by C. J. Aaron
They were brothers.
The day of his Harvest, H1349, as was the case every cycle, the tributes who were all wintering in Cadsae were rounded up by the guards and delivered to the village square. The master would give a rehearsed, painfully zealous speech for the benefit of the onlookers watching the tributes with hungry eyes.
The speech was followed by reading out the Harvest number and count of tributes leaving for the cycle’s Harvest. Each of the outgoing tributes was placed in the center, flanked by guards. One by one, their numbers and the House or lord sponsoring them was announced, at which point they were led to the gate by a pair of accompanying guards.
“A tribute at the gates,” was the call that signaled their exits. A single, massive door opened wide enough for the tribute and guards to exit, before slamming shut, erasing their existence from The Stocks.
No one ever went willingly when their number was called. That is until Elias.
The still that followed after his number was announced was broken in an instant as the ever-optimistic Elias strode forward to the shock of all that had gathered. Head held high, he marched right up to the master, stopping a pace before him and glaring him in the eyes with his own confident fire.
“Well, let’s get on with it then,” Elias announced in a voice loud enough for all to hear. He turned his head, eyes quickly scanning the crowd until they met Ryl’s. With a quick smile and a wink to his friend, his brother, he turned his head, advancing forward.
“And the name’s Elias, you pompous prick,” he trumpeted, pushing past the master. Without looking back, he planted a firm slap on the man’s generous posterior. The sound of the contact seemed to resonate over the gasps and snickers from the crowds gathered in Cadsae and atop the palisade.
With his face beet red from anger and embarrassment and at a loss for words, the master stormed out of the square into his house, calling an abrupt end to the formal ceremony. The master had been humiliated and there was nothing he could do about it. Elias was untouchable. Harming a tribute at their Harvest while their sponsor watched was a death sentence. Through the crowd, a fleeting view of his head was the last Ryl saw of his friend.
Ryl and Aelin spent the rest of the evening in conversation. Already having heard the story of his apprehension in pieces from Aelin, Sarial and others throughout the day, Ryl didn’t press him on it further, kindly reassuring him that when the time came and he was ready, he would be there to listen. The discussion centered around Ryl’s life, his apprehension and the general rules of life in The Stocks.
The rules that all tributes lived by were fairly straightforward. Mind the instructions of the master and the guards at all times or you will be punished. Be inside before dark or you will be punished. Do not miss or forget your weekly treatments or you will become ill. The unspoken rules among tributes included not stealing from other tributes, taking only what rations you need and asking if you ever needed help, as help will be given. Tributes naturally formed a very altruistic society, having only each other to rely on.
Ryl omitted the restriction against tributes of opposite sexes having any physical relationships, feeling the message would be lost to an eight-cycle-old boy. As there was no known correlation of the blood of the ancients being transferred from parent to child, bearing a child within The Stocks was considered a cruel and unusual punishment to the unborn babe.
In time, Aelin’s head began to droop, his eyelids grew heavy and he fell into a calm sleep. Probably the best sleep he’s had in a long time, Ryl thought. Even though only very recently met, Ryl was quickly becoming attached to the younger boy. Perhaps his spitfire attitude and optimism reminded him of his friend in whose old bed Aelin now slept. Growing tired himself, Ryl lay down on his cot and closed his eyes, hearing the rhythmic breathing of Aelin across the room.
“May you sleep well, my young friend,” Ryl whispered as sleep took him as well.
7
Nightmares had plagued Ryl ever since the fateful morning he was wrenched from his family and all that he once knew. The kind of nightmares that found him drenched in sweat, screaming in terrified agony when they unwillingly released him from their hold. Although the circumstances of the nighttime terrors were different, the villain was always the same.
In some, he found himself running for his life, pursued by a solitary foe, furiously pumping his arms and legs to run as fast as his body could take him. The trailing specter’s easy walking gait would steadily eat up the ground between them.
Another found him standing within a pitch black void, a small ring of ethereal light circling him. The light appeared to be emanating from his body, which was surrounded by the soft yellow glow. There was movement off to his side, a shadow silently sweeping past his peripheral vision. He spun around frantically to track the shape, but could never focus on it.
Humanlike hands with claws ending in razor sharp points would lash out at him, striking from random directions. Sometimes coming in quick succession, sometimes pausing for what stretched on, excruciating moment after moment. With each hand came a barely distinguishable face that held the same haunting expression as the claws tore chunk after chunk of skin from his body. The face terrified him.
It was his father's smiling face. The grin countered by eyes that burned with hatred.
By and large, his fellow tributes were sympathetic to his plight. All had their own demons to contend with.
Sleep had come easy and, thankfully, undisturbed that night. Ryl awoke early, well before the sun had risen over the eastern palisade. Morning came late to The Stocks and the night early, as the high palisades blocked the initial ascension and ultimate descent of the sun.
Aelin woke while Ryl was quietly gathering his things. His sleepy eyes were still puffy and red from the emotional night. The boy padded close at his heels as he made his way to the common room. Unsurprisingly, Sarial was already there, quietly humming from inside the kitchen.
Sarial was one of the few tributes to never take assignments outside of Cadsae. As a result, she had unintentionally assumed domain over the kitchen in the residence they shared. Ryl shuddered at the thought of remaining perpetually within the cruel earshot and arm’s reach of the wicked master.
Hearing them approach, Sarial stopped what she was doing, hurrying out to meet the pair. Ryl was greeted with a smile, Aelin, in the middle of a yawn was swept into a hug.
“Good morning, dears. I hope you slept well,” Sarial said in a motherly tone.
They both nodded. Ryl responded for the pair.
“Yes, Sarial, we did and thank you,” he said.
“You boys are staying for breakfast, I hope?”
“I'm afraid you'll only have Aelin to entertain you today,” Ryl said woefully. “I have the master and mender that need reporting to, and you know how Delsith gets when you keep him waiting.”
Ryl knelt down, bringing himself closer go Aelin's level.
“Now, you keep out of trouble while I’m gone. Gran already does enough worrying about the rest of us.” Ryl jostled the hair on the boy’s head. “I shouldn't be gone long. You'll be in good hands here. Listen up and learn well. They’ll have you working in the fields in no time.”
With a wink, Ryl stood, Sarial already counteracting the statement.
“Now don't you go listening to any of that foolishness,” Sarial barked. The tone, although joking had a fire behind it. “They'll have to come through me first.”
Sarial put her hand on Aelin’s back, directing him toward a table near the kitchen.
“You must be hungry, Aelin dear. I'll have a plate ready for you in no time,” she said. “Ryl, wait here a moment. I’ll grab you some food for the trip.”
Sarial hustled to the kitchen, returning in a moment and handing a small parcel of food wrapped in cloth to Ryl.
“Thank you, Sarial,” Ryl said politely.
“Safe travel, Ryl,” Sarial said. “See you soon.”
Ryl smiled again, waved and left the building.
> The brightening sky radiated outward from behind the eastern palisade at his back. However, the sun had yet to clear the wall as Ryl made his way across the road and square to the Master's House. Taking the three small steps in one agile bound, Ryl stopped before the door, tapping out two knocks with his knuckle.
The door swung open and Ryl was greeted with a glare from the first of the two guards from the night before. Ryl returned the condescending look with a kind smile. The guard closed the door with a heavy slam once he’d entered. He realized that in all the cycles that they had been here, he had never learned their names.
Immediately through the front door was a sparse room containing nothing more than a desk and two chairs. The door behind the desk remained locked at all times. It led to the Master’s apartments, while the single door to the side led to the clinic.
At the desk, Master Delsith sneered as he scanned a stack of parchment. Not taking the time to look up and foregoing all pleasantries, he began dictating his orders.
“The orchard outside Erlyn Woods has a pest problem,” Master Delsith barked. “This whole cursed Stocks has a pest problem. A herd of them, if you ask me.”
Delsith paused, waiting for a reaction. Ryl refused to play into his game.
“Some vermin are destroying the fruit,” Delsith continued. “There's a concern the whole crop might be lost, and the men keeping you pathetic herds safe might not think too kindly about that.”
This was the favorite justification for the confiscation of the crops the tributes tended to day in and day out throughout the cycle. Having completed all the necessary steps needed for the soil to produce its bounty, the vast majority of the food was taken to supply the veritable army stationed in and around The Stocks. The tributes, in turn, were left with nothing but paltry scraps.
Protecting the tributes from danger was a fallacy used to justify the theft. No House would risk destruction to attack The Stocks, and not a single sole of the Outland Horde, which gave the land to the west of The Stocks its name, had been seen in nearly a millennia.
“Yes, sir.” Ryl stared dryly.
“You’re to stay in Tabenville until the vermin have been taken care of. Save the crop, or face the baton,” Delsith snarled as he patted the ironwood baton laying across the table like a giant paperweight. “Now, get your treatment from Mender Jeffers, get your supplies and get out of my sight, herd.”
“Yes sir,” Ryl responded, putting an end to their one-sided conversation.
Leaving the office through the open doorway on his left, Ryl entered the mender’s clinic. The clinic was comprised of one modestly-sized room, the front portion separated from the back by a portable cloth partition, slightly taller than Ryl. The forward section held the examination room. The back portion held a half-dozen beds to segregate and treat injuries or illnesses as well as shelves for supplies. Mender Jeffers looked up from straightening his tools as Ryl entered.
“Ah, there's a brand I would not forget,” Mender Jeffers droned on, the excitement showing on his face rarely reached the monotone drawl of his voice.
Mender Jeffers was a particular man. His small desk painstakingly organized, parchment stacked in perfectly arranged piles, inkwell and pen aligned in perfect order next to his immaculately maintained log. Jeffers was not a cruel man, completely diametric to the sadistic lout in the previous room. His mind was that of a mender, that of a scientist. Jeffers was, perhaps, the only person who had voluntarily entered The Stocks. The clinical fascination with finding answers to the alexen and its riddles proved too great a temptation for his inquisitive mind to deny.
“Here for your treatment, I ‘spose, Ryl?” the mender continued.
He was also one of the few in The Stocks who dared use a tributes given name.
“Aye, sir,” Ryl responded. “And, yes, I’ll be sure to remember to collect it next week from the waystation in Tabenville.”
Every week for the last eight cycles, the mender had reminded Ryl of the same thing. Remember to take your treatment weekly or face the sickness.
“Yes, Ryl, but do remember, your treatment is the highest dose I’ve ever seen. The sickness won’t tarry long, in your case, before it becomes disastrous.”
Satisfied his point had been made, the mender rose, carefully unlocking the secretary behind his desk, returning with a handful of eight large, off-white oblong pills.
The treatment, as it was called, began immediately after a tribute arrived in The Stocks. Once a week, pills were issued to each tribute, the dose based upon the tribute’s individual alexen count and passive or, in Ryl’s case, active nature. If a tribute was on assignment, their dose would be delivered to one of the two waystations spaced throughout The Stocks. The first, north of Thayers Rest, the second located in Tabenville, Ryl’s current destination.
For a tribute, failure to regularly take their treatment was met with disastrous effects. Within days of missing a dose, the first of the symptoms would occur, usually beginning with dizziness and hallucinations, supplanted by a burning rash and intense itching. From there, the symptoms were warned to worsen quickly. Constant painful vomiting, terrible fever as well as the hemorrhaging of blood from every orifice.
Tributes reaching this point would pray for merciful death to stop the unbearable pain, though fewer still of those in this condition would still retain the strength to end take own lives. Fortunately for the tributes, conditions worsening to this point never happened. Mender Jeffers’ impeccable records, along with the frequent head counts taken by the guards, aided in preventing this occurrence.
Ryl took the pills from the Mender’s outstretched hands, popping them quickly into his mouth one after another. The faster it was done the better. The pills tasted awful, something akin to an earthy combination of tar and manure, with the consistency of dirt that, unfortunately, had to be chewed. His jaws worked furiously as he struggled to choke the vile slurry down. Swallowing the last noxious mouthful, he was thankful when the mender offered a small wooden cup filled with blissfully tasteless water.
“How many cycles have you been studying us, and you can’t make it taste better than this?” Ryl quipped, hand covering his mouth, stifling the sudden urge to vomit.
“Apologies, Ryl. I would if I could.” Mender Jeffers seemed truthfully apologetic. “You know I don’t make these here. Don’t have the recipe or know the ingredients. These get sent all the way from the capital. Far too important to leave the production up to a class three Mender, only the Masters of the Mender order can produce these.”
Jeffers leaned over to write a note in the log on his desk, replacing the pen in precisely the same position.
“Why hasn't that herd left yet?” shrieked the master from the other room. “Stop talking to them like they're anything more than the crop they represent.”
The master had entered the small clinic now, guards looming behind him in the doorway. Turning Ryl around using the point of his baton pushed sharply into Ryl's right shoulder blade, the master loomed over him.
“Half-rations for this one now,” Delsith steamed, “and I'll make it the same for the next pathetic herd I hear you call by name, Mender.”
Grabbing Ryl by the hair, he twisted Ryl's head down and to the left so that Jeffers was staring at the brand, H1351+.
“This is all this pathetic herd has for a name now,” the master spat.
He released Ryl and took a step back to glare at the mender, emphasizing his point. Mender Jeffers stared back, mouth agape, a terrified, defeated look frozen on his face.
Ryl, on the other hand, felt energized. He felt alive. The fury that ran through his body seemed to ignite a fire within his veins. His body trembled as it threatened to explode outward. For a split second, he had the impossible feeling that time had stopped. A drop of spit that had been ejected during the master’s raving appeared to hover as if frozen in midair.
No sooner had the feeling arrived, then it was gone as if nothing had happened. Somehow, Ryl felt astonishingly empty.
“What are you waiting for?” the master screamed. “Go.”
“Yes sir, Master,” Ryl choked in response before quickly slipping out of the Master’s House.
8
Ryl retrieved his meager rations from the guard manning the food storeroom without complaint. The threat to halve his rations had luckily yet to make it to the guard. He filled his water skin at the well marking the center of the village square with haste and set off to his assignment. Happy to place as much distance between himself and the cruelty of the master, he had started his journey at a brisk pace, eating up the miles on the dusty road.
His current work assignment would take him to the opposite end of The Stocks, to the small seasonal work camp of Tabenville, nearly a fifty mile northern trek from the Cadsae. He hated work assignments at Tabenville.
The camp was built a few hundred paces from the front of the Haven Mountain range, where their sheer face exploded from the ground. Tabenville was set on the side of a small pond, carved into the ground from the impact of the water as it cascaded down the mountains in a spectacular waterfall. The mist from the waterfall made for a perpetual dampness that soaked through to the bone.
Towering over the tiny village was the massive statue of its namesake, Lord Taben. Carved directly into the face of the mountain and standing over one thousand feet tall, Taben the Defender stood defiantly, one hand resting confidently on the pommel of his sword, the other held straight out, palm pointing toward the Outlands, his face strained as if his hand was holding the entirety of the horde at bay.
History was not something given much emphasis in The Stocks. However, the details of Lord Taben’s victory had been relayed in children's tales and bedtime stories for ages. As the story goes, Taben, the inconsequential son of a duke, rallied and led a small, ragtag band of soldiers against the insurmountable armies of the Outland Horde when the rest of the Damaris turned their backs. In the stories, the Outland army was said to number in the millions, stretching as far as the eye could see.