Medicine for the Demon

He trudged along the forest path, barely able to keep up with the group of armed men, and rubbed his eyes sleepily, remembering how foolish he had been when his father had told him that he was taking him hunting. It was his first real hunt for a large animal, and he had only recently turned fifteen. Hunting hares and ducks with his father had been a child's game. He also wanted to test his Tresor in action. He may not be a hunting dog, but it doesn't matter who's on the trail. "If you catch a beast, I'll give you a real hunting dog," my father promised. Of course, he wanted to have a real hunter, but he had grown attached to Tresor, whom he had picked up as a puppy. As a member of the Benoj family, he and his close relatives lived on the outskirts of the capital of their small principality, Lavedania, which consisted of the capital city of Arcadia, five smaller towns, and a couple of dozen villages. Beyond the city were fields, followed by a dense forest filled with wildlife. His family was the most famous and prosperous family of hunters, supplying local shops, stalls, and taverns with fresh meat and game. Excited about becoming a full-fledged hunter like his father, he didn't realize that he would have to wake up at dawn, and he couldn't sleep for a long time. Tresor led him in different directions, completely overwhelmed by the multitude of unfamiliar smells for a city dog. The young man kept stumbling over tree roots. "Hey, Lucio, you're like a sleepy fly. It looks like Trezor is leading you on a hunt, not you. Don't fall asleep under a bush somewhere," Uncle Boliver, a middle-aged man, laughed. Lucio opened his eyelids, adjusted the quiver with crossbow bolts, the large hunting knife on his belt, and tightened his grip on the heavy crossbow, which threatened to fall out of unsteady hands. "You remember your first time, you idiot. You went without a weapon at all," the father laughed. "Come on, I had a knife," Boliver defended himself. "Well, yes, well, yes. I'd like to see you running after ducks with your knife," he kept teasing his older brother. The men laughed restrainedly, as making noise in the forest is equivalent to being left without prey. Lucio looked at his father with gratitude, and they continued on their way.

* * *

The iron cage swayed slightly, caught on a broken piece of tree trunk. A dozen children of different ages, the youngest of whom was barely a year old, huddled together in fear, waiting for their imminent death. The slave trader who was taking them to the slave market wanted to shorten the journey to the kingdom of Mistarsia by bypassing the capital of the Principality of Arcadia, where it was not illegal to own slaves but strictly forbidden to trade them. The road was not very safe, and it had not been used for a long time for fear of a collapse. This is exactly what happened. Several stones broke off under the mule's hooves, and the driver, seeing that the cart with the cage was tipping over, decided to cut the harness that connected the horse to the cart's shafts in order to save at least some of the owner's property. The cage fell down along with the cart, which crashed far below. The same fate awaited the little prisoners in the cage, but it hung in the air, caught on a tree. "Oh, well, a dozen isn't that many. And they weren't the best, they were weak. They wouldn't have survived the journey anyway. I'll sell the rest for more," the slave trader didn't lament the loss for long, as demons were a cheap and expendable commodity. The smallest of his slaves didn't even have names. Why would they, when most of the children he traded in wouldn't live more than a year, if they survived the arduous journey and the amputation of their wings, which were often the result of hard labor and abuse? Their bodies were thrown into the gutter without even a proper burial. He knew this firsthand, as it wasn't the first time he had been to a slave market, even though he was barely fifteen years old and the oldest in his cage. The wind chilled the frail bodies, which were dressed in rags. In addition, he was wearing shackles and a slave collar. This indicated that he was a rebellious slave who needed to be treated with strictness. "Are we going to die?" asked a little girl of about five years old, holding a one-year-old baby wrapped in rags, huddled against him for warmth. He tried to smile and put his arms around her, holding her close. "Of course not," he replied, though he could hardly believe it himself. The cage swayed again, and the smaller children began to cry in fear. Everyone was staring up at the tree that had delayed their inevitable end.

* * *

Tresor suddenly yanked the leash to the side, dragging Lucio along with him. Lucio tried to stop the dog with loud commands, but the dog stubbornly dragged him through the thicket. Lucio barely had time to protect himself from the branches that slapped his face. "Tresor, stop it! You're a bad dog," Lucio said angrily, afraid of getting lost. But when he heard his father's heavy footsteps behind him, he calmed down. Soon, the dog led the boy to a cliff overlooking a chasm. The dog stopped, circled in place, fell to its front paws, whined while looking down, then jumped up and barked loudly. "What are you doing, you stupid dog?" the father concluded, unable to find anything the dog could have smelled. Lucio looked away in embarrassment. He felt ashamed of his pet's behavior. Soon, the other hunters arrived. Trezor kept barking and looking down. "So where's the loot?" Boliver asked mockingly, wanting to take revenge on his brother for ridicule. "He's probably completely out of his mind with happiness, that's why he's freaking out," Grandpa replied. The father dropped to one knee and looked down from the cliff, where Trezor was constantly looking. A few meters below, there was that same ill-fated mountain path. From the depths of the abyss, there were faint, indistinct sounds, like scraping. "There's something there," he said confidently. "Listen, Gaspard, stop fooling around. Let's go back before the animals wake up. Otherwise we'll be left with a nose," Boliver turned to him, believing that he was just covering up for his son's failure. "I'm saying there's something down there," my father said confidently. "I'll take a look," said a tall man in his mid-twenties, Bolívar's son, whom Lucio secretly admired for his marksmanship. He took a rope out of his backpack, tied it around the trunk of a tree and went down to the trail. Then he got down on one knee and stared intently into the darkness of the abyss. Soon, the bars of a metal cage glinted in the darkness. "There's a cage down there, stuck in a tree," the guy shouted. "They probably brought some kind of animal to the market today. And what kind of fool would come up with the idea to go this way. That's bad luck," Grandfather grumbled. "Go down to the cage and see what's in there," his father said to Lucio. He reluctantly obeyed, because he was the easiest of all. After going down to his brother, he continued his descent to the tree that kept the cage from falling. Hearing the barking of dogs and human speech, the little slaves started up. Had the slaver come back for them after all, had they been saved? "Quiet, don't shout," the boy in shackles commanded. The little demons gradually calmed down. He didn't know who was on top, and he feared that they might not be friendly. Soon, they saw a man descending towards them on ropes, but he wasn't dressed like a slaver and his henchmen, and he was frail and short in stature. As he descended until he was facing the cage, they realized that he was a teenager like them. The blue-eyed blond boy stared in shock at the group of small demonic slaves. Among them, a yellow-eyed, dark-haired young demon in shackles stood out. Lucio's gaze remained fixed on the small demons. He had seen adults in the city. According to the laws of the Principality, a slave who had worked for his master for ten years was granted freedom. However, he had never seen children until today. They looked at him with a mix of fear and hope. Only the demon's yellow eyes were empty. "Well, what's it, Lucio, chickens or pigs?" Bolívar called impatiently from above. The boy pulled on the rope to signal that he wanted to be lifted. "Demons...slaves," Lucio replied, still in shock. "Holy heavens," the grandfather gasped. "What should we do? We can't lift the cage with them. Our ropes won't hold. We'll disappear ourselves and we won't save them," Boliver said worriedly. "But we can't abandon them either," Gaspard said confidently. "Is there any way to open the cage?" he asked his son. "There's a lock there, you can't knock it down. This will rock the cage and it will fall. We can try to open it," Lucio said. "Can you handle it?" His father asked him. "I'll give it a try," the young man shrugged. Hunters were trained in blacksmithing first of all, because they often repaired their own weapons and made bolts for crossbows and arrowheads. Therefore, Lucio had to work with the picks he had made himself. However, the challenge was that he didn't have them with him. He was lowered back to the cage. The children murmured in excitement. "I'm here to help, so don't move or you'll fall," Lucio explained, although he wasn't sure if they understood. Lucio took a narrow, curved skinning knife from his small travel bag and carefully pried at the heavy padlock. After several unsuccessful attempts, he managed to open it. "Come quietly, one by one. The smallest ones first," said Lucio, when the cage was finally opened. A small demoness approached him slowly, holding a baby in her arms. Lucio took the baby from her and climbed up, giving it to his cousin, who was still on the path. Gradually, he transferred almost all the children to him. As he descended for the last time, he extended his hand to the young boy. The boy took a step towards him, and there was a creaking and grinding sound. With a sinking feeling, Lucio looked up. The branch where the cage was stuck was beginning to crack. "Hurry!" Lucio commanded. But the young man stood frozen, paralyzed with terror, sensing the approach of imminent death. "I can't," he said softly, and for the first time, fear appeared in his bright yellow eyes with vertical pupils. "Hurry, take my hand!" Lucio cried, extending his arm. The boy took a hesitant step towards him, but the chains of his shackles got stuck between the bars of the cage. He tried to free them, but the cage sank sharply, threatening to fall into the abyss at any moment. When he finally managed to free the chain, the branch broke off. The boy desperately ran towards the door and jumped out of the cage, wrapping his arms around Lucio's waist and holding on to him with a death grip. Lucio held onto the boy's clothes tightly. Soon, they heard a loud crash from below. Lucio swung gently from the stone ridge, trying to dampen the amplitude of their movements. It was only then that he noticed the wings behind the slave's back. Even in their principality, winged slaves were a rarity. Once everyone was safely on the ridge, the men gathered around the group of children, observing them with curiosity. The hunting dogs circled around, sniffing at the unusual creatures with interest. "And what kind of animal thought of throwing them into the abyss? It's a miracle they didn't die," one of the hunters replied. "That's a problem...That's the problem...Poor wretches," grandfather wailed. "Yeah." That's the catch. Instead of fawns, there are a dozen baby devils. And now what to do with this brood? Boliver grinned, looking at the huddled demonic children. "We'll take you to the capital. Let the prince decide what to do with them," Gaspard replied. One of the men pulled up a cart and the children were put on it. It began to rain and the men covered them with a heavy waterproof cloth. Gaspard handed them a piece of bread and a flask of water. "Eat up, you must be hungry," he said. The guy in shackles began to break off pieces of bread and distribute them to the children. "Can we try to escape?" A boy of about twelve quietly offered him. "Do you know how to survive in the forest? And what's the point. Without weapons, we are easy prey for predators. You can't run far from the dogs anyway, especially with my legs shackled. So don't be silly and hope that the new owners will treat you well," he replied. "Sit down with them," Gaspard suggested to his son. "I can manage," he muttered, annoyed that his first hunt had been disrupted. The procession moved towards the city. The early morning greeted the capital's bazaar with its usual hubbub of people scurrying between the stalls and the loud calls of vendors extolling their wares. If you wanted to buy everything you planned, you had to get up at the crack of dawn. This was the unspoken rule of the market. The hunters' wagon stopped in the marketplace. "Boliver, are you going to sell your own goods," one of the vendors called out to the man. "Ah, but our catch is not ordinary," he replied, throwing the cloth off the young slaves. People began to gather around their carriage. The prisoners were slowly getting out of it, and the older ones were helping the younger ones. They stood in a group with their heads bowed, not looking at the people. That was the immutable rule of the slave market. The guy in shackles looked around stealthily, the fact that he was here did not surprise him at all, although for some reason there was no slave platform here. "Oh my God, they're kids...They're so small...Poor things, they're so skinny...They went completely berserk, they were taking babies for sale," a murmur was heard from the crowd. "Where did you find them?" one of the townspeople addressed the hunters. "In the abyss on the old mountain road. If it weren't for my son's dog, they would have died," Gaspard replied. Suddenly, a very young woman stepped out of the crowd. She was staring intently at the little demoness holding the baby, who was grumbling and fidgeting in her arms, probably cold and hungry, having only been given water all day. "Adelina, what are you doing?" the man who had come with her asked in an indignant tone. "Poor thing, she gave birth to two dead babies, and now she sees her own children in every child," an elderly woman standing nearby said quietly. Adelina crouched down in front of the girl and smiled, touching her unevenly cut brown hair. "What's your name? Is this your sister?" she asked, pointing to the baby in the girl's arms. "Her brother, they don't have a name. They didn't have time to give it to them," replied the boy standing nearby. The woman looked at the girl in surprise and carefully covered her shoulders with her shawl, carefully taking the child from her. The child stopped being displeased when it felt the warmth. "Let's go home, dear," she said, taking the girl's hand. "Adelina, what are you doing? They're not even human," he protested. "They are my children," she said decisively and walked away with the children. "Dad, Dad, I want a brother too," a girl of about eight was tugging at the clothes of a tall, broad—shouldered man. "Well, go ahead and choose," the man grinned. The girl walked resolutely to the group of slaves and taking one of the older boys by the hand, she led him to her father. “He has blond hair and so do I,” she said. “What’s your name?” he asked the boy. “Damian, but you can give me any name,” he said quietly. “Why would you want another? Damian it is,” said the man, putting his jacket on the boy. "Well, what's worse for me?" a tall, slightly overweight woman came out of the crowd and approached a group of small slaves, taking one girl of about seven by the hand and leading her with her. "Oh, my God, where are you going?So you have three children," a dissatisfied response was heard from the crowd. "Where there are three, there are four," she said. "People come to your senses, you are sane. They're demons. They won't be grateful for your kindness, but they'll stab you in the back at the first opportunity," an old man shouted from the crowd. "Shut up, you stinking dog," a powerful-looking man, a local blacksmith, replied angrily as he picked up another teenager. Gradually, some of the younger children were taken in by the townspeople. The rest, by decree of the prince, were assigned to a local orphanage, which did not have many children. So there was only that kid in shackles left in the square. He was too old for an orphanage. And the guards from the prince's guard decided that the prince himself would decide his fate. "If you get into the princely kitchen, consider yourself lucky. At least you'll be full," one of the guards accompanying him told him. Lucio watched this strange guy go. Maybe all demons are like that, though. The boy was walking down the street, rattling chains, and everything that was happening seemed like just a dream. He expected to wake up in the very cage that was taking him to the Mystarsia slave market.