Clink. Clink. Clink.

The sound of chains rattling and clanking against each other filled the air around Beltran like smog, stretching off into the distance both backwards and forwards. Hundreds of metal rings linked together, stretching from collar to collar, binding the line of dozens of dragonite together by their necks. Beltran’s eyes were locked ahead, lest he get yelled at by one of the War Tribe guards riding on mudsdale alongside the parade of slaves, so he could only make out the dragonite marching in front of him: a giant of a man, his bright orange scales glittering with youthful lustre wherever the sun struck them. 

That man was Mateo, his older brother. His antennae drooped low, as would his wings, were they not bound together with leather cord behind his back. A once-noble man now brought to heel and treated no better than a common dog. They’d at least allowed him to keep his clothes, though his fine linen shirt and pants were now so torn and filthy that they only contributed to his downtrodden appearance. Beltran hadn’t even been that lucky, finding himself naked as the day he was born, save for his restraints.

“Mateo,” Beltran said, and he could feel his throat rustle like dry parchment. They’d been walking for days in the hot summer sun, and water was only rationed out when they stopped to rest. One drag from a waterskin, only for it to be yanked away a second later and then passed along to the next thirsty traveller, barely enough to wet his mouth. Beltran was surprised he was able to talk at all.

“Mmh.” Mateo’s hum of acknowledgement was barely even audible, the only other sign that he’d even heard Beltran being a slight twitch of an antenna. Probably for the best. If they got too loud, they’d probably attract attention, and that was the last thing either of them wanted.

“Did you—” Beltran started, only to find his words cut short by a coughing fit. It’d been days since the raid, but the smoke still stuck in his lungs. Thankfully, there was no blood coming up, so he dared to hope that it would pass eventually. That all this would pass. After he’d regained his breath, he continued. “Did you see where Elena went?”

Mateo’s pace slowed for a moment before he was jerked forward by the collar around his neck, stumbling a few steps to catch up. No words came from his mouth, but Beltran could tell from the way his tail flicked back and forth along the ground that he was hiding something.

“Mateo.” Beltran’s voice was pleading, whiny, just the right tone to push Mateo into answering something he didn’t want to answer. It was a trick he’d used plenty of times in the past, and judging from the way Mateo’s claws clenched up at the sound of it, it was working just as well now.

“She’s alive. She fled to the east with some of the others.” Mateo’s voice was even, but his tail didn’t stop flicking, kicking up little clouds of dust. A lie. Beltran didn’t push further; he knew what’d happened to Elena.

They’d marched in silence after that, conversation replaced by the rattle of chains, the endless pounding of feet on dirt, and the occasional crack of a whip against the air or, just as often, a back. Over the past five days, they’d discussed it all. They’d lamented the invasion of the War Tribe. They’d cried over the loss of friends, family, loved ones. Sometimes, they’d even laughed together, their stifled giggles always accompanied by fear of alerting the whip-wielding guards mere feet away.

Those times were past. There were no more tears to cry, no more dark jokes to crack, no more things to be said. All they could do was march on and hope that they’d get to wherever they were being taken to soon. After all, it couldn’t be any worse than this.

Dear Arceus, please don’t let it be worse than this.

---

It took another three days to get there. By the end of it, Beltran’s lips were as cracked and dry as his feet. Every part of him ached, his wings, his shoulders, his legs, and his stomach. Especially his stomach. With how dry his tongue was, he could hardly manage to swallow the few scraps that the guards gave him to eat.

But whenever it felt like it was too much to handle, like he was going to pass out under the sun and become yet another Sea Tribe corpse littering the lands that once belonged to them, he looked at his brother. Mateo, looking almost untouched from all the suffering, save for the filthy rags he wore. He couldn’t die yet.

He couldn’t leave Mateo alone.

Eventually, they saw it. As they mounted a hill and looked down onto the valley bellow, Beltran could see a fort of a scale beyond anything he’d ever encountered in his life. Tents and small huts of untreated wood spilled out across the ground like creeping vines, canvas walls crisscrossing between them and dividing the base up into so many segments. Giant wood spikes stretched up around the perimeter, a palisade wall large enough to keep out anything short of a siege engine.

Beltran thought back to his childhood, when he’d been taken to see the armies of his own tribe. Their forts were fancier than this, sure; they’d had high stone walls, parapets and all, an archer standing guard every five feet. They were works of fine craftsmanship, every one of them, more than able to hold their own against an invading force twice as strong.

But that was just it. From the size of this place, their forces weren’t twice as strong as the Sea Tribe’s, but closer to tenfold. There had to be enough soldiers in there to take the Sea Tribe’s capital by sheer numbers alone, and this was only one fort. How many bases like this were there?

Beltran was jerked out of his reverie as the collar around his neck yanked him forward, sending him staggering in an effort to keep pace with the rest of the caravan. While he moved forward, he could feel his collar tug again, this time backwards, accompanied by a guttural noise from the dragon behind him. Apparently, they’d been going through the same realisation that he was.

An odd sensation ran down his cheek. Beltran raised a claw to his face, and when he drew it back, it was wet.

Huh. He thought he’d run out of tears half a week ago. Life was full of surprises.

---

As they were led forward towards the camp, the mumbling of the slaves fell away and was replaced by an anxious silence, broken only by a few hushed whispers. Tension was in the air, eagerness to finally stop marching mixing with dread at where they were marching to. Still, nobody dared step out of line. The War Tribe guards on either side of them made sure of that.

They were brought to a halt just a few feet outside the gate, one of the guards barking out an order for them to stop. Some of them sighed in relief, but most of them didn’t make a sound, filled with apprehension for what awaited them just behind those walls. Beltran’s eyes jumped from one War Tribesman to the next, taking in the sight of them. Every one of them was armoured, from the two guarding the gate outfitted in full panoply to what looked like a courier moving towards them, helmet shining in the sunlight while he struggled with a huge ceramic hydria.

Beltran could hear the water sloshing inside, but now, his thirst was the last thing on his mind. His mouth was dry, but it was for an entirely different reason.

“Slaves!” They heard him before they saw him. A deep, booming voice, loud enough to carry over the walls of the camp, through the din of soldiers, and out into the plains beyond. The sound of metal plates clanking against each other got louder, accompanied by pounding of feet that sounded more like a snorlax’s than a dragonite’s.

When he walked through the gate, every set of eyes was on him, both the slaves’ and the guards’. The line of chained dragonite just stood there, staring like frightened deerling, while the War Tribesmen immediately snapped to attention and raised their arms to the sky in salute. Even the courier stopped, setting his cargo down onto the ground before joining the rest of them in the respectful gesture.

He was big. Beltran had thought that Mateo was big, standing a good head over all of his peers, but whoever this was towered over even his older brother by what had to be at least a foot and a half. He had the muscles to match, arms thick enough to rival tree trunks. Near every inch of him was covered with steel plating, decorated with gold trim, just a hint of red velvet showing through the seams. Practically all he could see of the dragonite underneath all that armour were his curiously bare feet and his face, his snout poking out through the front of a bascinet.

Whoever this was, he was definitely important.

“At ease,” the huge dragonite shouted. All of the War Tribesmen relaxed, hands falling from the air as they returned to their duties, whether that was carrying water or gripping weapons to keep unruly slaves in line. With that handled, his gaze returned to the line of chained dragonite, inspecting them. Those eyes lingered on Beltran for only a second, but that was long enough to leave the Sea Tribesman’s shoulders tensed and his claws clenched into fists.

“I am Rowdy, leader of the War Tribe. You will not address me as such. You will call me sir or master. Anything else, and I will have you killed on the spot.” Rowdy marched back and forth in front of the slaves as he spoke, leering down at them. None of them looked up, all of them suddenly quite interested in the dirt beneath their feet.

“My men have laid waste to your lands. Your rulers have been executed, and their armies disbanded. Rather than kill you, we have taken you as slaves.

“This is a privilege. Privileges can be taken away.” Suddenly, Rowdy stopped, coming to a halt before Beltran. He didn’t dare move, head locked in position, bent down with his chin pressed against his neck. His world had suddenly grown a lot smaller, everything disappearing but the brutally clawed feet of the warlord in front of him.

Beltran held his breath, making his peace, prepared for his life to end right then and there. Yet it seemed fate had other plans.

Rowdy’s hand snapped out and grabbed the neck of the dragonite that’d been marching behind Beltran, throwing them to the ground. From the high-pitched yelp of surprise they let out, Beltran figured that they had to be a female. The chain linking their necks together jerked and pulled him down as well, forcing him onto his hands and knees, a position which gave him an up-close view of everything that was about to happen.

The warlord’s bare foot lifted before he brought it down with no small amount of force onto the girl’s head, the worried noises coming out of her mouth cut off by a sharp yip of pain. She started to struggle, but as the pointed claws of Rowdy’s foot pressed dangerously into the side of her neck, she became as stiff as a board. Even the subtle rise and fall of her chest stopped, apparently afraid that even breathing might draw her new master’s ire.

“Lick.” Past the soles pressing down against her cheek, Beltran could make out the face of the girl on the ground. Her eye that wasn’t forced shut by the pressure of Rowdy’s foot was shot open, bugging out of her skull with fear, and her antennae were pressing against the warlord’s leg like they could somehow lift the weight of the enormous dragonite if they tried hard enough.

But the one part of her that Rowdy was interested in was still, her mouth shut firmly against the heel grinding against the side of her snout. Her inaction, whether it was out of fear or defiance, had the same result. Rowdy shifted more of his weight onto the leg pressing down against her head, crushing her face into the ground so strongly that Beltran wondered if her skull would cave in under the dragonite’s bulk.

“Lick,” Rowdy commanded again, his tone the same harsh and commanding one he’d used before, but still without a hint of anger. Beltran knew why: if he showed anger, that was leverage that his slaves could use against him. He was showing them that even if they rebelled, they wouldn’t get so much as a profane word out of him. All they’d get was punishment.

The girl must’ve come to the same conclusion, if not in so many words, because her lips began to part. Rowdy’s foot immediately pushed its way into the opening she provided him, forcing it open until his callused heel was grating against the soft interior of her mouth. Her tongue slipped out around it, sliding up nervously to lap at his ankle.

“I expect obedience from all of my slaves. You are to follow every one of my orders to the letter, and the same goes for my men.” As Rowdy spoke, he pulled his foot down along the face of the dragonite underneath him, dragging his heel along her chin and out of her mouth before replacing it with his toes.  Her face was twisted in disgust, eyes shut tight against the tears that threatened to spill out, but her tongue still ran dutifully along each of the claws that’d taken up residence in her mouth.

“I demand no less of you than complete compliance. If I order you to be silent, you will do so. If I order you to please me, you will do so.” The ring of steel sliding against steel filled the air as he drew a sword from a sheath on his hip. “If I order you to die, you will do so.”

He slipped his toes out of the girls mouth and returned his foot to the side of her head, bracing himself against it while he aligned the edge of his sword with her neck. “Say ‘thank you, master.’ ” His tone was almost conversational, a stark contrast to the look of outright panic that’d etched itself into the features of the girl he was standing on.

“T-thank you, mas—” She didn’t even get a chance to finish her sentence before the swish of Rowdy’s blade slicing through the air filled Beltran’s ears, lasting less than a second before it was replaced by the sound of metal tearing its way through flesh. Muscles and tendons severed cleanly, bone snapped and splintered under the sheer force of the blow, and then the earth opened to envelop the tip of his sword. The dragonite girl had time to let out one last gasp before her head was freed from her shoulders, face frozen in a look of horror.

“This woman hesitated to do what I asked.” Yanking his sword out of the ground, Rowdy wiped a mixture of dirt and blood off of its blade onto the shirt of the corpse beneath him, then slid the newly-cleaned weapon back into its sheath. He stepped back and turned away from the body, blood spurting from its neck and pooling on the ground, stopping only to bat away its severed head with his tail. “Now she is dead. Let this be a lesson to all of you.”

Rowdy didn’t turn to face the rest of the slaves. If he had, he’d have been met with a variety of expressions, some terrified, some resigned to their fate, some staring miles off into the distance like they weren’t even there. Beltran fell into the first category, still on all fours next to the body, gaping at it while the blood pooled around his hands.

Once, this was a living being. More than that, they were a dragonite, a dragonite from the same tribe as him. She’d had hopes, dreams, had probably passed him by on the street before. He could even recognize the clothes she was wearing, the same design he’d seen in the shop of the tailor he’d gotten his own clothes from.

But now? Now she was dead, just like Rowdy had said. Snuffed out in a moment. Gone. Beltran looked over to his brother only to see him staring at the body as well, eyes as dull and glassy as those of the severed head on the floor.

“You are here only on my sufferance,” Rowdy said, drawing the attention of everyone but Mateo. “Test me, and that sufferance will become your own.” He flashed some unrecognizable signal to one of the guards with one hand, then walked back through the camp gate, the fresh dead and newly kindled fear the only lingering marks of his presence.

“On your feet,” a voice grunted behind Beltran, and he barely had time to register the command he’d been given before a metal gauntlet clasped around his wings, tugging him to his feet. The collar to his left jerked free of its wearer, no longer having a head to keep it in place, and dangled between Beltran and the next dragonite down the line. 

“You two’re coming with me.” The guard behind him fumbled with the chain, unlinking it from the now-empty collar. Beltran tried to turn his head to see what was going on, only to be rewarded with a backhanded slap from a metal gauntlet and a muttered warning to keep his eyes to himself. Beltran did so, looking straight ahead while trying not to cry from the lingering sting the gauntlet’s rivets had driven into his cheek.

Before long, the guard had undone the chain and now had it wrapped around one hand. He gave it a tug, and Beltran’s neck jerked along with it, drawing a strangled noise from both him and Mateo as their still-joined collars moved as one. Satisfied, the guard turned and started marching east along the perimeter of the camp wall with his two slaves in tow.

Beltran looked over his shoulder at Mateo, marching in lockstep behind him. All they’d been through, and he still looked like the same shiny-scaled giant from his youth. Beltran managed to muster a weak smile, hoping to give some small measure of comfort to his sibling, though he was hoping just as much that he might get some in return.

Mateo smiled back, but his eyes were still sullen, and Beltran could hear his brother’s tail flick behind him.

---

It only took a half hour to reach where they were going, nothing compared to the journey they’d taken to get to the camp itself. A huge cart stacked with cured fish was the first sight to greet them, followed by dozens more piled with all manner of goods. Grain, bolts of fabric, cookery. It all seemed rather mundane to Beltran, and he figured he was going to be used as manual labour, moving supplies for the War Tribe. Some small consolation from above: his home had been razed and he’d been taken as a slave, but at least his work wouldn’t be too demeaning.

But as they worked further into the collection, something caught Beltran’s eye. A pile of bread, laid out neatly along a leather tarp. Initially, it was just out of hunger, but something else kept his attention there. A mark on the top of one of the loaves, shaped like a circle with an arrow running through it. The baker’s mark of the man he used to get his bread from every morning. Everything here had been taken from his tribe as spoils of war.

It was strange. Out of all that’d happened over the past week, he’d hardly expected a loaf of bread to be the thing that sent him over the edge, but he could feel tears streaking down his cheeks before the tarp was even out of sight. It was like up until now, he could pretend that it was only him and Mateo that’d been captured, and the Sea Tribe was still all well and fine.

But they weren’t, and it wasn’t. The War Tribe had taken everything from them. Even their bread.

The guard leading Beltran could hear the Sea Tribesman’s breath hitching with stifled sobs, but he didn’t acknowledge it. Some of the others called him soft, saying that you had to beat that behaviour out of them unless you wanted a weepy workforce, but he disagreed. Not out of any compassion for the slaves, of course—other tribes were fit for two things, serving the War Tribe or being cut down by the War Tribe. It was just a matter of convenience. If you went around smacking every slave that dared to cry, then you’d hardly have time to do anything else. No, it was better to just let them work it out on their own. After all, they typically stopped after their first week or two in the camp.

Assuming they stuck around that long, that is.

Shrugging, he gave a brief tug on the chain, a smile forming at the corners of his mouth when he heard the younger slave’s crying cut short by a choked ‘glrk’. He could do that much, at least. It seemed to work, too; the rest of their march was silent, broken only by an occasional sniffle.

It took only a minute for the guard to find what they were looking for. Between two piles of appropriated silverware laid a stone—an enormous, trapezoidal slab of cut limestone. Its face was covered with carvings, innumerable pictographs no bigger than a walnut crammed together alongside lines of writing.

Beltran stared down at it, watery eyes shooting open wide. He recognized that stone, those carvings. The crude, faded etchings near the top, done in ancient script that he only recognized from readings done with his elders, gradually giving way to fresh inscriptions done in a more modern tongue. A stele, detailing the Sea Tribe’s history dating back to the day of its founding. By the looks of it, it was one of the most ancient ones their tribe had managed to preserve.

As he looked at it, Beltran could feel anger swell in his breast. The War Tribe had taken everything from them, their wealth, their land, even their families. Now they were going so far as to take their history, too? It was too much. He needed to do something, anything, to strike back. With eyes gleaming with passion, he looked back at his brother, furrowing his brow and setting his shoulders in an unspoken call to action.

But when Mateo looked back at him, there was none of that same spark. He was slouched over like an enormous weight rested upon his back, and his face was blank, eyes glazed over and staring right through him. Mateo blinked, and for a moment, his eyes focused on Beltran. The message was received, but the response was far from what he’d hoped. There was no sympathy for his anger there, no solidarity. In Mateo’s eyes, there was only fear. A silent plea for him to reconsider.

Whatever fire had risen in Beltran was extinguished by those wide, terrified eyes. His brother, the same dragonite who’d defended him from bullies in their youth, who’d carried him back to their home from the shore when he’d broken his leg in a boating accident. Courageous Mateo, always willing to lend an arm to those in need, unstoppable. Reduced to no more than a frightened child.

Beltran wanted to grab him by the shoulders, shake some sense back into the spineless coward that his brother had become. But he didn’t. Instead, he turned his head, not wanting Mateo to see the look of disgust that’d come over his face. Disgust at his brother. Disgust at the War Tribe.

Disgust at himself.

A smack from an armoured hand hard enough to leave spots in his vision jerked Beltran out of his thoughts. “Hey. Look alive.” The guard’s tone was mild, like he hadn’t just struck him on the back of the head hard enough to bruise. Like that was something completely normal. He supposed that around here, it was.

Lifting his head, Beltran noticed something that should’ve jumped out at him immediately. Standing across from him on the other side of the slab were five dragonite, three of them clad in torn leather with copper toe and ankle rings, two of them wearing nothing more than hide loincloths that looked like they’d been torn straight off of the backs of whatever pokémon they’d come from.

All of them were wearing the same steel collars. All of them were looking at him and Mateo with complete, utter hatred.

Beltran glared right back at them, returning their contemptuous looks with one of his own. Apparently, the War Tribe had taken slaves from tribes beyond his own. These ones were from the Land Tribe, greedy backstabbers that covered themselves with cheap, gaudy jewellery, and the Grass Tribe, backwards savages that barely had enough self-awareness to cover themselves.

The voice of one of the Land Tribe broke the silence. “So, they finally got around to picking up you fishmongers, eh? Tell me, did they have to clamp that collar around your neck, or did you do that for them, too?” Her two tribe sisters erupted in laughter beside her while she gave Beltran a smug smirk. The duet of high cackles set his teeth on edge.

“You have no right to say such things,” a Grass Tribesman said, cutting in before Beltran had a chance to respond. “Your tribe is as weak and craven as theirs.” His female companion let out a grunt of approval, nodding slightly.

“Weak? [i]Alekpekte![/i] You are nothing more than a—”

“Shut up!” A whip cracked out and snapped across the face of the Land Tribeswoman, cutting her off mid-sentence and stunning the rest of the slaves into silence. Her hands flew up to cover the area, but Beltran could see a painful-looking red welt already forming where it’d hit her. The other two averted their eyes, both out of respect for their tribe sister and fear of being next. The two Grass Tribers said nothing, but had pleased looks on their faces, looks that quickly disappeared when the guard jerked his whip towards them threateningly.

“Rowdy wants this brought to his quarters. You will carry it.” The guard lifted a hand to his face, tapping on his chin while he looked over the collection of slaves. “Hmm, five, six, seven… One-Eye!”

At his summons, loud enough to echo off the walls of the camp, there was a distant sound of something thudding against the ground. Then, footfalls, growing steadily louder as they drew closer. Seconds later, a dragonite turned around the corner, sprinting up to them and leaning down on his knees while he struggled to catch his breath. He was naked, aside from the metal bands around his wrists and ankles, and one of the collars that all the slaves here seemed to wear. More striking, though, was his face; one of his eyes seemed to be closed, but upon closer inspection, his eyelid was sunken in and fused shut. It didn’t take a genius to guess why he was called One-Eye.

“You called, sir?” One-Eye said, forcing the words out between wheezes.

“That side,” replied the guard, jerking a thumb towards Mateo. “Next to the big one.”

“Right away, sir!” One-Eye straightened back up, still huffing and puffing, and scampered over to a stop beside Mateo. The height difference between the two was staggering. He had to be a good foot shorter than Beltran, and next to Mateo, that foot was closer to three. Still, despite his size, he seemed eager to help lift the stele.

“Great, a dwarf, just what we needed,” the Grass Tribesman muttered, quiet enough so that the guard couldn’t hear, but just loud enough for the slaves. One-Eye glanced up, but as soon as he saw the larger dragonite’s eyes boring into him, he snapped his head back down to stare at the ground.

“You’re going to follow me,” the guard said, tapping his coiled whip against his palm idly as he spoke. “Any funny business, and we’ll have seven more One-Eyes running around. Clear?”

Everyone murmured their understanding, sneaking glances at the smaller dragonite. The flesh across his left eye socket was smooth, but now that he was crouched in the shadow of the other dragonite and the glare of the sun on his scales was gone, they could see three faded scars running down across his brow and over where his eye should be. Claw marks.

Beltran could see a shudder run through his brother. Focusing on it helped suppress the mounting unease he felt in his own gut.

“Wonderful. Now lift!”

With eight synchronized grunts of effort, the slaves did as they were told, straining to lift the heavy stone off of the ground. Inch by inch, it began to raise into the air, moving past ankles and knees as the dragonite straightened until they were all standing upright. Some were handling the burden easier than others, Mateo and the Grass Tribesman in particular seeming quite comfortable handling such a heavy load, while Beltran was sure that One-Eye was going to collapse under its weight. Still, he managed to hold up his corner, through sheer willpower if nothing else.

“Got it? Good. This way.” The guard turned and started to make his way back towards the camp gate, and the eight slaves followed, silent aside from the occasional strained groan of someone struggling to pull their weight.

---

The walk to retrieve the stele couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes, but carrying what had to be a thousand pounds of stone made the journey back feel like hours. For all Beltran knew, it very well could’ve been. His arms burned with exertion, and he wanted more than anything to stop for just for a moment and work some life back into his tired muscles.

But he didn’t get the chance. The guard seemed intent on driving them forward as quickly as they could muster, and the other dragonite were either having no problem carrying on at this pace or were afraid of what would happen if they asked for a break. So he pushed on.

Sometimes he could feel his hands shake, threatening to give out. Whenever that happened, Beltran just looked to his right. Just past Mateo, on the far end of the stele, One-Eye struggled to keep his end level. At his height, he had to keep the slab up at his chest to keep it from dipping, nearly touching his chin. It was a mighty effort, and Beltran felt moved to work harder himself whenever he looked at the tiny dragonite’s arms, shaking from the strain of supporting so much weight.

Mostly, though, Beltran stared at his face. At flesh stretched taut over what had to be an empty socket. Whenever the light struck him just right, Beltran could see those faint scars shining, filling his mind with the thought of claws ripping into his face while he screamed and begged for mercy. How that could happen to him. To Mateo.

Whenever he thought of that, the dull ache in his muscles seemed insignificant, at least for a little while.

A dozen feet from the camp gate, Beltran turned his head for more ‘inspiration’, but found he wasn’t met with the familiar smooth flesh he’d grown to expect. Instead, he saw one hazel eye, staring back at him.

“Excuse me,” One-Eye said, and Beltran was so caught off guard that he almost dropped the stele. The other slave wasn’t speaking Common, but Faringese, the native tongue of the Sea Tribe. “Are you from the sea as well?”

Mateo’s antenna twitched at that, but he didn’t turn his head, focused entirely on his labour. Beltran just stared for a moment, barely able to keep enough wits about him to keep moving his feet. One-Eye’s one eye stared back, calm save for the occasional twitch as he exerted himself.

“You’re Sea Tribe?” Beltran whispered, his hushed tone as much from astonishment as to avoid the notice of the guard a scant metre ahead.

“Well, yeah,” One-Eye said, rolling his shoulders in a way that would’ve been a shrug, had his arms not been weighed down by the stele. “Suppose it’s hard to tell without the clothes, isn’t it? They don’t last long around here, it turns out.”

Beltran dearly hoped that was because of wear and tear and not… other reasons. “How long have you been here, exactly?”

“Oh, about a month. They got me when they first pushed over the border. Rest of the town got cut down, but I hid in a root cellar ‘til they passed. Plan was to sneak out, but a scout patrol got me, decided to make an example out of me.”

“Is that how you, y’know…” Beltran trailed off, gesturing vaguely with his head. One-Eye squinted for a moment, before comprehension dawned in his eye.

“Oh, no, no. That’s from when they first caught me trying to run away.” He let out a laugh and the edges of his mouth crept up in a smile, like he was talking about some naughty thing he’d done as a child. The sound made Beltran’s skin crawl. “Believe me, I didn’t try that one twice!”

Beltran wanted to throw up. There was none of the solemnity in his voice that he expected from someone recounting a traumatic event, only that amused, almost wistful tone. Like he enjoyed being here. “W-what is [i]wrong[/i] with you?”

That drove the smile from his face, and he looked at Beltran with an expression that he’d seen precious little of around here. Pity. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“This is your life now. The War Tribe owns you. If you do your job and keep your head down, you keep it attached. So, you got three options. One: go around sulking all the time. Two: accept it and try to make the most of what you’ve got.”

Beltran waited, but One-Eye didn’t continue. He already knew what it was, but…

“Three?”

“Well, I once saw them hang a guy upside-down and—”

“Hey!” One-Eye’s hushed whispering was completely overpowered by one of the Land Tribe women across from them, shouting over them in Common. “How come you’re letting them talk? You whipped Adaoma for talking earlier!”

At the sound of yelling, the guard leading them spun around, brandishing his whip threateningly in front of him. “Shut up!” He took a step towards the group, who had stopped moving at the woman’s outburst, but he made no move to strike. It took Beltran a second to deduce why: he was afraid. Not afraid of an unruly slave, to be sure, but afraid that if he took a swing at any of them, they’d drop the stele. Rowdy’s stele. 

If even being in the War Tribe wouldn’t save him from Rowdy’s punishment if they broke the stele, what would happen to them?

Every eye was locked on the screeching woman, even her tribe sisters, begging her to stop. She didn’t. “I’m not moving another step until you tell me exactly—”

“If you don’t shut up, I am going to rip your wings off,” grumbled the Grass Tribesman next to her, and considering his bulging muscles and the good foot of height he had over the woman, it seemed like a credible threat. She glared up at him, unmoved by his words.

“Oh, is that so?” Without another word, she dropped the stele and sprung, tackling him to the ground.

To Beltran, everything seemed to be in slow motion. With two of the dragonite supporting the long side of the stele gone, the weight seemed to double, overwhelming his already taxed muscles. It was even worse for the three women left on the other side, left to support half of the stone slab’s weight on their own. But for one moment, it looked like they could handle it, like they’d at least be able to lower it to the ground without dropping it.

They couldn’t. Their claws slipped from the stone’s underside, and they all had only just enough time to let go and jump back before the stele dropped to the ground. There was a dull thud that sent vibrations through the ground and into their feet, a sharp snap, then silence. Two stone chunks laid at the foot of the camp gate.

Beltran stared at the wreckage, wide eyed. Mateo gazed on listlessly. One-Eye sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. Two of the Land Tribe women had fallen onto their backs trying to keep from being crushed under the stele, but they propped themselves up on their arms and gaped at it along with the rest of them. Even the one who’d caused all this had stopped, claws still raised in the air just before she could bring them down onto the Grass Tribesman’s face.

Seconds passed with them frozen there, all stiff as statues, even the guard. The only movement was the swaying of his whip in his clenched fist. 

Then, there was more thudding, like the stele had broken all over again. But it was too regular, and accompanied by the sounds of metal plates sliding against each other in a way that Beltran recognized. Judging from the way he snapped to attention, so did the guard.

Nobody was surprised when Rowdy stomped out from the camp interior, coming to a stop in front of the broken stele. However, they were surprised when he didn’t yell, didn’t draw his sword, but just stared down at the shattered stone without a word. More than surprised—they were terrified. Every face Beltran could see was twisted with fear, some suppressed, some blatant.

After a few seconds that seemed to stretch into infinity, Rowdy’s head slowly rose, revealing his face. Beltran thought back to when the warlord had killed one of Beltran’s own kind right in front of him, less than an hour ago. He hadn’t done that because he’d hated Beltran or any of the other slaves, he’d done it to make a point. All he’d felt towards them then was indifference.

When Beltran looked into Rowdy’s eyes now, he didn’t see indifference. He saw pure, burning hatred.

“Who did this?” His voice cut the air like an icy knife, calm and even, a cool veneer of control stretched tight and ready to snap at any moment.

The guard’s mouth opened and closed a few times noiselessly before words started to come out, stuttering and nervous. “I, well, t-that is to say, she, she was the—”

A clawed hand came down hard against the guard’s helmet, slamming it against the side of his skull while thick fingers wrapped around his head. Tightening his grip around his subordinate’s helmet hard enough for the metal to deform beneath him, Rowdy growled two words: “Not. You.” Then, Rowdy flung him to the ground, slamming the guard snout-first into the packed earth. The rest of him soon followed, leaving him lying there in a crumpled heap.

Beltran couldn’t help but take a step back when Rowdy whirled on them, eyes wild and hands splayed out in front of him, like he was going to grab the first one of them he could and rip them apart, limb from limb. But he didn’t. Instead, he spoke again in that unnaturally cool tone. “Who did this?”

Shaking, Beltran could feel his arm raise into the air, seemingly of its own accord. One finger unfurled from his tightly clenched fist, pointing at the Land Tribeswoman still posed on all fours over the Grass Tribesman. Looking around, he could see that the others had done the same, five hands total pointed at the culprit.

All except the three belonging to the Land Tribe, pointed at the dragonite she’d tackled.

Rowdy’s brow furrowed, and he stomped over to the two slaves entangled on the ground, grabbing each by the neck and hoisting them into the air. Their hands clasped around either of his arms, claws scrabbling uselessly against the gauntlets there in some pitiful attempt to free themselves, but his grip was steadfast.

“Who did this?”

Both of them looked down at Rowdy, eyes bulging out of their sockets, weakly hissing for breath through forcibly shut throats. Each pointed a claw at the other.

For a moment, Rowdy bared his teeth, and it seemed like he might just clench his fists and end the lives of the two slaves in his grasp right then and there. Instead, he let go, dumping both of them onto the ground. They curled up on the ground into little pained balls, tails curled around themselves protectively while they clutched at their pained necks and tried to catch their breath. He didn’t even look at them.

“Ben! Denton!” At the sound of Rowdy’s voice, two more War Tribesmen marched out of the camp and through the gate, as if they’d been waiting for the order. From the looks of their armour, identical to the warlord’s own but for the lack of gold trim, Beltran figured them to be officers. Personal bodyguards, maybe, as if he needed them.

“Sir,” the two said in unison, standing at attention.

“Take these slaves to the gladiator pit. Do what you will with them.”

Beltran heard the guard who’d led them this far let out a pained moan, apparently having regained consciousness, now struggling to pull himself off of the ground and onto his feet. Rowdy didn’t give him the chance, striding over to him and slipping two fingers into the back of his breastplate, yanking him off the ground.

“As for you,” Rowdy said, stepping over the broken stele and back into the camp with his inferior in tow, “you seem to be having difficulty performing your duties. I am going to give you a personal lesson in how to deal with… insubordination.”

Even through the fogginess of what had to be a concussion, the guard’s face lit up in dire realisation of exactly what that lesson would entail, though Beltran could only guess as to what thoughts were running through his mind. Whatever they were, they certainly had an effect on him: his entire body dangled limply from the warlord’s hand, not making a single move to escape even as all the colour drained from his face in dread of what was to come.

For a moment, they locked eyes, and Beltran could feel some unspoken connection between them. Everyone in the War Tribe, from the highest officer to the lackey who shined his greaves, was one bad day away from being stripped of their helmets and having them replaced with a shiny metal collar.

And as for when the other tribes had a bad day? Beltran felt himself being pulled forwards as someone tugged the chain attached to his collar, moving him and Mateo into line behind the other slaves, and knew that he was going to receive a thorough education.

---

Their march through the camp was an all too familiar experience. They were lined up the exact same way they’d come in, single file with guards on both sides to ensure their compliance. The same chain linking Beltran and Mateo’s collars, clinking with every step. The sun was still beating down on them as hard as it had over that first week-long journey.

But there were differences. Now, instead of fields and forests rolling out to either side, there were only tents, walls, and unfamiliar faces. Soldiers turned to watch him and the rest of the slaves as they walked by, looking up from whatever they were doing with only mild interest. Occasionally, another collared dragonite would pass them by in pursuit of some task or other, and Beltran was lucky if he could catch even a passing glimpse of their faces with how hurriedly they’d avert their eyes.

The prime difference, though, wasn’t physical: it was emotional. When he and the rest of the Sea Tribe captives had first set out on their journey here, they’d been freshly ripped from their homes, their village had been sacked, and their families either separated either by distance or by death. All of them had dealt with it in different ways, some had cried, some had sworn vengeance on the War Tribe, others had gone completely numb or turned inward.

However they’d dealt with it, though, there’d always been hope that somehow they’d be okay. Maybe the War Tribe would fall somehow, or maybe they’d have to live the rest of their lives in servitude, but whatever the case, they’d at least be alive to see it.

That hope was gone. As they were pushed onward towards the gladiator pit, a deathly silence had fallen over every one of them, not needing a single guard to enforce it. None of the group turned to look at the face of the slave behind them, but if Beltran had, he was sure he’d see the same grim expression that he found himself wearing now.

Beltran’s eyes locked onto everything they passed by, every sheet of canvas, every weed springing up through the freshly cracked earth around a tent spike, every one of the dozens of weapons propped up wherever was most convenient for their owners. He tried to inscribe every detail into his memory. Anything to prolong this moment, to stretch out the time a little bit more before they arrived at where they were going.

But time stopped for no man. He hadn’t even noticed they’d arrived until the ground was sloping beneath his feet as they were led down into what he could only assume was the gladiator pit. It was less impressive than he’d expected, little more than a deep hole with a gated ramp for access in or out, but it had more than enough room to fit everyone inside.

“Face me,” one of the officers said, and the slaves turned to do so. Standing parallel to them and blocking the entrance was a line of six War Tribesmen, more of them apparently having followed behind the two that led them here. “Kneel.” All of the slaves moved to obey, save one.

One of the females suddenly burst out into loud, heaving sobs, choking out a few desperate words as tears streaked down her cheeks. “Please don’t kill me!” Every head snapped towards her at once. It was one of the Land Tribe sisters, the one with the mark across her cheek, still coated in dried blood. Adaoma, if Beltran remembered correctly.

The officer that had just spoken spun towards her, hand resting on the handle of his sword. “Shut up!”

His companion sighed, rolling his eyes at the outburst. “Ben, just kill her. We’ve already got two extra.”

“No, look, I’m helpful! I can be useful to you! I can…” Her eyes shot around the arena, from face to face, but was met with annoyance from the War Tribe and interested but unsympathetic stares from everyone else. When Ben’s sword rang out noisily as he drew it from his scabbard, her gaze locked onto One-Eye, the desperation in his face finally reaching its peak.

Nobody had a chance to react before she sprung, slamming into One-Eye’s chest in a flying tackle. He let out a scream that turned into a wheeze as the full weight of her slammed down on his rib cage.

“I’m strong! I can help you, I’m strong!” Her claws pressed down onto One-Eye’s face, one hand pinning his cheek to the ground while the other moved up to just below his brow before plunging forward into his eye socket. He thrashed in an effort to free himself, but she was too heavy and, as she insisted, too strong. All he could do was thrash and scream below Adaoma as her claws pierced through the thin flesh of his eyelid and into the sensitive insides of his skull, scraping brutally against virgin muscle and tearing it apart.

“I’m strong!” She repeated it like a mantra, screaming it over and over, clinging to the non-existent hope that she could somehow save herself if she could only prove her worth. Blood was gushing out over the clean white of her claws, but she didn’t care, working her digits further and further into the tiny opening of One-Eye’s eye socket.

Finally springing into action, Ben rushed towards her, sword clutched tightly in his fist. Still, the distance he had to cover gave Adaoma just enough time to rip her hand free from her victim’s skull, one pristine eyeball clutched between her fingers like some priceless jewel. She held it high in the air, displaying her trophy for all to see while rivulets of blood ran down her arm and over her breasts. “I’m stro—”

Her words were cut off by a hacking gurgle as three feet of steel suddenly plunged through her back, slipping between her ribs and punching through her lung before emerging from the other side. Eyes wide with shock, she stared down at the metal jutting out from her front, hand touching down onto the flat of the blade as if to confirm it was real and not just some illusion. Her arm dropped, the eyeball dropping from her limp fingers and rolling away.

“Strong…” Her voice didn’t have that loud desperation in it anymore, no more than a quiet plea that fell upon deaf ears. Breathing that was once frantic became wet and bubbling as liquid filled her lungs, frothing up from her throat and dribbling down her chin. Ben planted a foot on her back and pushed, drawing his sword from her back and kicking her flat onto her front next to the still-writhing One-Eye.

She laid there for a moment, heaving as she tried to gasp for breath with lungs that wouldn’t function, her movements becoming weaker and weaker as her body was starved for oxygen. Then, she fell limp, letting out the little air she’d manage to hold onto in a soft moan.

Ben barely spared her a second glance before shifting his eyes over to One-Eye. The dragonite was curled up in the fetal position, clutching the gaping hole where his eye used to be, shivering and letting out a cacophony of screams while blood gushed from his mutilated eye socket.

The officer that Beltran deduced was Denton walked over, leaning down over the injured slave as he squirmed in agony. “Dang, that’s a shame, I kinda liked that one.”

Ben scoffed. “What, you like your slaves short a few bits?”

“No, you dick, it’s just— aah, forget it. Mind if I do the honours?”

“Go ahead,” Ben said, stepping aside and motioning to One-Eye with his free hand, “the floor is yours.”

“Funny you should say that,” Denton said, taking a few steps forward before pinning One-Eye’s head to the ground with a foot. As soon as the officer’s sole touched down onto his cheek, he froze, a scream dying in his throat.

“Please,” One-Eye whined, voice strangled with both the pain of his recently-liberated eye and fear of what they were going to do to him next. His begging earned him little more than a shrug from Denton, apparently uncaring of whether or not the slave could actually see it.

“Sorry.” Those two syllables, devoid of guilt and seemingly thrown in as a pittance, formed the last word that One-Eye would ever hear. As soon as they’d left Denton’s mouth, he lifted his foot from One-Eye’s face and brought it back down, slamming his heel against the slave’s temple with such force that it gave way beneath him like a stale cracker. One of the closer slaves in the line-up retched at the sound.

“Aw, you’re so sweet,” Ben cooed, folding his hands over his heart.

“Oh, shut up,” Denton said, grinding his heel into the side of One-Eye’s head. The bone bowed in even more at the pressure, the side of his skull beginning to cave in. One-Eye made no movement to resist, having gone completely limp after the initial impact, aside from a few twitches from his tail or involuntary clenches of his claws.

“No, really, an apology and everything! You going soft on me or somethin’?”

“The only thing soft here is this chump’s skull.” Denton punctuated his words with yet another stomp, this one sending a clear, pink-tinged fluid squirting out of One-Eye’s nostrils. Beltran could see chunks of something red and solid floating in it, like scum on a pond. He gagged. “Honestly, what are they feeding these guys?”

“Not enough, that’s for sure.” Ben rested a hand on his hip and watched as Denton moved his foot over to One-Eye’s chest and stomped down. The air trapped in the limp dragonite’s lungs rushed out his throat in a wheeze, the last dregs of breath in him hissing out past his lips right before his sternum snapped audibly. Without anything to hold his ribs together, his chest sunk in, leaving a pit of loose muscle and skin draped over broken bones that jostled slightly with every beat of his heart. Every time, it moved less, until it was still.

“Well, that’s two down,” Denton said, stepping back from the new corpse while he wiped his foot clean on the dirt. Satisfied with his work, he turned and rejoined the rest of the guards, Ben following close behind. As one, they turned to look at the rest of the slaves, who quickly turned their eyes back to the ground between their knees.

“Hey, boss,” one of the guards said, nudging Ben with an elbow, “you mind if I, ehh, use one of the girls here? Y’know, punish ‘em later?”

“Wait, what?” one of the other guards cut in, this one missing an antenna. “If Finn gets one, I want one, too!”

“Hey, settle down!” Ben said, grabbing Finn and the one-antenna’d guard by the shoulders. “You can all have a go at whichever slave you want, my treat. I’m sure Rowdy won’t mind, eh?”

That drew a small chorus of cheers from the group, eyes lighting up inside helmets and a happy smile forming on every muzzle. Clapping the two guards on the back, Ben stepped back and leaned against the wall of the pit next to the gate, crossing his arms and preparing for the spectacle. Denton followed and did much the same, taking up a spot on the opposite side. Meanwhile, the four guards charged forwards, eager to get their hands—and other body parts—on a slave.

One of the females, a Land Triber, was the first to get grabbed. The guard that they’d called Finn made a beeline to her, took a hold of her shoulders, and threw her onto the ground. She landed flat on her back with a gasp, instinctively curling her tail up to protect herself, but relaxed a touch when she looked up and saw who it was that’d pushed her. If she’d gotten picked by this one, it meant she was lucky enough to avoid being ‘punished’, at least for a little while. Maybe if she cooperated, she could avoid that fate entirely.

Finn dropped to his knees in front of her, a hand lashing out to wrap around her ankle before yanking it towards his face. She let out a gasp as she felt his tongue slip out of his mouth and drag along the bottom of her foot, sliding across her heel before working its way up along her sole and into the gaps between her toes. Whatever depravities she’d been expecting to be subject to, this didn’t seem to be one of them, though she was hardly complaining.

Despite the circumstances and the less-than-comforting surroundings, the Land Tribeswoman found the tension starting to boil out of her muscles as that tongue danced across her foot. She even found a sigh working its way out of her throat as one of Finn’s hands released her ankle and reached out to grab her other foot, bringing it up to his face before lapping at it with just as much vigour as the first one. The saliva coating her heels hardly had time to cool before it was replaced by a fresh, warm layer, Finn pressing her feet together so that he could lick them both at once.

Finn was so busy lavishing her feet with attention that he barely even noticed his own erection sliding out from the slit between his legs, but she certainly did. She could feel it grinding against base of her tail, the tip occasionally skirting against the inside of her thighs, smearing them with moisture. 

As it continued to grow in size, more and more of it slipping out until a good foot and a half of pink flesh was throbbing and dripping between between her legs, she found herself worrying about whether or not she would be able to take it at all. She’d never taken a mate back when she was with her own tribe, so she wasn’t sure whether or not she would be able to handle his sheer length, to say nothing of his girth.

Luckily, she didn’t need to worry about that at all. He had different plans in mind.

The attention he was giving to her feet dissipated as he pulled himself up off of his knees and back into a standing position, a position that just so happened to leave her feet at the perfect height to press against his cock, the firm flesh of his erection pressing against her soles and sliding against the slick skin of her feet. Finn pushed his hips forward, grinding against her heels, a drop of pre forming on the tip of his dick before dripping down to splatter on her toes below.

Hands unwrapped themselves from around her ankles and shifted to rest against her calves, just present enough to make themselves known without impeding her movement. Finn stared down at her with a demanding look, one that told her exactly what was expected of her without a single word.

Moving uncertainly at first, the Land Tribeswoman maneuvered her feet to either side of the guard’s shaft, taking it into a ginger grip between her toes. Finn gave out a pleased grunt from above and thrust into her grip, sliding smoothly in the wet grip of her feet, the sounds of skin squishing against skin filling the air. Seemed she was doing something right.

Encouraged by his response, she pressed down harder, gripping his dick between her toes while she started to move her feet up and down in a stroking motion. It was hardly the most natural or familiar position, supporting herself with her hands while jerking off a male with her feet, but she learned quickly. Every grunt or sigh from the male above helped her figure out how she should move, how hard she should press, how fast or slow she should be going.

As she rolled Finn’s cock between her feet, feeling pre gush from its head and splatter across the back of her toes, she was surprised to find herself enjoying it. It gave her a sense of power, being able to control someone so easily with only her feet, feeling them writhe and moan with every little motion she made. It was something that she hadn’t felt in a long time, certainly not since her tribe had been conquered and her taken as a slave, and it was something that she wanted to savour.

Which is why it was probably for the best that she kept her eyes locked on the guard she was pleasing, rather than what was happening a few scant feet to her left.

The guard with one antenna had picked out his own slave, apparently finding the females to be less suitable to his tastes. He had the Grass Tribesman pinned to the ground beneath him, the slave’s tail arched over his back where it’d been roughly pushed out of the way, and was letting out strangled whines and guttural noises as the War Tribesman’s hips slammed into his ass over and over again.

Clearly, the guard didn’t care about the well-being of his slave. If that wasn’t evident from his cruel thrusts that tugged the poor dragonite’s insides out a fraction of an inch with every outstroke before he forced his way back in, then the way his claws clutched around the slave’s throat and squeezed down intermittently certainly gave it away. Blood dribbled down from three tiny punctures in the side of his neck, accompanied by the sounds of choking and desperate gasps for breath in the moments between asphyxiation.

Of course, the guard was never rough enough to truly injure the slave beneath him. Whenever it sounded like he was going to pass out from lack of air, he would shift his grip from the slave’s neck to his shoulders, pinning him to the ground and focusing purely on working his dick in and out of the Grass Tribesman’s rapidly loosening hole. Then, when he felt that his screams were strong enough, the guard would wrap his hands around that bruised neck once more and squeeze.

While those two pairs were busy, the lone Land Tribeswoman that hadn’t been killed or chosen by one of the War Tribesmen looked on, fear and desperation mingling in her mind until an idea congealed, then grew into a plan. Crawling forward on her hands and knees, slowly as to not look like she was trying to escape, she approached one of the guards lingering near the gate. Interest must’ve overcome him, because she managed to make it all the way to his feet without feeling the sting of a whip or, Arceus forbid, a sword, on her exposed back.

She’d put all of her hope that she’d attract such interest, and she was going to make as much use of it as she could. She looked up at the guard with her most seductive expression, one that she was amazed she could muster considering the frantic pounding of her heart and the cold sweat running down the back of her neck, and pushed her breasts together with her hands.

“You look like someone who could use a personal servant,” she purred, hoping that her low, husky tone hid the quaver in her voice, “someone to satisfy your desires, every morning, every night. Someone with a thick, shapely tail, who knows how to please a man. What do you say?”

At first, he just stared down at her, that stern look she’d seen on so many other guards never leaving his face. Then, it cracked, a corner of his mouth tugging up into a crooked smile. “And you think you could fill that role for me?”

That crack was all she needed. She batted her eyes, moving a hand from her breasts to his belly, trailing down the scales there towards his groin. “I know I could.”

That smile on his face widened, splitting open and revealing the sharp teeth lurking underneath. He widened his legs a bit to offer her better access to what laid between him, then crossed his arms, looking down at her with a bemused expression. “Show me.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Her head shot forward, burying itself between his thighs, tongue diving deep into the slit that laid there. She could feel the guard’s shaft lying dormant inside, and a moment later, the taste hit her. Heavy, masculine, but more prominently, unwashed. It made her want to gag, but she suppressed the urge, instead forcing herself in yet deeper.

It was foul, nauseating work, and her only chance at leaving this pit alive.

“Ah, fuck!” A sudden scream of pain drew Beltran’s attention, the Sea Tribesman having somehow managed to avoid attracting the interest of any guards. The shout had come from one of the War Tribesmen, who was now angrily yanking the head of the Grass Tribeswoman out from between his legs. She looked petrified, eyes wide open and locked on the guard’s face. She probably didn’t even know what she did wrong. “I said no teeth, bitch!”

Before she could stutter out an apology, the guard slammed a hand down onto either side of her head, leaving her dazed from the impact. While she was still recovering from the jolt to her skull, he jerked her head to the side, a sickening crack echoing off of the walls of the pit. When his hands stopped, the woman’s eyes were staring at the ground behind her, head twisted in entirely the wrong direction. Her body tensed for a moment, then went slack, a faint hiss coming from her lips as her lungs relaxed.

When the guard realised what he’d done, his face lit up in shock, before quickly dropping into a look of frustrated disappointment. Letting out an annoyed huff through his nostrils, he twisted the slave’s head back around to the correct position, severed vertebrae grating against each other as her neck swivelled. Now properly positioned, he yanked the dead woman’s jaw open with one hand, swiftly plunging his erection back into her still-warm mouth. No longer having to worry about choking her, his thrusts became deeper and rougher, jamming his cock in and out hard enough to make a bulge in her throat.

Beltran just watched, still kneeling there, legs limp and numb from having sat on them for so long. Some of the more religious types in the Sea Tribe had said that those who were evil in this life would receive their punishment in the next, passing on to a realm of torment worse than anything they could imagine. Now, the idea that he might have died in the raid on his tribe and gone to such a place stuck in his mind. It definitely seemed possible, since he was certain that no dragonite with a shred of morality in them would be able to derive pleasure from such a nauseating mixture of death and hedonism.

Whatever the case, the assault on his senses seemed impossible to escape. He’d tried closing his eyes and pretending he was somewhere else, but found that no matter how hard he shut them, he still couldn’t block out the sounds. The wet noise of a corpse’s throat being violated, the gurgling wheeze of another slave struggling for breath through a throat clenched by two gauntleted hands. In his mind, he could still see everything in vivid detail. No, he just kept his eyes open, hoping that he might be able to desensitize himself to it all.

Mateo barely seemed to notice any of it. His eyes were completely blank, looking off at some point in the distance, even though all there was in front of him was a dirt wall. Beltran almost envied him, but looking down, he could see a fresh pool of vomit soaking into the ground between Mateo’s knees. Apparently, the older dragonite was still in there somewhere, and knew exactly what was going on around him.

Beltran stared at the puddle of partially digested food. He’d probably have vomited, too, if there was anything left in his stomach. As it was, all he could do was dry heave, stomach acid splashing up to burn his esophagus.

A few feet away, the Grass Tribesman’s movements were getting weaker, the endless cycles of strangulation having left their mark on him. He didn’t even struggle when the guard on top of him squeezed down on his neck, just started silently counting down the seconds until he could breathe again, trying not to focus on the tightening around his windpipe or the dull pain of being stretched open around the War Tribesman’s cock.

This time, though, there was something different. Instead of the hard, fast, but relatively steady pace that he’d been keeping to before, the guard was slamming into him with short, crushing thrusts. Only a couple inches of his dick worked in and out of him, but the guard seemed intent on making up for what he’d sacrificed in length with sheer force. The Grass Tribesman could feel his ass bruising where the guard’s thighs slammed into it, the armour there battering against his cheeks hard enough to leave his pelvis aching.

When the guard finally gave one last thrust, mashing their hips together with finality, the Grass Tribesman didn’t bat an eye. When he felt hot spurts of the guard’s cum spurting into him, filling his insides and drooling back out over his aching rim, he could barely bring himself to notice. He was just looking forward to when he pulled out, and those claws finally unlatched themselves from around his neck.

But when the guard pulled out, leaving a small river of seed to leak from the slave’s gaping hole and down his thighs, he didn’t let go. Instead, his hands crushed down even tighter, hard enough that the Grass Tribesman could actually feel his windpipe starting to collapse under the pressure.

His struggles resumed in a hurry, arms thrashing and legs kicking in an attempt to escape the grip around his throat, but it held fast. With the guard’s weight pinning his torso to the ground, there wasn’t even anything else he could do, just flail helplessly. Those hands jerked his head back so his head looked straight up, and he could see that helmeted face staring back at him, eyes looking deep into his own.

There was something there that he recognized. Back in the grasslands of his home, when he’d hunt zebstrika with the rest of his tribe, the youngest hunter was expected to end the life of prey that they’d manage to wound. A mercy killing, they’d called it. First timers were typically distraught at having to take the life of another being, but after that, everyone always had the same hard look in their eye whenever they had to do it.

That was the look the guard had now. That cold look, unfeeling, just going through the motions. As the dark crept in from the edges of his vision and plunged him into unconsciousness, it was the last thing he’d ever see.

While the Grass Tribesman had the last remnants of life choked out of him, the Land Tribeswoman next to him had her head buried between a guard’s legs, her hands gripping onto his cuisses for dear life. The guard had decided to take a more active role in things awhile back, and was currently ramming his cock in and out of her mouth, hands braced against the sides of her head for support while his hips worked busily.

It was painful, to say the least. The hard flesh of his erection jabbing against the soft tissue of her throat left her insides feeling raw and ragged, like she’d just swallowed a glass of tacks. He seemed to be able to reach all the way down into her stomach, and everywhere he touched, he left that awful burning feeling. Tears were streaking down her face, and it took every bit of will in her body to suppress her gag reflex and avoid vomiting all over his cock.

Still, whenever he looked down at her, she looked back up at him with as much of a smile as she muster with her muzzle stretched around a mouthful of cock and a mixture of pre, saliva, and mucus yanked from deep inside her esophagus dribbling down her chin. He smiled back, lips parted as he panted, giving her the occasional sight of a fang or a tongue inside.

That sight blurred into a smear of colour as tears flooded her eyes, no longer able to hold them back as his pelvic bone slammed into her snout with mounting speed and force. She could feel what had to be either snot or blood dribbling from her nostrils, smearing across his scales, but he didn’t seem to care. Those hands on the side of her head moved to its back, pressing down hard against her and keeping her from moving more than an inch from his groin as he started to pound her throat in earnest.

With over a foot of dick lodged in her airway, refusing to budge and preventing her from getting a breath, she panicked a little. She tapped on the back of his thigh, trying to signal to him that she needed to breathe, but he didn’t notice or, more likely, didn’t care. Stars danced in her vision, and she was blowing bubbles through her nose as she struggled to draw breath, but he just kept thrusting away.

She didn’t have to endure the rough treatment for long. Right as her vision began to darken, his cock throbbed in her throat, shooting a thick rope of cum into her belly. He held her there for a few more seconds, firing off a couple more spurts deep inside her, before he started to pull out. All the way, he kept spraying her insides with his seed, the thick stuff feeling like glue in her throat. When he finally slipped out of her mouth, she immediately dropped to her knees, coughing and hacking between his legs while he continued to unload onto her back.

Phlegmy globs of white tinged with streaks of pink splattered the ground under her, dredged up from her thoroughly used throat. Every cough sent a wave of stinging pain through her esophagus, but it was the only way she could clear her insides so she could actually breathe. After a couple more wet, noisy coughs, she finally managed to get some air into her lungs, her hacking replaced by wheezing gasps for breath. The air felt like glass dust inside her, but that was fine. At least it was over. At least she wasn’t dead.

At least, that’s what she thought until a hand suddenly grabbed both of her antennae, roughly yanking her head back.

“You know, it’s a shame,” the guard said, using his free hand to draw a sword from the sheath hanging off of his hip, “you would’ve been a really good sex slave. Ah, well.”

She had just enough time to let out a sob before the blade of his sword cut into her neck, just behind her jaw. With one smooth motion, he drew it under her chin and across to the other side of her head, expertly slicing open both her carotids and jugulars on either side. Blood immediately surged from the severed blood vessels in a thick red tide, sweeping over her chest and dripping down her breasts.

Before she could even start to struggle, she’d found she was already falling towards the ground, the guard having let go of her antennae immediately after making the cut. There wasn’t even anything to fight against. With every second that passed, more wet warmth washed over her front and dripped down over her shoulders, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. All she could do was lay there and clutch at the gaping slit in her neck, feeling the blood wash over her fingers as she tried in vain to stem the tide.

But he was a professional, and it was a solid, clean cut from a freshly sharpened sword. She only had time to squirm for a few seconds before her eyes slipped closed, her breathing slowed, and she let out one last breathy moan as the life fled from her body.

Now, there was only one guard still busy with a slave, Finn and the last living Land Triber. Her arms were splayed out along the ground now, working along with her tail to keep her steady while her legs hovered in the air, giving Finn unparalleled access to her feet. He was certainly taking advantage of it, each of his hands wrapped around the top of a foot, pushing them together to form a makeshift hole for him to fuck.

His hips were pistoning like mad, working his cock in and out of the tight embrace of her hot soles. The undersides of her feet were dripping with a thick layer of precum, runnels of the stuff dripping down from her toes to her heels, providing a slick layer for Finn to glide along. It was a clear indicator of exactly how much he was enjoying himself, as if the way his tongue lolled out of his mouth or the frenetic pace his thighs were moving weren’t obvious enough signs.

She had to admit, she’d been a little nervous when Finn had let out a growl and grabbed a hold of both her feet a few minutes back, snatching back the reins just when she’d started to enjoy the bit of control he’d allowed her to have. It was like something’d snapped in him, some animal had broken free inside of him and taken over. But she’d calmed down after she realised that no, he wasn’t going to hurt her. He was just… excitable.

There was no way he was going to hurt her. She’d been good. She’d cooperated.

Finn’s hands pressed down even harder on her feet, grinding them with almost crushing tightness against his cock before he pushed his hips forward one last time. His dick throbbed once, twice, then let loose a rope of pearly white cum, arcing through the air before splattering down across her breasts.

He let out a long groan as he began to unload, the base of his cock throbbing between the feet of the slave beneath him, pushing out against her arches with every spurt of seed. There was enough of it to paint her tits white, before he pulled back and let the last of his orgasm ooze out across her toes, shoving the head of his dick between them and letting the rivulets of white run down across her claws.

It took him a moment to collect himself, a moment that he spent in utter bliss, panting with his tongue out while he savoured the warmth of those plump toes against his member. Finn couldn’t think of a better way to come down from the high of a footjob than by enjoying yet more feet. When he’d finally managed to regain a hold on himself, he looked down at the face of the slave below him, blinking a few times to clear his vision before finally focusing in on her eyes. She was staring up at him, giving him a tentative smile.

Finn returned that smile with one of his own, then wrenched her legs apart and dove onto her exposed belly, tearing into it with his claws.

The smile couldn’t drop from her face fast enough. A shriek ripped its way past her throat as those claws punched right through her middle, pushing their way past scales and straight through muscle before tearing her stomach open like wrapping off a package. Her tail immediately gave way under their combined weight, sending them tumbling to the ground with Finn’s hands halfway inside of her abdomen, pushing even deeper as they slammed into the ground.

The pain was beyond anything she’d ever felt before. She hadn’t known that she could even feel her organs, but now every inch of intestine in her body made its position clear to her as they were brutally yanked aside by six sharp claws. The shock finally wore off enough that she thought to defend herself, and she swung a hand towards Finn’s head, claws slicing through the air.

That proved to be a mistake. The guard’s head immediately shot up, like he’d been expecting her to do just that, and his jaws stretched open wide. In a maneuver that she couldn’t possibly have predicted, Finn lashed out in a bite, catching her forearm between his teeth. The little momentum she’d managed to build was shifted from swinging her claws to lacerating her own flesh on his fangs, a dozen ivory knives slicing her muscles to shreds.

She screeched and tried to jerk her arm back, but Finn had her in a death grip, teeth sinking even deeper into her body with every moment. Her muscles lasted only seconds before he bit right through them, pushed aside by fangs that found themselves grinding against solid bone. Every movement to escape only mutilated her even more, but keeping still resulted in much the same. Even worse, those hands were still rooting around inside her, digging deeper in search of Arceus knew what.

Arceus didn’t keep that knowledge secret for long. Claws cut through her sensitive innards up towards her rib cage, the guard now up to his elbows in her guts and only getting deeper. They pushed up against her diaphragm, literally forcing the breath out of her lungs, before piercing right through the thin sheet of muscle and slamming into her sternum. Apart from the utter agony of sensitive tissue inside of her being ripped apart, it was strikingly similar to being punched in the chest. It was a nice cherry on top of what was undoubtedly the worst pain she’d ever felt.

It held that title for only seconds before something even worse dethroned it. A hand gripped around something inside her, and a sensation unlike anything she could imagine washed over her. Every vein and artery from her chest outward suddenly pushed out against the flesh it was seated in, engorged with blood, her smaller capillaries outright bursting. It was like a thousand pounds of lead had been dropped on top of her chest, yet simultaneously like she was about to explode.

At some point, her brain just stopped, no longer willing to process the absolute overload of sensory information. The pain was still there, but she’d tuned it out, like the roar of a waterfall gradually fades away to nothing but background noise. All she could rely on were her eyes and her ears.

The muscles in Finn’s right shoulder bulging with effort. A ripping noise, like tearing rope. The sound of wet meat sliding against scales.

A bloody hand gripping her heart, curiously absent from her chest.

Blackness.

Beltran watched, utterly disgusted yet completely enraptured. He’d never seen anything like it before. When Finn released his grip on the arm in his mouth, bringing his hand up to his mouth to take a bite out of the heart there like it was an apple, Beltran was afraid he might faint.

There was something different about that guard. When the others killed a slave, they used easy, simple methods. A cut throat, choking, a sword to the chest. Even when one of them had outright stomped a man to death earlier, he’d at least been courteous enough to start at the head and knock him unconscious first. Above all, whatever the way they decided to kill, their motions always seemed routine. Just something they had to do.

Finn wasn’t anything like that. There was excitement in the way he moved, and that wasn’t even touching on the fact that he’d just ripped out a woman’s heart through her stomach. Beltran didn’t even know that was physically possible. Clearly, though, it was, and the guard had enjoyed every second of it.

Finn turned a bit, and Beltran caught a glimpse of his face as his teeth tore their way through a ventricle, rivulets of blood rolling down his chin. There laid the widest grin he’d ever seen, the guard’s eyes lightly shut, looking for all the death around him like he was utterly at peace with the world.

Beltran was so focused on that satisfied face that he didn’t even notice the footsteps approaching from behind until a gauntlet clasped around his shoulder.

“I hope you didn’t think we forgot about you two,” Ben purred, voice low and throaty, “we got something special in mind for you.”

That’s when it hit Beltran. Looking around the arena, he realised that all the guards had finished, the slaves they were enjoying moments ago now lying limp at their feet while they cleaned themselves up—or finished eating, as the case may be. Him and Mateo were the only ones left.

He looked over at his brother, and instead of that distant stare he’d expected, he saw two blue eyes peering deep into his own, fully cognizant of the situation around them. The older dragonite’s face had finally twisted itself into an expression that had been suppressed for far too long: utter, gut-wrenching fear.

It was hardly the way he wanted to remember his brother, but at the same time, it was probably the last chance they’d ever get to look each other in the eyes. 

“Hey, Ben,” Denton said, taking a spot between Beltran and Mateo and flicking the chain connecting their collars with a claw. “Isn’t this gonna get in the way of things?”

“Wait, are these guys still chained together?” Ben said, a fair bit of surprise in his voice. Kneeling down next to Beltran, he fiddled with the link connected to his collar. “Slave drivers are supposed to undo these things when they bring in a caravan. Lazy fucks.”

With a little metal pop, it came undone, and the rest of the chain dropped towards the ground with a clatter. The other end of it was still attached to Mateo’s collar, trailing off of it like a metal ponytail. Ben turned towards him, claws reaching for his neck to detach the other end of the chain.

He didn’t get the chance. As soon as Mateo saw the opportunity to flee, he took it. His claws scraped along the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust as he scrambled off of his knees and broke into a dead sprint towards the ramp out of the pit.

“Oh, motherfucker,” Ben growled, hand reaching for the chain attached to his collar just a second too late, the steel links slipping from his fingers right before he could get a grip on them. Mateo was off like the wind, already halfway up the ramp, huffing with panicked energy.

“Douglas!” Denton shouted, head aimed over the wall of the pit. He didn’t seem nearly as concerned as he should’ve been about a potential escaped slave. Soon, it became clear why.

As soon as Mateo’s head poked up out of the pit into the open air, a crossbow bolt whizzed through the air and slammed into his forehead, sending him tumbling head over heels back down the ramp.

“Got him, boss,” a distant voice hollered back.

“Thanks, Doug!”

The brief spark of life Beltran had seen in Mateo’s eyes earlier was already gone. A thin metal shaft jutted from between his antennae, a trickle of blood running down from where it’d dug itself into his skull. His tail thumped once against the ground, then he was still.

“Well, that sucks,” Ben said, bringing himself back up to his feet and brushing the dust off of his greaves. “Now we only got one slave. Can’t even do the thing.”

Denton gave a sympathetic shrug. “Can still fuck him, though.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Ben sighed. He turned towards the other guards, all of them wrapping up their business with what remained of their slaves. “Any of you guys want in on this?”

“Nah, I’m beat,” one said, kicking the corpse of the dead Grass Tribesman while he rubbed at a sore bicep.

“Me too.”

“Yeah, same, I gotta go wash all this blood off me.”

“I’ll stick around and watch, if that’s alright,” Finn said, taking up a spot leaning against the wall while he licked the blood off of his claws.

“Sure thing,” Ben said. Beltran had just enough time to see the three spent guards shuffle up out of the pit before a gauntlet pressed up against the back of his head, grinding his face against the front of a cuisse.

“Remember, no teeth or you’re done,” Ben said, sounding all too chipper for Beltran’s tastes, though he only paid attention to the officer’s tone for a moment before it slipped from his mind. He felt rather numb at the moment, really. It was difficult to muster the effort to react to or care about anything, even when Ben yanked down his codpiece and fished out his half-hard cock, slapping it down across Beltran’s face as it continued to grow.

Denton wasn’t content with being a wallflower. Moving across from Ben, he grabbed the back of one of Beltran’s thighs, squeezing the thick flesh there between his fingers. He reached a hand down and undid his britches, pulling them down and grinding his cock against the scales of Beltran’s tail through his fly. They were softer than the rest of him, almost tender, and the feeling of them sliding against his maleness quickly had Denton slipping the rest of the way out of his slit.

Already excited from watching the rest of the guards enjoy themselves, it didn’t take them long before they were both fully erect, cocks throbbing and dripping against either set of Beltran’s cheeks. He could feel precum dripping down along his forehead and over his brow, mirrored by a steady stream of it drizzling over the base of his tail and across his asshole. To Beltran, though, it was just moisture. It wasn’t a sign that he was about to be violated in this death pit, next to the corpse of his only brother.

In his mind, he wasn’t in that pit at all. He was somewhere else, far away, eyes staring off into the distance.

Thankfully, neither of the officers cared whether he was all there or not, only how tight his holes were. Being that he was a complete stranger to anal sex, they were certainly tight. Even with the help of his pre to lubricate things, Denton had to push with a brutal amount of force to get even the tip of his cock inside Beltran’s ass. He could feel virgin muscles there prying apart for the first time under him, giving way to his invading member.

It was a good thing that he could feel it, because Beltran certainly couldn’t. Everything below his waist was fuzzy and indistinct, and if he tried hard enough, he could pretend that nothing was there at all. Still, it was a bit harder to block out the sensations of what was going on up front. Ben shifted his hips back and poked at Beltran’s lips with his cock, smearing them with pre before forcing his way past and into the slave’s mouth. There was no resistance, Beltran’s jaw opening up easily to accept him.

The taste leaked in from the corners of his mind, despite his best efforts to block it out. A heady musk that filled his nose and sat heavily on his tongue, probably the strongest reminder of exactly how his body was being used and polluted. Ben didn’t seem to care about whether or not he could breathe, slamming far enough into his mouth that Beltran could feel the officer slip a few inches inside of his throat before he pulled back just to start all over again.

Breathing was difficult. Then again, Beltran didn’t see a need to struggle. His body forced him to draw air into his lungs in the few brief seconds he had whenever Ben pulled back, and that was enough to sustain him.

If Ben ever got overeager and he started to asphyxiate, then that would be a blessing.

“Man, this one’s tight!” Denton growled, pushing yet another inch into Beltran’s rear. “Bit limp, though, isn’t he?”

“He’s gonna be a whole lot more limp in a couple minutes,” Ben quipped, thrusting into Beltran’s throat hard enough for his pubic bone to mash up against his snout. The two shared a brief chuckle before they started to pick up the pace, the sound of thighs slapping against scales growing even louder.

He was lucky, in a way. The painful stretching and tearing of his insides around Denton’s cock, the pounding of his throat by Ben until it was raw and ragged—the effort of suppressing these things helped keep his mind off of the details of where he was. It was like the bodies scattered around the pit weren’t even there, dripping cum and blood while they were left to rot in the sun.

Mainly, though, focusing on blocking out what was happening in the present helped him forget about what was going to happen in the near future, kept his mind from wondering exactly how they were going to have him join the rest of the slaves around him.

But that future proved to be all too close when both officers slammed into him at once without warning, cocks throbbing inside him. Denton let out a pleasured moan and Ben a growl as their cum flooded Beltran’s insides, pouring down his throat and into his stomach, some of it bubbling back up and dribbling out of his nose. He kept still, dangling limply in the air, supported only by the dicks jammed into either end of his digestive tract.

After a half-minute or so of being filled with the seed of an opposing tribe, Beltran was finally given a reprieve. Both officers pulled out of him, dropping him down onto the dirt while white dribbled from the side of his mouth and down along his thighs. He didn’t even bother curling up into a ball when they let him go, just laid there limply, appearing to all the world like he was already dead except those perceptive enough to notice his still open, occasionally flicking eyes.

“Kinda like fucking a corpse, isn’t it?” Denton said, resting his weight on one leg while he caught his breath.

“Yeah. Not the worst I’ve ever had, though,” Ben replied, fishing out a handkerchief from a pocket and wiping his shaft clean.

“Really? What was the worst, then?”

“I’ll tell you over lunch. You wanna end this one, or should I?”

“You guys mind if I do it?” Finn’s voice suddenly cut in, sending a jolt through both of them. The man had a tendency to slip into the background. The officers glanced at each other, shrugged, then turned back to Finn.

“Go for it,” Ben said, stepping back from Beltran’s body alongside Denton.

“Much appreciated,” Finn said, strutting forward and drawing his sword. He planted a foot on Beltran’s chest and aligned the point of the blade with his eye, the tip of it mere inches from his pupil.

Beltran said nothing, moved nothing, and when the sword suddenly rushed forward and pierced right through his eye into his skull, he thought nothing.

---

“Leave.”

The guard jumped to obey Rowdy’s command, spinning around and practically sprinting through the flap of the tent. He’d been stripped of his breastplate and his gambeson underneath, leaving his chest completely exposed, the numerous lashes across his back borne for all to see. The canvas swung slightly with his passing, then settled, blocking out the view of the camp outside once again.

Rowdy dropped down onto a chair sitting in the corner of the tent, letting out a slight sigh while he twirled a whip in his hand. Blood covered the rough leather. It wasn’t easy to punish your own men, but being a good leader meant being a good communicator, and sometimes pain was the only language people understood.

He sat there for a minute, admiring the braided leather of his whip, all the little creases and imperfections. It was a tool, one that was bit crude but nonetheless effective. Treated properly, even leather as poor as this could last for a year of heavy use, and Rowdy was certainly the sort to make heavy use of such an implement.

Other tribe leaders had decried his methods, called him a brute, a dictator that could only keep his men in line with threat of physical pain. They were soft touched, limp-wristed cowards who had never done a day of physical labour in their lives. They didn’t understand the sacrifices necessary to form a group of strong individuals and keep them in line.

That was why all of them were all either slaves to his men or lying dead in the charred ruins of their villages.

His musing was interrupted by the sound of a voice outside of his tent. “Sir! Permission to enter?”

“Granted.”

In slipped a dragonite, lightly armoured in mostly leather and cloth, though still bearing the signature metal helmet of all of his men. A messenger.

“A new caravan of slaves has just arrived. Shall I tell the slave driver to expect you?”

“Yes. Go.” Giving his superior a slight bow, the messenger turned and slipped out of the tent, breaking into a run as soon as he was clear of the warlord’s sight.

Rowdy lifted himself from his chair and stared at his whip. It wasn’t necessary for him to introduce himself to every group of slaves that entered the camp, and a fair number of times he’d had to refuse the opportunity in favour of more important matters. Still, whenever he could, he liked to ensure they they knew exactly who was in charge. His men tried their best to instill respect into the slaves, but judging from what’d happened with the stele, their best brooked improvement.

He was more than willing to set a strong example for them to strive to. Hooking his whip onto a rack alongside a dozen of its siblings, he drew the sword from his belt, inspecting its edge for any nicks or dullness.

Yet another tool, one he planned to make good use of.