FROM PITS TO THRONE: A Crown Forged In Chains

Chapter 13: Rise amongst slaves

Back in Etoibard, the spring council journey began at dawn with the Rein household stirring like a hive preparing for war. Servants loaded carts with trunks of fine clothes, crates of wine, and gifts for allies, bolts of silk, jeweled daggers, and rare books. Guards in green cloaks checked weapons and horses. Lord Ermin Rein rode at the head, his face set in determined lines, his wife Seline beside him in a covered litter. Colvin flanked his father, eager and armored, while Beatrix rode a gentle mare, cloaked against the morning chill.

Laim, still called by his pit name, rode near the rear with the escort of ten household guards and five armed slaves, including himself. He wore a simple leather jerkin over mail, with a short sword at his hip and a round shield strapped to his saddle. The weight of steel felt both familiar and strange after months of labor. His ribs twinged with old pain when the horse jostled, but he ignored it.

The road to Korthos wound through olive groves and past villages where peasants paused to bow. Ermin spoke little, reviewing notes with a scribe. Colvin boasted to the guards about past councils, while Beatrix rode silently, glancing back at Laim more than once.

On the second day of their journey, trouble came.

They camped in a wooded valley near a stream where they pitched their tents in a clearing. Guards set watches while the slaves tended fires and horses. Laim took the midnight watch with a veteran guard named Torin.

Yet the attack was swift.

Arrows hissed from the dark and three guards fell before alarms rose. Then Masked figures in black burst from the trees, fifteen, perhaps twenty, all armed with swords and crossbows. But they were easily identified to be House Valtor’s men, due to the snake sigils on their cloaks.

Thus, chaos erupted.

Laim drew his sword as a swordsman charged him. He parried the first blow with his shield taking the force, then he riposted with pit efficiency of a low thrust to the thigh, twist and then withdraw. The man dropped screaming.

Torin fought beside him, swinging his axe. “Protect the family!” he bellowed.

Laim pushed toward the main tent. Colvin emerged half-armored, flashing his blade which cut down one assassin but he took a gash to the arm. Beatrix stood at the tent flap, with a dagger in hand and her face pale but resolute.

Two attackers rushed the litter where Lady Seline cowered. But Laim intercepted with his shield bashing one aside and his sword slashing the second’s throat, making blood spray across his face.

Ermin joined the fray, rapier precisely as he fell a crossbowman who was reloading.

The fight was brutal but short. The Rein guards, who were outnumbered, rallied with slave support. Laim killed three more using every dirty trick the pits had taught him, a handful of dirt to blind, a trip into the fire, a dagger from his boot to finish a downed foe.

When the last assassin fled into the dark, eight lay dead. Three Rein guards were wounded and Colvin was bleeding but standing,

Ermin surveyed the carnage, breathing hard.

“Who leads here?” he demanded of a captured attacker, bound and bleeding.

The man spat blood. “Valtor sends his regards. Accompanied with your ambitious end.”

Ermin’s face darkened. He nodded to Torin and the prisoner’s screams ended quickly.

Dawn revealed the cost and the gain of the attack.

Ermin summoned Laim to his tent as camp broke.

“You fought like a demon,” the lord said, “Three kills confirmed. Perhaps more. You saved my wife and my children.”

Laim bowed, blood still crusted on his jerkin. “I only did my duty, my lord.”

Ermin studied him. “No. You did more than duty. You showed loyalty. From this day, you will serve in the inner house, always armed. You will eat at the family table when we are private. And you'll have a room, not a pallet.”

Colvin grunted in agreement. “He earned it.” His arm was already bandaged.

Beatrix said nothing, but her eyes held new respect and something warmer.

Back at the estate weeks later, after a successful council where Ermin gained allies and thwarted Valtor’s schemes, Laim’s status changed irrevocably.

He was given a small chamber off the guards’ barracks, having stone walls, a real bed, and a window overlooking the gardens. His chains were struck off permanently, the brand on his shoulder remained, but it was covered by fine wool tunics.

Madra, the overseer, bowed when she saw him now. Other slaves sought his favor. Even Tomas slunk away.

Training became part of his duties.

Ermin ordered him to drill the household guards, teaching them pit tactics mixed with royal swordplay. Colvin joined eagerly and their sparring turned from mockery to mutual sharpening.

“You fight like no one here,” Colvin admitted one afternoon, sweating after a hard bout. “Where did you truly learn?”

Laim deflected the question. “In hard places, my lord.”

Oftentimes, Beatrix would watch from the terrace with a book forgotten in her lap.

One evening, she found him alone in the garden, sharpening his sword under lantern light.

“You saved us,” she said softly, sitting on a stone bench. “Father says you’re the reason Valtor failed.”

Laim kept his eyes on the whetstone. “I did what was needed.”

She leaned forward. “You’re not like other slaves. You dream of more.”

He met her gaze then. “Everyone dreams, my lady.”

“Not like you.” She hesitated. “Father talks of freeing useful men. One day. If they prove loyal beyond question.”

Hope flickered, it was both dangerous and bright.

“I serve faithfully,” he said carefully.

She smiled faintly. “I know.”

The months that followed cemented his rise.

He now accompanied Ermin to meetings, standing silent behind the lord’s chair with his hand always on his sword hilt. Rivals eyed him warily, with the tag the scarred slave who had turned an ambush.

He trained Colvin until the young lord could best most guards. They began to speak as near-equals on matters of politics, of ambition, of the king’s court in distant Etoibard.

Beatrix sought him out more with the guise of asking about stars, about fighting, about the world beyond the estate. Once, she brought a book of old legends and read aloud while he mended armor.

“You could have been a knight,” she said quietly.

“I was born higher,” he almost replied. But he bit it back.

Ermin tested him with greater trust.

One night, after a rival’s spy was uncovered in the household, Ermin handed Laim the interrogation.

“Do what you must to get the truth out of him.”

In the cellar, with torchlight flickering, Laim used pit methods of pain precisely applied, with questions asked calmly. The spy broke, naming Valtor’s network.

Ermin listened to the confession, then clasped Laim’s shoulder.

“You are no longer a slave in my eyes. Soon, perhaps not in law.”

But freedom required more, maybe Ermin’s great ambition, to serve directly under King Ingo Bolton. But it required navigating deadly court politics. Assassins, bribes, betrayals. So Laim became his shadow blade.

Now in the inner circle, Laim ate with the family in private and conversations sometimes turned deep.

One evening, Colvin asked outright: “Who were you, before the pits? Truly.”

Laim set down his cup. “A man with enemies,” he said. “Someone wanted me dead, instead I was sold far away.”

Beatrix leaned in. “Who?”

He hesitated to answer that even though trust had grown between them, revelation was still risky.

“Powerful men. From my home.” he simply said.

Ermin’s eyes sharpened. “And your home?”

Laim shook his head. “Far. I'd say lost.”

They pressed no further seeing his hesitation, but the seed was planted.

That night, alone in his chamber, Laim traced the faded brand on his shoulder.

It's been four years since Miraolden fell and he's come a long way since then, he was now armed, trusted and rising.

But he was still not free.

Alone in the quiet chamber, thoughts flooded his mind.

He thought of Jarrett, counting gold in Korthos. Of Robert Hawks, ruling his stolen throne. Of his mother’s grave, his father’s blood. Of Tamira, Calista, Silas, all scattered and suffering.

So he said to himself. “Soon, I would ask for freedom.

Soon, I wou

ld reveal enough to earn it. And then, I'll begin the long road home.”