Chapter 32: The Third Storehouse
It was Gus who found the third storehouse.
The boy emerged moments later, his face drained of colour.
"Young Master..." was all he managed to say before turning and hurrying back the way he had come.
That alone was enough.
Jin immediately understood that something was wrong and followed him inside.
The heavy timber doors groaned shut behind them, and beyond them a flight of worn stone steps disappeared beneath the fort. Cold air seeped upward, carrying with it the stale stench of damp earth, sickness, and too many people kept too long in too little space.
It wasn’t a storehouse.
It was a prison.
Gus lifted his lantern.
Its light spilled across iron bars and rows of cramped cells, revealing men and women who blinked like creatures dragged from the depths of a cave. There were more than a dozen of them—gaunt faces, hollow eyes, and clothes reduced to little more than filthy rags. A merchant’s clerk still wore the remains of what had once been a fine coat, while an elderly carter cradled an arm that had long since healed crooked after being left untreated.
Even from a single sweep of the room, Jin realised there were more women than men.
Most could scarcely bring themselves to look at the newcomers.
Bruises in fading shades of blue and yellow marred exposed skin, torn clothing hung loosely from frail shoulders, and several instinctively shrank deeper into their cells the moment the lantern approached, raising their arms to shield their faces before they had even seen who stood outside. One woman hurriedly pulled a younger girl behind her and wrapped both arms around her with desperate protectiveness, as though expecting the nightmare to continue.
Jin’s eyes slowly travelled across the cells.
He might not have lived in this world for long, but he had seen enough in both lives to recognise wounds left by blades.
These were not those.
No explanation was necessary.
The bandits had stolen far more than the cargo carried by the caravans they preyed upon.
His jaw tightened until it ached, and the iron pry bar in his hand let out a faint groan beneath the force of his grip, his knuckles whitening around the handle.
For several long heartbeats, the only sound in the prison was the prisoners’ shallow breathing.
Then Jin turned.
Harun, waiting halfway up the stairs, instinctively took a step backwards.
He had seen the young master furious before.
He had never seen him look like this.
"Open every cell," Jin said, his voice so calm that it was somehow more frightening than if he had shouted. "Food. Blankets. Light every fire in the courtyard. Bring the medical kit and do whatever emergency treatment we can until proper care is available."
He paused, his gaze never leaving the prisoners.
"And bring Volk."
Harun looked up.
"...Young Master?"
"I want him to watch."
"...Yes, Young Master."
The first lock shattered beneath the iron bar.
Then the second.
Then the third.
Jin worked his way down the corridor himself, breaking every lock with measured blows before opening each door with his own hands. Every time another prisoner hesitated, too broken to believe the bars had truly opened, he repeated the same quiet words.
"You’re safe now."
Another lock gave way.
"It’s over."
Another.
"There’s food upstairs."
Some stumbled into the corridor almost immediately, driven by instinct alone.
Others remained where they were, staring blankly through the open doorway as though they had forgotten what freedom looked like.
Hope, Jin realised, could be harder to unlock than iron.
One by one the cells emptied until only the last remained.
It stood in the deepest corner of the prison, where even the lantern’s light seemed reluctant to linger.
Jin slid the iron bar beneath the lock, forced it apart, and slowly pulled the door open.
The hinges creaked.
Inside, against the far wall...
...sat a boy.
He could not have been older than ten or eleven.
He was filthy, little more than skin stretched over bone, while bruises old and new covered his thin arms and cuts and abrasions spoke of months of neglect rather than a single beating.
Jin’s eyes instinctively dropped to the boy’s wrists.
They were bare.
There was no tally.
Not even the faded ghost of one.
Not a slave.
A freeborn child.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Jin noticed something clutched tightly against the boy’s chest. It had been wrapped in stained cloth and bound with fraying cord, but its long, slender shape was unmistakable.
A sword.
The boy held it the way a drowning man clung to the last piece of driftwood in the sea, both arms wrapped around it, his chin resting atop the bundle. Even in exhaustion, even after everything he had endured, his fingers had never loosened their grip.
Jin slowly crouched outside the cell.
"Hey," he said, his voice softer than before. "It’s over. We’re not with them."
He waited a moment before speaking again.
"You’re safe now."
The boy stirred.
Slowly, he raised his head.
Then he looked at Jin.
For a single heartbeat, Jin forgot to breathe.
There was no fear in those eyes. No pleading. No surrender.
Starved, bruised, locked in a cell beneath the earth and stripped of almost everything... yet the eyes staring back at him still burned with an unwavering resolve.
They were steady, sharp and unbroken.
Not the eyes of a child who had accepted defeat and definitely not the eyes of someone waiting to be saved.
They belonged to someone enduring. Someone who, despite every cruelty inflicted upon him, still refused to yield to the world.
A chill crept down Jin’s spine as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
He knew those eyes.
Somewhere...he had seen eyes like them before. Not exactly seen in the sense, but he could recognise them somehow.
The thought had barely begun to form when the world exploded into light.
[ ✦ ✦ ✦ NARRATIVE QUEST TRIGGERED ✦ ✦ ✦ ]
[ THE SWORD BEFORE ITS LEGEND ]
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