Chapter 22 – The Silence of Free Men
Uzo woke to the smell of roasting meat and the heavy, musk-thick scent of sweat.
He wasn't in the snow anymore. He was underground. The air was warm, stiflingly so.
He tried to move his arm. A sharp spike of pain shot from his shoulder. He looked down. His arm was splinted with rough wood and leather.
They treated it, he realized. Why?
He sat up. He was in a cage made of thick, black iron bars. To his left, Ronnie sat leaning against the bars, awake but staring out into the cavern with wide, unsettled eyes.
"Where are we?" Uzo asked, keeping his voice low.
"The belly of the beast," Ronnie whispered, not looking at him. "Don't look too closely, Uzo. It's... raw."
Uzo looked.
It was a massive cavern, lit by a central fire pit that roared with orange flames. The walls were lined with the skulls of dire wolves and bears.
Barbarians moved around the fire. Dozens of them.
But the most terrifying thing was the quiet.
There were no conversations. No songs.
They communicated with subtle gestures and guttural grunts.
And they had no shame.
To the right of the fire, on piles of cured furs, bodies were tangled together.
Uzo froze.
It wasn't hidden. There were no curtains, no walls.
A massive Barbarian woman straddled a warrior, her back arched, her movements rhythmic and uninhibited. She didn't cry out in pleasure; she bared her teeth in a silent grimace of release, her hands gripping the man's hair.
Further back, in the shadows, Uzo saw others.
The flash of pale skin against dark fur. The heavy, rhythmic grinding of hips.
It wasn't romantic. It was carnal. It was the same as eating or fighting a hunger that needed to be fed.
They did this while others ate, while others sharpened swords. No one looked away. No one cared.
"They live like animals," Ronnie whispered, clutching her knees. "No words. No rules. Just... instinct."
Uzo watched a warrior finish with his partner, roll off, and immediately reach for a chunk of meat from the fire, ripping into it with bloody teeth. The transition from lust to gluttony was seamless.
"They are Free Men," Uzo muttered, realizing the terrifying truth. "Civilization is built on shame. They have none."
A massive figure approached the cage, blocking the view.
It was the Barbarian with the wolf-skull helm.
He unlocked the cage door. CLANK.
They stepped out. The air smelled of sex and blood.
The giant nudged them toward the fire.
At the head of the cavern sat the Warlord on a throne carved from a leviathan's jawbone.
Kaelen.
He watched his people with a bored expression. The debauchery around him didn't phase him.
He looked at Uzo. Then at the Lexicon on the table.
"You... carry... the chains," Kaelen rasped.
Uzo stepped forward, trying to keep his eyes on the Warlord and not the couple writhing in the furs ten feet away.
"It's not a chain. It's a book."
The Warlord stood. "Words... are chains. We... pay nothing."
He picked up the Lexicon and held it over the fire.
"If you... Free Man... burn it."
"I can't," Uzo said, his voice shaking. "It holds the names of the enslaved. If I burn it, I erase them."
He stepped closer.
"You call yourselves Free Men? You hide in the snow while Lazarus chains the world. True freedom isn't silence. It's choice."
The cavern went deadly still.
Even the lovers in the shadows stopped moving.
The woman who had been riding the warrior turned her head, sweat glistening on her skin, staring at Uzo with feral intensity.
The Warlord stared at Uzo.
Then, he lowered the book.
"You speak... loud," Kaelen grunted. "Like storm."
He sat back down.
"I am Kaelen. Breaker of Oaths."
He gestured to the food, and then to the tangled bodies around the fire.
"Eat. Drink. Pleasure... if you have the strength. Tomorrow... we make Lazarus bleed."
Kaelen pointed to a secluded alcove for them.
"Sleep there."
Uzo and Ronnie walked past the fire. They passed a couple locked in a desperate embrace, the man's hand gripping the woman's throat, their breath coming in synchronized, silent gasps.
Ronnie looked away, her face pale.
"Let's just sleep," she whispered.
They entered their alcove and dropped the heavy leather curtain, shutting out the sight of the primal orgy.
But they couldn't shut out the sound.
The heavy breathing. The slap of skin. The low, animal grunts.
Uzo lay back on the furs, his arm throbbing.
"This place," he murmured. "It's dangerous."
"It's honest," Ronnie said, curling up in the corner, facing the wall. "That's what makes it scary."
Outside, the Barbarians continued their silent night of flesh and fire, preparing for a war that would likely be just as bloody.