Do you know the pain that comes when you follow a hot mug of Kaf with a shot of rum that has been chilled in the snow? The pain that makes your teeth feel like shattering?
That was the pain I knew then, except an order of magnitude stronger. It consumed my entire body. I opened my mouth to scream. Before a single sound could come out, that rough hand found my hair and shoved my head underwater.
I flailed as the deadly liquid filled my lungs. I was drowning. I knew, in the most primitive way possible, that it was my turn to die.
But death was not yet in the cards for me. It still isn’t, in fact. Though Xune knows I have tried to seek it out.
I was brought back to the surface. Those rough heavy hands turned me around. I saw my tormenter for the first time.
It was a girl.
No. Saying it that way does not do justice to the surprise I felt. She was not just a girl. She was a beautiful girl. Her bright green eyes seemed to shine in the dim light. Her hair was the color of daffodils. It fell around her face in lush, cascading waves. She smelled sweet, like vanilla with the faintest hint of honey. She had a perfect rosebud mouth, a tiny, delicate nose, and the longest eyelashes I have ever seen.
She was an illusion. A specter. She could not be real.
With no words to guide my thoughts, my mind struggled to understand what someone so beautiful was doing here.
Then she grinned, and dunked me in the tank again.
I sputtered and coughed and gulped down air every time she brought me back to the surface. I still thought I was going to die. But it comforted me to know that I would die at the hands of an angel.
The waterboarding stopped. She picked me up and flung me on a table. When I saw her raise a knife, I got a discomforting sense of Deja-vu.
I did not scream or cry. I simply stared at her, transfixed by her beauty. It astounded me how someone with a face so fair could treat another human with such cruelty.
She raised the knife. I closed my eyes. I wanted my last memory of her to be unmarred by fright.
She brought the knife down and chopped off my long, dirty hair.
I blinked, stunned.
And then, I started to scream.
You cannot understand the shock I felt. The betrayal. My hair had never been cut. I thought of it as an essential part of me, as important as any of my limbs or my fingers or—
“Or your penis!” Earl roared, laughing. “What do you say to that, eh? Not a single word in that little brain of yours, but already you’re thinking about gettin’ yer pecker wet!” He beamed at Patch, who was starting to turn a bright red.
“No,” Dagan said. “My love for her was pure. I cherished it and held it tight for years after. It was not twisted by lust. Not yet.”
Earl noticed the growing color in Patch’s cheeks. “What’s wrong with you, lad? You never seen the upside of a woman’s skirts?” He exploded into another bout of choppy laughter.
Path glued his eyes to the floor and burned bright.
“Earl.” Dagan’s voice cut through the man’s laughter like a spear through a dying boar. “Look.”
Earl stopped and took note of Patch for the first time. He saw the way he drew in on himself. He saw his untouched mug of ale on the table.
He saw the boy’s innocence.
“Ahh, lad,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know—” he broke off with a cough, “—I mean, I didn’t expect you to be, uh…” he snuck a glance at Dagan, suppressed a shiver, and changed what he was going to say. “I didn’t expect you to be so young. I forget, sometimes, how few summers you’ve really seen. It’s a testament to yer… ahhh… maturity.”
Patch’s eyes shot up. They burned with a deep but furious flame. “I’m not unsullied,” he retorted. “I’ve just got more respect than you. That’s all.”
Suddenly his eyes widened, and he seemed to remember his company. “I interrupted your story,” he said to Dagan, abashedly.
“Perhaps it’s time for us to hear yours,” Dagan said, not unkindly. “Who was she?”
Patch looked down again, uncomfortable being the center of attention. “Nobody,” he muttered.
“Ah, lad, come now, we won’t tease,” Earl said. “My first love was named Lysa. Fair as the wind, she was, and as spirited as the wildest mare. It took me five long years to get her to warm up to me. But I didn’t give up.”
“Five years?” Patch asked in wonder. He could not fathom Earl waiting for someone that long.
“Aye, five years. And let me tell you, it was worth it in the end. Five years is what it took to get one night together.”
“And… after?”
“The next day, her husband found out she had left in the night. He beat her. He beat her until she couldn’t crawl, then locked her in a room and let her die.” Earl’s voice hardened. “When I found out why she did not come and see me again, I broke out in a wild rage. I killed the bastard with my own hands. Wrung his neck like a duck’s.”
“When?” Patch’s voice came out as a whisper.
“Forty years ago, maybe more? I vowed, on Lysa’s grave, that I would never love another woman the way I loved her. That’s why I am the way I am, lad. So, don’t be taking offence to the things I say on account of me. They’re not meant t’be malicious.” He pronounced it maleeshus.
“Your turn, now,” Dagan reminded Patch gently.
Patch picked up his mug and took his first swallow. He set it down and spoke fast.
“Her name was Eleanor. She grew up beside me on the farm next to my Da’s. Well, the farm that used to be my Da’s. When the soldiers came looking for recruits, she hid me in her basement. She was a year older than me. The soldiers took my Da.”
Patch blinked once and continued. “Four months later, they came back. I hid again. But, they found me. I never saw her since. She promised she would wait for me…” He trailed off and peered into his mug. “That was two years ago.”
“Two years ain’t nothing,” Earl said, seeing the boy’s sadness and trying to comfort him. “If she thinks of you th’way you speak of her, she’ll be there when you come back.”
“Whoever said I was coming back?” Patch whispered.
A silence fell upon the three men. It was a silence like the one that comes after the headman’s axe has fallen. It was a silence like the hollow ring of an empty barrel.
It was a silence like death.
Dagan broke it. The silence did not bother him, just as death did not bother him. He had seen death coming for him so often that it provided him familiar comfort by now, like an old friend or lover.
He knew it would come for him once more tonight.
“So,” he said, “how about the rest of my story?”
Chapter Three
When I lost my hair, something broke inside me. I screamed. I screamed in sorrow. I screamed in pain. I screamed for all the time I had kept quiet in the dungeon.
The girl smiled. She picked me up and brought me to her breast. She rocked me as the screams turned into sobs. She rocked me until my throat was pained and raw.
Then, she set me down, kissed my forehead, and left.
***
I did not find out who she was until three months later. In the interim, I was treated to varying degrees of torture by a trio of small, masked men. One wore the mask of a hyena. The other, a pig. The last, a wolf.
I was flogged. I was beaten. I was thrown into a fire and then doused with sawdust to stop the flames.
I didn’t know it then, but all of that treatment was done to prepare me for the Arena.
Let me paint a picture of my captivity so that you might better understand my struggle. Whereas before, in the dungeon beneath this one, I was merely forgotten, now, I was a target.
I was also somewhat of an enigma.
No matter what the masked men did to me, I did not make a sound. It was almost like I had exhausted my capacity for it the day my hair was cut.
That made my captors curious. Could I not feel pain? Was I im
mune to their torture devices?
I think it took less than twelve hours for them to make a game of it. The one who would make me scream first would win. Their torture became more and more elaborate. It became more and more creative.
You have to understand one thing about Three-Grin’s men. They were there only to train me for the Arena. Anything that would put me at a disadvantage was off-limits.
They would not break my bones. They would not blind my eyes. All they did, and all they were supposed to do, was acclimate my body to pain.
For if I embraced pain—if I could endure it—I might survive the Arena long enough for Three-Grin to make a small fortune on me as a fighter.
So, after they flogged me, they applied balm to my wounds so my skin would heal. After they beat me, they gave me nectar of Red Clover so I might sleep. And after they threw me into the fire…
Well, let’s just say that miscalculation nearly cost them their lives.
The girl who cut my hair entered the room just as the man in the pig mask was carrying me, smoldering, from the altar. She gave a horrified gasp and sprang forward. She opened her mouth. Sound came out.
Immediately, the three men prostrated themselves on the floor.
That was the first time I witnessed real magic.
It fascinated me. What would possess three strong men to cower before a little girl? Her mouth kept moving. More sounds came. Some were harsh. But most were smooth and soft, like warm honey.
The soft ones scared the men most.
Instinctively, every person knows what language is. It is hardwired into our brains. Since I had not been exposed to language before, those mystical noises attracted me. They beckoned me like a black-veiled siren in the night. I knew that, somewhere inside, I had the capacity to do the same thing the girl was doing.
So I tried. I parted my lips, touched my tongue to the roof of my mouth, and used my forgotten vocal cords for the first time.
“Faarkher. Faaaarkher.”
My angel spun toward me. Her eyes were wide.
“Faarghur,” I kept trying. I was repeating the word I heard her use most often. “Faarrkhur. Farghur. Fugher. Fuc—“
She picked me up. “Shh, shh,” she cooed in my ear. My body quivered in ecstasy from her touch. She stroked my hair. “Shh, don’t say that. Can you walk?” She made a waddling motion.
On some level, I understood her. I nodded and smiled widely, then showed her what I could do.
I stood on my own two feet and backed away, then mimicked that awkward waddle.
She laughed with delight and clapped her hands. Even I was not so far removed from humanity that I could not understand encouragement. I made a show of it for her, stomping my feet against the floor with abandon, making big circles round and round.
She stood up and took my hand. The warmth I felt through that connection was… well, it was unlike anything I’d felt before. It flowed up my arm and made my insides tingle. All of the hurt I had not allowed my body to feel crashed into me. My senses awakened.
I staggered, but did not fall. I satiated in the pain, because feeling it meant that I could feel her.
Her hand was still rough and callous, just as before. That did not take away from my pleasure.
She walked with me back to the three men. She barked something at them. I do not remember the words, though I wish I could. They must have been pure brilliance, for they made the three men bury their faces even deeper in the dirt.
The next time I saw any of them, they were bound to an upright log beside a roaring fire. They were being flayed alive.
She took me past the men and up a flight of stairs. There, she unlocked a rough, wooden door. We walked down a long tunnel lit by hanging candles at either end. We passed through another door, and climbed one more flight of stairs. Suddenly, we were home.
Home. How can I describe the countless connotations that that word brings? Home is the place you feel safe. Home is the place you are warm. Home is a person’s sanctuary, his retreat from the world.
The place I found challenged all those assumptions.
It was the lower floor of a palace. Rich tapestries hung from the walls. Gleaming tiles decorated the floor. Windows, monstrous windows, brought in the glorious sunlight.
I took my first step forward, and the illusion shattered.
I heard the screams of tortured men and women. They echoed through the halls, not loud enough to be distracting—if you were used to them—but ever-present, and never-ending. When I looked again at the tapestries on the walls, I saw depictions of bloody orgies. Fingers, limbs, and sometimes entire heads were missing from the bodies.
The floor tiles were bright red. They reminded me of blood.
My angel did not seem to mind. I was uncomfortable, but, pride being a prickly thing, did not let it show.
It was the first time I had to pretend for a lady.
We walked down the high-ceilinged, empty hall. We passed a few closed doors. Sometimes, when we did, the screams became louder. Other times, they stayed the same.
I think it obvious I preferred the latter doors.
I was led into the kitchen and sat on a stool. The unnamed girl poured me a bowl of soup. She put it on the table and pushed it toward me.
I did not know what to do.
“Eat,” she said, making the appropriate motions. “Eat. Mmm, good. Yum, yum.”
“Young yam,” I said, smiling. She giggled. I liked her.
I dipped my spoon in the soup and took a mouthful.
My palette exploded in a euphoria of previously unbeknownst tastes. In fact, I was so absorbed in all the new feelings coming to life inside my mouth that I did not notice the entrance of a third person until he was right on us.
My eyes bulged when I saw Three-Grin. He towered over the table like an icy mountain. He looked livid.
He raised an arm to strike me. Before I could do anything, the girl darted in front of me to take the brunt of the blow. Momentary shock rippled across Three-Grin’s features.
It had nothing on the shock that I felt.
The girl crumpled to the floor. As she tried to right herself, Three-Grin drove his boot into the small of her back. She gave a tight cry of pain.
The little sound sparked such a fire in me that even I was amazed at my reaction. I flew from the stool and attacked Three-Grin. Biting, clawing, scratching—doing everything I could to hurt the man who was harming my savior.
It was a valiant effort, but in vain. Three-Grin picked me up by the scruff of my neck and threw me against a wall. He did not so much as blink at the effort. He just laughed.
My head bounced off the stone. I saw white stars and felt pain. All the nerves I had so expertly numbed were now sharp as knives. That meant that I felt every single kick Three-Grin started directing at me ten-fold.
He did not beat me long. Even as he was hitting me, even as I cried out—I had to now, for my shell was broken—I cared only for one thing: the small girl lying on the floor.
My eyes betrayed me.
Three-Grin noticed me looking. His mouth curled up in a crude facsimile of a smile. It emphasized the hideous scars on his cheeks.
He picked me up, reached behind him for some rope, and tied me to the back of a chair.
Don’t get me wrong. I struggled against the bonds. I thrashed and flailed and kicked and did everything in my power to break free. But there is only so much a boy of six can do against a grown man.
Three-Grin positioned me so that I would have the perfect view. He turned on the girl—and kicked her hard in the belly.
She gasped. I cried out. Three-Grin looked at me and laughed. I flailed harder. He began hollering at the girl as he landed kicks on her body. She cried and curled into herself.
I screamed.
I screamed with rage and hatred. I screamed because there was nothing else I could do.
I did not hate Three-Grin before. He was simply a constant in my life, doing what he did for reasons unknown to me. But he
treated all the children the same, and in the dark, we were anonymous.
Now, he was hurting the first person who showed me kindness. I hated him for it. I screamed, and he took delight in the sound.
As the girl lay whimpering on the floor, Three-Grin picked her up and threw her on the table. I saw the wetness on her face. I hated him all the more for it. He looked at me with a crazed madness, satiating in my pathetic struggle. He reveled in his display of power.
Then, he tore the girl’s clothes off.
Her body was a mess of healing, yellow bruises. Welts lined her shoulders and her upper arms. They were old scars, and older half-healed injuries.
I had never seen a creature more beautiful—nor one more to be pitied.
Three-Grin began to rape her.
She did not fight. She could not. I saw the light in her eyes go out. A dull lifelessness came over her as she retreated to some far corner in her mind. Three-Grin growled and pounded into her with an animal ferocity.
She took it without protest.
It was the most horrifying scene I had ever witnessed. When he was done, he splattered his seed all over her belly, then turned and left without so much as a glance at either of us.
A silence grew, broken only by the girl’s labored breathing. It was punctuated every once in a while by a short, involuntary whimper.
I possessed no words. But, at that moment, I made a silent vow to kill Three-Grin one day.
Eventually, the girl picked herself up. She shook as she used the tattered clothes to cover her body. Then, without a word, she untied me and brought me to her room.
Chapter Four
Her name was Alicia, as I learned some months later. She was one of Three-Grin’s daughters. She was also his youngest wife.
I adored her. I trailed her everywhere like a shadow.
She taught me to speak. She gave me food. She showed me all the hiding places I could go when I heard Three-Grin approaching.
I did not want to hide. I wanted to fight. But, I was too small.
A Thirst for Vengeance (The Ashes Saga, Volume 1) Page 2