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[b][u][center]Not as Tricky as you Think

Part 3

For Lightsun168

By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

Kero and Petyr walked the mountain path toward Calditch Mine with reluctance on both parts. The lizard could only speak of his own, however, and kept that to himself.

For all that he felt that he had a better chance of escape in a cave that once belonged to a dragon, he had no illusions as to the danger he was in. Salmus seemed to be far crueler than Petyr, and seemed to have even more disdain toward anyone with scales than the priest in the temple. Whatever waited for him up there, he doubted that it would be good for his health, nor would he come through it unscathed.

But it would be better than remaining in town, away from anything that might help him. And if Salmus kept other scaly slaves, that meant that he might have allies among the other miners.

It was their second day climbing the mountain, though, and he was tired. His feet were sore from walking on the rocks, and his legs ached from the constant incline that wound around the mountain in constant switchbacks. He grunted as they rounded yet another one, resting his hand on a standing stone and shaking his head.

“Can’t we take a break?” Kero muttered.

“We’re less than an hour from Calditch,” Petyr said, glancing over his shoulder. “And the sooner we get there, the sooner I can go home.”

“It’s been two days just getting here.”

“It’ll be less getting back; you are slower than I expected someone living outside the city to be.”

“Just because you’re used to forced marches…”

“I’m not. You’re just not used to pushing yourself.”

Kero was getting sick of eating his words when he had some great comebacks for the damn beagle. The things that he wanted to say –

But no, no, no. He was smarter than that. He might have made some seriously stupid mistakes in letting himself get caught, in surrendering and choosing to be made ‘safe,’ but Kero still had something resembling a brain in his skull. Pushing back too much would get the captain pissed off with him, and while Salmus was his owner, anyone in power could use the trigger words on him to punish him. And walking with a chastity cage was hard enough without having his dick trying to throb to life inside of it.

The lizard looked down at himself. Shackles, collar, chastity cage: the whole look was designed to be humiliating and controlling all at the same time, and it made it hard for him to think straight whenever he remembered how exposed he was. His cock wasn’t even covered by the cage; the linked rings meant that his shaft was constantly at least partially exposed, and his balls, thrust forward by the ring at the base of his shaft, were just…shown off. Heavy, full, and getting bigger by the day, or so it felt as they churned away without release.

“Come on, slave,” Petyr said, turning back to the path. “I want to get to the mine as soon as possible.”

“Right. So you can go back to your freedom and I can lose mine.”

“You lost yours as soon as you surrendered. I am merely delivering you to the inevitable fate.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. Wash your hands of all responsibility there.”

“Says the bandit to the guard,” Petyr said.

The lizard gritted his teeth as he followed the beagle up the (thankfully smooth) path. The long road from Yellowridge had varied from rough dirt to hard stone to painful gravel, and his feet had been all but shredded for one stretch of the road to the point where the captain had to pay a passing cleric to heal him up again. Petyr had been pissed off about that, but the fact that he had done it at all surprised the lizard.

Not enough to make him trust the captain, but enough to know that he would at least be kept in good shape until he was handed over to the panther. That was something.

He huffed as he remembered how he had been treated on the road from Yellowridge. It hadn’t been packed with people, but there had been a number of traders along the road. Some of them had even been ones that he had stolen from in the past, and they remembered him.

[i]Pointing, laughing…sniggering…[/i]

The number of comments about his ‘dagger’ between his legs looking less dangerous now had gotten old really fast, but they’d kept coming. Oh, he would have loved to see what they would have thought if he hadn’t been shackled, collared, and caged. They would have been signing a far different tune about him at that point.

He clenched and unclenched his fists as he fought the anger back down. It wasn’t a good time to be pissed off, nor was it a good time to think of revenge. The collar still tingled against the back of his neck, a reminder of the power of enchantment that still lingered around him. He needed to be cautious, careful, and if he wasn’t…

Well, best not to think too hard about that. At least for now.

Naked as the day he was born, the lizard continued to follow the beagle up the switchback path, huffing as he struggled to keep up. He would have thought that he was in good shape before, but the mountain path corrected him. He’d been in decent shape, at best, and the mountain was whipping him into better shape. His legs ached, the backs of his thighs and calves screaming at him as the incline forced him to work harder than he’d ever had to before. He huffed under his breath, barely getting enough to keep going, all while the beagle kept pushing himself with ease.

“How…the fuck…do they train you…to handle this?” he panted.

“Mostly by making us climb mountains,” Petyr said.

“Fucking…hell…”

“It works.”

“Clearly.”

He shook his head, deciding to continue in silence to avoid losing what little air he still had. The lizard lowered his head, grunting as he dragged himself along, and he wondered if it might be easier on him to just crawl. More humiliating, for sure, but probably easier on his legs in the long run.

No…not yet. He still had enough pride to want to avoid that much.

They rounded two more switchbacks before they finally found a straight path going along a new plateau. Kero groaned as he slumped against the latest turn, looking up…and losing what little air he had left.

“Holy…”

“I wouldn’t call it that,” Petyr said, shaking his head as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Nothing that the dragons have done could be called holy.”

Kero disagreed. The great archway carved into the mountain was something that looked like it had been carved out of the stone by the gods themselves. The gray rock of the mountainside was covered with bronze and copper, shimmering in the noon-day light, and across the copper were runes that he couldn’t understand, but could feel the magic of. They glowed, taking in the sunlight and reflecting it in an impossible way, and he shivered as he realized the sheer power of the place that he had been brought to.

The archway loomed more than fifty feet off the ground, and he knew that this had to have been a great dragon’s den for it to be that large. He looked at the runes, trying to find something that he could understand, but the language eluded him. It must have been old, older than the current crop of dragon overlords out in the world if it was that illegible. He wondered just what had killed the one that used to live here.

“Welcome to Calditch Mine,” Petyr said, dragging him back to the present. “I hope that you’re ready to work your heart out.”

He brought his eyes back down, and finally saw the mining part of the operation. Three great tracks led out of the cave, each one eventually leading to a lot where wagons were parked and waiting. Other lizards and scaled beings, naked and collared as he was, were hard at work pushing carts and loading pallets with ore and metal, and they were soaked with sweat as they dragged themselves and their payloads along. He could see their eyes locked on the ground, not daring to look up, and –

Yes, they were all rune-marked, too. Some of them were marked along the crotch, like him, while others had their runes along their hips, ass-cheeks, foreheads, or elsewhere. One, standing off to the side and covered in yellow-green scales and calling out orders, had one over his heart.

[i]Don’t like that. Really don’t like that.[/i]

Petyr waved him along. There was no leash, no chain that would have dragged him along, but Kero followed anyway. What was the point of running when all the captain had to do was shout a word that would bring him to his knees? He grunted as he followed the captain toward the open archway, shaking his head the whole way.

[i]If the dragons could see this…if they knew what mortals were doing here…[/i]

There was no point in thinking of dragons. They might have been a powerful race, a great and mighty species, but they weren’t exactly looking out for lizards and kobolds that weren’t directly under them. There were no dragons in this mountain, and there would be no rescue for him without him pledging loyalty to the dragon in question. Even as much as he hated the people of Yellowridge for doing this to him, he didn’t want to lose his freedom again; he would escape slavery on his own, and that was that.

They reached the archway, and a small puma came out to meet them. Petyr nodded at the leather-clad miner.

“Tell your overseer that his new slave is here,” Petyr said.

“Yeah? And who the fuck are you, dog?”

“I am Captain Petyr from Yellowridge, and this slave was recently purchased by Overseer Salmus for five-hundred gold. I would suggest that you get him so that he can take ownership instead of waiting for his investment to rot.”

“…Fucking dog. Be right back.”

The puma disappeared back into the mine, and the beagle shook his head. Kero chuckled.

“Dog, huh?”

“There are differences between some of us. Outside towns, people are more frank about it,” Petyr said, rolling his eyes. “But at least it will be done soon, and I can go home.”

“That tired of me, are you?”

“I am fulfilling my duty. And that duty is to see that you are given safely to your owner without causing any trouble for the countryside. As soon as that’s done, I can head back to the safety of Yellowridge, and I will never have to think about you again.”

Kero cocked his head to the side despite himself. For all that the captain had been an annoying piece of shit – even recommending that the lizard choose to die rather than be enslaved – he had been very by the book. Despite every bit of annoyance that he showed, he still went with his duty. No punishments that weren’t earned, no torments beyond the occasional disdainful comment.

[i]Why are you different?[/i] he wondered.

There was no chance to ask before the panther arrived. Overseer Salmus stood beside the puma that had been sent to fetch him, and the difference between the two was night and day. The panther’s rich clothing from the temple was long gone, replaced with thick, shiny-brown leather that clung to his body like sinuous, living armor. He walked with a rapier at his side, a gleam in his eyes, and a little bit of fang showing at all times.

He looked like a predator, while the puma barely looked like a hanger-on. Kero made a mental note that the rich man was more dangerous than he looked.

“Captain Petyr. It seems that you’ve finally arrived.”

“My apologies for the delay. The town couldn’t spare horses for a prisoner,” the beagle said with a small bob of his head. “But here you are. Your slave.”

“Let me see him.”

Petyr nudged him forward. Kero stumbled for a moment before the panther grabbed him by the arm and pinned him in place, holding him with a vise-like grip that pinched his scales. The lizard kept it from showing in his face, and deliberately turned to look up at the other man, meeting his eyes.

It was…harder than he expected. There was fire in those eyes, fire that threatened to burn anything that it looked at. He made himself keep staring, even as that flame of judgment consumed him and made him feel like nothing more than debris to be cast aside as soon as it had been harvested of everything useful.

“Yes…a bandit, correct?” Salmus asked.

“That’s what he was before we caught him.”

“Yes. I can see that. Looking at everything, missing nothing.”

“How can you –”

“You learn to measure value when you own a mine,” the panther said, slowly loosening his grip. “And he’s been marked? Properly?”

“The temple did the usual, yes,” Petyr confirmed.

“Good.”

He knew what was coming, but he had no way to brace himself for it. Salmus whispered the same control word that the priest had used, and the lizard fell to his hands and knees as his cock throbbed in the cage. His breath caught in his throat as the steel rings dug into his shaft, pinching, pushing, keeping the shaft from growing the way that it was supposed to. Every passing second, every heartbeat forced it to try and grow, to throb forward, to rise, but the whole thing kept his cock pointed down, and it pushed at the head as it tried to throb outward.

“Nnngh…mmmph…”

It was just as bad as before. No, it was worse, because of the two days of nothing. The cage felt tighter and his balls felt heavier as he slumped to his knees, huffing and whimpering as he cupped his groin. He grabbed for the cage, trying to rip it off, but just like always, there was no way to remove it. There was no catch, no little grip to get that would make it feel a little roomier for his cock.

And all the while, his shaft continued to throb and try and rise inside of the damn metal cage. Every inch it failed to get was pain. Every passing second was another reminder of how close his cock was to snapping. It was pinned, curved, trying to straighten and grow, and the metal kept it from moving.

“Nnngh…hsss…”

“This is what will happen to you if you resist, lizard. Do you understand?”

“Nnngh…”

“Do you understand?”

Kero nodded as fast as he could.

“No. Say it. Say that you understand, lizard.”

The pain was making it almost impossible to speak. It felt like something in his cock was straining to the point where it would break, and he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to get hard again if it did. Something…something was going right to the breaking point. He forced himself to suck in a breath, wheezing and whimpering for a moment, then –

“I…I understand…master…”

“Good.”

The pain didn’t stop. Kero slumped forward, head against the ground, his cock and balls feeling like they were being pinched in a vise, squeezing tighter and tighter. The cage almost felt as if it was shrinking around his cock, and his balls felt like they were going to pop from the ring holding them forward. He thumped his fist helplessly against the ground –

“Overseer. That’s enough.”

Petyr.

“He is a slave. I may treat him as I wish.”

“He is property. You cannot abuse that. Even living property. You have made your point punishing him. Let him up.”

“…Yes. You do have a reputation for that.”

The other unknown word was said, and the pain finally eased as his cock started going soft again. The lizard couldn’t bring himself to stand, however, and rolled onto his side, huffing, puffing, hugging himself.

Overseer Salmus stepped over him, stopping in front of the beagle. He grabbed hold of the captain’s vest, pulling him closer.

“You are a duty-bound man, are you not?”

“I follow the rule of law,” the beagle said, his voice even and calm.

“Clearly. Well, we follow different laws here.”

“And that is your prerogative. Calditch Mine is its own settlement.”

“Indeed. So you best start learning our laws, since you’re going to be working here from now on.”

“…What?” Petyr whispered.

Kero would have chuckled if it wasn’t for the fact that his entire body was still trembling in pain. So much for the beagle getting to go back home to his normal life. That wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, from the sound of it. The panther chuckled as he turned on his heel, folding his arms behind his back.

“I bought your contract as well as the slave.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I already have.”

“My life –”

“Is here now,” Overseer Salmus said. “And I could use a guard that knows the rules backward and forward. Someone that keeps everything on the up and up…someone that knows how to keep anyone from wriggling through loopholes, like bandits do so enjoy doing.”

Kero wasn’t fool enough to think that his actions were the reason that Petyr was being kept here. He knew the sound of a lie when he heard it; the panther hadn’t bought the beagle’s contract yet, but as soon as this conversation was over, he was going to send a runner to do just that.

Salmus wasn’t a man that brooked any sort of defiance, whether from his slaves, his underlings, or others. As soon as Petyr had spoken up in favor of the law rather than the panther’s whims, the beagle had sealed his fate. He would be punished just as much as anyone else that worked Calditch Mines.

“Slave.”

Kero came back to himself, slowly rolling onto his knees. He looked up at the panther, huffing as he did.

“You will report to your dorms. One of the other slaves will show you where it is. Tell them that you are to be given Deep Duty, and they’ll see to it that you get where you need to go, heh.”

“…Yes, master.”

“Get to it. Now.”

Any thought of using that opening to escape was pushed away by the sudden tingling in the collar. He had been given an order, and if he didn’t fulfill it, there would be pain. The lizard bowed his head before getting to his feet, hustling to find one of the slaves that didn’t look too busy.

#

“Well, this is the dorms for slaves that have Deep Duty,” Cajo – a lizard with blue and white scales – said as he pulled a leather flap to the side. “I should know; I’ve got the same sort of duty, heh.”

“My sympathies on that,” Kero muttered, following the other male in. “And…this is all there is?”

There wasn’t much in the cavern. There was a total of seven cots, all empty, and six of them were already draped with a blanket. The last one was empty, with a small crate at the foot of it, and he could tell that it was meant to be given to someone else, someone that had yet to arrive.

Or him.

Cajo walked him over to the empty cot, and Kero took that time to observe the rest of the room. He half-expected to see pickaxes or something that would be useful in digging out the mine, but there was nothing of the sort. The closest thing to that were the claw-extenders that Cajo wore, metal and leather pulled over one’s hand that extended a lizard’s natural claws by a few inches and made them stronger, longer, sharper.

He sat on the edge of the cot, shaking his head and doing his best not to stare at the other lizard’s crotch. He could just make out the glowing rune there, as well as the cage that Cajo wore. Thicker and heavier than his own, and more like solid metal, with only a tiny hole at the tip for…elimination, he supposed. He rubbed the back of his neck as he looked around the bare room.

“Is this it?” he asked.

“It’s all that we need,” Cajo admitted, sitting down on the cot across from him.

“And…you’re happy with this?”

“Whenever the Overseer’s watching.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah, so, start wearing a smile whenever you think he’s around.”

“Why? Does he want us to be happy?”

“No, but it pisses him off, and that’s good enough for me.”

“…I’m going to like you,” Kero said, chuckling.

“So, what’s your story?” Cajo asked, crossing one shackled leg over the other. “Who’d you piss off?”

“Heh…apparently, everyone.”

“That’s a story. Tell me; I’m bored.”

“What, you really want to know?” Kero asked, cocking his head to the side. “I’m just a slave now.”

“Someone’s gotta remember who you are, in case you die.”

It was such a stark statement that the former bandit didn’t have anything to say to it. He was still so sure that escape was a possibility that he didn’t even think about the possibility of dying in the mines. But hearing that…knowing that there was that much of a chance that the mine itself might kill him…

He looked down at the ground, his fingers clenching and unclenching at his knees. His head sagged forward, and his breath caught in his throat.

[i]I can’t die…I can’t just…[/i]

“So…what’s your story?” Cajo asked again.

It came out slowly, if regularly. His life outside of the cities, his early attempts at stealing from small caravans, and the way that he had used the fear that mammals had of anyone scaly to make sure that he got what he needed to live. Kero explained his process, of just knocking one person down and then leaving everyone else just a little bit afraid that they might be next. Never killing, only leaving some bruises here and there.

And then the way that it had changed. How it had been easier for a bit, how he got a few bigger scores, and how the wagons started bringing along a little more money since it was so simple. He was essentially just one more toll booth to pay, one more person that needed their cut before the traders got where they were going.

It had been fine until –

“Let me guess. Someone that had a little more pull in Yellowridge got pissed off at you?” Cajo interrupted.

“Must have been what happened,” he admitted, shaking his head. “Next thing I know, I got the local militia trapping me and threatening me to surrender.”

The other lizard nodded, leaning forward as he rested his hands on his knees. The sheer casualness of their conversation put a whole new spin on what had happened to him. Kero had been too in-shock to realize just how quickly things had changed, or how easily, but now that he’d actually talked through it, it finally registered.

He wasn’t free.

He wasn’t sympathized with.

Most people would consider him in his proper place.

Nobody thought that there was anything wrong with this.

The air felt like it was sucked right out of his lungs as the world just…tightened around him. For all that he had been mad before, now he was terrified. The world didn’t care about him or any other lizard. They feared dragons, and because of that fear, they took it out on anything that wasn’t as strong as the big, flying beasts. They came down on lizards like him, and on kobolds too. Anything that came anywhere close to dragons were a target, something to break and destroy if they possibly could.

He clenched his hands into fists against his knees, staring down at the floor and shaking his head. Suddenly, all that thieving felt like it hadn’t been enough. If they were this willing to steal away his life and liberty, Kero felt that he might have been justified in taking more from them in response.

“Well, not much that you can do about it now,” Cajo said, shaking his head. “We’re in Salmus’s mine, and we’re here until we die.”

“Or escape,” Kero muttered.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t talk about that if I were you,” the other lizard said, getting to his feet. “The panther might be a racist ass, but he’s smart enough to keep an ear to the ground. He hates us, but he knows that we aren’t really tamed.”

“How?”

“Because he listens. Because he watches us. Because he knows how people work, and he knows that we’re smart enough to count as something like people. And because he’s angry enough that he just wants an excuse to hurt us, and trying something like what you’re suggesting is going to give him the perfect excuse.”

“For me.”

“For all of us. If he sees one of us trying to escape, all of us get punished.”

Kero winced. So much for making several different attempts and seeing where it got him. Learning, probing at the defenses that kept them all in the mountain would have been useful, but if everyone got punished for one person’s actions, then that wasn’t feasible. Not if he wanted any sort of help getting out.

[i]Not that it seems like there’s going to be much of that,[/i] he thought, watching as Cajo walked around the room, pulling on the blankets at the other cots and cleaning a few things up. [i]He’s completely broken in. He doesn’t care about getting out. He just wants to make the days go faster until it’s all over…[/i]

Imagining himself in the same situation sent a shiver down his spine, and he knew that he had to get out of here. Fast. If he didn’t find a way to escape Calditch Mines, he was going to become just like this: just living day to day, and hoping that a smile pissed the panther off.

[i]I can’t. I can’t do that. I just…I can’t.[/i]

“Anyway. Settle in, get comfortable. You’ll start work tomorrow. I gotta get you the digger claws, but other than that, you don’t need much.”

“What, nothing?”

“Nothing,” Cajo said, shaking his head. “No need for that. Scales protect us well enough from anything that bites down there, and if there’s a cave-in…”

There was no need to continue that sentence. All scaly slaves were considered acceptable casualties; they wouldn’t be rescued, and so there was no need to spend money on safety gear for them. Better to save it for more slaves to send down into the mines afterward.

Kero sighed, slumping forward until his head almost touched his knees. Cajo walked out of the room, leaving him alone, and he just…closed his eyes. A part of him wanted to cry, another part wanted to scream. Everything felt the injustice of the moment, and he clenched his teeth against each other as he fought down the roars that wanted to escape.

And yet…

And yet, there was something else. As he slowly sat back up, the silence of the small dorm was filled with something else. It wasn’t a sound, precisely, nor was it a feeling in the air like the oncoming storms or the wind that sometimes came blasting through the woods. No, it was something else, almost like a sound that itched between his scales, trying to burrow in and make itself known.

Kero resisted the urge to stir and move, forcing himself to just focus on the feeling, the sensation. It was so faint that he could have ignored it easily, but there was something about it – or perhaps something about him – that refused to turn away from the last link he had to his freedom. He forced himself to stay still, to listen, to be open to the ‘sound’ and feeling that came with it.

And little by little, something came through. It was like a hum that got louder as it worked against his scales, a whisper around his earhole, a whisper of something fainter even than the wind.

But it was real.

He slowly traced his fingers along his arms, feeling the tingling ‘hum’ working its way along. As he traced the lines the sound made, he realized that it was leaving something like the sigils on the great arch against his scales. It was…it was language, the sound almost like a voice whispering something to him.

But what?

Kero tried to trace the lines on the wall, scratching it into the stone, and the hum stopped. He almost punched the rocks in front of him out of frustration, but managed to hold back at the last second.

There was magic in the mountain, alright. He’d only assumed that there would be since it used to belong to a dragon, but now he had confirmation. There [i]was[/i] magic in the mountain, and it was still vaguely intelligent. Perhaps there was even a dragon, hidden, weak, somewhere deep down in the rock, but at the very least, some of the old magic still burned in the mountain. And if there was old magic, then there was a chance that someone like him – or some of the other lizards that were working the mine – could use it if they were able to translate what it said.

It wasn’t much to hang his hopes on, but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing. At the very fucking least, it meant that he wasn’t going to be completely helpless here. It meant that he had [i]something[/i] to hope for.

The orange-yellow lizard forced himself to lean away from the wall again. He had a long way to go before he could use any of this as a way to get loose from Salmus and slavery in the mine. It might not even be possible. For now…for now, he needed to rest, recover some of his energy and stamina, and tomorrow, he would start thinking of options.

He laid down on the cot, folding his arms over his chest and stomach, and he stared at the rocky ceiling. The same hum came to him again, faint and so far from his conscious thoughts that he had to push everything out of his mind to hear it. It was so weak, so far away…but it was still there.

[i]I can do this…I can do this.[/i]

The lizard rolled onto his side, folding one arm under his head. The cot was small, barely long enough to allow him to stretch his legs out properly, and so skinny that he knew the slightest roll would send him tumbling to the floor. And yet, somehow, it was better than sleeping on the ground.

He closed his eyes, and he drifted off to sleep.

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Kero and Petyr arrive at Calditch Mine, and Kero’s new life is explained.

Tags: M/solo, M/M, Lizard, Beagle, Panther, Speciesism, Fantasy, Slavery, Chastity Cage, Forced Erection, Humiliation, Series, Hope,