Chapter 40: Alliance of Slaves

  The feeding frenzy subsides, leaving us scattered across the platform in various states of satiation and exhaustion. My stomach feels uncomfortably full, but the warmth spreading through my limbs tells me the sacrifice was worth it.

  Gorvash sprawls beside me, his breathing finally steady. The gray pallor is leaving his scales and slowly being replaced by something closer to his normal copper hue. He catches my eye and grins, blood from the fish staining his teeth.

  "Feel better?" he asks.

  "Less like dying," I admit. "You?"

  "Same." He flexes his shoulders experimentally, wincing as the broken bones grind. "Arms are useless though."

  "I know. Give me a few more minutes to recover, then I'll help you set them properly."

  Kor'ik cautiously approaches us, his intelligent eyes study me with undisguised curiosity, and I can practically see the calculations happening behind that amphibian face.

  "That was... impressive," he says carefully. "In the arena, your strength."

  Here it comes. The questions I've been dreading.

  "Just some excess energy from evolving." I reply, keeping my tone neutral. "But it hurts. A lot."

  "I imagine it would." He settles nearby, his webbed hands folding in his lap. "But the power you displayed... It was unlike anything I’ve seen. Even the strongest warriors in the Frogmen breeding programs don't grow so large, that quickly."

  Gorvash perks up at this, his earlier exhaustion temporarily forgotten. "Yes! Brother, how did you do it? Did you summon the Spirit of the Ancestors?"

  I suppress a sigh. Of course Gorvash would interpret it through a supernatural lens, viewing my transformation as some kind of secret mystical power.

  "It's not..." I start, then pause, considering my words carefully.

  I can't reveal the System. That knowledge would make no sense for either of them, aside from being too dangerous. Someone could try to exploit or kill me for it, both undesirable outcomes, to say the least.

  But I need some explanation, something that satisfies their curiosity without revealing the truth.

  "I have no idea." I say slowly, pretending obliviousness rather than trying to come up with some half-baked lie. "I only know it burns life force to fuel some temporary strength."

  Gorvash's eyes widen. "Like the raging warriors of old stories? Those who traded years of life for moments of power?"

  "Maybe something like that." I gesture at my battered body, the torn scales and deep bruising. "But you saw the price. This isn't sustainable power."

  "But you survived," Kor'ik points out. "And grew stronger from it. That evolution you experienced, you're a full Lizardman now, yes?"

  There's something calculating in his tone and an edge I don't like. He's already thinking about how to exploit this information, how to position himself advantageously with this knowledge.

  "Yes," I admit, because denial would be pointless. "I evolved during the fight. But that's normal, isn't it? Combat often triggers evolution."

  "Not during combat," Kor'ik corrects. "After. When the body has time to process and adapt. What you did... growing mid-battle like that... highly unusual."

  "Yet it happened." I meet his eyes steadily. "Maybe Lizardmen have different rules. Or maybe I'm just lucky."

  "Or maybe you're special." Gorvash's voice carries genuine awe. "Like the great warriors of legend. Like Ksh'zar himself."

  The name sends a chill through me. Ksh'zar, the Hydra, the previous anomaly who nearly destroyed his own people through unchecked growth and hunger. A cautionary tale about power without control if there ever was one.

  Kor'ik has an even stronger reaction to the name, his entire body going rigid. His bulging eyes narrow to slits, and when he speaks, his voice carries a venom I haven't heard from him before.

  "Do not speak that name so casually," he hisses. "Among my people, The Hydra is not a legend but a nightmare made flesh. The Devourer. The Endless Hunger." His webbed hands clench. "Your people may remember him as a great warrior, but the Frogmen remember the villages he consumed, the thousands who died for his ambition. He was an abomination, a curse upon the world itself."

  The hatred in his words is palpable. The Hydra must be the ultimate nemesis in Frogmen culture.

  And I have little idea of how Ksh'zar's story has been shared among the Lizardmen, surely much different from the point of view of Magba, who lived through it, but enough to know that they view him as a legendary being.

  I should feign ignorance for now.

  I do not know about any legendary warrior, but this technique has limits," I continue, returning to my fabricated explanation. "I can't do it often. Maybe only once every few days, maybe even less. I also feel that using it too much could be dangerous or even…." I let the sentence hang, unfinished but clear.

  "You die," Gorvash finishes.

  That seems to satisfy them, at least partially. Gorvash looks thoughtful, probably weighing whether such a technique would be worth learning despite the risks. Kor'ik's calculating expression suggests he's filing the information away for future use.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  But both accept my explanation, which is what matters.

  "I’ll get some rest," Kor'ik says eventually, rising to his feet. "The Gnolls will need to recover as well but the leader is unstable. We should be ready to move if ordered."

  He's right, though just the thought of more travel makes my newly-repaired muscles ache preemptively. But first, I need to address something more immediate.

  "Gorvash," I say, pushing myself into a sitting position. "Your arms. We need to set them properly."

  The warrior looks down at his broken limbs, then back at me. "You know how?"

  "Workers' lives can also be dangerous. I've had some experience," I reply, which is technically true. My human education included some first aid training, though nothing as extensive as what's needed here. "I can't guarantee perfect results, but it's better than letting them heal wrong."

  He nods, extending his right arm. The bone beneath the scales shifted significantly, creating a visible deformity. Without proper setting, it will heal crooked, possibly rendering the limb permanently weakened.

  I examine the break carefully, feeling along the bone through his thick scales. It's a clean fracture, at least, not a complex spiral or compound break. That's good. Means less chance of complications.

  "This is going to hurt," I warn.

  "Everything already hurts," he replies with that familiar warrior's grin.

  Brave words, but I see him tense as I position my hands. His copper scales are warm beneath my claws, and I can feel his pulse racing with anticipation of pain.

  "On three," I say, banking on this old trick being unknown in this world. "One... two..."

  I pull on "two" before he can properly brace himself. The bone slides back into alignment with a sickening crunch that makes my own stomach turn. Gorvash roars, a sound of pure agony that echoes across the platform.

  But it worked. The deformity is gone, the bone properly positioned. Now it just needs to stay that way while his natural healing takes effect.

  "Need to splint it," I say, looking around for materials. "Something rigid to keep it immobile."

  Fortunately, there are some broken spear shafts nearby, the wood still solid despite obvious age.

  "Kor'ik, I need strips of cloth or leather. Anything we can use as binding."

  The Frogman reluctantly tears some fabric from his own clothing, sacrificing his already-ragged garments for medical supplies. Together we fashion crude splints, binding Gorvash's arms so the bones can heal straight.

  The warrior endures the process with stoic silence, though I see the way his jaw clenches, the tension in his shoulders. Only when we've finished, does he allow himself a small exhale of relief.

  "Thank you, brother," he says quietly.

  "Don't thank me yet. Wait until we see if they heal properly."

  "They will." His certainty is absolute.

  The simple faith in those words catches me off guard. When did I become someone others could believe in? The frail scientist who died, devoured by a giant lizard certainly never inspired such confidence.

  But I'm not that person anymore. Haven't been for a while now.

  Movement at the platform's edge draws my attention. Silent Frogman is examining his own injury, the shattered leg that's kept him mostly immobile since the guardian's blow.

  I move closer to him and try to treat his broken leg the same I did with Gorvash's arms. The injury is worse than I initially thought, with a few bones partially crushed.

  "This will be more difficult," I warn him, though I'm not sure if he understands.

  He simply nods, those intelligent eyes watching me with the same calm I've seen throughout our captivity. No fear or hesitation there.

  The process is brutal. Unlike Gorvash's clean breaks, this requires careful manipulation of multiple fragments that I've definitely never trained for.

  The Silent Frogman's only reaction is a slight tensing of his jaw, his webbed hands gripping the platform's edge hard enough to leave impressions in the stone.

  I work as quickly as I can, aligning what I can feel through his rubbery amphibian skin. It's far from perfect, but better than letting it heal in this mangled state. More improvised splints, more torn fabric, and finally it's done.

  He doesn't respond at first, just inclines his head slightly. Then, to my surprise, he speaks. A single word in heavily accented but clear Lizardtongue.

  "Thanks."

  The Frogman's voice is deep, resonant, carrying authority even this beaten and hurt. This is the first time I've heard him speak any language besides his native tongue, the first time he's made any effort to communicate across species barriers.

  Kor'ik nearly chokes on his own food, his bulging eyes going wide with shock. So even he hadn't known the Silent Frogman could speak other languages.

  "You can understand us?" the translator asks in Frogman, his voice pitched high with surprise.

  Another nod. Then, with obvious effort, more words in Lizardtongue. "Understand... Speak... not much."

  "How long?" Kor'ik demands. "How long have you understood?"

  "Always." The word comes with what might be a smile, though it's hard to tell with Frogman facial structure.

  The implications are staggering. This warrior we'd assumed couldn't communicate beyond gestures and his native language has been comprehending our conversations all along. Every discussion, every plan, every moment we thought private, he'd heard it all.

  "Why not speak before?" I ask.

  His bulging eyes fix on me. "Not worthy."

  So, he clearly deemed us previously not worthy of his attention or words. There appears to be some background there.

  And now he's revealing this to repay his debt and as a show of respect.

  Kor'ik recovers from his shock, though his expression remains complex. "Well," he says eventually, "this changes things. If you can communicate, that makes cooperating and planning easier."

  “We need to deal with the slave brand first." The Silent Frogman returns to his own language and points to his scarred mark. “Expensive things. If the owner dies, every marked one shares his fate.”

  Damn it! This makes the situation even more difficult than it already is. “And do you know how to deal with them?” I ask hopefully.

  He simply shakes his head. “Not here,” he replies.

  So, there's nothing we can do for now.

  The five of us, two Lizardmen, two Frogmen, and one Goblin formed an unlikely alliance forged in blood and desperation. We're damaged, exhausted, and bound by magical chains we don't fully understand.

  But we're also survivors.

  We need to keep Hynnal alive until we can find something capable of removing these brands and valuable enough that the pack doesn't simply dispose of us. And we need to be ready to act when opportunity presents itself.

  The platform's cold stone presses against my battered scales, but for the first time since my capture, I feel something other than helpless rage. A sense of camaraderie and bond that might be enough to push us through this hell.