“Oh, I promised to set them free,” I said, giving a shark-like grin. “I just didn’t say where, or if I’d give them anything to help them survive, Let’s go give them the good news!”
Oracle, who’d spent most of her time on the trip perched at the top of the highest mast, came flying down as soon as she saw us approaching the cage, and I could feel her interest.
“What are we doing, Jax?” she asked, alighting gently on my shoulder, and getting a warm smile from Lydia. Oracle had become something of a mix between a mistress of the Tower and a mascot to the people over the last few days. She was loved for the way she interacted with people, and especially for the free healing she gave. Occasionally she’d go so far as using a huge amount of mana in one go to cure a person of pretty much anything she could. On the other side, she was very clearly revered as one of the three wisps of the Tower and as my companion.
As we walked closer, I could feel Oracle dig her fingers into my shoulder slightly before forcing herself to relax, and the three of us joined Bob, who’d stood guard at the cages, staring at the criminals ceaselessly since he’d taken up the station earlier. The men glowered at me, all four of them clearly feeling hard done by.
Not one of them seemed to believe this was deserved, and the dark looks they gave me, Lydia, and then Oracle made my anger build. They’d begun to ignore Bob, which I supposed was fair enough. If they thought he was an average ‘Bone Minion,’ like Lydia had, they were expecting him to disappear soon, and he was hardly the most interesting conversationalist. What inflamed my anger the most, though, was the casual way they shifted their eyes from me to Lydia, and then Oracle, staring at their bodies. Lydia was dressed normally, and Oracle was…well she was dressed normally for her, which meant an outfit most exotic dancers would have loved.
That didn’t give those asshats the right to ogle her, though. Bob clearly picked up on my irritation, learning in and gripping the bars of the cage in his enormous hands. He flexed, and the entire cage creaked, causing the men to flinch. I tamped down my own anger as much as possible, and I resolved to give them a chance. I was well aware that I had an issue with anger, even before all of this, and having Oracle’s emotions reinforce my own wasn’t helpful, but I’d deal with it.
“I’m going to give you one last chance.” I said aloud, getting a concerned look from Oracle and Lydia. “I said I’ll set you free, and I’ll do that, but I’m going to give you a chance to help us, and maybe earn a …”
“Get fucked.” A voice cut me off and I looked at a man at the back of the group. He was larger than the rest, heavily muscled and scarred, and he spat at me.
It hit the cage, breaking up and falling down to the ground, but I swear I felt some of it, and the world went white hot with my rage.
I spun my naginata around, hammering it down into the cage, and it cut through the bars like a hot knife through butter. The runes blazed like the heart of the sun as my fury hammered through it. I made a second cut, then a third, and the remains of the cage fell apart around me as I shouldered my way inside, Bob hissing like a kettle, and Oracle… well, she was past me in a blur.
Before I could get to him, she was there, a lightning bolt slamming into him and flowing out into the other three, making them all scream in agony. I reached past her, grabbing ahold of him by the throat and drawing my naginata back, fully intending on skewering him, and the bastards that shared his cage. They deserved it, after all. They were rapists, thieves, and likely murderers. There was no place for the likes of them in my new world; not the one I would build.
I rocked to one side as something hit me, and I turned, eyes blazing, only to find Oren there. He pushed himself the rest of the way inside the cage, moving in front of Oracle, Bob and I, and he shoved me back, forcing me to release the target of my ire.
“You…dare!” I growled, and Bob and Oracle fixated on the little dwarf as well.
“Aye, laddie, fer the sake o’ who ye be, I dare!” he said, shaking his head. “Dinna lose yersel’, no like this, no fer the likes o’ them!”
I stared at him for a long moment, my breathing ragged in my throat, but as I calmed slightly, I saw things.
I saw the way that the men in the cage were huddled back, terrified beyond their wits, I saw the way the crew had frozen, fearful of the animal in their midst. Most of all, I saw Oren. He was trembling; he was absolutely sodding terrified of what I was going to do to him for interrupting, but he’d done this because it was right. Just like risking everything to feed the slaves was right. Just like risking everything to throw in with me and save the people back at the Tower was right. I took a deep breath and acknowledged to myself that he was doing what was right now as well.
They’d spat at me. I couldn’t chop them limb from limb because they spat at me. I wanted to; oh fuck, I wanted to so bad, but it wasn’t right.
A memory popped up then, when I was much younger, sitting in the back of a police van. Thomas sat across from me, and Jonno stood in the door, wiping some vomit off his uniform.
