by Nelson, J P
There were no prayers for me to pray, for deep within me I knew that if there were any gods, they had been watching when this had all happened. I wanted no part of them. In my mind I spat curses and defilements on all powers that be, as well as any and everyone who worshiped them.
After a time, Herrol decided I had knelt beside my momma long enough. Without a word I walked away from the tree, looked these humans directly in the eyes, and held my wrists out. I could feel my nostrils flare ever so slightly and I felt a calm, white incensed anger emanate from my eyes.
“Mother of gods!” one of them exclaimed in a hushed voice.
Then Herrol said, “Go to town and find Stagus. Then get him over here. Get him here as soon as possible. I want that boy sold and gone.”
He turned to leave and as Lexin came over to clamp the chains on my wrists, I snapped my hand quickly for his dagger; I drew it with a cry of rage and then I went berserk.
Chapter 9
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I HAD CAUGHT them flat-footed, and in so doing learned a valuable lesson. Only a fool would have bucked a stacked deck like that, a fool or a crazy person. I dove into the center of the half circle of men and I heard Herrol yelling at them not to shoot their crossbows. Panic swept the group and several of those brave men took bolts fired by their own comrades. One took a bolt in his eye and I sidestepped onto his falling body, jumped up and landed on another while cutting deep with the blade.
As he screamed and fell, I wrenched the blade free and rolled swiftly to my feet. Chaos was in motion and I saw Colsti, who had invaded our quarters that day, and one of the bolts had caught him in the midriff. He was focused on the bolt and not at me. He might have lived had he paid more attention to what was actually happening. The cur was bent over and I ducked under grabbing hands; slashing hard at his neck I felt the dagger glide all the way through.
Beside Colsti, I recognized his younger brother, Phaul. He had been there too. Phaul was twice my size, but fear gripped his gizzard and he turned and tried to run. He fell and as he stumbled to get up I ran him through the middle, then whipped around cutting not one, not two, but three more unarmored humans.
I heard a whip crack and turning, I saw directly in front of me was Cordis. I got a look into his eyes and suddenly I saw fear in his face. That potbellied pig froze for an instant, and then he tried bringing his braided whip back into motion … but he was too slow.
I had wanted to kill him first, but right then it didn’t matter. Something was hitting me, but I didn’t feel it. Overwhelmed with rage I leaped upon Cordis with a snarl like some savage beast. I saw him panic as I caught the lash of his whip around my arm. He didn’t let go as I yanked myself to him with a thrust into his gut. When they pulled me off of him I was screaming and had stabbed him over twenty times.
They tried to hold me and had to lift me up overhead as I fought like a demon in mortal form. I felt the blows hammer my body too frequent to count, but I kept swinging that blade. Weakness and loss of blood finally overcame me allowing them to take control of my body. As they held me down I felt someone grab my hair and pull my head up to face Herrol. His sword was drawn, blood on his clothes and he looked ready to run me through. Then his face broke with a strange grin and he gave a shake of his head.
“Chain him boys. And keep a careful eye. He’s crazier than a rabid wolf.” He looked me straight and direct and inside I could see he really liked me. It was a cruel kind of like, the kind of affection a warrior gives a really worthy opponent. But it was still a form of respect. “Damn it all, boy. Seven people, you killed seven people, here, that slave boy below, and wounded twice again as many.”
He wiped his face with his sleeve and smeared blood from a cut on his head. He slowly shook and dabbed his head again while sizing me up. Then he spoke through exasperated breathing, “Damn …” staring at me as one would look at a captured mountain beast he added, “… do you know ten confirmed kills on the battlefield grants one exalted status?” Herrol suddenly noticed what must have been a deep wound on his arm, which he now tried to hold closed.
Herrol breathed deeply, and then chuckled. Did something like insanity run in the Fel’Caden bloodline? Had I inherited the same traits? Holding his arm tightly, he still gave me his attention and seemed to be weighing something out in his mind. Whatever it was, his face showed a sign of resolve as he apparently changed his mind from whatever it was he was thinking. He concluded his talk with me by saying, with a final and a resolute shake of his head, “Boy … I hate to see you go.”
With that, he strode off to the main keep.
The morning after burying my momma I woke to find myself naked, my hands and feet securely chained to a post behind the regular slaves’ quarters. My body had been cleaned and I could tell my back had been salved. I was to be sold, after all, and you don’t want your merchandise to bear infections from disciplinary actions.
Never in my life could you have told me a body could feel as stiff as I felt, nor as sore. My head hurt and I heard a ringing in my ears. I felt nauseated beyond anything I had ever experienced, even worse than when I had eaten a bunch of poisonous berries as a young child. And I couldn’t see from my right eye, it was swollen so badly.
Something felt like it moved a little in my left side and it hurt to even breathe. Was this how it felt to die? I didn’t know, but was sure it couldn’t be too awfully much different.
It hurt less to lay on my right side than the left. And there was a little rise in the ground beneath me, so that was where I lay my head. The thick grasses were actually comforting under my exposed and beaten body. And the sun, well, the sun felt good.
I tried to imagine my momma laying her hand on me once more to ease the pain. A youngster has all kinds of imagination, but I could almost swear that I felt So’Yeth beneath me reach up and pull just a little of the hurt from my wounds. A red-breasted robin landed beside me and picked at my hair for a few minutes. And in what I figured to be some form of delirium I thought I heard a far off female voice tell So’Yahr not to burn me.
I knew those things didn’t really happen, only in my mommas stories of ancient times. But the nausea seemed to go away; something in my left side seemed to go ‘pop’ and my breathing became a little easier.
Eventually I noticed on the grass beside me was a sizable chunk of meat, a roll of bread and a gourd of water. Cordis was nowhere around, but I recognized Barlan stood watching nearby.
“Take da tahm to eht, Komain. Yu’ll be needin’ yur streng’t.” Barlan’s tone wasn’t haughty, nor had he ever been unkind. Not overly friendly, mind you, but never unkind. In fact he used to come by often and listen to my momma’s music when she would play at night.
The hate in me was strong for all humankind, but this man was a slave like me. And he had always been polite to my momma. For a long time I looked at the food and knew I would have to eat. And it did look mighty inviting.
As if reading my thoughts Barlan said, “Ah know there’s a site of angah in yah, but yah won’t get very fahr at all without nothin’ in yur belly. Now eht. Eht while ya can.”
I made the effort to eat at the food beside me, but I was more thirsty than anything else. I drank and Barlan made sure I had plenty. Carefully I tried to chew on the meat and was surprised to find my jaws actually worked. It seemed I had been struck there repeatedly and was sure a tooth or two had been knocked loose. But I could eat fine and felt no pain around my teeth. The bread was stale, but I ate it anyway. When you are hungry, I mean really hungry, you aren’t that overly particular.
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Only once did anyone from the house come to look in on me. It was one of the older men. When he looked me over for a couple of minutes, I heard him talk to Barlan about keeping me in his sight. They didn’t want me trying to kill myself before I could get sold. I heard Barlan address him as Felder and I then recognized him. It was strange how suddenly I wanted to know names. Names and faces. “One day …” I th
ought.
Later in mid noon Barlan came to me and said “Now Komain, ah need to wash yah up a mite so ah can sab yah up again.”
He didn’t act with any animosity, and he moved carefully over my wounds. I could sense that he wasn’t afraid of me, but not because I was bound up. No, there was something else. Momma had always said that he trained and took care of horses the elvin way, with care and compassion. The animals trusted him, she would say.
As he bent down and bathed my back I offered no fight. It hurt but I gave no evidence of pain, or at least I tried not to. All the while he was humming my momma’s music. With uncommonly gentle hands he put a strong herbal salve over my wounds. Then he began to talk in low, but clear sounds.
“Ah know yah got a bunch of barnin’ fahr lashed up in yur innards. But yah gotta larn a mite of patience. Where evah ya go, tink about yah momma. Ah know she’s gone. An’ maybe what all she talk about don’t make no sense raht now. But she war tryin’ to prepare yu fohr sometin’. What, I dunno. But sometin’ fohr shore.
“Yur momma was goot. She showed me kindness when mah own momma died. I was about yur size an’ she talked to me, she sang to me, an’ it was her dat taught me how to care fohr animals.”
As he talked there was no break in his slow movements. And he would hum in between things he would say. I could tell he was talking so no one would realize he was doing so. Why, I don’t know, but I listened.
“Ah was dere when yah was born. Ah saw da moons an’ da naght sky.
“Yah momma nigh lost yah dat naght. It was hard fur her. Ah tink she knew her tahm was close. She tol’ me dat sometahms her people could tell dere tahm to pass on was t’hand.
“Yur differ’nt, young fella. Ah seen da way da hosses look at yah. Ah seen da rabbits an’ skirrels watch yah when yah play an’ sleep. They want to talk to yah. But yah’ve gotta let ‘um.”
He was salving my back when Felder came back out and said “Hey, Barlan. Get a move on. We’ve just received some new hacks at the south barn and we need you to prove them up.”
“Yes suh, Lord Feldah. Ah’ll be raht dere.”
Felder left and Barlan looked at me. As he began to move to stand up I noticed him pause. The way he was kneeling I saw his mantle open and there in his underbelt was my momma’s harmonica. I knew he saw me notice it and I saw his expression become soft with my own amazement.
“One day, one day yah come back har. Come back a free man. Ah’ll hab dis part o’ yah momma waitin’ fur yah. So yah can hab it forebber.”
I looked at this man who looked to be forty or fifty years old, with his thinning brown and gray colored hair, a trimmed bearded face which normally had no expression and his weathered features. This man who had been born a slave and lived his whole life tending the livestock of his owner’s household.
“Angah can take yah so fahr, an’ yah hab da raght. But yah can’t lib like dat forebber. Fine yur place, Komain, fine yur place.”
As he got up to leave I thought I saw a tear in his eye. He hesitated and bent low, acting as if to brush something from my body and in a hushed whisper he said, “Yah got a twin brudder out dere, ah don’ know where, an’ a olter sistuh who ah tink is free. Ah don’ tink she know about you. Der was anubber, but her dead now.” Then he stood up and walked away to meet Felder without looking back.
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A twin brother, I thought as shock and amazement set in my mind. I had never known. Why hadn’t momma told me? I felt a rush of emotions I couldn’t identify. Somewhere I had a family, a brother and a sister; could I find them, if so, how? There weren’t all that many elves around. And now here I was about to be sold. I felt a kind of panic inside. But it had been so long ago. And what of the one who died, another sister? What had happened to her?
A twin, I thought, he surely must have been sold before I could remember. And then there was the child who had just been born.
The weakness from my wounds made me want to sleep. My future was uncertain, and I was still a child easing into adolescence. What I needed now was rest and recovery. Despite my attempts to stay awake and ponder my situation, darkness closed in upon me and I fell into a restless slumber.
When I woke later in the evening I saw that another piece of meat and roll of bread had been placed to my side. The gourd had been refilled with cool water, as well. I ate but was aware of a couple of the human children watching me from a distance. Naked, chained to a post, and in the open, I was ashamed and degraded.
I tried to think about what Barlan had said and why. But what consumed me was my burning desire for revenge. Barlan stood out in an unwanted manner. I wanted to believe that all humans were the same. Yet he took the time to say something meaningful. And I became bitter for it. It made me mad all over again; mad, but with a desire to hear it all one time more. Now I was both angry and confused. So many emotions, so much had happened and I had no answers.
Where were the protective spirits my momma had talked about? If they were so real, why had they allowed her to come here in the first place? Again I cursed the so-called powers that be, if they existed at all.
As to the birds, squirrels, and horses … big deal. What could they do to help? I didn’t even like horses. They were so big. In fact they scared me just a little. What would happen when you got on one of those beasts and it got mad? No thanks.
As to a living twin and older sister, what could I do? Was there even a point in worrying about it? My sister was more than likely eighty or ninety years older, at least. That’s a long time and she could be on the other side of the world. And many years had gone by since my own birth. Where would my twin be? I was more depressed than before. Emotionally crushed I think is a better description. I was a slave, born into ownership, living the life of a slave. More specifically, I was living the life of a half-breed elvin slave. I was alone.
At what point I wasn’t sure, but I again fell into a deep sleep. While sleeping I dreamed. But these weren’t the kind of dreams you can remember when you awaken. They were horrible dreams, nightmares. I was constantly in a state of fear … as if running from something I couldn’t see and fighting creatures that would not die. From behind I felt teeth sink into my neck and I slashed with a sword made of rotten wood. I could not see my adversary and knew not where I was. Then I fell. Down, down, into some kind of deep darkness which most people associate with death. As I fell I felt myself being consumed with terror and called myself a coward. Then there was nothing.
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Stagus was not a small man. He was only of about average height, seven or eight inches above five feet, but broad. He probably weighed around two hundred and thirty to forty pounds. Some of it was fat and his belly hung grotesquely over his leather girdle, but his hands were huge and shoulders broad. When he moved he made me think of an overweight hound dog just after eating. He was bald with a fringe of brown hair and had an ugly scar to the outside of his left eye. I had not seen many bald men before, and momma had told me that it didn’t happen to elves. It had been funny to think of, before. But it wasn’t funny to see on this man.
He wore an unbleached cotton tunic with heavy denim pants, a leather workman’s vest and hard soled boots. A wide bladed short sword hung by his left side. He was a rugged looking man who I figured to be in his mid – forties or older. I had seen him on the plantation before. He never brought slaves in, but occasionally he would take one or two away with him and they never came back.
When I awakened the second morning he was kneeling just out of reach and giving me a careful study. He saw when I opened my eyes and I could feel his gaze watching my reaction to seeing him there. I became like a stone and simply froze in place. Our eyes met and there was a coldness there that made me think of Cordis, but his manner was level instead of rash.
I saw his eyes go to my genitals and linger there for a long time, filling me with a sense of shame and indignity. An icy cold chill washed up and down my spine which I did not understand a
nd could not explain. Stagus slowly looked up my body and back to my face with a slight expression of approval on his face that made me ache for my clothing. I had the feeling he was about to reach down and attempt to touch my privates when Herrol came around the corner, followed by Lexin and two other guards.
“Don’t you ever come to the front door, Stagus?” Herrol asked as he walked up briskly. I saw a bandage on his head and his left forearm was wrapped in red stained cloth.
“Hmm, Lord Herrol I presume?” Stagus asked in a harsh voice as he stood up to meet the lord.
“The same. And you no doubt are Stagus.” There was a sort of impatience in Herrol’s voice and manner. As if he didn’t really like the burly man in front of him.
Stagus seemed somewhat amused and callous, almost challenging. Clearly not something Herrol was accustomed to. “You write good letters. I half expected you to be carrying a rapier and wearing a formal jacket.”
If Stagus was trying to unsettle the lord of the estate, he didn’t appear to be succeeding. In a clam but firm tone Herrol said, “From here on out you will present yourself to the front door, where you will be properly attended to as befitting your station …” Without more than a half breath and before a remark could be made he nodded his head in my direction, “… and this is the youngster for which I have extended you an invitation to come and consider.”
Stagus had his mouth open to make a remark but Herrol moved to the side and waved toward me as he continued with a startling air of control. “As you can tell he possesses elvin blood, and he is strong and hardy.”
Caught off guard by Herrol’s command of the conversation, Stagus simply closed his still open mouth and listened to the presentation. “He is small, but his type ages slow and will last for generations to come. He is also a fighter, as you can tell …” Herrol stepped aside and indicated the bandage on his arm and lashings on my back, “… by the discipline we have had to enforce upon him. That would, I presume, make him an ideal candidate for your project up in the mountain road developments. Furthermore, he is a son of Kelshinua.”