by Nelson, J P
He looked at me as if surprised, and then with a bolt he turned and ran a short distance. I heard yells of surprise as anyone not outside came running. Dahnté stopped and looked at me and pawed his forefoot down three times while throwing his head. Was he asking me to join him?
The quartermaster grabbed me by the arm and that liver chestnut stallion with the flaming mane and tail bucked high in the air and took off for the highlands. I was smiling even as the quartermaster clouted me on the head.
For two weeks I was put naked into what they called the box, a small wooden crate with a small hole for breathing, and was fed only water with a little bread, but to me it was worth it. They never did catch that horse and I can still remember watching his tail like a flag waving for freedom.
My resentment of elves and humans grew to bitterness and I became a child of quiet, seething anger. Finally I traced all blame for my momma’s and my predicament to Oshang. Had he not left his people, they would not have been scattered to the winds in the first place.
Day in and out I contemplated how to get away, to find my momma and get out … get out and one day come back and get revenge on them all.
Every once in a time Cordis would saunter around me and say things like, “That mammy of your’n really knows how to de-light a man,” or, “Hu-ay, your mammy’s one damned good bitch,” and, “Your mammy’s belly is stretching’ again. You got any idea who the pappy might be? Nobody else knows …”
Cordis, I thought, Cordis would be my first. I could feel it in my blood, I was going to kill Cordis first. Before I could do anything, though, I had to escape.
Mustron Bluff was five miles to the west of the castle, and each autumn a group of us would be taken to the base to pick prossen berries among the unforgiving briars that covered the region. One of Cordis’s pleasures was making me do it barefoot, but there was a silver lining in that cloud. Back when she was drilling me in regard to that forgotten tunnel under the castle, momma had told me of another tunnel, one for use as a last resort. This one led to an opening below the Bluff, somewhere among the heavy briars.
Twice before I had tried to escape to find that opening; hey, it was the first time they had taken my leg-irons off, so I went for it. They couldn’t possibly know that I knew of the tunnel, probably they didn’t know either, but I got caught looking for it. You can’t wear leg-irons in those briars, you’ll get all tangled up and what good is a tangled up slave. That’s when Cordis came up with making me go barefoot.
It had been over four years since they took me away, and the berry picking was half done when I saw what I was looking for, and it wasn’t that far away. But I needed to time things just right. The bluff was five miles, add more for being at the base, which was a long way, and if anyone got a clue where I was going, the horse would get to the castle before I could. What’s more, I didn’t know what kind of shape that tunnel was in or how winding it might be.
We had another week of picking, six days, and I came up with a plan. There was a little time, but not much, I figured. But that evening Cordis came by to check on things and he couldn’t pass up another taunt, “Halloo, stub-Johnny. How’s them feet?” He chuckled and looked down at the bruises and briar marks, then he spit on them. “Here …” he tossed my meat and bread on the floor while a couple of the slave boys giggled, “… eat that. Ya damned slink.”
Turning to talk to the quartermaster Cordis remarked, “They gonna cut his mammy open next day or two, take that whelp she’s been carryin’.” A look of panic crossed my face and he looked right at me with a challenging glare, “Whu … what you gonna do about it?” He raised the back of his hand as if to slap me. “Seems like she’s havin’ problems. Damned whore bitch can’t even pass a whelp the right way.” Then he bared those rotten teeth and growled, then laughed at me.
My breathing came hard; they were going to cut her, to hurt my momma. There was no time to lose, but I had to try to keep my head. The quartermaster looked at me without expression. “Cordis is just tryin’ to rile you, boy. Here, pick up your food and eat it. You ain’t getting’ no more.”
I looked down at the floor where he indicated and saw the overturned plate and a wooden fork. Sullenly I dipped down and made as if to salvage some of the food. Slipping the chunk of meat into my pocket I also palmed the fork. It had been two years since my last escape attempt, so the quartermaster wouldn’t expect it.
Once it was half-night, I slipped from my cot. Slinking across the room of sleeping boys, I almost made it to the door when a boy named Jaymes saw me and yelled. He tried to grab me and I ducked under his shoulder and carried him through the door, breaking it off of the jam. Jaymes was still hanging on and I took that fork and stabbed him with it I didn’t care where.
My stealth had already failed, so amid the yells of alarm I ran as fast as I could the two and a half miles where our picking was, and found the old pile of rock I had been looking for. Climbing in and behind the broken slab, I found a metal door, hidden from any view unless you knew what to look for. It was cracked open just enough to let smaller animals in, and it looked to have been left that way for decades, maybe centuries. On the inside I found a slide bolt and secured the door into place.
There was only a little light, but on an inner shelf I found some torches and something momma called matches were in a little box. I struck a torch and grabbed the others and started my journey. I had very little time and I was tired from the day’s work, and I hadn’t thought to plan for any water.
Since the tunnel hadn’t actually been sealed, the air wasn’t bad. But there were all kinds of bones, snake skins, and all kinds of things in there. Several times I passed tunnel cross-sections, but I kept going straight through. I had to rest a few times and once I fell asleep. I ate my piece of dried stew meat while walking and was wishing mighty hard I had thought to bring water.
Once, at a cross-section, I came almost face to face with what looked like a rat, a giant rat that must have been all of four feet long not counting the tail. In its mouth was some kind of creature I didn’t recognize, and didn’t want to.
We stopped, each of us surprised by the other, and I held my breath and said in a slightly quivering voice, “Mr. Rat, sir …” my momma had always taught me to be respectful of nature’s creatures, “… I’m on a rescue mission to save my momma. It would please me, Mr. Rat, sir, not to bear me ill will and leave me to be on my way.”
Now I don’t know if that rat was a mister, or not, but it left me be and I kept a’moving. Several times I heard rustling among the litter on the tunnel floor, and I had to burn my way through some awfully big and thick spider webs. Thankfully I didn’t meet the spider who spun them, but I kept checking my back trail just to make sure. Many was the time I had let a house spider crawl on my hand, but the thought of something so big dropping on my neck or back against my knowing gave me the sammies.
When I found the trap door leading up from the tunnel, I had to work really hard to break through roots and all beside Surry Creek. I couldn’t get the door open very far, and I basically had to crawl out. But as soon as I forced my way through the opening closed back up without any help from me. I saw the cluster of rocks my momma had told me to look for, way back when, so for me it would be no problem finding my way back if need be.
Once out I found it was still pitch black nighttime and the shadows from the trees of the rippling creek were ghostly, but in the last four and a half years I had been learning to like the shadows of night. But wait, was it the same night?
It took me a while to sneak around several hundred acres until I came close to where that old rock building still was. It somehow didn’t look the same and I saw a refuse heap off to one side. Edging my way closer I saw some guards standing around the building and I heard a baby crying.
On that refuse pile I saw my momma wrapped in a cloth and laying on top of it. Gasping in horror I forgot all caution and ran to her. She must have been there for some time and she was all white looking in the moon's
light. Blood was caked around her middle, but then her hand touched mine and she smiled weakly at me.
In the weakest of voices she said, “Siu’Haht-chin, llam puhko nia’hatsu.”
“No!” I cried out. Grabbing her hand I tried to make it better, to find the Family Secret she had used so many times for me, but where was it? I felt powerful warmth flowing into me, all the thorn puncture wounds in my feet healed and I felt stronger than ever before, but the energy was going the wrong way …
Desperately I said to her, “Momma! I’m here! Please don’t let go, I’m hanging on, momma hang on to me …” How many times had she said those same words to me, and always everything was better. But I couldn’t keep her, I wasn’t strong enough, I wasn’t good enough, my momma was slipping away and I couldn’t save her. At the very moment she needed me I was powerless to help and I cursed myself, ‘You’re a weakling, Komain, you are worse than weak, you are nothing …’ I told myself.
She managed to touch my face and tried to say, “I … l-l-lov-v-ve … y-y-y- …” and then she died looking into my eyes as it seemed the wind howled and everything around me went askew. I felt rough hands grab me and pull me back, and then something hit me hard over the back of the head.
When I awakened, I was chained to the whipping post on the grounds of the main keep.
It was morning and Cordis was standing there with a sadistic grin and a braided whip. Other slaves and residents of the keep came out to watch, as if this was some form of entertainment. The whip descended upon my shoulders and back fifty-eight times. I counted each lash and imagined how each person there would respond, were the lash landing on them instead. It gave me escape, a place to go with my mind as the leather struck my body. I felt wetness around my hips, legs and feet, and realized I was covered in my own blood.
Despite the lashings, however, and it was something I wasn’t conscious of at the time, for some reason the metal tips braided on the end of Cordis’s whip weren’t doing as much damage as they should. Yes, they hurt and tore at my flesh, but instead of nips and smaller cuts, the strikes should have ripped and torn. That whipping would have killed a normal human, let alone a small boy.
Later I would reflect and realize, my momma had known … she knew what would be in store and she had given me one last gift. Even in death she was reaching out, doing everything she could to protect me. I could envision her thinking, hoping against hope her effect would last long enough for them to vent their rage; to give me one last chance to survive.
My thought was, ‘Thank you momma. One day, I don’t know how, but you will be avenged one thousand fold.’
A younger man I did not recognize, but whose name I had heard several times, ordered the taskmaster to stop, himself disgusted. “You’re enjoying yourself to much Cordis. He can’t help what he is. With some cultivating he can be a long term asset to the estate.”
“Lord Herrol, You are makin’ a mistake with this ‘un. He’s got a devil look in his eye, I’m tellin’ ya. Let me kill him now. He’s a cur that’ll turn on ya faster …”
“I ... Said ... STOP!” the first man insisted. His voice rising with each carefully pronounced word. In some ways he sounded like Roveir when I heard him that day years ago.
“But …”
“Leave it BE! Go to the barracks and get some supper. I need you to report to my office first thing in the morning, early, for new work orders in County Walter.”
Cordis gave him a dark look, and then reluctantly left while coiling his whip.
“Everyone, go on to your quarters, it’s over. It’s done.” said the lord.
I had heard the name Herrol before. A son sent off to a school for nobles. What, ten, fifteen years ago? He was the pride of the family, for sure, and an officer with the Gevard elite military force.
He made his way over to me and outside of the range of my feet he carefully looked me over. A young man, himself, Lord Herrol Leland Fel’Caden looked to be perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five, but he carried himself as if much older. He was definitely used to being in command of his surroundings and being touted as the next Duke of Fel’Caden. His bearing was strong and confident, hair black and perfectly groomed with a neat mustache and goatee, tall and lean but muscular. His movements were fluid and relaxed while suggesting great power.
As Herrol spoke to me he wasn’t arrogant, but firm and straight up.
“I know what you are thinking. You are thinking ‘One day … one day I’ll get even.’ And to be honest I don’t blame you. But understand this clearly ...”
What he had planned to say next I will never know. He got down where he could look me eye to eye and waited until he had my attention. As he looked into my eyes he let out a long breath “You know … by the gods, I think Cordis could be right. There is something about your eyes.”
He actually looked at me with some form of grudging respect “You, my young boy, have a demeanor I haven’t seen since coming in from the battlefield. I can actually feel it. There is a true killer in there. Worse, there is something of insanity behind your eyes.” He said this while inspecting me as if I were an intriguing sculpture he was studying for the first time.
He waited for what seemed an eternity. He gazed directly into my eyes, and I unspeaking, gazed him back.
“I had strongly considered using you for stud. Elvin blood makes for long-lived labor, among other things, and you have a good look about you. But that isn’t going to work here, is it.”
I said nothing.
“Not going to speak, threaten or anything are you?” He actually grinned at me.
“You have guts, boy. You have that damned elvin blood in you. But you have my blood in you, too, the blood of my family, the blood of Fel’Caden nobility runs hot within your veins. We were the first in this country, ours is the oldest castle and our ancestors built the Citadel at Stonebridge. In fact you remind me just a bit of an uncle of mine. He was insane, too.”
I could tell he was trying to read my emotions, trying to look deep into my soul.
“Boy, I hate to do it, but I have a bad feeling; keeping you here, even if we geld you, would be like having a turn-case dog on the premises. If we left you uncut, you would refuse to breed for spite. And the first chance you got you would kill someone. In fact, you already have, haven’t you? You speared that boy, what was his name, Jaymes, in the neck.”
He stood back up and looked at me for a long while, then added “There is no getting around it,” he said, “by Eayah, but I’m going to have to either kill you or sell you. If we kill you, then we are at a total loss; selling you, on the other hand … we might could make a tidy profit, if we find the right buyer.”
Herrol kept staring at me, and then with a shake of his head and a bit of amusement he asked, “Just out of curiosity, would you mind telling me how you got up here from the flat without anyone seeing you?”
I just gave him the stone-face. He wiped his mouth, held the back of his hand against his chin, then gave a grunt of exasperation as he turned and went inside to take his evening meal.
As I stood chained to that whipping post, it slowly sunk in that I would never hear my momma sing songs to me again. I would never feel her touch or gaze into her eyes. She had been everything to me, and now she was gone. I had no purpose, no meaning; depression enveloped me to the core. All of those wonderful stories meant little. The elves were not coming, and there never had been. They were just stories to me. And I had no great thoughts for any who would let their own be used as my momma had been used.
After the sun had set, a groom came out and carefully sloshed water over my body. I can’t remember how many it was, but several men with crossbows came out and tossed a shovel at me. Then Lord Herrol came out and said, “Take no thought, if you make a run for it we will shoot. It won’t be to kill. It will be to capture, geld and harness to the mill grind.”
He walked in front of me again and made sure he had eye contact. He shook his head, “Devil’s Damnation, boy. Okay, I’m going
to make it clear. I know your mind is running with all kinds of thoughts of revenge. If it wasn’t, I’d be disappointed. But you see here. No matter what you think, right now, right at this very moment, there isn’t a damned thing you can do. I own you boy. And right this minute I am going to give you the opportunity to bury your mama in your own way.
“I’m not going to ask if you understand. I know you do. So when Lexin unlocks those chains, you go pick up your mama and find you a nice spot to bury her in. Then you can do whatever praying you do to whoever you pray to. Then we’re going to lock you back up.
“Now you behave, and there may come a day when you get your chance to get your revenge.”
He shook his head slowly, “I don’t think it’s going to happen. But you understand in your mind that if you get stupid you won’t ever get that chance.”
At that moment I hated him in such a way I would have gone after him with a rock against his sword, young though I was. But as much as I hated it, I knew he was right. I had to keep my mind clear and make sure my momma had some sort of respect.
They led me in a procession out to what had once been our quarters. Lexin, of all people, now with a Gevard army uniform on, unlocked my chains and I just stood a minute and rubbed my wrists.
My body was beaten and I was weak. I hadn’t had any food since early that morning and my wounds were fresh. But without looking at anyone else I walked over to my momma and took a blanket someone tossed over. I wrapped my beloved momma with care and tenderness. No tears came to my eyes. That was for me alone at my own choosing.
I buried my momma under her favorite apple tree which she had lovingly planted over one hundred years ago. She had sung many songs under that tree and we had eaten of its fruit while pretending to walk the valley of the Dsh’Tharr. I swore to myself, I would find a special place where I could call my own. I would come back and take her there. But there would be blood to pay first. How? I had no idea, but in my child’s heart a seed was planted.