Chapter 13: Gracebane

[POV: Silver Davis]

Silver groaned and shifted to his side. Why was his bed so hard and uncomfortable today? And why was it shaking and rattling? Was this an earthquake? This was bad, he needed to get out of here.

Silver tried to bolt upright and dash out of the room but something went wrong, his body just would not listen to him. Every fibre, every bone in his body felt limp.

Silver opened his eyes, and as soon as he did his head began to throb furiously. It felt as heavy as iron. Silver groaned. Everything was dark and blurry.  When he tried to lift his hand up to his face, he could not. They were strapped together behind his back.

Even with how limp his entire body felt, he somehow managed to heave himself upright. The rattling and shaking had not stopped. His vision was slowly returning.

His bed jolted and Silver bumped the back of his head into something hard.

“Argh! Why the hell is everything moving?” Silver growled under his breath.

“Cause it's moving. Look around you, idiot.” A familiar voice said.

"..."

Silver did not reply to the voice. His vision had finally returned. With his vision came his memories.

He was being transported in some kind of caged wagon as a prisoner. It was dark outside; dark clouds were hovering above, covering the entire sky. The only sound he could hear was soldiers' footsteps and rustling wheels of the wagons. Two guards were walking beside the wagon. One of them was Vlad; the source of the familiar voice. The man whom Silver always hated. His ego, his disgusting laughs and his twisted personality. If Silver were to define psychopath, his name would pop out of his mouth.

Thousands of men were marching at the front and a few hundred men followed after, with three huge wagons carrying something eerie, inside some kind of transparent vessel. An uneasy feeling passed through Silver's gut just by looking at it. The wagons were being pulled by Pyromuthus. A massive elephant-like magical beast with massive twisted tusks. They had rough fiery-red skin. A single twisted horn protruded from its head. And more horns lined its back from its neck to tail.

Thankfully silver could still feel his grace. When silver tried to pull on his grace it just...  slipped away. Silver thought about his symptoms for a few minutes. Limp body parts, throbbing head, and his inability of pulling on his grace.  These were all the symptoms of a drug called Gracebane.

Silver didn't utter a single word for days. They were travelling continuously. They were no longer at the Elohim's plateau. It has been at least eight days, Silver thought. The guards were continuously talking about a package, Colin Smith. That was what they called him, a package.

The wagon had stopped outside a village. The village was right next to the forest.

***

It has been an hour already since the wagon had stopped moving. Suddenly, Silver heard a voice while he was staring at the sky as it was the only visible thing for him.

“You promised you would let them go. The deal is off, let me go.”

“We promised no such thing, I only said I would not harm them, And I have not harmed them.  However,  I said nothing about not taking them a prisoner.  You should be glad that my oaths did not allow me to order them to be killed or tortured. But if you struggle boy, my oaths will allow me to do so.”

Silver jerked his head out of curiosity. Vlad dumped someone else inside the wagon he was in. Silver quickly realized who that was.

Silver gently smiled and said, "You must be Colin."

Colin’s eyes widened with surprise, probably shocked. Colin asked, “How did you..."

“How did I know? Please, the only thing they talked for 8 days was about is you. How you were an important package that promptly needed to be delivered.”

The two exchanged many words with each other all day long inside the wagon and consequently became good friends in a short time. Well, they had only each other to talk and vent out their frustrations. They didn’t talk to their guards, and there were no other prisoners. During their latrine breaks, a mage would dose them with gracebane before removing their grace dampeners. A dose strong enough to make them lose the ability to pull on their grace, but weak enough so that they could still walk around and do their business. Few guards would constantly follow and watch their moves during their break.

It had been three days since Colin was captured. The mages had left the group along with captured humans a few hours ago, just after their latrine break. They finally arrived at the top of the plateau. Out of curiosity, Silver finally asked,

“Do you have any idea why you were targeted?”

“I was born with way too much grace. I guess that they want to harness grace from me to create magic items or something.”

“That could be one of the possibilities,” Silver said with a nod.

Vlad laughed with amusement. “You kids are hilarious. It's not possible to extract grace from any of the races let alone from a punisher, other than a mage that is.”

“Then why bother capturing him?’

“It's simple, he's a payment for the organization who gave us this army.”

“What idiot gives an army of this size for one person.”

"You've got it all wrong. He's for the army of fifty mages and fifty-thousand vampires. And he's not the only payment. They want Firestone and Waterstone as well.”

“So, you attacked our village just to get your hands on the Firestone,” Silver hissed every word.

“Yup! That is one of the reasons but not all of it.”

“Why you?” He looked at Vlad with a vengeful eye.

 “You wouldn't be so cocky if my hands weren't  strapped by this damn thing.” Silver shook the grace dampeners. “I would've killed you this instant.”

Vlad Snorted loudly. “Even if you weren't cuffed in that thing you still wouldn't be able to lay a single scratch on me, that's how powerful I’m.”

During his fit of anger against Vlad Silver realized something, something wonderful.

 “Hey Col," Silver whispered.

“What is it?”

“I'm going to get both of us out of this cell.”

Vlad laughed. “Good luck with that. That was the best joke ever," Vlad said walking away. He had left another guard in his stead.

“What? How?” Col whispered.

“Just trust and sit back to back with me.” Silver said. Col did as he was told.

“Hey, you! What are they carrying in those wagons?” Silver jerked his head towards one of the guards.

“Trust me you don't want to know what it is,” the guard said.

“Just tell me already,” Silver shouted.

“Watch your temper kid,” the guard shouted back. “That's all the blood we collected from your villagers.”

“Why would you want to collect all that blood?”

“We are vampires and we need blood to survive.”

“Then why didn't you collect blood from royal families.”

“Because it's so much fun to watch all high and mighty royal families heads being ripped off.” He said with an ugly laugh.

 “You son of a bitch!!!!” Silver snarled. “I will kill you.”

Silver and Col slowly stood up. Both of their hands were freed from the grace dampeners.