As promised, here’s the next chapter in the fanfiction I set in the world of Conan the Barbarian!
In case you missed it, here’s a link to the first chapter!
And now, on to Chapter Seven!
Charging forward, Kesisa swung her chain at one of the remaining two mercenaries on the Ear. The metal scraped across the chain mail on his back but did not harm the man underneath. In retaliation, the man rose from his task of cutting the rope ladder. He swung his blade at Kesisa. She used her chain to block the blow and turned them around once more.
The blow knocked the man from the outcropping and to his presumed death below.
The last mercenary looked after his fallen comrade, then to Kesisa. With a battle cry that failed to scare Kesisa in the least, he charged and swung his scimitar. His blade met the steel of Kesisa’s chain. She swung back at him, slamming the chain into his left arm.
Before the man could attack again, Kesisa brought the chain around to the other side, striking his side with such force she pushed him off the outcropping.
The head of a slave popped up from the western ladder. Kesisa said, “Get up here! Prepare to pull up the weight of a woman!”
“The one day!” Abdibaal yelled, his high-pitched voice nearly hoarse with fury, “The one day I come here to personally supervise you prove I picked the wrong man to run the Red Pit!”
“With respect, sir,” Shiruk said with little respect in his voice, “let me deal with the problem, and then you can berate me all you –”
“Enough of you!” Abdibaal said. He turned to the Stygian near the cage. “Release him!”
The Stygian swallowed and cast a nervous glance at the cage. “But he hasn’t eaten. He could –”
Abdibaal charged over to the Stygian and got in its face. “There are plenty of things for him to eat coming up the damned wall! Release him!”
Looking away from his master, the Stygian nodded and turned back to the cage. He pulled a small necklace with a variety of attached keys from underneath his chainmail shirt. The keys matched the many locks on the cage’s door.
As he set to work on the locks, the Stygian couldn’t help but notice how both Abdibaal and Shiruk moved a safe distance away from him and the cage.
Upon unlocking the next-to-last lock, the Mighty A’ghama inside slammed against the cage bars. The Stygian dropped the remaining unused key. Hurriedly he scooped it up and gingerly slid it into the last lock.
Before he could turn the key, the beast inside slammed against the door. The now open door knocked the Stygian to his feet. He turned in time to see the head of a lizard-like beast pressing through the cage’s opening.
The beast — the Mighty A’ghama — leaped on the Stygian before the man could scream. The beast’s claws tore through chain mail. Its head thrust down as its teeth sought flesh.
Shiruk turned away from the carnage. Abdibaal reveled in it.
It took some convincing, but Kesisa positioned the six slaves with her at the rope ladders. Down below, Runi and Asthara had tied themselves to the rope of the ladders. Kesisa had the slaves haul up the ladders in unison, pulling the women slowly up the rock face.
Then more spears rained down upon the Eunuch’s Ear. Two of the slaves working the eastern ladder from which Runi swung took spears to their torsos. The pain caused them to fall from the outcropping. Kesisa dashed over and helped the remaining slave steady the ladder, preventing Runi from going down with the slaves.
“Pull like a life depends on it!” Kesisa insisted.
She and the slaves continued to pull the other women up to the Ear. Luckily, no other spears assailed them, a fact that worried Kesisa. She doubted the mercenaries had run out of ranged weapons, nor would they merely wait for the slaves to ascend to their deaths by scimitars. Had they some other means of disposing of the slaves before they reached the surface?
As the women neared the Ear, Kesisa got her answer — in the form of a horrifying beast!
The orange-hued creature had a scaled hide as thick as armor. Dozens of teeth lined its impossibly long and wide mouth. Each of its four feet ended in five sharp claws. Its tail, as long as a man, ended in a ball of hardened flesh.
The creature scaled the western wall from the ground level and maneuvered toward the slaves still climbing that side of the pit.
“Move it, men! Or be the food of a beast!” Kesisa yelled. She wasn’t sure if the better option was to climb down and away from the beast. It would get to them either way; she decided it best to stand and fight here. She turned her attention to helping Runi onto the outcropping,
The slaves had other ideas.
Frightened by the beast, the slaves abandoned the western ladder. They raced for the safety of a cave carved out of the wall near the outcropping. Asthara leaped from the rope but failed to grab the outcropping. Her eyes widened at the prospect of the fall.
Kesisa leaped to her aid, grabbing Asthara’s wrist as she slammed prone on the ground.
The climbing slaves proved of stronger nerve than their brethren now hidden in the cave. They tried to maneuver to avoid the descending orange beast. Two of them proved not so fortunate. The beast knocked one man off the rocks and to his death below. The other man got scooped into its cavernous maw.
Appearing sated, the beast ascended to the ground level where it would stop to enjoy its meal.
Runi moved to assist Kesisa and Asthara. Soon, all three women stood upon the Eunuch’s Ear. The mercenaries had pulled up the ropes they’d used to descend to this location. It’d be another short climb to the top.
Unfortunately, another set of mercenaries — at least the three archers — waited for them there.
The beast could also prove a fierce adversary.
“Well, we didn’t climb all this way to give up now,” Asthara said.
“Are you two up for this?” Kesisa asked. “No ladder to support you.”
“And let a kid show me up?” Runi said, playfully pushing Kesisa’s shoulder. The effort made her grimace from the stress on her wound.
“I remind you that at least half of the dead are by this kid’s hand,” Kesisa said. Tightening the chain that bound her wrists, she added, “I intend to add many more to that total.”
The three women looked to the ground level above. They saw no signs of the mercenaries they knew to be there. Nevertheless, they had no choice but to do the final climb out of the Red Pit.
That’s it for this one!
To tide you over until the next chapter, check out some of my other fanfiction.
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Until next time!
