Descent

Iskrin stood looking at the crowd around him, his head splitting in pain. Their expressions swam into view, as though a mist was being lifted from his eyes. He could see fear on their faces. He returned their looks with a confused expression, but they neither backed away from nor answered his questioning eyes. There was a hush around him, as though the crowd was expecting something. Dreading something. Their faces were bathed in a brilliant white light. He looked down to the spirit blade in his hand - a blinding gash of light. He unsummoned the blade with a word. The torchlight flooded back in, bathing the scene in a reddish hue. He looked down. The floor too was red. Too red. He moved to lift a foot and take a step. The crowd shrank back. Afraid. His foot was sticky and hard to lift from the floor. His face was sticky too.

"I'm," he croaked, his voice hoarse and his throat apparently sore. He coughed. "I'm Iskrin Orin'Darr. First Estril. What is happening here?"

The crowd were silent. Then a small girl met his eyes and stood with her index finger pointing behind him in silence. He turned, following the direction she indicated. One by one, as he turned, the bodies came into view. Not so much bodies, though; more a collection of limbs and viscera, strewn in a path from one entrance to this part of the Undercity to where he stood in a sticky mess of blood and entrails.

He turned back to the girl and the crowd. "Did I?" he asked. She nodded silently, a smile on her lips. "Why?" This time the girl pointed up to a cage, hung from the ceiling of the chamber. Inside it was another girl, only a little older than the one pointing to her. She was bloody and her clothing was tattered. As he looked at her, the cage swung in some draft moving through the cave, rotating her to face him. He could see her bloody eye sockets and her matted hair that framed her face. He could also see that she was still alive. "Get her down." he said quietly to the crowd. Two men detached themselves from the group, treading carefully around him to lower the cage.

....

As he walked back through the quieter paths of the Undercity, the memories began to return and the pain to dissipate. He remembered Trefillyn bringing him word of another captured child, like the ones Lyrena's people had rescued. He'd decided to go himself, hoping to scout out the slavers and gain additional intel. He recalled that he'd found the hideout of the slavers and entered carefully, but that they'd seen him. He'd drawn Ke'ntor... and then the sword's song was all he could recall: "Here we go! Here we go!". The battle - or perhaps slaughter - was a red fog of glee and violence set to a drumming beat in his mind. He couldn't remember how the crowd had assembled once the slaughter was done. He did recall that he had not left a single person he'd found in the chamber with the caged girl alive. He couldn't say that he was sorry about that. But he had lost control. And not for the first time since wielding the Sword of Askamran again. And that was not something he could afford now as First Estril. The time to reach out to her was coming nigh, but he was determined to put off asking that self-satisfied sorceress for her help for as long as possible.