"There is much ill to be said about the Megalodon, but it is an undisputable fact that their ancestral home, the Doomkraag, is one of the greatest wonders of architecture the world has ever known – a crystal spire, as big as a mountain, as dark as obsidian, and infinitely more resilient than both. Home to more than fifty thousand shark-kin and their numerous slaves, the city's design is unique, its quarters spiraling up along the inner wall, leaving its middle empty, like coral growing on the inside of a bottle. Buildings, streets and almost any other structure is crafted—or should I say grown—from the same black crystal, and if what I learned is correct, the whole Spire can be flooded by sea-water on the whim of their ruler, the Kraagenlord. No doubt the main reason why their slaves have not attempted a rebellion in over five hundred years..."

- Helmut von Rothenstein, adventurer and scholar of the Royal University of Liegeland

„I never thought I'd see the day the fish heads get their butts kicked!" murmured Gog into Mog's ear as they peered over the bannister of the Winding Way, the grand staircase that connected all the city quarters of the Spire.

A hundred feet below, the tainted black waters of the harbor glittered like oil in the light of the Drachmar, the castle-sized crystal that hung high above, at the Spire's very top, a false sun in all but name. Its cold glare fell on a spectacle unheard off in all the ages: The remains of the Spire's mighty fleet returned, battered and beaten. Even though this likely meant that things would become even grimmer for the slaves of the Spire, Mog could not help but see grim satisfaction in many faces. Maybe even a hopeful gleam here and there.

Hope... the boon and burden of a slave's existence.

Slowly, Gog's blasphemous words sank in and Mog's eyes went wide with shock. The youth looked around nervously to see if one of the hulking masters had overheard them, relaxing a fraction as he saw that the eyes of everyone – Shark-Kin, free citizens, and slaves alike – were transfixed on the three badly beaten warships below. Even from up here it was obvious that the metal-clad behemoths, once the pride of the Megalodon fleet and the most feared sight on the Boiling Sea, now were little more than swimming ruins. Their hulls dented and blackened, the weapon-studded towers on deck reduced to twisted mountains of scrap. Small fires still burned everywhere, illuminating decks littered with corpses, birthing plumes of dark smoke.

Mog leaned even closer to his twin brother, whispering, "Do you see that? The corpses? Men, dwarves, probably even elves... What... What do you think happened?" He couldn't help himself but add, his voice quivering, "You think they came to rescue us?"

Gog snorted and gave him a look that said, "Stop dreaming, fool." To most, it would have been quite a convincing look, but Mog new his brother too well – the glimmer in his eyes betraying his real feelings.

He hoped too.

Born into the existence of a slave, neither had ever seen the outside of the Spire apart from a short glimpse when the harbor's huge gates opened to admit ships. In their fifteen years of life, neither had ever felt the warmth of the sun on their skin, nor known the sensation of wind. They knew of these things only from tales... and dreams.

Dreams...

They were almost as dangerous as hope, and yet, foolish as it may be, Mog could not help but dream; dream of a release from the misery of their existence and of a life beyond these cold black walls. Most of all, Mog wanted to see the sun, feel the sun, at least once in his life. He often dreamed of it, of a light in the sky so bright you couldn't bear to look at it, a warm light, not like the cold brightness of the Drachmar.

He could hardly imagine the feeling. Warmth. Not just light, but warmth. An old sailor turned slave had told him once it feels like a belly full of good food and a fire-warmed blanket around your shoulders. He believed him, though it was hard to imagine. The Shark-Kin liked it cold. How could they not with hearts of ice? Thus, it was always cold in the Spire. No warm fires and certainly no fire-warmed blankets.

Mog gazed at the master closest to them. At over nine feet, he stood a good twenty steps away, further up the stairs – a hulking monstrosity with four arms and a shark's head. The monster's beady black eyes gazed down at the harbor with cold intensity, its teeth-studded maw clenched tightly shut, a trickle of black blood running from it, his huge muscles bulging and flexing with obvious anger.

Everyone close-by kept wisely out of reach.

Gog pointed down at the biggest of the three returning ships, a Dreadnought and by the looks of it, the war-admiral's own personal flagship: the Kraken. It lay so deep in the water, it was a wonder it still swam. "Look at all those bodies. Must be hundreds," he whispered. "There's barely a fish-head standing, and even they move like they are about to drop."

While they watched, the Kraken docked, crashing several smaller wooden vessels in the process. The boys grinned at the spectacle. After all, those were the ships of outsiders that had grown fat on others' suffering. It felt good seeing their ill-gotten gains destroyed.

"Justice," Mog whispered.

The few Megalodon that remained standing on deck collapsed where they stood once the Kraken came to a stop. Immediately teams of slaves attached boarding bridges, overseers whipping anyone not moving fast enough. Slaves and guards rushed on board, trying their best to put out the many fires while others tended to the wounded.

"We should go," Mog said. "They'll be at it for hours and if our master learns we were shrinking our duties, he'll—"

"Hush," hissed Gog and pointed down. "What's going on there?"

Mog followed his outstretched finger to a group of six slaves carrying a wounded Megalodon from the ship. They had come to a stop in the middle of a boarding bridge, effectively blocking it, which immediately drew the attention of one of the overseers. The crack of his bullwhip was audible even up here, causing both youths to flinch in anticipation of pain. They too had felt the sting of such a whip many times before, the carpet of waxen scars on their backs testimony to it. They knew from experience how painful the bite of that salted leather was, yet none of the assaulted moved. As far as the boys could tell, they didn't even flinch and just... took it. Blow after blow after blow. Then the unthinkable happened. They dropped the stretcher, the wounded Megalodon going down like a sack of potatoes.

A collective gasp went through the watching crowd. They knew what would follow next, what had to follow next. The overseers were vicious even amongst their cruel kin and what just happened drove the hulking brute into a cold frenzy. The four-armed monster dropped his whip and grabbed the nearest of the disobedient slaves by arms and legs, lifting him from the ground with no more apparent effort than Mog would have had with a straw-filled child's doll. Then he began pulling, the huge muscles in his knotted arms and backs twitching. Still, the slave did not cry out. The boys knew what would come next and so did the other slaves. Many looked away. Chris and Mog didn't.

"This is the price of disobedience!" the overseer roared, his deep voice clearly carrying up to them. His shark-maw opened wide, engulfing the head and shoulders of the slave. The two youths ground their teeth in anticipation, having seen this particular kind of punishment many times before, especially in the last weeks, now that food was scarce.

Mog started shivering.

Slowly, the Megalodon bit down, blood spurting from puncture wounds as spear-shaped teeth sank into pale flesh. The victim did not flinch, did not even fight it seemed, nor did any of the five remaining slaves on the boarding bridge. This seemed to anger the overseer even more. Normally, their kind enjoyed the kill, drew it out, biting down with infinite slowness, constricting the chest and suffocating the victim. The thought alone made Mog nauseous, to be stuck inside such a maw, spread-eagled, sinews and muscles tearing, bones popping from their sockets while you are simultaneously eaten and crushed. He had a hard time breathing himself, cold sweat popping up all over his shivering body.

It was a fate spared to the unfortunate soul down there. The overseer did not draw it out and instead bit down hard, crushing the chest with the ease of a normal man biting down on an apple. Then, in one savage act of brutality, the Megalodon ripped off the man's arms and legs, showering the slaves before him in gore, his victim's torso still lodged between its jaws.

"I hate them," somebody said. "I hate them so much..."

With a start, Mog realized he had spoken, but maybe for the first time in his life, did not care if anybody might have heard him. The surviving and now thoroughly blood-splattered slaves started to quiver and tremble in apparent fear. Satisfied, the Megalodon turned and threw the limbs to four guards waiting down on the dock. They didn't stand on ceremony either and wolfed down what had been a human being moments before. The shark-kin were always hungry...

Mog's shivering became worse. No, not shivering, he realized. Trembling. He was trembling and he was not the only one. Gog had started too, as had many of the slaves, especially the ones down in the harbor. The sight seemed to please the overseers – at least until one of them ordered the slaves to pick up their work again. Nobody moved. To a man, they just remained where they were. Infuriated, one of the overseers rushed to a group of slaves, his clawed hands ready to tear them apart. He stopped as one of the twitching slaves started to laugh.

Laughter...

Yet there was no joy in it, only madness. A twitching grin found its way onto Mog's features. He understood it now. Nobody down there trembled with fear, but with rage.

Just as he did.

Others started laughing too, adding their voice and soon every slave down in the harbor shook with it. A murmur went along the Winding Way, growing louder as others started to giggle as well, trembling uncontrollably. These were almost exclusively slaves, any free citizens backing away from them as if they were contagious, their eyes flicking nervously to any nearby Megalodon.

"Madness," a dark-skinned free citizen of Arokanian origin muttered. "They must have gone mad."

If it was madness, it surely spread like wildfire.

Mog's fingers scraped over the crystal of the banister as he fought to contain the urge to laugh. Two of his fingernails found a grove; he hardly felt it when one split and the other tore right off. Down in the harbor, the overseers tried to regain order: whips cracked, huge fists battered slaves to the ground, and angry shouts mingled with the cacophony of laughter. Nothing helped. They couldn't restore order. Sanity, it seemed, was lost. Once more, an overseer reached out to grab a human in order to make another example, but something happened the boys had not thought possible.

The slaves turned on him.

They hurled themselves at the hulking brute with the ferocity of a pack of wolves assaulting a bear, using tools as makeshift weapons or attacking barehanded. The overseer, too surprised to put up much of a defense, went down screaming. Hammers rose and fell, hooks tore out gobbets of rubbery flesh, fists pummeled, fingers gouged.

It was the most beautiful thing Mog had ever witnessed in all his life.

Overseers and guards alike were hopelessly outnumbered as several hundred slaves turned on them in unison. There was no order to the assault, just a maddened frenzy. Like ants, they overthrew their much larger and stronger enemies by sheer numbers and ferocity.

It was incredible. A wonder. A...

A sudden flood of memories and emotions washed over Mog, filling his mind with pictures of hatred, of humiliation, of suffering. All the miserable moments of his existence surged up to swallow him, bringing with them seething hatred. Tears shimmered in his eyes. He shook his head, trying to focus on the battle below. The sheer intensity and savagery of it should have chilled him to the core, yet it did the opposite, it exhilarated him.

The slaves had turned from docile pets into raging beasts in human form, their ferociousness matching that of the Megalodon in every way. Wherever he looked, slaves engaged in vicious battles with the shark-kin – or in some rare cases – with one another. Mog saw a group of slaves battle a particularly vicious Megalodon directly below them. The shark-kin gutted a slave with a swipe of his clawed hand, turning to face another slave as the mortally wounded man went down, clutching for his intestines.

He didn't stay down though, but sprung up, jumping on the huge brute's back to lay a makeshift garrote – his own guts – around the overseer's neck. Not far away, one of the guards had impaled a slave on his trident, then proceeded to fend off a score of howling slaves by swinging his weapon and the body like a huge club, battering aside anybody that came too close. Blood washed over the black crystal of the docks in waves as man and Megalodon ripped each other apart. It was surreal, horrifying, and yet so, so, wonderful, almost magical – and when Mog saw the bodies of the dead rise again, he knew he was truly mad.

Madness...

There had never been a Rising inside the Doomkraag. It was unheard of – and yet it still happened. Some of the dead got up slowly, like men waking from a dream, others jumped up, moving so quickly Mog could have sworn they had just been playing dead, if not for their grisly wounds. Those corpses strewn across the ships picked up the weapons lying around, which was something equally unheard of. Zombies did not use weapons. They were at best animals, driven by the urge to feed.

Another surge of memories rushed through Mog's mind, his body shaking and convulsing so violently he bit through the tip of his tongue. Blood filled his mouth, but he felt no pain – no new pain at least.

He relived his first beating, then many, many more.

So many more...

He was eight again, shivering and trembling, staring at the corpse of his mother, her thin neck twisted at an odd angle. He had a butcher's knife in his little hand. Gog stood opposite of him, similarly armed. He was crying as well, big tears streaming down his face. The master, a titanic presence at the corner of his vision growled one word.

"Begin."

The boys sobbed but raised their knives regardless. 

He was twelve again, frozen in despair when his master gave Niara, the only girl he ever loved, to an old trader. A gift for a contract well done... Once again, he saw the lust in the old man's eyes and the despair in Niara's. She had looked at him then, her gaze begging him to do something, anything. Yet, he had just stood there, tears burning in his eyes, hatred in his heart, and frozen by fear. He had never seen her again.

Fear...

It had dominated his life for fifteen years. Fifteen years of misery, of being a thing, of being cattle. Hate rose in him, all the hate he had felt in his life, all at once. It grew like an enormous tidal wave that nothing could withstand, battering aside the walls of fear and shame and loathing he had erected around his self.

Then it was gone... all the fear... all the restraint... was just... gone.

The only thing that remained was rage. And joy.

Mog started laughing, a hacking, cackling sound picked up by Gog and the slaves all around him. Adrenaline hammered through his veins, swelling his muscles, his bulging blood vessels carving a map into his flesh. Then the vessels in his eyes burst, turning what was white, red.

Mog gave himself to the Red Rage.

He would make them pay.

He threw himself around, red eyes honing in on the Megalodon closest to him.

He would make them suffer!