by Jess Lebow
Beetlestone put his helm back on his head. “Well, think about it. Think real hard about it.” He turned to the rest of his men. “Let’s go.” The guard captain walked away, his men falling into step behind him.
Liam took the wheel into the shed. Though it was hot, the shade was a merciful relief from the sun beating down on his head and the farmers’ staring eyes on his back.
His father followed him in. “What was that about?”
Liam shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? Sounded like something to me,” said Douglas, raising his voice and moving closer to his son.
Liam flinched. Ever since he was a little boy, his father would use his superior size to gain the advantage in an argument. Despite the fact that Liam was no longer five years old, and he was now taller than his father, Douglas was still well-muscled from his time in the fields, and his father’s commanding tone intimidated him.
“I told you already, Lord Purdun asked me some questions.”
“Captain Beetlestone said something about an offer.” Douglas moved in even closer, his chin nearly touching Liam’s cheek. “What offer is he talking about, Liam?”
Liam squirmed. “All right,” he said as he took a step away from the older man. “Purdun offered me a spot on his elite guard.”
“And you didn’t take it? What kind of fool are you?”
Liam’s anger rose at his father’s goading. It replaced his sorrow and gave him strength. He squared his shoulders and glared down at Douglas. “Not the kind of old fool who waits around, toiling his whole life just so that fat pig Purdun can get rich off my hard work.” He shoved his father.
Douglas lost his balance and had to take a step back. It wasn’t that the shove was so hard that it actually overpowered the old man, but the action surprised both father and son.
Liam’s heart pounded. He was tired of being muscled around, and now he’d done what he’d never before had the courage to do. The feeling thrilled him. But there would be consequences, and that also terrified him.
Douglas came back with both fists balled up, ready for a fight. “You prepared to back that up, boy?”
Liam instinctively reached for his belt, but he hadn’t brought a sword. Glancing around the room, he looked for something to defend himself with. It was too late to talk his way out of this; he’d seen that look in his father’s eyes too many times. Their arguments had often ended this way over the years. But this one was different. This time, Liam had made contact, and the old man wasn’t going to let that go unpunished.
Liam remembered back to a time when he was only ten years old. They had been out in these very fields, and he and Ryder had been practicing their sword fighting with a couple of hoes. Douglas had stepped between their little game, and Liam had feigned a blow to the old man’s head. His father had grabbed him by the arm and lifted him clean off the ground.
Looking Liam in the eyes, Douglas had said, “If you hit me, you’d better make sure I don’t get back up. Because if I do, you’ll be sorry.”
Liam had never forgotten those words. They had been burned into his permanent memory, and since that day, he’d never laid a finger on the old man.
Until now.
Liam caught sight of a broken pickaxe leaning against the wall of the shed, and he made a lunge for it. Douglas saw him move, and swung down with his powerful fist. But Liam was too fast, and he spun away, grabbing the pick and avoiding the blow as he sidestepped the slower, burly old man.
The move had saved Liam from a painful sock in the gut, but it had humiliated his father, adding insult to injury.
Douglas’s face was now red, and he sneered at his son, his tremendous frame heaving with exertion as it blocked the path to the open door. “You’re gonna get it, boy.”
Liam lifted the broken tool.
“What’s going on in here?” Samira appeared in the doorway. Her face was obscured by the sunlight behind her. Liam could only see the silhouette of her hand placed firmly on her slim hip. Her hair was tied on top of her head, exposing the long smooth curve of her neck, backlit by the sun’s rays.
“Oof.” Liam staggered back, slamming into the wall as his father’s fist collided with his chin. He slid down the wall to the ground.
“Stop it!” shouted Samira. “Stop it right now.” She pushed past Douglas to get to Liam’s side.
“This doesn’t concern you,” said the old man, rubbing his knuckles.
Samira bent down and touched Liam’s cheek. “You’re bleeding.”
Liam put his hand to his face. His father’s punch had split his parched lip.
Douglas shuffled his feet. “Leave the little sissy be. He got what he deserves.”
Samira spun on the old man. “Don’t you have work to do?” she said. “You’ve done enough here already.”
“Bah.” Douglas sneered at Liam then turned and walked out the door. The opening no longer blocked, the sun beamed in from outside.
Liam pushed himself up on one arm and started to get up off the ground.
Samira grabbed him by the shoulder and helped him up. “Oh, be careful.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine.” He waved her off as he got to his feet. “I had it coming.”
“What happened?” She tore off a piece of her skirt and dabbed at the blood on his face. “And what was all that with Captain Beetlestone?”
Liam touched his chin. It was sore and probably would be for a while. “That discussion is what got me this fat lip.”
“Ah,” Samira nodded. “A little fatherly advice.”
Liam smirked. Ryder had started courting Samira when they were still just teenagers, but she had known their family for much longer. Though she had been kind and friendly toward Douglas, Liam had always thought she disapproved of the way he related to the rest of the family.
The doorway went dark again. “Liam of Duhlnarim,” came a voice. Three men shuffled into the shed. All of them wore hardened leather armor, and each of them carried a long sword. “You have some explaining to do.”
The speaker stepped forward, out of the backlit doorway and into the shadows where Liam could see him. He was tall with long black hair tied back in a ponytail. There were dark circles under his eyes and his skin was pale, making his face look sickly in the strange light of the shack.
“Montauk!” said Liam, recognizing immediately one of his fellow Crimson Awl. “You’ve heard about Ryder, then?”
Montauk nodded. “Yes, I did. And I also heard about your little visit with Lord Purdun. Seems you’ve gone over to the other side.”
Liam raised his hands. “No. You don’t understand. I turned him down. I told him to go to hell.”
Montauk shrugged. “Tell it to the Council.”
The two men flanking Montauk stepped forward and grabbed Liam by the arms.
Liam shook them off, shoving both away. “Let go.”
Montauk pulled his sword.
Liam froze at the sound of the grinding metal. Samira’s hand tightened around his arm.
“Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” said Montauk. “Come with us peacefully, and you’ll get to tell your story.”
Liam looked at the two men, then at Montauk. Until just a few moments ago, he had thought they were on his side. “Do I have a choice?”
Montauk shook his head.
“Then lead the way.” Liam touched Samira’s hand, then let himself be taken from the shack out into the afternoon sun.
CHAPTER 7
I’ll kill you—” Ryder woke up with a start. The nightmare of his failed ambush played over in his head, a persistent dream for nearly a month.
“Shh,” said the bald man to his right. “You’ll wake the taskmaster.”
The realities of Ryder’s situation came rushing back to him. It was very early morning. The sky had just begun to lighten, but the sun had yet to come up over the rise. He sat up straight and peered over the men in front of him. A few yards ahead of the chain gang, the taskmaster was hunch
ed over his drums, still dead asleep.
They had stopped for the night, now over two tendays outside of Duhlnarim. The guards had made camp in a shallow valley, chaining the prisoners to a large oak tree. Ryder could see their fire about a hundred paces away. At least two of the guards were awake. He could hear their voices intermingling with the crackling of the fire.
Ryder lifted his hand to cradle his sore neck, but the chains connecting him to the bald man didn’t reach that far. He was stiff, and his whole body hurt from sleeping on the hard-packed dirt.
“What’d they get you for?” whispered the bald man.
Ryder stopped moving. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
The bald man shook his head. “I wasn’t asleep.” He lifted his arm, putting some slack in the chain.
Ryder smiled. “Thanks.” Then he reached back to rub the sore muscles in his neck.
“So,” repeated the bald man, “what’d they get you for?”
Ryder shrugged. “I’m not sure. Conspiracy, I guess.”
“Conspiracy? What, the baron caught you thinking impure thoughts?”
“That and ambushing one of his carriages.”
The bald man smirked. “Sounds more like thievery to me.”
“I guess you could look at it that way. But we weren’t just stealing, we were trying to intercept a message from Lord Purdun.”
The bald man raised an eyebrow. “A message? You don’t approve of the baron’s correspondences?”
Ryder nodded. “Well, to some extent, yes. This message was a letter of treaty bound for another barony. If it had gotten there, it would have meant more hardship for the folks of Duhlnarim and more trouble for the Crimson Awl.”
The bald man’s eyes narrowed. “A revolutionary, huh? Not much of a criminal then, are you?”
“Not really,” admitted Ryder. “Does that lower your opinion of me?”
The man smiled, exposing a pair of golden front teeth. “Anyone who puts a thorn in Purdun’s ass is all right by me.” The man offered Ryder his hand. “The name’s Nazeem.”
“Ryder.” He shook the offered hand. “And what’s your story?”
“Smuggling,” said Nazeem. “Seems Purdun doesn’t like the idea of anything coming into his barony without him getting his fair share of tax.”
“Sounds about right—” Ryder froze, his comments cut short at the sound of the taskmaster snorting and rolling onto his side.
The large greasy man sat up and wiped a meaty palm across his face. Then, with a huge yawn and a stretch he got to his feet and began counting the prisoners. Ryder glanced once more at Nazeem, as if to say “we’ll continue this later.” He avoided eye contact with the taskmaster as the man’s sausage-sized finger pointed to him, counting Ryder as number twenty-five.
The sky had gotten much lighter, and many of the other guards were moving around the camp. One of them poured a pail of water over the campfire. Ryder could hear the ashes sizzle as he watched a cloud of smoke rise into the air.
The taskmaster unlocked the chain that held the prisoners to the oak tree and gave it a healthy yank.
“Wake up, you scum,” he shouted.
The rest of the prisoners stirred to life, sluggishly waking up from their less-than-restful sleep.
“On your feet.”
Though it was difficult to lift his body and the heavy chains with his sore, stiff muscles, Ryder managed to get himself to his feet. Nazeem sat cross-legged on the ground next to Ryder. Without using his hands, the tattooed man attempted to lift himself to standing. The skinny man on the end of their row, however, did not get up, and Nazeem was forced to crouch, unable to hold up both his weight and that of the other man.
“Get up,” Nazeem hissed under his breath.
But the skinny man didn’t move. Instead, he let out a shallow snore.
All of the other men had gotten to their feet, and the taskmaster was making a slow circle around them, inspecting each of the prisoners.
“Get up, you fool,” said Nazeem, this time a little louder.
The skinny man didn’t hear his plea, but the taskmaster did. One moment he was at the front of the chain gang; the next he was right beside Nazeem.
“I told you never to talk.” The taskmaster’s whip cut the air, snapping as it slashed Nazeem’s bare shoulder.
The bald man sucked in air through his clenched teeth, but he did not scream. Ryder hadn’t noticed it before, but Nazeem’s shoulders were covered with long, thin scars. He was no stranger to this sort of beating.
The taskmaster pulled his whip back over his head and cracked it again, catching Nazeem along the side of the face. Ryder cringed. Though he couldn’t see exactly where the whip had hit the man, he knew it had to hurt. Nazeem handled it the same way he had the first lash, cringing from the obvious pain but refusing to give the taskmaster any satisfaction.
“We got ourselves a tough one here,” said the taskmaster, pulling his whip up again. “Good. Good. You should fetch a high price in Westgate. Might even find interest for you with the Quivering Thumb.” He leaned in closer. “You could actually live long enough to earn your freedom in the arena.” Standing up straight, he snapped the whip again. This time though, he targeted the skinny man.
Awakened rudely from his sleep, the skinny man yelped when the tip of the whip slapped against his back.
“Get up,” shouted the taskmaster. He kicked the skinny man in the gut.
The little man’s entire body lifted off the ground from the impact, and he let out an “oof,” then doubled over.
The taskmaster kicked the man again. “I said ‘get up.’ ”
“Mr. Cobblepot,” shouted the guard captain. “Quit messing around and get ready to march.”
The taskmaster looked up at the mounted captain, being careful not to make eye contact. “Yes, Captain Tully.”
“Be quick about it,” said the captain, then he turned his horse around and rode off.
The skinny man convulsed, spitting up a glob of blood. Mr. Cobblepot reached down and with one arm lifted the beaten prisoner to his feet.
“I’ll deal with you later,” he said, shoving the man. Scuttling around to the front of the gang, the taskmaster wrapped his whip around his hand and lifted his drums to his shoulders.
“All right, scum,” he yelled, “it’s double-time all morning. Compliments of sleeping beauty there.”
Ryder looked over at the skinny man. He could barely hold himself up. Beyond having just been beaten, he seemed sick, depleted. Ryder didn’t think the poor man would make it through the morning. He wished there were something he could do, some way to help the poor bastard lift his burden.
“We march,” shouted the taskmaster. He slammed his drum. BOOM … BOOM.…
The chain gang lurched forward. Ryder stepped in time with the drum.
The sun finally crested the rise, spilling light over the valley. It was going to be a hot one. The skinny man coughed and gagged, stumbling forward with the marching group and spitting out another long stringy strand of mucus and blood.
Ryder shuddered as he thought about what would happen when the skinny man finally collapsed. Stopping without orders would get a prisoner severely beaten. If the taskmaster didn’t notice when the man fell, he might be dragged by the rest of the gang.
The skinny man coughed again, this time so violently that he doubled over. The chains on his feet—bound to the man in front of him—pulled taut.
Nazeem reached out and grabbed the skinny man by the back of his vest, dragging him forward on the next drum beat. Ryder moved closer to Nazeem, giving him as much slack in the chains as he could manage without falling over himself. If one of them fell, the others likely would as well.
The skinny man finally recovered from his coughing fit, and he regained his balance. He looked up gratefully at Nazeem, tottered a bit, then pasted his gaze to the ground, concentrating on each and every step.
This time the carriage took the lead. The mounted guardsmen fel
l into place alongside the chain gang, and they continued their march out of the valley. The taskmaster beat the drums at double the usual speed, and the prisoners followed the dirt road up the western slope, running from the rising sun.
“All right, you vermin,” shouted the taskmaster as he lowered his drums from his shoulders, “we stop here for the night.”
The entire gang collapsed to the ground in a cacophony of moans and groans. They had stopped in open lowlands on a big, flat, damp piece of ground surrounded by several small groupings of trees on the east and a large pile of boulders on the west. Thick swarms of bugs moved around like tiny rain clouds, shifting and circling overhead. The air reeked of rotten vegetation and stagnant water.
Ryder felt a wave of relief flush through his aching body as he crashed to the ground. They had marched from sunup to sundown, stopping once and only briefly for water. His feet throbbed, feeling as though all the blood in his body had somehow found its way down there and now threatened to burst through his skin, spilling out over the open plain.
To his right, Nazeem sat cross-legged, his arms resting on his knees. The tattooed man sat like this every time they stopped. He would close his eyes, sit up straight, and breathe through his nose. Nazeem looked so calm, so peaceful. Ryder wished that he could feel the way Nazeem looked. But right now, there was no peace or tranquility to be had on the hard, rocky ground.
Beside Nazeem, the skinny man had slumped over into a heap. Ryder was surprised he had made it. He’d had a rough start at the beginning of the day, but after that he’d more or less kept pace with the rest of the group. Only a few times did Nazeem have to help him along or keep him from falling. Making it to the end of the day without being trampled or beaten seemed like a tremendous success.