Death Flag

by Richard Haygood

  “Yeah,” she nodded her agreement. “It’s what makes the most sense. If it’s truly as rough as some people say it is, one of the Guardians might go as well, but that’s what they’re for. It’s rare to see more than two or three at a time in K’yer Utane these days anyway. They find ways to keep themselves busy, that’s for certain. Even a handful of the Sworn have even gone with Burke for a while now, and there’s no telling when we’ll see them again.”

  “Yeah, and they’re going to miss out big time tomorrow,” Cruz interjected, steering the conversation back to the lasted hot topic. “I wonder what time they’re going to show up? And who’s bringing them in?”

  Damn it. Madison swore at the missed opportunity.

  Sandra shrugged. “Hey, they’ve already closed down the dining hall in order to get ready for the envoy tomorrow. They told us we’re on our own for tonight’s meal—whatever that is supposed to mean—and they’re apparently making some special meal preparation or something. You want a couple of these sandwiches we nabbed for later?”

  Damn it. Madison swore again at the second missed opportunity.

  “Oh, yeah. Here, let me hook you up.” Cruz started digging around in the basket he was carrying and quickly fished out a fistful of sandwiches that were wrapped in paper. “We just grabbed a bunch of random stuff, so good luck with whatever you get.”

  “Thanks,” Madison said, accepting the meal. “I guess I’ll have to owe you guys one.”

  “Oh, don’t even worry about it,” Sandra insisted, waving it off. Just consider this as our thanks for saving Shayna earlier. But . . . we were going to find somewhere quiet to be alone for the rest of the afternoon—if you know what I mean . . .”

  “Yeah, alright.” Madison smiled appreciatively and nodded. “Thanks again.”

  Well, what do I do now? He wondered, glancing around as Cruz and Sandra walked away. I guess the smart thing to do would be to wander around for a while and try and figure out where everything is. I think I’ve covered at least part of it already, but there has to be more. If I remember correctly, it looked like this compound took up most of the valley when we were approaching it. I just wonder how much of it they’ll let me wander around to before someone stops me. Hmm . . .

  He set off walking at a leisurely pace with every intention of doing exactly that. He was most likely going to be here for a while, and getting a feeling for the lay of the land, so to speak, was probably a good idea early on. There was no telling when he’d be sent on some random errand to some office or location he didn’t know, and he wasn’t the kind of person who wanted to keep asking questions time and time again if he didn’t have to.

  He glanced up at the massive black towers that dominated the compound as he walked across the field without any particular destination. Warren had explained that each belonged to a different school of training, and he had to admit that he was somewhat eager to take a peek into one and look around. The problem was that he had no idea which one was which, and he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be snooping around in there or what would happen if he wasn’t. He didn’t think the consequences would be anything too severe, but with the presence of magic everywhere, he wasn’t too confident about that assumption either.

  “Got you,” someone said from right next to him, and a fist struck out at just that time to catch him across his jaw.

  CHAPTER 9

  Madison was rocked to the side by the blow, staggering drunkenly before he was able to stop himself.

  What the hell?

  He turned toward his assailant just in time to see a a strike clock him in the jaw for a second time, once again leaving him staggering backward. The first blow had been awful enough, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t tolerate. The second, however, brought with it an entirely new wave of pain, and Madison quickly jumped back away from the man, dropped the sandwiches he was still somehow holding onto, and threw up a hand to cover his face and stop the third attack that was likely already on its way.

  He managed to make it a full four steps before he ran into something, and a pair of hands roughly shoved him forward again. “Running already?” a second voice growled. “I thought for sure this one would have a pair of balls on him.”

  “I guess he’s nothing after all,” the first man said.

  Madison caught a glimpse of him just before a fist crashed into his gut. Unprepared, Madison automatically doubled over as the air threatened to leave his lungs. If he had been hit any harder, he’d probably be on the ground gasping for air at the moment. Someone grabbed his hair on the back of his head and jerked him upright, and his first assailant threw a handful of something that was white and powdery into his eyes. He automatically squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could, but it was already too late. A burning, searing heat accompanied by acute, stabbing pain exploded from behind both of his eyeballs. It felt like someone was driving a hot poker into them simultaneously, trying to poke through to reach the inside of his skull.

  Madison grasped his eyes helplessly and rubbed them with the palms of his hands, but it didn’t do any good. Vaguely, as if they were far away, he heard the voices of his attackers laughing at him. But that didn’t really matter. The only thing he could focus on was the intense burning and how to make it go away. He jerked around violently, trying to wrench himself free from the man’s grasp, but his attacker held tight.

  “Go on, Gregory, have at it,” a voice said.

  And then someone rained down a series of punches into his face. Madison’s hands were already in front of his face from rubbing his eyes, so they were already in position to take some of the blows, but there was only so much he could do without being able to see the attacks coming or anticipate where they might land next. He balled up his fists and focused on keeping his arms in front of his eyes, but it didn’t do much good. The man landed fairly solid blows on his cheekbones and another on the side of his jaw before he got tired.

  “Well, looks like he might make a good punching bag,” the second voice mocked once again. Whoever was holding his hair let go and shoved him forward again.

  Madison resisted the jolt as much as he could by leaning back into it, but it didn’t help. He jerked his body around even as he was thrown forward and swung out blindly, catching someone in what was likely a meaty shoulder before someone else shoved him from behind again. He had no way of actually knowing how effective the punch had actually been, but he knew it had been a weak hit that didn’t connect solidly.

  “Will you two stop clowning around?” a third man suddenly asked.

  “Yeah, stop wasting our time,” a woman whined. “Hurry up and finish him off so we can get a move on. I’m bored.”

  “Awh, but we’re just getting started,” someone huffed back. Madison thought it was the first man, but he wasn’t sure at this point.

  “Don’t wanna rough him up too much on his first time.” There was a grunt, and someone punched him in the back just above his kidneys. Madison arched his back in pain as the shot landed, and he collapsed forward onto his knees a moment later, bracing himself for what he knew was inevitably about to come.

  “Sure, sure.”

  He felt someone kick him from behind, and then the other two joined in and alternated trading kicks into his sides. After a long minute with each of them getting their fair share of kicks in, they seemed to decide that they’d had enough for one day.

  “I guess that’s it for our fun for today,” one said.

  “But don’t worry! We’ll be back tomorrow! Eh, ain’t that right, Nicholas?”

  “You got it, Gregory, you got it. Maybe he’ll bring his little skank girlfriend next time so that we can have some fun with her too when we’re done with him.”

  “Oh, and thanks for the snacks! We really appreciate them!” one taunted.

  Several of them laughed at horribly-crude jokes as they stomped away, leaving Madison blind and on his knees and heaving for air.

  He waited until he heard them leaving and then tentatively
relaxed a bit. He imagined this is what it felt like to be beaten down with a baseball bat. His ribs were throbbing on both sides of his body, there was a horrible pain in his back, and he was certain that his face was going be bruised and swollen within minutes despite his efforts to protect it. He tentatively tried opening his eyes only to be reminded by a shooting pain why they were so tightly shut to begin with.

  Damn it. Wishing he had some sort of water with him, Madison pulled up the hem of his shirt and started rubbing his eyes. It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could think of until he was able to figure out something else. Think, Madison. No one is going to bother offering a hand to help you. You’re just some asshole that showed up recently, and most of them probably think you deserve this after what you did this morning. They’re just going to tell you that ‘this is how it is’ and ‘you better get used to it.’ So, think!

  Okay. I was halfway across the field when that guy cheap-hotted me. Where was that stream from last night? How the hell am I even supposed to find it while blind? The sun set yesterday in the opposite direction, and it’s afternoon now, so if I put the sun on my back I’ll move in the general direction? It was a stretch of the imagination, but it was the most logical solution he could think of.

  He pushed himself to his feet by force of will. The sudden movement caused a whole new wave of pain to hit him in his ribs, but he gritted his teeth and concentrated on ignoring it as best as he could.

  He knew that they had left him like this as a form of humiliation. They probably wanted him to cry out and beg for people to help him, but he wasn’t going to do it. He had too much pride for that to happen. He knew that his entire damned place wallowed in pride and strength, and that was why he had agreed to go along with it. It hadn’t even been a full day yet, and he had been beaten and burned and frozen. If he was going to get stronger, if he was going to learn to survive in this world long enough for him to get the revenge he craved or find a way home, he was going to have to learn to endure it. He was going to have to learn to stop it from ever happening. So, he refused to give in. He wouldn’t ask for help, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to make a fuss about it.

  He took several slow turns, doing as best as he could to feel the warmth from the sun, and when he thought that he was pointed in the right direction, he took a small half-step forward. And he instantly regretted it. Just as it had when he stood up, it felt horrible. It forced his body to move in a way that it didn’t want to and put pressure in places that wasn’t at all comfortable. He was vaguely aware of several people whispering around him, and several more who were openly laughing, but he was too preoccupied with his predicament to pay them much attention. He could only imagine that this was going to be the next item on the agenda for the rumor mill once they moved on from the last.

  He staggered forward a few steps and pointedly raised his head, making sure that he kept it held high. He could only imagine how horrible his face looked at the moment, but that wasn’t going to bother him. He didn’t really know anyone, and he had only learned a handful of people’s names. Whatever they knew about him was probably either rumor or conjecture, so what they thought of him didn’t really matter much. Despite that, he didn’t want anyone to see the pain on his face with every step. Letting everyone else know that the ambush had been successful and that he was suffering from it would be like letting them win. And he wasn’t going to let those assholes win no matter what. He was going to deprive them of every small victory in every small way he could.

  Coaches always told their players to ‘walk it off’ when they were injured during sports, but that was just a load of crap. The pain didn’t lessen any despite his moving around. In fact, it seemed to swell up in new, additional places with every additional step he took. He had already resigned himself to this course of action, however, so all he could do was suffer through it. He staggered forward another slow series of steps and then a few more. Eventually, he was able to straighten up a bit more, and he forced himself to walk as normally as possible. His movements were slow and stiff, but they were movements.

  I must look like a zombie rising from the dead. Madison grinned at that though, and his face hurt from the effort. I can only imagine. My clothes are tattered, I’m probably covered in dirt and—he carefully reached up under his shirt and felt of his chest, finding a sticky wetness there—and yeah, definitely reopened that knife wound from fighting with Shayna earlier.

  He trudged ahead slowly until he felt his feet scrape against the walkway, and he knew that he had at least found the edge of the field, and another few steps later, he felt the ground tilt and angle downward. As soon as the slope of the ground shifted underneath him, he knew that he had guessed correctly and that he was heading in the right direction. He began making his way down as carefully as he could, but it turned out that walking downhill while blind and with a bad sense of balance was a lot harder than he had imagined. There was also the potential problem of him running smack into one of those weird-looking trees he remembered seeing the night before, but fortunately, he somehow made it to the bottom without finding any. He heard the stream before he saw it, and several agonizing moments later, he waded into it, kneeled down, and unceremoniously plunged his head underneath the water.

  The water was cold against the bruises on his face, and he realized how quickly they must be swelling up, but it felt delicious on his burning eyes. He rubbed against them and eventually forced them open underneath the water, doing everything he could think of to get that foreign substance out. Gradually, he felt the burning begin to lesson until it turned into something more of a dull, throbbing ache.

  He sat up at last and let the water stream down over him as he looked around. The fact that he had been able to make it here as easily as he had told him that nothing was broken, but he knew that he was going to be sore for quite a while. There was a couple sitting together on the other side of the stream, but they were sitting with their backs to him and otherwise occupied, so thankfully, he was alone for the moment with his thoughts. He was tempted to just lie down in the stream completely and wash off what dirt he could, but he had the feeling such a thing might actually be frowned upon. He wasn’t sure why, he just had a feeling that he wasn’t even supposed to be doing even what he was. He dunked his head a few more times, and when he was satisfied that he had washed away all of that powdery substance, he pushed himself back to his feet with a small groan and started back up the hill.

  Those guys caught me completely off guard. I’m not sure why, but I actually thought they’d at least hold off and allow me a grace period until my first real day. Or does that not even matter since I stepped up against Randall and got involved in a fight earlier? I wonder if these were the people Warren tried to warn me about? Those cronies who were just going to come after me so that they could curry favor with someone stronger than them.

  Madison sighed as he made it back to the top of the hill and paused for a moment. Going up had been a lot more difficult than going down, and he was actually feeling a bit winded. I’m still tempted to go explore a bit like I intended, but walking around probably isn’t the best idea in this state. I’m practically broadcasting the fact that someone jumped me, and I lost. He glanced up at the position of the sun and realized that it was only just now getting into the late afternoon. To hell with it. I might as well go and try to find a new change of clothes and somewhere I can lie down and get some rest. If tomorrow is the first real day, it’s only going to get worse from here on out.

  This can’t be normal, he thought as he walked across the large quad toward the main building. People stopped and stared at him openly as he crossed the field, many not bothering to even hide the fact that they were often laughing and pointing at him. He couldn’t really blame them, and he was actually getting used to it at this point. It seemed like, every time he set foot outside of another building, he was wearing filthy rags for clothes and bruised up in one way or another. It probably didn’t help his image any that he kept his l
eft arm constantly bandaged all the time, but that couldn’t really be helped. Everyone else, however, seemed to get along quite peacefully with one another. Aside from the fight between Shayna and Randall he had intervened with that morning, he hadn’t seen or heard of a single one breaking out. Most people seemed content to just hang out with their friends and enjoy a day off.

  He entered the main building and started making his way back to the men’s dormitory.

  So how do people do it? How do they put up with this day in and day out? Or am I just a special case? I arrived in a flurry of rumor and excitement, and it hasn’t stopped yet. Are people still getting used to the idea that I’m a new guy around here? Or is there something else that’s provoking their interest? Can I actually expect all the attention to go away as I settle in, or is this just going to be the norm around here?

  Madison shook his head to clear it of that line of thoughts. He was clearly tired, and his mood was drifting. He was normally pretty good about keeping his emotions in check, but the abysmal idea of having to deal with this constantly was actually starting to take a toll on his emotional state. There was nothing for him to look forward to in the immediate future except for work, pain, and more work. Stay focused, Madison. Stay focused. You just have to put up with this until you’re strong enough to find a way out of here and get what you want. Just stay with it for the time being. It’s not forever; it’s just for now. It’s just until—

  Madison stopped and looked at the hallway. He had stopped paying attention to where he was walking and realized he hadn’t been focused on finding his way to the dorms like he should, so the magic that protected the building had thrown him into a random hallway. Something about it looked familiar. There was a good chance he had already passed through here several times today, yet . . . He stopped in front of door a that was smaller than the rest and studied it.