him, what Balthazar was doing. The Kingdom had never really looked to start a war with the Dwarves of the Iron hills. From what he'd heard, Balthazar was loyal only to the King, and the King sure as hell wasn't mad. At least he hoped the King wasn't mad. Word was that Balthazar looked to conquer the Iron Hills, so that he could increase his standing with his majesty.

Then again, these matters did not affect him very much, and as long as he did his duty faithfully and made it out alive, it would be alright. The Leader called out sharply to Buck,
"Oy, Buck, you got the runts drugged yet?" There was a second's pause as Buck called out to that other bastard Fjird, that Northern bastard, the poisons master. He wasn't quite as good as a Priest, or some novice Light Mage who might be able to cure them in a flash, but he was far less likely to die in battle, and far more likely to poison them all to death once they were asleep.

Fjird grunted that primal grunt he was known for, and through his thick Northern accent spoke of something being 'half-done', and a 'bad-affair'. Damned unloyal Northern Bastards, The Leader thought. Buck called back to him,
"He's done the deed, Sir. They'll have an infernal headache and won't be able to think or move."
"Move?"
"That damned little fuck Clay went ahead and carved the lot of them with his infernal tattoos."
"That little fuck"
"That little fuck won't be able to move around anymore Sir"
"What happened to that little fuck?"
"That little Fuck got kicked to near death Sir"
"Now on Earth had the good sense to do that?"
"You did Sir"
"Did I ask you Buck, you bastard?"
"No sir"
"Very good Buck. You don't want to end up like Clay do you?"
"No sir"
"Good, now get the hell out of my way, and tell all those little bitches to go ahead and either kill themselves or mount up and get moving with cargo"
"Yes sir" And with that solemn utterance, the Leader watched as Buck left his sight, and began to curse and beat up some of the other men. The Leader watched in satisfaction as the men began to move around. A mutiny was sure to be brewing.
___

When The Eldest awoke, he felt pain. Burning, unceasing pain. Every beat of his heart he could feel. Every twitch of his muscle seemed to only aggravate the pain. It was relentless, it was torturous, it was painful. It seemed to forbade thought, seemed to halt him from thinking. Even the mildest of thoughts led to pain, pain and more pain. There seemed to be only pain in his life, and he could feel it. He could feel it everywhere. He could not think anymore, he could only breathe and hope he lived. So he hoped, as the pain grew ever stronger with every thought.

He did not know how long, or how far they had gone, he did not know where they were or what the time was. His head stung, but not as much as when he last awoke. But The Eldest did not howl or scream or shout. He held it all in, an act that was a near supreme test of his willpower. He had experienced immense pain, and the migraine he had now was near nothing compared to whatever drug he had been fed. He did not move, not out of choice, but because he could not. After what seemed like an eternity, the pain was over. It was finally over.

It struck him that this was but a brief respite from the pain, from that dastardly poison that he had been fed. But a short break before that endless torture resumed. No, the thought was far too frightening to think of. If that was true, then the pain would resume soon. That was a cruel thought, one he did not want to think of. That he could not think of. He shuddered, before clearing his mind, and finally opening his eyes. He could feel the dried blood that crusted his eyelids crack as he opened his eyes. A blinding light greeted him, and his began to water and burn. He shut them almost instantly. Dwarven eyes were sensitive to light so that they could see underground better. The eldest was, of course, unaware of that. But he could feel his eyes scream in pain whether he knew that or not, and that was a good enough reason for him to shut it tight.

He opened them again tentatively, once the pain had settled down, only to be greeted by the blinding light yet again. His willpower did not fade, however, and he finally kept his eyes open for longer than a few seconds on his twelfth try. He stared at the vast blue sky, a spectacular shade of azure, a gleaming hollow blue, complete with little brushstroke clouds embellishing it. The sun shined brightly, illuminating the edges of every cloud with sparkling silver rays. Perhaps every cloud did have a silver lining as his parents had told him.

He didn't miss his parents much. He felt very little attachment to them. They had fed him and raised him, and put him into the family business. They loved him, and he did not love them back, for he did not find anything worth appreciating in that. To him, their love was only what was expected of a parent for their child, nothing more nothing less. It was nothing he appreciated, and nothing would entice him into loving them more than freedom. And it was freedom that he loved, the great wide opens of the Iron Hills that he had only heard of from the adult; the danger and adventure, he loved all of it.

Or so he had thought until today. He was confused, truly utterly confused, as for the first time, he could think somewhat clearly. What had happened? Where were they? Where they in Valk'in already? What had the adventurers done? Those very same questions floated into his head again and again. The answers were something he didn't want to confront. Whatever the case, it wasn't anything good. It didn't take a savant to work out that their intentions were bad. The eldest slowly craned his stiff neck, tilting it to the side so that he could see what was going on. He wished he'd never opened his eyes in the first place.
____

Miyar shuddered once more, as he felt the dagger carve his skin and flesh again. The thought of the cold steel painlessly drawing blood horrified him. It was burned into his eyes, something that he wished he could forget. His head was light, and he felt dizzy and nauseous. Every time the horse lifted its legs and strode once more, every time the cart tripped over whatever ill-fated rodent or rock that lined their trail through the grassland, he felt like he was edging closer to insanity. He stared at every detail, observing and then forgetting. The pretty flowers that sprouted from freshly-watered soil held no value to him. The silt of Black Iron that the Iron Hills were named after; that famous color that he had always wanted to view was ignored by him.

He could not think of it no, he could only hope for better times, for that wound of his to heal. The same man who had poisoned his veins had come up and rubbed some foul-smelling poultice upon all his wounds, a rancid mixture of whatever that burnt and stung. Tears had filled his eyes, but he could do nothing. Life at the smithy was far, far better than his very first steps outside the safety of Stannin. It was terrible outside. He regretted his decision to follow that bastard, the Eldest, that damned fool, that idiot; it was all his fault after all. The Eldest had led him to this, and now Starus was dead, and he was alive, and he might as well be dead since he had overheard the adventurers talk about the profit they would make selling the eight of them into slavery. He knew they were done for when he'd seen other children like him.

Of course, to call them eight was really just an estimate since Miyar did not know how many were still alive. Perhaps there were more. It was pointless to think of such things since Starus was dead, and he did not know what to do anymore. If only he had some clue of how to escape, but those adventurers would kill him the moment he tried. If only he could do something, hide somewhere perhaps. But where on Earth could he hide in the Iron Hills? This, after all, was the Great Wide Open that he had always wished to see.
____