Chapter 33 - Chapter 33- The Lion’s Reckoning

As Helios closed on the encampment, the sound of low, ugly laughter and the relentless clink of chains braided through the night and fed his anger. People shuffled to their cells beneath torchlight; mothers pressed children to their chests; the whole place smelled of soot and fear. He slowed on the dirt path and let his breath find a steady rhythm, feeling raw, untrained mana hum under his skin like a restless animal. If the gods would not move, then he would. He eased the gate open and stepped inside. A dozen heads turned as one, slavers pausing mid-taunt to stare at the single figure in the dark. Helios didn't draw his sword. He let the old blade rest against his back, not because he feared it, but because tonight he wanted to be the weapon, not the tool. "I won't give you the satisfaction of steel," he called, voice low and dangerous. "I'll use you for hand-to-hand practice." A watchman high on the tower let fly an arrow. Helios reached out without thinking, instinct more than skill, and the shaft landed in his palm. He twisted, flung it back; the arrow struck the watchman square in the temple. The shout that rose was not surprise so much as panic. They rushed him then: two at first, then more. He counted them as they flowed onto the yard, twelve… seventeen… twenty-three… twenty-five, faces hard with hatred and hunger for coin. Helios' fists flared with mana, knuckles whitening. "You beasts," he spat, stepping forward, "I'll take every last one of you." The slavers bellowed and surged. The fight began in a smear of motion. The gate screamed open and Helios stepped into the maw of the camp. Night air was thick with the clink of chains and low laughter; torches painted the tents in jaundiced gold. He felt it in his limbs, not confidence, not certainty, but a hot, bright thing that demanded motion. Mana prickled under his skin like a live wire. He breathed once, steady, and let it flood into his hands and shoulders until his gloves hummed. They noticed him like a single nerve firing through the camp. Voices cut. Torches turned. A dozen men moved first, small figures skittering into formation, knives and cudgels catching light. A watchman on a raised platform notched an arrow. Helios didn't reach for his sword. He stepped forward. The arrow whistled and he snatched it from the air, a palm catch that shocked his arm, and shoved it back. It punched through the watchman's shoulder. No theatrics, no flourish: the man folded and the platform erupted in alarm. They rushed like dogs. Helios tilted his head and met the first surge. He met the closest slaver with the kind of blunt physics that took breath. A bolt of mana stiffened his forearm; he put his shoulder into a step and collided. The man's knees folded as if the world had been tugged from beneath him. Helios wrapped the man up and used him as a ram, swinging the weight into two others, sending them staggering like bowling pins. The impact rang through Helios's bones, not pain, but confirmation: force worked. One man tried to jab a short blade into Helios's ribs. Helios dove under the arm, twisted, and lifted, a rippling surge in his core, driving his shoulder up through the attacker's chest. The slaver went down, breath wheeze and curse. Helios rolled, came up, and threw his weight into a low sweep that took out two more ankles at once. Men collapsed around him in a spreading net of bodies. They tried to swarm, to overwhelm with numbers. Helios answered with cadence: one step left, one right, wrists rolling, feet planted. He was a metronome of impact. He struck an elbow into a face, then used the man's momentum to flip him into another cluster. Another attacker closed in with a heavy club; Helios met the swing with both palms, mana hardening his hands like living iron. He caught the club, twisted, and snapped the attacker's elbow to the side with a low, hydraulic crack, the man howled and crumpled. The camp roared. Helios felt the press of bodies: twenty-five, maybe more, circling like crows. He found a rhythm and hammered it. A vicious uppercut split a guard's jaw; a backhand cracked an ear. He used his father's sword as a lever more than a blade: when three men lunged at once he didn't draw it to cut, he batted it like a cudgel, the haft splintering bone under the force and sending one slaver sprawling. He took a heavy boot to the chest and kept moving; breath hitched, eyes stung, but the mana braided through his limbs kept them hard, kept the motion fluid. A pair of slavers tried to pin him from behind, hands like iron on his shoulders, but Helios twisted, dropped his weight, and drove his shoulder through the nearest chest. The man was thrown against the tent pole, which shattered with a thunderous crack. The pole's fall cleared a halo of space; Helios used the opening to run and vault into the next cluster, every step a statement: I will not stop. Men came at him with poison daggers and serrated blades. He avoided the slashes with tiny, precise angling, head a hair's breadth outside the arc, shoulder a fraction to the side, then punished their overreach with a compact, brutal counter: a palm to the throat, a hook to the ribs, a drop that took wind and will both. He felt the taste of iron at the back of his mouth when a blade nicked his forearm. He kept pushing. The nick burned but didn't stop him. At one point three men tried to bring him down with a coordinated lunge. Helios planted a foot, pulled his weight like a tight cord, and in one motion he spun. His palm collided with a jaw, the sound high and final. The man's head whipped back and he slid away, eyes glassed. Another slaver launched himself like a mad thing. Helios let the man's charge pass, moved inside the arc, and drove his shoulder into the man's chest, the force of it folding him like paper. The camp was collapsing into individual, isolated catastrophes. He was not clean. He was not elegant. He was a blunt instrument with a conscience sharpened into action. When a heavy brute came at him with a flail, Helios let the chain sing past his neck, timed the return swing, and with a short, brutal knee he broke the man's balance. A follow-through elbow to the throat silenced him. Helios's breath came hard now; his knees stung, but his hands stayed true. Mana hummed like a second heartbeat under the skin. A slaver lunged, dagger flashing low. Helios grabbed the wrist, felt sinew and circumference of a hand, and wrenched. The attacker's shoulder tore in protest; he cried out, dropping the blade, collapsing in a tangle. Another came from the left; Helios pivoted, drove his heel into the man's sternum, and followed with a palm strike that sent him sprawling. The pile of downed, moaning bodies grew. Some of the slavers tried to run, to call alarm. Helios shot a single finger out like a spear and caught a man's throat; the man choked on an airy bark and went silent. He didn't relish it. He needed it done, quick, clean, irrevocable. When a slaver scrambled for a lantern to burn the tents and turn light into chaos, Helios sprinted, slid under the man's lunge, and with a jam and wrench he sent the lamp crashing into the dirt. Flames guttered uselessly; the camp's geometry broke. The last charge was a beast of a man, broad-shouldered and feral with rage. He threw a haymaker that would have cracked Helios's cheekbone. Helios rotated, used the man's momentum to step inside, and with a short, terrible motion, palm, then elbow, he smashed the man's jaw. The final attacker folded like an old tree. When the echoes stopped, there was breathing, ragged and human, but no triumphant roar. Torches sputtered. Men whispered, cursed, tried to stand. Twenty-five had meant to overwhelm; twenty-five lay broken, groaning, unmoving, or retreating into the dark with shattered will. Helios tasted copper on his tongue; his knuckles throbbed and his chest ached. He gulped air as if he'd been under water. Around him the first frightened sounds rose, chains clinking as people tested their cuffs, a child crying out. He dropped the sword to the ground with a heavy, decisive thunk and turned. "Out," he said, voice ragged but steady. "Out, now." Where fear had closed eyes and bowed heads, courage flickered up like a stubborn flame. Helios methodically went from chain to chain, pry, lever, rip, using raw strength and focused mana to loosen locks until iron gave with a sound like small thunder. Men and women stumbled out into the cold night, blinking at the sky as if seeing stars for the first time. He didn't roar. He didn't celebrate. He stood there amid the aftermath, stripped tents, broken wood, bodies he had meant to kill scattered. Helios moved through the ruin of the camp with a cold finality. The slavers who still breathed were given no second chances, his strikes were swift, precise, and without hesitation. Justice, not cruelty. Vengeance, not mercy. When the last threat fell silent, he turned toward a woman crouched beside a broken wagon. Her wrists were bruised by chains, yet her eyes burned with a stubborn spark. Helios knelt slightly, softening his voice. "Where are the others? I need to free everyone. Can you show me?" The woman swallowed her fear and nodded quickly. She led him to a storage shack, where a heavy rug hid a trapdoor. She pointed shakily, then backed away as Helios lifted the hatch. A cold draft crawled up from below. "Thank you," he said, giving her a small, reassuring nod before he descended. The wooden stairs groaned under each step he took. Flickering lanterns cast shadows against narrow walls, stretching shapes into monsters that weren't there, yet something real waited in that darkness. Helios could feel it. His heartbeat was steady… but his instincts sharpened like blades. The tunnel widened into a cavernous room, and the scent of iron hit him at once. Dozens of people, parents, elders, young teenagers, huddled together, chains hugging their limbs like venomous serpents. Helios moved without speaking. Shackles cracked beneath his hands, one, two, five, until the captives swarmed him, hands thrust forward, desperate whispers pleading for freedom. He worked fast, breath harsh, jaw locked. Rage and tenderness warred in his chest. Then a voice crawled into the room like poison: "Well… isn't this a beautiful surprise?" Helios froze. The shackles in his grip dropped. His eyes lifted, and the world narrowed. There, leaning casually in the tunnel entrance, stood a man Helios thought he would never see again. The smirk. The eyes. The brand on his neck, the exact one Helios had stared at, chained and bleeding in the dirt of his childhood home. Helios's lungs squeezed. "You…" The man's smile widened, vile and familiar. "Ah. Recognition. That's my favorite part." Helios stepped forward, fists curling, voice cracking with the kind of hate that scars souls: "You were there. You attacked my village. You chained my friends. You dragged me into the flames of hell…" His voice broke. His hands trembled. "YOU KILLED MY MOTHER!" The slaver chuckled. It was a sound Helios would remember until his final breath. "Oh no, no. I didn't kill her," the man said lightly, as if discussing the weather. "Credit where credit is due, that honor belongs to Cardinal Belanor." Something inside Helios strained, as if a string pulled too tight finally snapped. The slaver continued casually, pacing like a merchant discussing his profits: "Me? I was just paid to round you beasts up. Especially the lions. Very valuable. And you…" he pointed at Helios like indicating livestock on a market stand… "...you're from the D-Tribe. Your ancestors? Monsters. Blood-soaked butchers. It's only fair the world takes a little payback, don't you think?" Helios felt the old lesson his masters had beaten into him settle like iron in his chest: stay calm. He let the memory steady his breath and spoke with a quiet, dangerous clarity. "I don't know what my ancestors did," he said, every word measured, "but none of that matters now. What matters is what happens here, and I'll give you the death you deserve, slow, and full of the pain you dealt others." He drew his father's sword with a single smooth motion; the steel whispered free of leather. The slaver's grin tightened, half-amused, half-nervous. "Big words," the man sneered. "Scary line. Tell me, can you back it up? Or should I just finish you off and send you to join your mother?" Helios set his stance, the blade steady in his hands. His voice was low, iron-cold. "I'll kill you for what you did to these people. For what you did to my village." The slaver shrugged and unsheathed his own blade. "Then do it," he said, and the corridor hummed with the promise of the fight to come.