Steel and Fangs Read online

  Steel and Fangs

  Book 1

  Sami Dougish

  Copyright © 2021 Sami Dougish

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN-13: 9781234567890

  ISBN-10: 1477123456

  Cover design by: Miblart

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  I awoke to the smell of piss, dried blood, and dirty bodies. My head still hurt from where I had been knocked unconscious by one of the slaver's guards. I couldn’t make out much in the darkness, but I could feel the rumble of the wheels rolling over rough terrain.

  “Fuck.” I groaned to myself as I brought one of my shackled hands up to the side of my head.

  That part of my head was covered in dried blood and was tender to the touch. The guards had beaten me unconscious when I had fought them. I had known my efforts would be in vain, but I had done so despite being pointless, as I knew it would be my last good fight. Today would be the day that I would die. I had been a slave for the past seventeen years, and that entire time had been spent in the Thuum kingdom. The Thuum kingdom was a large human-dominated kingdom in the southwestern portion of the Vlaicus continent. That was the extent of my geographical knowledge. Today was the first day since I had first been enslaved at the age of seven, that I had been out of the borders of the main Thuum cities and mines. Ironic that it was the day that I would die.

  “Oh, look who is awake boys!” One of the guards said as he thumped the side of my cage with a club.

  Another one of the guards chuckled evilly and said, “Ahh the Lizard finally rears his head again, looks like we didn’t hit him hard enough.”

  I felt a hard jab in my back, as another guard poked me painfully in the back with the end of a spear.

  I growled and tried to face the guard, but the confines of the prison wagon didn’t allow it. So instead I did my best to hiss back at the guards. I was rewarded with another hard jab. Lizard, I hated that word. It was the derogatory term for my people. The Thuum kingdom had slaves of all sorts, elves, dwarves, orcs, and numerous more such as drelic elves, and minotaur’s to name a few. Out of all the enslaved races, the rarest and most sought after were my kind. The Drayzraac. The Thuum held a special place of hate for my kind, as did all of the other races in the world. We were said to be the result of a union between dragons and humans 1000s of years ago. While my grandfather had told me that we were once a proud and powerful people, that all changed after the Wyrm wars.

  It is long forgotten why the dragons began to attack the rest of the races, but what was known, was that they unleashed untold death and ruin across all the continents. It took the rest of the races over 100 years to finally force the draconic horde into a retreat. That was roughly 500 years ago. For many years afterward however, the once-powerful dragons were hunted like rats to their inevitable extinction. Dragons had not been seen for over 250 years, but the hate that the races felt for dragons did not disappear with the death of dragons. No, they still looked to take vengeance on dragons in any way possible, so they had turned their hatred upon my kind.

  Their reasoning for this was due to our resemblances to dragons. We were known to have arms and legs that were covered in dragon-like scales. Some were even born with their backs completely made from the hard scales of dragons. I for one had been cursed with even more draconic features. Though my face, hands, feet, and chest were that of a human, my back, legs, and arms were all completely made of hard jet-black scales. It did not stop there however, under my human lips rested a long-forked tongue, that could flick out and taste scents on the air. My teeth were replaced by rows of sharp fangs, that were sharp enough to easily rend flesh. While these traits had been viewed as blessed by my people, most other races viewed these traits as just another step closer to being a full dragon.

  My people were few now and were scattered throughout the world in small hidden colonies. However, when my village had been found, most of the people I had known my short life there had been killed, the rest of us enslaved. I was seven at the time. Apparently, the women had been used as exotic sex slaves to the richer nobles of the Thuum kingdom. I however being a heavily scaled male, had been slotted to fight in the arena. I hadn’t started until I was sixteen, however. No, they didn’t want me dead too early on, as they would not get their monies worth out of me. Instead, I had spent the first decade as a slave laborer. I had been forced to work the quarries and mines for the Thuum. While this work had been back-breaking, it had certainly given me a great deal of strength. That paired with my kind’s natural strength, had made me perfect for arena fights.

  The arena was actually the real reason that I was now being led away for execution. I was not exaggerating when I said I had been perfect for the arena. Before I had even made it to the main arenas, I had made a name for myself in the slave pit fights, I had killed enough of the other slaves, that my owner had felt me ready for the main arena. Once there, I had killed scores and scores of gladiators and again, other slaves in the arenas. I had made many a noble rich, and bankrupted as many others when they placed bets on the outcome of my matches. The King of Thuum, in an effort to put on a huge show, had even made a declaration that if I could defeat the current champion of the arena, then my freedom would be granted.

  The battle had been hard but had ended with my spear shoved through his gut, and his throat ripped out by my teeth. The King had never intended to grant my freedom, though. He had promised me freedom in front of a crowd of 50,000 however, and though most of them hated me, the king would have lost face if he did not give me my promised reward. So, he had assured the crowds that I would be escorted to the borders of the Thuum kingdom and released. Of course, later, he had ordered me to be taken to a discreet location in Thuum lands and killed.

  That was how I found myself in my current position. I gritted my teeth, and as I had done 1000s of times in my life, strained against the shackles around my wrists. The skin had long ago been rubbed bloody, and now I had inch wide scars that ran around the entirety of my wrist. The mark of a slave. The shackles of course did not break, they never did.

  This was really it; I would die today. My life, which had been so peaceful and wonderful in my early years, quickly turned into a life of pain, torment, and humiliation. What I wouldn’t give to see the Rocky Mountains I had once called home, to swim in the cool waters of the mountain streams, to hear my grandfather scold me for stealing meat cutlets.

  I was jostled from my thoughts, as the wagon came to a halt.

  “End of the line lizard!”

  I heard a jangling of keys, and the prison wagon was filled with the light of a setting sun. I blinked rapidly against the sudden bright light but did not have much time to adjust, as the guards yanked the chain connected to my
shackles, and I was pulled roughly from the wagon. I landed with a hard thump and growled in pain as my wounded head landed painfully on the rocky ground.

  I was roughly kicked and told to get on my feet. Slowly and deliberately, I did as I was told, and rose to my full height. I actually was not sure how tall I was, as I never had a chance to really measure myself at my full height, but I knew for sure I was a bit over six and a half feet tall. I knew this, as one of the slaves I had been imprisoned with, had commented on my impressive height. He had been an orc who had been a prisoner of war, who I had later killed in the arena.

  I towered over the six guards who were escorting me to my death, and even bruised, bleeding, and battered, I did my best to glare hatefully at the men. Their response was swift and brutal. I heard the haft of a club whistling through the air, that landed with a resounding CRACK, on the back of my left knee. The leg immediately collapsed, and I fell back to the ground. They proceeded to rain a continual stream of blows down on me, and I did my best to protect my head from the blows.

  I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, but eventually, the blows stopped. I let myself uncurl slightly and lay there for several seconds. I ached all over, both from the rough journey and now from the beating I had received.

  “Even minutes before we kill you ya lizard, you still haven’t learned to respect your betters!”

  “I think I will skin him after we kill him, my girl would love a Drayzraac carpet.”

  The other guards laughed heartily, and I heard another say, “You will have to share Damien, those scales sell for a small fortune, I plan on buying a small bit of land with whatever we sell.”

  Their disgusting ideas gave me the strength to get back to my feet, and I slowly struggled back to a standing position.

  “Ah, still alive lizard?”

  “Well what did you expect, this lizard was the champion of the arenas.”

  I spoke for the first time to them, and growled angrily, “My name is Vakarrian!”

  The slavers all guffawed at me, and one gasped out, “No, Nope, you do not deserve a name lizard, you were enslaved as a lizard, and you will die as a lizard, nothing more!”

  I narrowed my eyes at them, and growled out, “Let’s get this over with then!”

  They all calmed down eventually, and the leader said, “Very well, no skin off my nose. Let’s get him over there boys.”

  They tugged on my chained hands, and I shuffled after them as best as I could with my bruised body. I took in the sight of my execution as I walked, it seemed whatever bastard of a god was out there had at least blessed me with one of my dying wishes. I did not know what area of land this was, but I could still tell, we were deep in a mountain range. I took a deep breath, and the once-forgotten smells of the mountains seemed to push away the pains from my beating. At least I would die in a place that I found comforting.

  We walked like that for another fifteen minutes or so until we came to a cliff's edge. I peered down into the chasm and found that I could see the bottom. Roughly 60 feet below was a fast-flowing river. I could hear the sound of the water through the caverns below.

  “Here we are lizard, know what this place is?”

  “Nah of course he don’t, the animal can probably barely read!” the guard called Damien said with a chuckle.

  “Well, I’ll tell him then. See this here cliff is where all the crown’s undesirables are disposed of. The chasm is deep and erases all evidence of the dead. The water sweeps them away, and if they ever wash up, well they would be too far away to link back to the crown. We will be slitting your throat first, and then skin you right afterward, after all, we aren’t savages! Skinning an animal while alive is always a pain! Much easier when they are already dead!”

  I rolled my eyes as they laughed at me. I couldn’t care less about them anymore, at last, I would be free, even though the cost was my own life, at least I would finally be able to leave all of the hate and pain of this world, perhaps I would see my family again in death. I was sad to say for the most part I had forgotten what they looked like.

  I turned and spit at the guards, and before they could react, I got down on my knees and looked out over the chasm and the colorful sky. I wanted to see the beautiful sunset as I died, it was an image I would cherish as I passed.

  “Oh, let’s get this over with Bertrand, I want those pretty scales, I already have ideas for what I want to buy with them!”

  I heard one of the guards unsheathe a large sword and walk up to me. I didn’t care, instead, I let my tongue slither out. I wanted to taste the scents on the air before I died. It was the freshest air I had tasted in years. Not a hint of the smell of unwashed bodies, shit, piss, or blood. I tasted the wind flowing softly through the mountain range, the cooling temperature of the air around me as the sun fell, and-

  My sense quickly was drawn to the direction behind the guards. I could have sworn that there was a certain scent on the air, a scent I had not tasted in a long time.

  “Hey Bertrand, do ya hear something?”

  “Hmm no, why?”

  “The Lizard, he perked up and is looking back that way.”

  The guards all turned around, and that was when my eyes confirmed what my tongue had tasted. A shape leaped out of the ridgeline above us. It was one of the feared lamproite cats. They were large feline-like creatures that stalked the mountainous ranges of the continent. They were known to be extremely territorial and had a particular taste for sentient flesh.

  “Oh shit!” one of the guards yelled. Before the cat’s claws sliced straight through his leather armor and tore out a chunk of flesh from his chest. His cry of fear and surprise turned into a gurgling groan as he fell to his knees, blood spraying out of the ruin of his chest.

  The blood coated the cat’s fur, but it did not stop to feast, instead it released a hair-raising roar and charged at the last five guards. It was a slaughter. Lamproites were not only cunning predators but fierce in direct combat. Their claws could push through even heavier armors, and they had bites that had been known to crush small rocks. The guards in their crude leather armor stood no chance against an apex predator such as this.

  The biggest problem for me though was that the scrambling guards forgot that I was attached to them by a chain. As they rushed to defend against the cat, they dragged me into the fray as well. I lay there trapped in my shackles, as the screams of the men filled my ears. Blood splattered on my back, and from what I could see sprayed over the walls of the surrounding rocks and boulders. I felt a loud and wet thump next to me, and when I looked, I saw the dead and empty eyes of the guard known as Damien. Despite the situation, I smiled at the face, and spit at it before cackling madly at the man death.

  Less than a minute later, the fighting subsided, I heard gasping moans and tasted the coppery taste of blood on the air. It seemed that the cat had killed all the guards. That was until I felt a sharp jerk on my shackles and looked over to see that one guard was backing away from the cat. He was trapped against the edge of the chasm and was looking around in desperation.

  “fucking chain, fucking chain!” The guard yelled, as he futilely tried to break the chain from his wrist band. It was satisfying to see that the chain used to control me was now keeping the man from running away.

  The cat looked to be a mess. It was covered in blood, and I saw bits of flesh stuck in its fur. I doubted any of the blood was its own however, and even though I knew it would kill me next, I took great pleasure in watching it terrify my final tormentor.

  “No, NO! This isn’t fair!” the guard yelled, as I saw his pants darken with his own piss. I smirked, and called out one word, “Die!”

  That was when the cat struck. It leapt forward and swept a large paw at the guard, and the blow ripped the guard’s chest open, but instead of falling to the floor, he fell into the chasm, screaming. I had time for one moment of realization, and was able to growl, “Shit!”

  Then I felt a hard yank, and my body quickly slid past the cat, and towards
the edge of the chasm. A second later, I was falling down the chasm after the guard. Down into the black abyss.

  I roared as I fell, I couldn’t see the bottom, as I was facing the direction that I had fallen from, but I knew that I would be dead if there were any rocks down in the river. A split second later I heard the roaring of the water below, before I smashed into the cold embrace of the water, directly on my back. If I had thought that the beatings had hurt, I found out that this was ten times worse. I hadn’t managed to properly angle myself to fall into the water correctly, but fortunately, my back was reinforced by my thick scales, which helped me survive the fall. That did not mean that it didn’t hurt, and when I said I hurt, I meant I hurt literally everywhere. Even my fangs hurt! My fucking fangs! I didn’t even know that was possible!

  I didn’t have the luxury of passing out though, as the freezing water shocked and began numbing my pained body. Fuck it was like some god had a really messed up sense of humor. I wanted to see those mountains before I died, and I was taken to the mountains to be executed. I wanted to swim in the mountain streams, and I was dropped a long distance down into a freezing cold cavern river.

  I had not swum in years, and I coughed and sputtered as I did my best to stay above the fast-flowing river. I couldn’t effectively paddle though as my hands were still bound. I was pulled back under the rush of water, and I swallowed what felt like half of the river, as I struggled to get back to the surface. It also didn’t help that the current had pulled me further into the cavernous river, and I could no longer see the sky above me. The cavern was becoming darker and darker, and I knew in a handful of seconds, it would be pitch black. Despite the fact that the water was moving as fast as it was, and I could no longer see well, I felt as if I was just getting the hang of keeping my head above water. That was until I felt a sharp and searing pain in my leg. I had slammed directly into a rock that was jutting up from the water from what I could tell, I couldn’t see it, but it had felt like a rock, and I could tell that my leg was broken. I howled in pain and was rewarded with another mouthful of water.