How did I ever manage to live like this? Vir wondered, thinking back to his life at Brij. He felt gutted, and even the slightest movement required inordinate effort.
“Thanks,” he muttered, cycling Prana Current as he slurped the soup with gratitude. It wasn’t prana, but it did fill him with an inner warmth. Prana Current would have to slowly rebuild the rest. It’d be a day or more before he was full again, but, well, it could be worse. At least he wasn’t dead.
“Balagra?” Vir asked.
“Alive,” Malik reported. “Albeit barely. Had his collar snapped a moment later, I’m afraid we’d be cremating a corpse instead.”
Vir winced. To think he’d cut it so close… Vir needed Balagra. He was talented, had military experience. More than that, though, Vir didn’t want the Naga to die. Whatever deeds he’d done in the past… Vir knew there was a good soul lurking beneath that rough exterior. He’d eventually come around to Vir’s cause. Perhaps not soon, but someday. Maybe they’d even become fast friends.
“Thank you,” Vir said. “For looking after him. If you hadn’t applied that tourniquet…”
Malik waved Vir’s sentiment away. “It was the least I could do.”
Vir took a look around the infirmary, finding countless demons, most lying down, but a few up and milling about.
“Everyone’s safe, then?”
“Better than safe,” Malik replied. “Do you understand what you’ve done?” he asked. “You’ve liberated them. Us! We’re no longer prisoners!”
Vir’s eyes widened in panic. “What about the other guards? Did they…”
“Kill them?” Malik completed. “No. We stripped them of their weapons and armor and placed the spare collars they were carrying around their necks. Symbolic, mind you, since the tablet was destroyed, but we have them under heavy guard. I’m hoping Balagra can concoct something when he awakens to put them under. With their Chakras and Bloodline Arts, they could wreak a lot of havoc before we brought them down. Best to keep them unconscious.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Vir agreed. He couldn’t understand how demonic jails worked when everyone was this powerful.
“I have to tell you, Neel. That moment? When we snapped those collars on our captors? I haven’t felt that good in a long while. I only wish you were conscious to see it.”
Vir gave Malik a pained smile. He didn’t hate the Kothis. Not truly. He hated Asuman, yes, and Raja Matiman, as well as anyone actively suppressing the Gargans. But Vir wasn’t naïve enough to believe that every Kothi was evil. It was akin to claiming that all humans—or all demons—were nothing but monsters. How was that any different from Tia? Hadn’t he argued exactly that point to get her to see reason?
No, Vir had lived through too much to pretend the world was black and white. There was no such thing. No convenient good or evil. Only shades of ash… Which only made it so much harder to reconcile the turmoil raging within his chest.
“Take me to them,” he said.
The bound Kothis looked up at Vir with a mixture of spite and fear. Gagged as they were, none uttered a word. The fifty-odd angry demons who thronged around them might’ve also had something to do with it.
“Relax,” Vir said, “I won’t harm you. And I won’t let the others either.”
The prisoners’ expressions shifted. Some to confusion, others to relief.
“Not while I’m in control. And I am in control, am I not, Malik?”
The gray demon nodded. “Some prisoners ran off on their own. Those were the dumb ones. The smarter among us understand your power, Neel. The smarter of us understand that our chances of surviving go up drastically with… er…”
“With what?”
“Well, with you. Wha—whoever you are,” Malik hastily corrected. He’d been about to say ‘whatever.’
“I see,” Vir replied. Fear and rumormongering weren’t Vir’s preferred tools for gaining obedience, but given the circumstances, it was about the best he could’ve hoped for.
“Well, you heard him,” Vir said. “I’m the leader now. So, can I expect you to behave?”
The guards, as it turned out, did behave. Even without the implicit threat of getting collared. That was better than Vir had hoped for.
What was not what he’d hoped for, were the incessant questions and looks of fear, respect, and hope on his charges’ faces. And to Vir’s chagrin, on a select few—anger. Betrayal. Hatred.
Those may be a problem, eventually…
Not all the demons were Gargan, though most did hail from his clan. Even so, Vir wasn’t ready to reveal who he was. They were thankful to the one who’d rescued them, yes. Thankful enough to ignore that his existence caused their lifetime of suffering? Likely not.
No, Vir’s Akh Nara reveal would have to come later. Once he could trust his troops with his life. Both implicitly and explicitly.
He could, however, divulge his other secret identity. Layers upon layers had their uses, after all. The endless hours of effort cultivating his identity were spent precisely for moments like these. And it was all about to come to fruition.
“Long have we been oppressed. Downtrodden and trampled. But hear me now! The rebellion is coming,” Vir said, impersonating the best smug grin he could muster—which was to say, masterful. “Be sure you’re on the right side when it happens.”
He could almost hear the Kothis gulp. The stronger among them looked away in shame, while the weaker, less experienced guards nervously exchanged glanced with one another.
They won’t be a problem, Vir thought as he walked away. Just wish I could say the same for the others.
“Alright, look,” Vir announced, his voice amplified by the same tablet the Overseer used. Balagra had charged it, and if he’d had any reservations about why he’d been asked to charge it, he kept them to himself. Having his life saved had a profound impact on the Naga’s attitude to Vir.
“I won’t claim to have all the answers. Who am I? Gargan rebellion. Yes, I said it. No, I’m not afraid. Yes, I’d be a grakking chal to think we could rebel and flee right now. Where would we go? To the Ash? We’d die. Across the border? We’d be fugitives. And I doubt any of you harbor delusions that we’d be let back into Chitran-controlled territory.”
“So what should we do?” someone asked.
“For starters, we head to a secure location. By those mountains,” Vir said, pointing to the jagged peaks that were bisected by the Ash Boundary.
The prisoners shuffled anxiously, and some uttered prayers, though not one spoke up against him.
“I know it’s dangerous,” Vir said. “But it’s the best shot we have. The mountains will protect us from Ash Beasts. And the Kothis aren’t expecting us back for a week or more. We’ll make good use of that time, though not in the way they intended. We’ll train. I’ll train you. You’ve all seen what I can do. When we’re done, you’ll wield those weapons of yours as well as you move your own arms. I can’t say you’ll win one-on-one against Ash Beasts, but three-on-one? Doable.”
Excited whispers sounded through the crowd. They were hesitant, but curious. Vir could work with that.
“For those of you lacking weapons… I plan to raid Praya Parul. On my own. And I’ll bring back better gear than you could ever have dreamed of.”
“What about after?” someone asked. “What do we do then?”
“Then we return to Garrison Atnu. We’ll be wearing our collars, but we’ll no longer be slaves. No longer prisoners. We’ll be rebels. And when the time comes, we will destroy them.”