Cold. A penetrating, damp chill crept beneath his skin, trembling with exhaustion. Henryk slowly regained consciousness, as if emerging from a thick fog. His eyelids felt heavy as lead. When he finally opened them, he saw nothing but darkness.
He tried to move his arms, but a sharp tug stopped his movement. The screech of metal echoed through the stone room he was in. Chains. They were cold, rough, attached to the wall somewhere behind him. He felt the iron shackles cutting into his wrists, which were raw and raw.
He blinked, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness. For a few seconds, he heard nothing but his own breathing—ragged, shallow, filled with fear. His heart pounded furiously, pounding in his temples.
He felt achy. His whole body throbbed with a dull ache—as if someone had beaten him or fallen from a great height. His head throbbed, and something sticky oozed from the back of his neck. Blood? Sweat?
He had no idea where he was. Or how he got here.
He also realized that his sweatshirt, which he had put on after entering the count's house, was missing.
"Fuck, I feel like..."
He didn't finish the sentence because as he spoke, he licked his lips and felt that where his left incisor should have been, there was nothing, an empty space. Next to him, he noticed an old, rusty object that reminded him of pliers, and right next to it.
"Fuck," he said with a suspicious calmness in his voice, but inside he was terrified. "That's my fucking tooth."
Henryk checked it several times with his tongue to make sure he had really lost a tooth, but unfortunately...
"Well, that's just fucking awesome!" The boy shouted with anger like he had never felt before.
At that moment, the door opened in front of Henryk. Henryk tried to stand up, but he felt a searing pain in his back that prevented him from rising.
A short shadow of a man stood by the door, but surprisingly, Henryk recognized him immediately.
Count Jarrett Korin approached him rather slowly. Each step he took brought a sense of fear to the boy. His face betrayed no emotion. He crouched down beside Henryk and began to speak calmly.
"Listen to me carefully now, you brat... What I hate most are spies like you from the Empire. I know it's a job and all, but you have to have some nerve to enter my territory. Frankly, I don't give a damn what happens in other parts of the kingdom, as long as it doesn't threaten me. So I'll ask you just once, Henryk Zielczyk: who was stupid enough to send you here?"
Henryk didn't even have the strength to make a surprised face.
"What the hell are you talking about?" the barely alive boy asked.
This was clearly not the answer the Count had been hoping for. He grabbed Henryk's left hand as if to hold it and called for someone from outside to bring him something.
The same black knight from before entered the stone room, but this time he held a steel kettle with steam escaping from it. The knight handed the heated kettle to the Count and then took three steps back.
"You see, this is what happens when someone tries to cheat me," said the Count, tilting the kettle towards the back of Henryk's hand.
What Zielczyk felt in the next moment was beyond human imagination. The scalding water from the kettle literally burned the skin on his hands. He screamed so loudly that if he had been in a stadium full of fans, he would have been louder than everyone else.
"AAA, FUCK, FUCK! YOU BITCH! AAAAAAA!"
When the kettle finally ran out of water, the Count threw it to the side of the room and then straightened up, adjusting his blue jacket.
The pain was so great that Henryk could no longer bear the torture and his consciousness began to fade.
But unfortunately, Jarrett wouldn't let that happen. He kicked the boy hard with the sole of his shoe.
"Who the fuck said you might faint?! We still have 4 hours until sunrise! I have important things to do tomorrow morning and I don't have time for you!" He said, taking a red sapphire ring out of his pocket.
Once he put it on, he placed the sapphire under Henryk's fringe of brown hair, and within seconds, the boy realized what branded cattle felt like. With his desperate cries, the count left a small burn mark on his forehead. Finishing, the man grabbed him by the face and threw him against the wall.
"Next time I'll cut off your stupid legs if you answer my question wrong." The count warned the boy.
The nobleman and the knight left the stone room and double-locked the door.
Zielczyk pressed his left hand against the cold stone floor, hoping for some relief. Unfortunately, it didn't help much. Henryk clenched his teeth tightly, telling himself to "forget about the pain." But this was made more difficult by the bloody saliva from the extracted tooth.
"How the fuck did I end up here?!" The boy said to himself, his teeth still clenched. "I just can't believe I've just had my left incisor pulled out, and my left arm and forehead will have some serious burn marks! And the worst part is, I don't even know what this guy is talking about!"
Henryk continued to whine for a while, in a way that was unbearable to listen to. When he finished, he realized he hadn't eaten or drank anything in several hours, as his growling stomach reminded him.
"Damn, I could use some Thai chicken or a kebab." He said in a dreamy tone.
By thinking about food and other pleasant things, Zielczyk managed to escape his situation for a while, but unfortunately, as you might have guessed, not for long.
...
It seemed to the boy that he had spent a good dozen or so hours in the stone room that served as a dungeon since Count Korin and the knight had left him alone, or perhaps longer; Henryk lost count. During this time, Henryk examined his situation more closely, looking once more at the stone ceiling.
"Okay. I found myself here right after that weird light on the bus blinded me, and then I found myself in some village where some fucker stabbed me in the back with a spear, pulled out a tooth, and poured hot water on my hand... oh, and this forehead. And now I don't know what to do. I can only sit here because of these chains. I'm definitely going to fucking die here."
When Zielczyk remembered being stabbed in the back, he immediately wanted to see it and desperately tried to turn around. All he saw was the bloody part of his green shirt, but he felt no excruciating pain there.
"Maybe they patched me up while I was unconscious."
...
"Lord Korin, I think we should get rid of him."
In one of the count's offices, his knight tried to convince him to get rid of a prisoner they had recently captured. Unfortunately, the count refused to allow the prisoner to be executed.
"I already told you that kid won't last there and in two or three days he'll die on his own, probably bite his tongue off or something, so I don't see any reason to kill him now. But if he's tough, I'll need him."
"But Lord Korin, what if he escapes from there?"
At these words the Count laughed so much that he almost shed a tear.
"HA. HA. HA. You've got to be kidding?! He can barely swallow his own saliva. There's no way he's escaping, you understand?"
"Yes, but..."
"That's enough. In a month, if he survives, you'll take him and the rest to Wojtyn. I know a pretty decent slave trader in this town. He won't ask pointless questions and will simply pay you. Until then, feed him stale bread and give him a little water. If he's not weak, he won't die.
"I understand, my lord."
"Great, now get out of my sight. I have a lot of work to do." The man said.
Irritated, he picked up a scroll listing the people he had to collect taxes from from the inhabitants of Aivir. Unfortunately, most of this village paid taxes in kind: they gave a portion of the harvest—grains, eggs, or meat from farm animals. As a nobleman ruling this land, Jarrett Korin had to accept this form of tax personally, because in addition to the black knight, who served as his personal bodyguard and the man who did the dirty work, there were two servants in his household. Unfortunately for Korin, servants couldn't be trusted. They once even hid two cows from him to sell them to traveling merchants on a dirt road near the village. When he discovered this, he never trusted them again to collect taxes from the inhabitants of his domain. And, of course, he took all the money they earned from selling the cows.
"If I may ask, Lord Korin?" The black knight suddenly spoke up.
The count looked at him with irritation, thinking his subordinate had long since left his office. After the count's explanation, the knight stopped bringing up the subject of killing the boy, who was currently being held in the dungeon along with other prisoners who were to be sold. He knew Count Korin was the type of man who liked to torture his victim before breaking them, but he still had questions.
"Do you really think this boy came here from Khandar or Tsuyonokuni to spy?"
"No. It's rather unlikely. Those savages from the Khandar desert would never be capable of such a thing. They tend to mind their own business. As for the Tsuyonokuni Empire, it's also unlikely. The Empress would gain nothing from spying on Tharomund. King Alfred's kingdom means nothing to her. Besides, secret actions would be a stain on her honor, but it's also possible that one of her advisors was working behind her back. I hope you're satisfied with my answer. Now leave."
After this response, the knight dropped the subject of Henryk Zielczyk, who might have been a spy. Instead, he wanted to raise one more topic.
"Lord Korin, what should I do with the other prisoner who is in the same cell as this boy?" the knight suddenly asked.
"Nothing. I'll take care of him. I'm not finished with him yet, just like I'm not finished with that kid. But I have to admit, I've kept that scumbag in that cell for too long. I'll decide what to do with him in the next month. You'll probably take him with the other trash."
The Black Knight simply nodded and left his Lord's office.