433 - Prompt

[sionnach]

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
- Do You Hear the People Sing; Les Miserables

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[samararaine]

Prompt 433:

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
~Do You Hear the People Sing; Les Miserables~

He slammed the door behind him and leant against it. Frantically, he tried to catch his breath. He could hear his former slaves baying for his blood as the Aristians raided the city. Freed from their bonds, he had been convinced the docile young things would rush to their saviors and allow themselves to be carried off to the waiting caravans, but such was not the case. They'd turned on him. Picking up chunks of debris from burning houses and shattered gates, they'd screamed their hatred to the flame-filled sky and charged him. the young females he had forced to serve his people were out for revenge. If they were anything like the males of their race, he knew they would not rest until they had it.

He'd had no choice but to run under the onslaught. For all his faults, he would not slay a mere girl. Escaping was a simple matter of remaining one step ahead of them long enough for the Aristians to realize their females needed controling. The fact they had not yet seen fit to assert their dominence only feuled his conviction that the Assassins of the Black Mask knew nothing of how to handle the fairer sex.

"Down here!"

His eyes widened as he heard the countless patter of bare feet on stone. Leaping across the room, he slammed into the solid oak wardrobe beside the fire. Wrestling it away from the wall, he heaved it against the door. Once he had deemed that entrance impenetrable, he turned toward the now empty space beside the mantlepiece and the hidden passage beyond.

Striking out across the floor, he tripped over something lying in the shadows. Cursing, he reached down and groped along the stones until his hand came into contact with something soft.

An Aristian warrior lay before him, clearly a captured prize for one of his men. Her tunic had been torn from one shoulder, her wrists lashed tightly behind her back. Her ankles were similarly bound. Gagged and blindfolded, she struggled in her bonds, desperately attempting to free herself. He could only assume she was intent upon joining her sisters in tearing his heart out before returning to her home in the western mountains.

He glared down at her, hating her for what her people had done. He had been shamed by his own inability to slay the ungreatful wenches hunting him. His city was in ruins and his subjects scattered or dead. He didn't consider for one moment that it had been his own actions that had precipitated this destruction. He did not believe he was wrong.

But he needed to blame someone, and the helpless female at his feet was the perfect scapegoat for all his fury. She would pay for his humiliation. She would pay dearly.

Seizing her around the waist, he flung her over his shoulder. He smiled maliciously as he heard the breath woosh out of her with the abrupt movement. Once she was secure, he continued to the mantlepiece.

Removing a lantern, he deftly lit it before turning his attention to the smooth stone. Reaching out a hand, he felt along the groove between the fireplace and the wall. When his fingers skimmed over a tiny knot, he pressed.

There was a harsh grating sound as a panel of stone slid aside, revealing a dark doorway through which he easily stepped. Sealing the passage via a second knot, he raised the lantern and set off through the tunnels that made up his city's internal system. Ignoring all the turns that would take him toward the surface, he instead moved downward where the darkness was thickest and the isolation complete.