Mlik.

Khalil stood in front of the trough and looked down on Mlik as he gasped for breath, his face and hair dripping with water. He nudged his head at the men who held Samuel on his knees. "Again."

Samuel struggled, one guard's hold slipped on wet skin, giving Sam enough time to topple him into the drain.

"Ahriqh!" Burn him, Khalil yelled.

A large man, dressed in a leather tunic, stepped forward with a red-hot rod, and pressed it against the sole of Samuel's foot. He screamed in pain, something snapped in his brain, the world turned into silent greys and black, intensity gnawed deep within him. He tried to find a source of colour but found hollowness consumed him. Sam spun in the abyss of his soul. Decay, death, hate, violence and fire surged and clung to the fabric of his mind. This was his core, it scorched and flowed through him, raising him from defiance and sweeping him to a much darker place, where Samuel could no longer see or feel. Loathing soared from the ashes, it spread its wings wide, covering him in its shroud, and then unravelled, leaving Mlik in its wake.

"Armih fi alhawd alsaghir!" Toss him in the trough. Khalil commanded.

Landing on his back in the water, Mlik stared sightlessly at the roof of the blacksmith's workshop.

Khalil leaned over him, flicked his fingers at the men standing, staring down at the man lying in sludge, and said "Take him now!" With a smile he murmured, "I have what I need."

*

"Again!" Khalil moved around the fighting men. Both had blood and sweat streaming down their faces. "Do you wish to be beaten?" He spat the words at them as he circled. "Again!" Khalil, lifted the side of his lip in approval, as Mlik dropped the other man to the ground, and then pounced on him, his hands around his neck. "Enough!"

Khalil's words went unheard, as he knew they would. This soldier was driven by hate. He yanked his head at the two guards waiting for his instructions. "Seize him." They grabbed Mlik and wrenched him backwards, throwing him onto the hard brown earth. Khalil watched them chain Mlik and haul him away. He then stood over the man rolling in agony on the ground. "You fought well today, Hakim, but not well enough." He smiled. "Perhaps on another day, you will take him down. Go now. Have your wounds tended."

*

For six months Khalil had beaten and tortured Mlik. He stood in the doorway of the open cell and watched his fighting machine writhe against his restraints. His arms shackled to the roof; his feet tethered to the floor. Khalil nodded at the torturer. For the tenth time he prodded Mlik in the armpit with the sharp spike. Mlik thrashed again. His teeth gnashed together, saliva ran down his neck and over his chest. Khalil knew it wasn't pain that caused Mlik to struggle. Instead, abhorrence was his crusade. When he had taken the slave from Pasha Akbar, Khalil could not have him show such a display of weak emotion, as he had with the girl. He needed this soldier to hate, and hate he did. It filled every pore in his body. He was like a caged dog being teased with a stick. The slightest touch had him wanting to kill.

Khalil bathed in his success. Pashas came from all over Algiers. Sultans from Turkey. Sheiks from Arabia. All wanted to pit their fighters against Pasha Akbar's, King of Slaves. Now Mawlay Abul-Rahman, Sultan of Morocco, had sent his General with their greatest warrior, to face Mlik in the arena.

"Unchain him." Khalil stepped back to allow two guards into the cell. He never went near the man without protection. The loathing in Mlik's eyes, was enough for Khalil to know, the slave wanted to spill his blood. "Tomorrow, you fight the biggest battle of your life. If you lose, I will carve you up, and hang you out to die a slow painful death."

"You..." With his arm freed, Mlik swung at the man who had just tortured him, catching him on the side of the face, making the man stumble.

Was that a word? Khalil cocked his head. No, a grunt. Mlik Sámi had not spoken since Khalil had saved him from Akbar's blade.

As they freed his second arm, Mlik landed in a crouch. With his feet still tethered, he sprang forward and caught the tormenter on the ankle, off balancing him again. "Will..."

Another word. Khalil was sure Mlik had spoken. He set that thought aside and grabbed the man who had just tortured Mlik, by the wrists, and hauled him to safety, out of Mlik's reach. As the guards slammed the door shut, and then bolted the hasp, Khalil thought he heard a third word, "Die." He stood staring into the face of the man staring back him. He could not read it, but a shiver ran up his spine.

*

Laying on his pallet, Mlik, closed his eyes and willed the green-eyed girl to him. He did not know why, but her image calmed him. In his darkest hours she was a dot of light, out of his reach. The bleak demoralizing caverns of perdition had no room for radiance, dignity, sanity or fear. He knew these things existed, but he didn't know where, or what they were. He felt they had been with him once.

Stolen.

Replaced by darker things.

His soul belonged to demons, but Shay... She belonged to him; the one link to a life before purgatory. They could not take her from him, as they had taken everything else. She was pure. She was his seraph.

I can clean it. She took his hand and cleansed his essence so he might sleep.

I promise. Malice could not control him when she was inside of him.

Watching her lift the hem of her skirt, Mlik's spirit lifted, as he pushed it down and murmured, "Shay..." Her fragile fingers brushed his lips as he whispered her name.

Sleep... Her warm breath caressed his mouth. You are not a beast, but a man. Her large eyes stared up at him, sparkling like emeralds.

Mlik floated. He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. She shone so bright. A warm glow swept over him. Mlik saw his face through the mirror she had become. His eyes were no longer black. Instead, they were the colour of treacle.

You are an angel... Shay's smile washed over him.

"No! I am the devil!" Mlik jerked awake to the darkness of his cell.

There was no light.

There was no life.

There was no Shay.

There was only hell...

Poor Samuel.  I don't think he knows who he is anymore :(  

Photo copyright PxFuel