//------------------------------// // Chapter 34: In the Darkness // Story: Drake's Empire // by Pentel123 //------------------------------// Chapter 34: In the Darkness "Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness" -Desmond Tutu Flam woke in a haze. His back was sore from leaning against hard metal. He tried to move, but found his hooves hogtied. The steady clacking of metal on metal caused the slowly dawning realization... he was in a mine cart, rolling along a set of tracks! He opened his eyes, hoping to peak over the edge of the cart, but the same blackness of sleep greeted him. Wherever he was, darkness ruled. Flam attempted to light the darkness with his magic, but found it beyond him. He felt his magic, but it was just beyond his reach. Each attempt drove it further away. From other carts he heard moans, grunts, crying, and in the case of one stallion screaming. Despite his best efforts to remain awake the clacking of the tracks and darkness pulled him back into the realm of sleep. Flam woke some time later. The pain in his back remained a dull throb. His throat burned with thirst. The area around him was filled with the same inky blackness as before. Slowly the events that had transpired came back to him. The tavern, the fight, Drake, and his capture followed swiftly by a club to the head. ‘I was captured. I hope Flim is okay,’ Flam thought. The cart continued rattling on the tracks. Sounds others had made giving way to silence. Eventually, as he was about to drift into dreamless sleep again, a light appeared at the end of the tunnel. He was able to make out two shaggy forms at the front of the cart train he was a part of. Several carts separated him from them, hooves and muzzles showing where captured Ponies lay. The light grew until Flam passed through the portal into a large depot. Torches blazed on the walls, and braziers sat haphazardly spilling light wherever the Diamond Dogs working the depot needed it. Tracks ran outwards wildly into tunnels that came and went without any apparent rhyme or reason. Cages and chains waited on platforms next to the tracks. Looking forward, Flam saw the forms pulling his cart were a pair of Buffalo with chains running from the lead cart to their humps where they were bolted into their flesh. They came to an abrupt halt at the Buffalo pulled up short before a stone trough after a Diamond Dog whipped them down one of the spurs in the depot. The Buffalo panted heavily and drank greedily from the stale water in the trough. The carts were quickly swarmed by Diamond Dogs who stuffed the disoriented Ponies into waiting cages. Flam caught a glimpse of the pullers faces and immediately wished that he hadn’t. Pink foam pooled at the corners of their mouths. Broken teeth poked out of the foam like jagged peaks. Their eyes were the worst part. Where they should have been, there was merely a pair of black abysses staring back at any who gazed into them. Flam turned away and fought to keep his stomach from emptying itself. The sounds of others failing in that endeavor brought him over the edge. Now, coated in vomit, sore and enduring the sharp pain of blood returning to his previously bound hooves, Flam leaned against the bars of his cage and gave into sleep once again. * * * * * * * * * Flam woke to the rattle of chains and cries of pain. Looking around, he saw a team of Diamond Dogs working its way down the cages, yanking them open and chaining up the ponies within. The Pegasi had their wings strapped down by leather belts. Flam shuddered to think where the material for those had come from. The Unicorns had the complex inhibitors strapped over their horns double checked. The metal mesh cones enough to block their use of magic. The Earth Ponies were merely led on leashes, but the guards stood nearest them, spears at the ready. Regardless of their tribe, all ponies had four way shackles restricting their hooves with a chain met underneath them, then ran ran through their front legs to a cold iron collar and into the hands of their captors. At the front of the Diamond Dog possession was a bulldog looking beast. His jowls dripped with saliva and crooked teeth poked out from his lower jaw. On his head sat a tiny black bowler hat. His right eye was adorned with an opaque monocle, and he held a black cane in his left paw. He tapped the against the ground as he trudged up to each cage and checked a form stuck to the top that Flam hadn’t notice before. Having pursued the form, he would turn to a poodle at his side and speak quickly. “This one off fur the ‘arpies. This pretty for the mines. Toss that tosser in the forges. That trollup has a dainty backdoor, send her to the front for the jocks what be fighting those bloody wolves.” He said as he walked down the line looking over each pony like a mare out shopping for the best deals imaginable. The poodle would reply quickly, her charcoal pen making harsh tapping sounds as she ticked the fresh slaves off on her clipboard. “Quite right guvna. Bett’r than they deserve. She is quite the trumped up trumpet isn’t she.” Flam couldn’t help but shiver in his cage as they approached the bulldog’s eyes going wide as he read over the form on his cage. “’Ell looking here. One o’ them ponies what been causing havoc out on the plain here in our cage. Quite wonder what we gonna do wit him now.” “Guvna Chamberlain, says ‘ere he’s to be handed over to the big boss.” The poodle said. “Hold your horses,” a harsh screeching voice cried out from the back of the pack. “Angelica wants that one for herself.” Flam shuddered as he saw a small Harpy work its way to the front of the group and speak to Governor Chamberlain. “Wat’s this now. If the papers say ‘e goes to the big boss, ‘e goes to the big boss.” “And I am telling you that this is one Angelica wants for her personal collection.” “An ‘ow you know ‘e’s the one she wants?” Governor Chamberlain said taking his monocle off and wiping it with a disgusting rag. “The orange and white striped tail and mane with a soft yellow fur. Mustached and scars on the leg,” The harpy said grabbing Flam left foreleg and twisting it to show the scars from his first encounter with Diamond Dogs. “He’s one of that fool dragon’s followers and Angelica- Well she’ll be wanting to make an example of him.” “’At’s all the more reason ‘e’ll be going to the big boss. We’ve already divvied out your share. Be ‘appy with what you got. Big boss ‘ill want at least one o’ them at’s been causing havoc fur us.” Governor Chamberlain huffed. “You already got that griffin hen from the other day. This one goes to Angelica,” the harpy screeched bearing her talons at the bulldog. There was a burst of movement as the Diamond Dogs guarding the slaves leveled their weapons at the Harpy. Flam remained silent in his cage as the Diamond Dog and Harpy argued over what would happen to him. Privately he prayed they wouldn’t send him to the harpies. He knew what waited that way from the griffins’ stories. The Diamond Dogs though, they just used you has hard labor right? Right? “Listen ‘ere little birdy and listen closely. We are keeping ‘at pony and ‘e is going to the boss. Any questions?” Governor Chamberlain asked pointing his cane at the Harpy and tapping its feathery chest. “None,” the Harpy spat back as it lowered its talon. “I’ll be taking my cut and leaving then.” “Please do,” the poodle said waving for a pawful of guards to escort her and her new slaves away. The Ponies given over to the Harpy were led away, struggling vainly against their bonds. Flam didn’t have to look to know they were all stallions, nor did he envy them their fate. “Just sit tight ‘ere in your cage, no point letting you loose to try fleeing hither and dither on us now is there?” Governor Chamberlain said as he moved on to the next cage. Flam sat there, terror and despair slowly making themselves at home in his heart as he listened to them go down the line, evaluating and assigning the ponies that had been captured the same time as him like wood at the lumber yard. Eventually, a fitful sleep overtook Flam, as the lack of food or water since his captured sapped what little strength he had. * * * * * * * * * When Flam woke he found a bowl of mushrooms and a rock mug filled with water inside his cage. He drank deeply of the water first, soothing his dry throat. He nibbled on the mushrooms as he contemplated his situation. They tasted stale but were better than nothing. Another train of carts had come in while he slept. It was filled with Griffins and Minotaurs. All but two were pulled off and thrown into waiting cages. After the carts were given a once over, several Diamond Dogs came over to Flam, pulled him from his cage, made sure he was bound, and tossed him in the middle of the carts, empties separating him from the other captives. “Off these prizes go to the big boss,” One of the workers yelled out. The Buffalo chained to the carts were directed backwards, then sent running on another track that plunged the train back into darkness. Flam struggled for a bit then fell still; his binding only tightened further as he fought them. The unending darkness called for him to sleep, but he fought it. He needed to find a way to escape before they reached the big boss, whoever it was. His solo efforts in vain he attempted to strike up conversation. “Hey, can either of you fine fellows hear me?” Flam called out the other unwilling passengers. Silence reigned in the darkness. “Surely you both would agree that a little conversation in this darkness serves better than the stew with naught but our thoughts,” Flam called out again. “Be quite Pony. Your struggles are in vain, and I have no interest in your words. If you can speak consider biting you tongue. My tongue cannot move between my beak and my claws are bound such that I cannot slit my own throat or I would have long ago,” a speaker Flam quickly identified as the griffin called out from behind him. “The Minotaur will not answer. She is gagged as well as bound, else she would already have free her soul from this dark pit of Tartarus.” “Surely there is something we can do, some means by which we might escape,” Flam pleaded, growing desperate in the face of the Griffin’s words. they washed over him in the dark and set his mind tossing about like a ship in a tempest. “What might we try that the Dogs haven’t seen in the millennia they have plied their trade? Where might we go but to where they wish? These tunnel are long and straight crisscrossing the whole of the world. At each end waits our captors. In between, is not but darkness and maimed Buffalo pulling carts.” From the darkness came guttural yowl and the carts started slowing. Then came a twisted moan and the carts sped back up. Flam started crying as he realized there truly was no hope here in the darkness. Every day that passed brought him further from his brother, further from Equestria and further from freedom. As the cart clacked relentlessly forward Flam cried himself dry of tears and passed into a fitful sleep devoid of dreams. * * * * * * * * * Flam woke as the cart began to slow down. Light built at the end of the tunnel until they burst into a gargantuan bowl shaped cavern. They followed the tracks into a depot at the top of the cavern, and were quickly offload by slaves under the watchful eye of heavily armored dogs. Flam, the Griffin, and the Minotaur were paraded down the slopes. At the bottom a large city stretched towards the ceiling. Pale lights pouring forth from the windows and doors. Diamond Dogs lined the streets, the powerful and wealth resting on palanquins supported on the backs of slaves, cheering as they were brought towards a palace carved into four great pillars that reached from ceiling to floor, seeming to support the roof of the cavern. The Dogs, wearing, at the least, gem studded collars, at the most, extravagant suits bedazzled haphazardly in the precious stone, jeered and insulted them as they were marched along. Pups threw stones and dirt clods at them. They cheered loudly when one sharp rock struck the Minotaur’s belly, drawing a line of blood and muffled howls of pain. The Griffin bore the abuse unflinchingly, his eyes lock forward and stance defiant. One of their escorts apparently did not like this. He used his spear to trip the Griffin; then ground his face into the cobblestones before letting him up. Once the dog let him up the Griffin resumed his march. Dirt clung to his beak, feathers were missing on the side of his face, blood dropping where loose stone had bit into his skin, yet his pride remained intact. Flam ducked the stones and kept his eyes downturned. He had to survive till he saw Flim again, though something told him rescue was going ever more distant. The stones of the buildings surrounding them grew finer and more expertly cut as they closed in on the palace. Taking a moment to glance at the palace, Flam saw it looked more like a fortress than a living space of a ruler. The passed through the gatehouse and behind them heavy wooden doors closed as a wrought iron portcullis slammed into the ground. Behind the walls a second keep waited. They were brought in and lead through a series of twisting halls, some wide, others narrow. Gems and lanterns filled the halls, slaves of all kinds scurried about polishing and cleaning. Flam caught sight of a mare being tossed into a room by a dog who followed behind and slammed the door shut his paws reaching for something near his hips. At long last, they stopped in front of a beautiful door. It was studded with gems and depicted a scene of monsters being driven behind a gate, a three-headed beast guarding the gate, and a city growing up around the gate. The denizens of the city looked canine, and Flam began to wonder if it had been the Diamond dogs or someone else that built the fortress he found himself in. A pair of guards stood outside the doors, clad in heavy armor, wielding well cared for halberds. Flam felt his hope slip away a little more. The guards spoke quickly with the mutts that had brought them in from the station then dismissed them. They opened the doors and led the trio inside. Within, a floor of polished gold reflected light from the enchanted gems that hung from the most impressive chandelier Flam had ever seen. At the back of the room rose a series of silver steps that blended into an awe inspiring golden throne. The throne was faceted with the finest gems the Diamond Dogs had ever found. At the top of the throne a large dragon skull looked down on all in the room, the bone scarred by whatever had killed it. On the throne was the creature that’d killed it. A huge dog, with a bulky, muscular body. Its eyes deep set ovals above a stout snout. Close cropped ears that hid in its coat on half its body, a stump of a tail flicking erratically behind the chair. On the other half of its body sickly pink skin, scarred by burns and deep slashes stood out in stark contrast to its thick coat. The paw on its side with the coat was lacking its second finger. The nails on his naked paw rapped against the armrest of the throne as the figure tapped them in quick succession over and over as the trio was presented before him. Other Diamond Dogs filled the balconies and space between the columns leading up to the throne. With them personal slaves, some Minotaurs, some Griffins, many Ponies, and even the occasional Zebra. Beside the throne stood a Minotaur cupbearer, blinded in one eye, with only one arm that held the rulers drink. Her horns had been shorn off, along with other parts of her anatomy. The only reason Flam knew it was a female was because of the way her shoulders and hips matched his traveling companion. The guards forced them to their knees before the ruler. The hall feel quite when he spoke. “Welcome to my home, Virfortis Rac of the Hussar Clan, Genethlios of the Forebearer Tribe, and Flam, a follower of the mad dragon,” The giant of a diamond dog said, his deep gravelly voice booming so loudly it shook the jowls on the fatter dogs in the crowd. The skin on the bare side of his face stretch taunt as he spoke, the burn scars shifting grotesquely over the bone beneath. “Rejoice for you are now property of the Wolves Bane, Wing Plucker, Dragon Slayer, The Undying Lord of the Underground, the first and greatest Alpha Diamond Dog, Sirius,” he said introducing himself. “And what worthy property you are, for the most part,” He chuckled the last bit, his raspy laugh making Flam’s hair stand on end. “Virfortis, a great hunter of Diamond Dogs. Defender of the High Wind Eerie, and promised to the High King’s third daughter. How did it feel to be the hunted? How does it feel to know that even your great mountaintop fortress can be breached? Did you enjoy watching the life pass from your betrothed?” Sirius taunted. Virfortis shook with rage, but held his tongue. “What’s the matter? Harpy got your tongue? ANSWER ME!” Dust fell from the ceiling when Sirius yelled. Flam flattened his ears against his skull and squeezed further down into himself. Virfortis lifted his head to meet Sirius’ gaze, the fires of impotent rage burning in his eyes. “Someday, you will die, you wretched twisted monster. Someday, you will be struck down. Your head will be placed on a lance and parade across the world so that all you torment may rejoice that the coward who sits on his golden throne, hiding away in the shadows of the world, is dead!” Virfortis proclaimed, making a leap forward... Only to be knocked to the ground by the guards. As he laid there, tears streaming from his eyes, Sirius began to laugh. Soon the entire hall joined in. “Ah, what fire, what passion. I was afraid it’d died when we took your love bird from you. Excellent to see you still have what I want. Varus, take him to the pits. He will make an excellent gladiador for my team. Of course, a prize Griffin like this you don’t just waste. Non-lethal matches only, but on his first loss have him handed over to Angelica. I am sure she would enjoy playing with a tom of his pedigree.” Virfortis was led away, hanging limply in the grasp of the Dogs tasks with him. Flam’s hope had become a thin flickering flame, like a candle near its end. Sirius motioned for drink and the mutilated cupbearer beside his throne filled his gaudy chalice. Sirius drank greedily from it, letting the purple drink spill down his snout and onto his coat. He set his drained cup down, and belched loudly. As the cupbearer refilled it once more, for while the cup need not be full, it must never be empty, Sirius turned his attention on Genethlios. He looked her over critically, inspecting her for any flaw. Genethlios stared back defiantly. The gag still in her mouth. “What an excellent wine you cows used to make. I have so few casks left from your crumbled and forgotten Empire. A pity the art has been lost. I suppose that is my brother’s fault. The art of making excellent wine seemed to be the purview of the lazy and slothful,” Sirius said, taking a more measured draw from his cup. “What to do with you Genethlios. Famine! You Forebearers use the most ostentatious names. It will not bring your cities back to you. Your lost magic’s or glories. Ah, but I am forgetting, aren’t I. You are the Matriarch’s oldest friend and share her misguided dream of finding a way to unify the disparate tribes, or at least bring peace amongst the bickering old Bulls.” “A better future for your calves. That’s what all the captured Forebearers scream about as they are captured, throwing themselves at the enemy to allow the rest to escape. How funny then that you yourself are sterile and will never have a calf of your own. Especially not now,” Sirius taunted. The Betas who styled themselves as nobles howled cruelly at their Alpha jests. Flam tried to curl into the fetal position but was stopped by the armored guards who beat him with the hafts of their spears. Beside him Genethlios struggled to force the gag out. To fit her tongue between her teeth and deprive the sick deformities of nature before her their prize. “Perhaps you aren’t sterile,” Sirius said resting his check on his furred paw. “Yeah, that’s it. Your problem is your Bulls are just lacking in the horn department. Well I am sure we can help you out with that. Looks like we need to find a better gag for you anyway,” Sirius said, licking his lips as Genethlios eyes went wide in horror. “One of you mutts check her; make sure she still has the requisite plumbing.” A bichon from the crowd strutted out to many happy hollers and jeers. The guards held Genethlios’s chains tight as she ran her hands over Genethlios, slipping them inside her meager clothing. Flam couldn’t see much but the crowd grew louder and louder in their suggestions till any semblance of language was replaced by raw noise. At a wave of Sirius paw, the hall fell silent for the results “She’ll serve Alpha of Alphas,” The bichon said with a bow. She hurriedly returned to the crowd when dismissed by a flick of his wrist. “Have her taken to the pleasure houses, but do take care she doesn’t enjoy too much,” Sirius said laying back in his throne. Genethlios cried as she was led away. She struggled vainly against her chains. Tried to lash out and hit those dragging her off, but the chains were too tight, and the dogs too quick to be caught by her unwieldy struggles. Flam shivered on the floor as all eyes turned to him. From the throne boomed a throaty chuckle. “Good to see you already know your place. That’s the best part about Ponies. As soon as you show them who is in charge they follow without question or comment. Why else would one follow a dragon?” “Tell me pony, what does that dragon mean to you. I want to have something to tell him when I rip his heart out and feed it to him,” Sirius said. Flam kept his eyes downturned shaking like paint in a mixer. “Pony, you aren’t important enough for me to want to keep you alive. The only reason you are here is because you pissed of Angelica. That was good. She’s more useful to me that way, so I have to keep her from getting you like she wants. If she got you, she would be satisfied. In more way that one. No, I need her unsatisfied and pissy. So don’t hold your tongue when I ask a question. What does that dragon mean to you?” Flam brought himself under control, fighting an ever present urge to piss himself. He slowly brought his eyes up to look at the scarred creature on the throne. “That dragon saved my life. Has shown my brother and I unmatched kindness, and encouraged us to create and invent, even if it was just for a short time. When he comes, and he will come, to rescue me, remember your boasts as he cooks you alive and leaves you dying on the floor as he did with Chrysalis,” Flam said his voice growing stronger as it outran his thoughts. Realizing too late what he’d said, Flam saw the rage writ large on Sirius’ disfigured features. A shaggy paw slammed down, cracking one of the armrests off the throne. Sirius launched himself at Flam. Flam felt the wind knocked out of him as Sirius wrapped his bad paw around him and lifted him off the floor. His legs pressed into his ribcage as Sirius squeeze, the creak of bones on the verge of snapping the only sound in the hall aside from Sirius’ growl. “I could kill you know with just a bit more pressure,” Sirius said flexing his arm as he brought Flam eye to eye with him. “But I think you would find that a victory. You, a nobody, killed by the greatest of Discords Lieutenants. No, I think I will show you just how worthless you truly are. How unimportant to me you and your words are.” He dropped Flam on the ground and climbed back into his throne. “Take him to the mines. He is to receive no special treatment, no extra punishments or be given any easier of a time. If he ceases being able to work send him to the nearest Harpy nest and let them have at him.” “You are nothing Pony. I am done with you.”