Interlude SS [7.5] Friends Find Each Other Part 2

At a certain point the days bled together, Julie doesn’t know when it happened. When servival out weighed the humiliation. When she started eating more regularly, even if she hated every bite. The stale bread always tasted just a step away from mold, and either as hard as a rock or soggy to the point it barely held itself together. But she chewed, swallowed, and forced her body to stop trembling. She could feel her limbs regaining strength, her thoughts clearing bit by bit, as if she were slowly waking from a long, cold freeze.

At some point she started talking more too; she didn’t know when it started. She tried to stay to herself but Thesis was persistent. At first, it was short sentences, but eventually full stories crept in, uninvited but unstoppable. Mat came up a lot. Whether in guilt because she didn’t save him or in anger that he got away when she didn’t she couldn’t tell. No, she wasn’t angry. She couldn’t be.

“He was stupid rich,” Julie said one evening as they huddled near the back of their cage. “Didn’t act like it, though. Said he was sick of marble floors and forced manners. He used to sneak out of state dinners and hang out in the kitchen with the staff. Said it was more real down there.”

From outside the bars, a gnoll male let out a low snort. “Pfft. Marble floors, yes? Sounds like good trade meat. If This one finds him we will trade him too?” 

“Shut up,” Julie muttered, too tired to even look at him.

The gnoll cackled in response, lips pulling back to reveal jagged teeth. “Hah. This female got bite still. Good, good. Broken ones sell cheap.” He thumped a nearby cage with the butt of his spear. “Eat faster, softskins. client’s not pay for skin and bone.”

They went quiet until his footsteps padded away.

“You think he’s alive?” Thesis asked quietly.

“I don’t know.” Julie picked at the last of the bread crust. “But if he is… he’d come looking for us. For me. Infernal planes, with how much money he has he probably already hired a whole damn mercenary troop to find us.”

Thesis nodded solemnly, then turned his attention to the ceiling of their cage. “He sounds like a good friend.”

“He was… shit, I mean he is!” Julie’s throat tightened. “I should’ve fought harder.”

Later, during a lull in conversation while they listened to the gnolls argue over something in their gravel-thick language, Julie turned to Thesis.

“How old are you?” she asked, squinting at him. “You look my age but how are you this calm all the time? This isn’t normal.”

Thesis shrugged, brushing matted hair from his face. “I’m fifty-three.”

“What? No stop joking,” Julie said. “Seriously, how old are you?”

“Elves age differently than humans,” he said, sheepish now. “To my people they treat me like I’m still a teenager.”

“So, I've been getting life advice from the elf equivalent of a magical toddler?” Julie said the hint of a smile.

“Better than starving to death, right?” Thesis quipped.

Before Julie could reply, another gnoll male came by, this one dragging a splintered crate with a clatter. He shoved it against the bars and began slapping down hunks of meat and hard biscuits.

“Eat, little things. Alpha say keep you breathing. No wasting meat. That includes you.” He jabbed a claw toward a girl in another cage who hadn’t moved in hours. “Dead ones get fed to the dogs.”

Julie bristled. She wanted to say something. To use her magic to smash the gnoll’s head in with a rock. Pay them back for every cruelty, every injustice, every life they had taken. But she set her jaw and bit her tongue. It wasn’t time to find a hill to die on.

The gnoll moved to Thesis’s side of the cage. He had a smile on his face as he grabbed the edge and leaned it on its side quickly so Thesis slid towards him. He looked Thesis in the eyes and smiled viciously. 

“Elf thing still talking, hmm?” The gnoll said. “Should sew your mouth shut. Would fetch better price as decoration.”

Thesis didn’t answer. He just stared ahead looking the gnoll in the eyes with unshakable resolve. The gnoll sneered and dropped the cage causing Thesis to lose his balance and fall over. The gnoll cackles with laughter. Before walking, turn to walk off.

Julie waited until the gnoll stalked off again before whispering, “You alright?”

“I think I’m getting used to being insulted by things that smell like burnt fur and wet socks.”

Julie let out a huff of air. Not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh, but close enough. Eventually, she smiled. Just a little.

***

Julie had heard the name before. Whispers from other cages, muttered between battered lips but she had never seen the leader of the gnoll caravan, Nanavil. The gnolls had a matriarchal society so the leaders were expected to be female. They were also the bigger, more domantiant and violent of the two sexes. Nanavil was the epitome of what a female gnoll aspired to be.

The alpha, the strongest, the warrior amongst followers. But hearing a name was one thing. Seeing her was something else entirely. One miserable day it started with cheers from the gnolls when they received a letter by carrier hawk. Even in their harsh tongue slaves heard the name spoken between members of the gnolls.

It was a wave of dread that settled over the captured people. Even Thesis was unusually quiet. It wasn’t until just a few hours before sunset that a pack of gnoll warriors entered the camp. Pulling chains of bound people like trophies after a hunt.

Not long after that the cage door shrieked open without warning, and a pair of gnoll males dragged Julie out by the arms, her heels scraping through dust and blood. Before she could find her footing, a shadow fell over her.

Nanavil stood over seven feet tall, her fur streaked with ash and ochre warpaint. Her ears were pierced with bits of bone and twisted bronze. Her eyes glowed with the sick, manic joy of a creature that enjoyed breaking things. At that moment Julie must have looked very, very breakable.

“This one,” Nanavil growled, “Pretty. Not too skinny.”

“She is a mage, yes?” A timid male gnoll at her side said. “This one is please.”

“Maybe. She move her fingers wrong, this one breaks them. Mages weak.” Nanavil snorted.

The male huffed a laugh. “Keep her breathing. Mage blood fetches gold.”

Julie didn’t speak. She didn’t move. Her heart slammed in her chest like a caged bird.

“Get up,” Nanavil snarled, yanking her to her feet by the hair. “Tonight, you serve. Dance. Pour. Smile. Or this one take teeth for every mistake.”

***

Nanavil presence in the camp brought a new torment for the captives. For some reason Julie had become a target of her attention. Anytime she wanted entertainment they always brought the ‘mage girl’. They would make games out of her torment. The games were never pleasant.

The gnolls part took of drink, drugs and sex constantly. They shouted and threw bones at each other while smoke choked the air and meat burned over open flames.  

Julie was made to dance, awkward and stiff, under threat of the whip. The music was nothing more than a drumbeat made from a hollow skull and some deranged rhythm beaten into it by one of the gnoll pups. Yes, their children were just as cruel and corrupt as their parents.

“Faster, little mouse!” Nanavil barked from her throne of bones. “You dance like corpse! Make this one feel something or this one rip off your ears and feed them to your elf!”

***

Days came and went but the games only became more cruel. The worst was the knife game because if she flinched, well it was better to just take the knife than to finch. They balanced a rotten fruit on her head and laughed. A gnoll threw the first blade. It hit wide, slicing her arm. Blood soaked her sleeve. It wasn’t the first miss and it wouldn’t be the last.

“Stand still!” Nanavil bellowed, storming toward her. “You flinch again, this one cut out your eyes and make you stand still!”

Julie bit her tongue hard enough to taste blood. She didn’t move; she looked at Nanavil with the eyes of someone that would never flinch again. It made the gnoll laugh and this time she took the knife. From the gnoll that was throwing.

The gnoll inspected it, then twirled it between her fingers. Then casually threw the knife, it grazed her ear the feeling of blood  and the thud near her head was nothing new. She kept her gaze on the towering gnoll. The second knife scraped her side. The third hit the fruit. 

The crowd cheered, but Nanavil quickly silenced them. She picked up another throwing knife and someone went to replace the fruit but she stopped them too. She looked Julie in the eyes and threw the knife gain this one hitting her in the thigh. 

Julie screamed as the pain exploded in her leg and she fell one knee. The cheering continued as the gnoll matriarch walked over to Julie. The massive beast grabbed her chin, claws digging into her skin. 

“Maybe you live to be sold. If you keep being fun.” Nanavil said.

***

Every day, it was something new. A new humiliation. A new threat. And always the knowledge that it could get worse. One night, Julie poured wine… or what she could only assume was supposed to be wine. It was thick, fermented, and disgusting. When she Nanavil’s cup it was too slow for her liking. The alpha gnoll backhanded her across the face.

She fell with at thud holding back tears.

“You get lazy,” Nanavil hissed. “Maybe this one should break one leg. Make you crawl next time.”

Julie didn’t answer but she nodded. She was too busy coughing, tasting copper. Nanavil leaned down, close enough for Julie to smell her breath—meat, bile, and rot.

“Nanavil knows you talk to the elf,” she whispered, claws trailing down Julie’s cheek. “You like him, yes?  This one could feed him to the pups. Let them pull him apart slow. Or… maybe this one cuts off his tongue so he talk less sweet.”

Julie flinched.

“Ah, there it is.” Nanavil grinned, sharp and cruel. “Fear. Good.”

Her mate’s voice cut through the din, lazy but firm. “Enough damage and the mage might be useless. Waste of coin. Waste of food we spend on her, yes?”

Nanavil rolled her eyes but stepped back. She nuzzled her mate then walked past him.

“Yes, yes. Always the gold with you.” She pointed a claw at Julie. “Next time she stumbles, though? Her spine becomes a belt.”

Julie crawled back to the corner of the compound that night, half-blind with pain. Thesis was waiting, hands curled around the bars.

“I’m fine,” she rasped before he could speak. “I’m still breathing.”

Thesis didn’t smile. He just looked at her. Quiet. Angry. And scared. For both of them.