Game of Thrones: The Black Dragon King

As the war intensified, more and more guards were drawn into the bloody battlefield, giving the slaves more opportunities to communicate and engage in petty squabbles.

The working conditions in the slave sheds were already appalling. To prevent slave riots, the able-bodied slaves were chained together with shackles and fetters and locked to wooden beams. The maximum range of movement they could make was to lie down. Food was passed to them one by one by the child slaves and the old and weak slaves. They also relieved themselves in the same place. Every slave was filthy, covered in their own and others' excrement and urine.

The sturdy chains and filthy environment meant that the guards who held the slaves never set foot inside unless absolutely necessary. They considered it a task assigned by their great masters to simply peek inside through the cell doors and skylights.

"Did you see that, little flea?"

Unlike young and middle-aged slaves, older children and elderly slaves were not chained up. This was because they also performed tasks such as cleaning up excrement and distributing food.

The slender slave girl, with her delicate hands and feet, peered out from the small window of the dungeon. Her eyes appeared unusually large due to her thinness caused by malnutrition.

There are four more people outside.

"Wearing leather armor?" the lame old slave asked cautiously in a low voice. His hair and beard were all gray, which should have categorized him as old, but his slightly loose yet still powerful muscles and scarred yet strong arms meant that he was still chained up.

"He's the foreman."

"Where's the key?"

"Still in the same old place."

As he spoke, the lame old slave didn't stop what he was doing. A thin hemp rope, soaked in asphalt and covered in coarse gravel, was wrapped around the wooden beam and pulled back and forth. A deep dent had appeared in the dark, greasy wood, revealing the fresh color of the wood at the cut. The thin hemp rope made a faint rubbing sound in the old slave's hands, the dent deepened, and sawdust flew everywhere.

The friction sound was rather loud, causing the old lame man to frown. He then kicked a nearby slave, who was covered in whip marks and had a sallow complexion, hard with his other foot. His painful groans then drowned out the cutting sound of the crude rope saw.

Most people here have a dull, lifeless gray gaze. But some people's eyes, though showing signs of exhaustion and bloodshot, are bright and piercing. Old Limpy is one such person.

From the moment he was sold to Slave Bay by the centaurs, the slave owners erased his name and gave him one name after another: some were numbers, some were animals, plants, and various insects, some were jobs, some had physical characteristics, and some were objects, but in short, none of them were names that a human should have. Like the threats of death, hunger, imprisonment, whipping, rewards, and other means, removing his name was also an effective measure to erase the slave's sense of self and make him accept his identity.

However, the old lame man never forgot his name: Mandela. It was the reward his mother, a waitress in a country tavern, received for a whole night of attentive service—a name given to her by a seemingly learned old priest.

"This is a proper, aristocratic name, unlike you country bumpkins!" These were her exact words.

Whenever a drunkard in the tavern made fun of his name, this protective woman would stand with her hands on her hips and launch into a shrewish tirade like an enraged mother hen, eliciting uproarious laughter from the other customers.

Years later, he finally understood why those people were laughing. In the brothel frequented by the Ries mercenaries, the madam, with a fawning expression, introduced her leader to a high-society aphrodisiac: mandrake. He learned for the first time that herbs also had genders; female mandrake nourished yin, while male mandrake enhanced yang. Men and women would mix them separately with strong liquor and consume them to amplify their subsequent pleasure.

The naive countrywoman was fooled by that disgusting old priest. But Mandela didn't care; he continued to use the name.

To give birth to him, this country woman gave up the opportunity to work as a waitress in the best tavern in town, something that would have been easy for her given her youthful beauty; to ensure he received the blessings of the Seven Gods, she married her father, a carpenter she didn't like but who was the richest man in the village; and to have a good name for herself, she was willing to serve an elderly, seemingly "kind" priest for an entire night without pay.

Despite her difficult life and humble livelihood, she still provided him with all the care she could in her own way. Her name contained all the blessings of that woman who was neither particularly intelligent nor gentle.

In the foul-smelling, dimly lit shed, Mandela gritted his teeth and muttered his name as he pulled back and forth on the crude rope saw that was about to cut through the timber beam. An invisible force was helping him fight against his tragic fate.

The crude and simple tools were frustratingly inefficient, but Mandela was very patient, rhythmically controlling the back-and-forth friction of the wire saw, and occasionally stopping to sprinkle sand into the dented stubble.

"Patience! Mandela. Patience!" Mandela murmured.

Faced with the centaur's bloodstained blade, he chose to endure; the captain was nearly cut in two, but he survived. Faced with the slave owners' enslavement, he chose to endure; the slaves who showed their unruliness from the beginning were either beaten until their skin was torn and died from exhaustion during labor, or sent to the arena to continue to display their unruly spirit, while he, because of his compliant attitude, was able to do the relatively easy job—a bed slave.

During his more than ten years of slavery, he also worked as a poison tester, gladiator, coolie, kiln worker, carpenter, and finally became a very valuable slave craftsman—a blacksmith.

The belief that sustained Mandela's endurance, besides his happy childhood, was revenge; one day, he would regain his freedom and make those arrogant abusers pay the price. Thus, from a blond-haired boy to a gray-haired old man, Mandela once doubted himself, wondering if he was a coward using endurance as an excuse. But now, the opportunity had arrived; the liberator had indeed led a large army to attack…

Finally, with an unusual scraping sound, the sudden decrease in resistance brought Mandela's wandering thoughts back to reality. The thick, long wooden beam that had linked twenty able-bodied young slaves together had snapped in front of Mandela.

His actions had become the focus of the slaves' attention; some slaves' eyes gleamed with restlessness and eager anticipation, while others remained numb and lifeless; and a few, fear flickered in their eyes…

"Anyone who dares to shout, I'll kill him before the guards come in!" Mandela threatened fiercely.

His piercing gaze swept across the crowd, and many timid slaves covered their heads with trembling hands. The slaves who had previously acted as human shields cursed inwardly the guard who had locked him up to this old devil.

Mandela never considered himself a good person. The fact that he could maintain good physical and mental health during his life of slavery, where he was poorly clothed, hungry, and toiling all day, was not due to hard work or kindness.

With Mandela's signal, the able-bodied slaves, who shared his eagerness, joined forces to lift the two beams secured by locks. Using their pitifully small space, they moved the broken beams as far to the sides as possible, leaving a gap at the break for the chains to pass through.

Mandela skillfully pulled his shackles from the broken end, then quickly took over from a slave beside him, steadily lifting the beam to help him escape. The newly freed slave then took over from his companion behind him... In this way, the twenty slaves who had been bound by the beam finally regained their freedom of movement within the cell.

But instead of rushing to escape the foul-smelling cell, they carefully followed Mandela's instructions, searching the cell for tools they could use as weapons. They searched for seemingly insignificant shards of broken pottery, loose bricks, even the sand on the floor…

After a brief period of freedom, the slaves quickly returned to their original positions, pretending that they were still bound.

"Now! Lie down and play dead!" Mandela commanded in a deep and authoritative voice.

The oppressed slave wisely lay down, held his breath, and waited for his chance.

After exchanging glances with all his accomplices, Mandela solemnly instructed, "Little flea, call for help."

The little flea took a deep breath, then violently pounded on the cell door, creating a commotion with its incoherent cries: "Master! Master! Come quick! Someone's dead here!"

After a long while, the cursing overseer finally arrived. Through the cell door, his gaze swept over the "corpses" on the ground, and then he carefully counted the number of slaves again. Finding nothing amiss, he muttered a few words of impatience and turned to leave.

The filthy and appalling environment made overseers generally reluctant to enter the cells, except when removing corpses. Slaver's Bay was no stranger to plagues and infectious diseases; outbreaks of blood plague, trembling disease, pale mares, and grey scale disease had occurred there, each causing heavy losses to slave owners. Therefore, overseers would always take any unusual occurrence of death very seriously.

The prison door was opened by the overseer, and two cocked Mil crossbows were thrust in from outside, their arrows pointed steadily at the slaves.

"You all better behave yourselves!"

Two overseers with burlap sacks wrapped around their faces entered. One carried keys and a torch, while the other held a grappling hook for dragging corpses. They would not touch bodies whose cause of death was unknown.

Just as the overseer was preparing to brand the corpse on the ground with a torch to confirm whether it was really dead, he suddenly discovered that the shackles of the slaves next to him had been loosened.

A flicker of fear flashed in his eyes.

"Attack!" Mandela commanded, and the slaves instantly sprang into action, raining bricks and sand upon the overseer, engulfing him. In the chaos, another overseer's grappling hook was snatched away, chains rattled, and the yearning for freedom transformed into power, unleashing a frenzy of resistance within the cell.

"Boom! Boom!"

Two muffled crossbow bolts rang out. One slave was shot in the throat and fell to the ground with a muffled groan, while the other was shot in the abdomen. Although not fatal, it made him let out a piercing scream.

The sudden casualties served as an effective deterrent, and the frenzied atmosphere instantly froze.

"Damn it!" Mandela roared in exasperation. The commotion was too great and would inevitably attract more slave soldiers and even Unsullied. Moreover, these hastily assembled companions were not gladiators or slave soldiers; most of them were just blacksmiths, coppersmiths, or carpenters. Although they were strong, they lacked combat experience and courage.

They could only rely on instinct and anger, swinging the bricks in their hands with all their might.

Inside the narrow porch, two overseers tried to hold back the rioting slaves inside the cell while awaiting reinforcements. A strong overseer threw away his crossbow, which had missed its mark, and reached out to grab the wooden door of the cell, attempting to close it.

Several slaves rushed forward and immediately grabbed the wooden door, pulling it in the opposite direction.

The terrified and enraged overseer immediately drew his short sword and began wildly slashing at the hand resting on the wooden door. The other overseer hurriedly cocked his crossbow to support his partner.

The slave, whose finger had been cut off, screamed and pulled his hand back. The overseer then closed the cell door, pulled on the chain, and prepared to lock it again.

A resolute glint flashed in Mandela's eyes. He raised the grappling hook he had snatched from the overseer and charged toward the overseer blocking the door.

Long grappling hooks extended from between the bars of the cell door, hooking directly onto the overseer's neck, and Mandela pulled him sharply backward.

The overseer's face was pressed directly against the bars of the cell door, his fleshy features contorted in terror and ferocity due to the pressure.

Driven by the instinct for survival, the overseer did not give up the fight, repeatedly stabbing and slashing through the bars with his short sword to prevent the slaves from getting closer to the cell.

Another foreman had already cocked the crossbow and quickly fired an arrow at Mandela, but in his panic, he lost his aim and the arrow struck Mandela in the shoulder.

"Damn it!" The pain ignited Mandela's ferocity, and he viciously dragged the entangled overseer into the cell. "What the hell are you all standing there for? Are you waiting for it to close the door and shoot us all? Fight back, you damned bastards!"

"Damn it, get out of my way!" The little flea picked up the torches that the first two overseers had dropped and shoved them into the face of the overseer blocking the door.

"Ahhh!" The foreman screamed in agony, his slashes no longer threatening as his eyes were burned.

A burly slave from the Summer Islands, dressed entirely in black, immediately stepped forward, grabbed the bars of the cell door, and pulled it back with all his might.

Seeing hope, seven or eight hands immediately reached out to help.

The cell door was pulled open by the slaves working together.

"Help me! Help me!" The overseer, his face burned and his eyes blind, cried out in terror to his companions, only to be dragged into a cell by the slaves and killed with bricks.

Seeing this, another overseer panicked and turned to flee, but was tackled by several slaves who had chased him out of the cell. His screams quickly faded into the crowd surrounding him.

A partial victory; we are safe for now.

Mandela, panting heavily, collapsed to the ground, refusing the little flea's offer to help him remove the arrow. Once he had caught his breath, he began to give orders methodically: "Little flea, go get the keys and unlock everyone! Jerry, take some men to the guardhouse and warehouse and collect weapons. The rest of you, go with Coalhead to the shed and get the tools to remove these damn shackles!"

"Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang..."

Just when everyone thought they could catch their breath, a sharp and piercing alarm bell rang out, sounding particularly jarring in the quiet, dark night.

The sound of the alarm bell instantly made everyone's expressions serious.

"What are you all standing there for? Hurry up and take out that one who slipped through the net!" Mandela shouted as he came to his senses.

Three burly slaves immediately grabbed forging hammers and axes and hurried toward the watchtower.

Before long, the alarm stopped, but everyone knew it was too late.