Daygo's Fury (37 page)

Niisa, however, in those maddened instances, did not hold the same vibe of a wide-eyed, cornered and terrified cat that could unpredictably and illogically lash out at anything that came too near. Somehow, he seemed in control, as though he were the great puppet master of it all, and Obasi was only a front for the wandering tourist. Sometimes Leandro turned and found Niisa watching him. Far from glancing away in embarrassment, his eyes lingered, as though any discomfort Leandro felt was beneath his notice, or below his consideration. Always calculating, always aloof.

Leandro now found himself jumping in shock when he turned and found Niisa staring from some secluded corner. The longer he stayed, the more he started to attune with the nerves he sensed from the other priests.

Although he had travelled so far to learn from them, he was not able to escape himself from a growing sense of doom surrounding the clearing, as though he could see a storm approaching from the far skyline. Illogically, he thought that if he stayed he would become a victim of it, and like a monkey that clung to his back he could not shake it. So he decided to leave that evening.

Leandro had not been allowed to stay too close to the hallowed ground, and he had been forced to sleep among the trees, as he had grown accustomed to, using cloth, rope and ties to make an irregular, protective tent to lie suspended within. He gathered them up now, shook them out and tied them together in manageable bundles in a now familiar routine. He would sleep within them again tonight. As he waved his goodbyes, he sensed a reluctance to see him go.

He nodded to Niisa as he walked from the clearing and received a slight incline of the head in return. He left the huts and the temples of the priests with the itch of Niisa’s eyes on his back.

******

Niisa watched the traveller go, his unblinking gaze tight to the man’s back. He had learned from the man. The southern lands sounded strange, but bountiful. He longed to go there, to see the stone walls, the stone buildings, to learn about this god they called Levitas. What powers had he possessed? How had he subjugated an entire race?

The idea of leadership was new to him, but intoxicating. To have subjects below you, to have dominion over his fellow man. To be recognised and accepted as greater. No longer would he be at the whims of others, restricted by overall rule. Everyone was on an equal footing amongst the tribes. It seemed strange that these people would put themselves below another; have another think for them, do for them, decide for them. Did Leandro, too, follow the orders of another? Was his travelling the work of another? Perhaps they were wise; unlike his comrades, they recognised superiority.

That there were wars, battles, hunts between men, seemed unfathomable and wrong. But he wondered.

There were so many questions he had not asked, too many to ask, in the short space of time, and the man’s language was too sparse. Niisa had thought him dense at first, only to learn that they had their own, strange tongue. Everything about them was fascinating. He wanted to learn more. He wanted to learn their language so that he could communicate with them better.

He looked behind him into the cave, where his fellows touched daily with the Daygo stream. Touched, feeling along the outside of its surface but never dipping in, never becoming one with its flow. His nose wrinkled, and for once he did not fight against his growing detest of his lifestyle and of the weakness and fear of his fellow disciples.

He would travel the world, like this Leandro. He would learn. He would not be afraid of the power deep within the Earth, of the power connecting them all, flowing through their beings.

Blood is everywhere, haunting his vision. The stomach opens; a boiling, volcanic mass of thick red blood sprays from it into his eyes, clumpy, sticky, it tastes of iron and blinds him red; better than to see the tangled mess within, the ruin as he slices it open, the stench. He raises his hands up, tries to clear the blood away but cannot. His eyelids are stuck, the congealed blood acting like glue. No matter how he tries, he cannot open them, his eyeballs slide from side to side behind the black sheets. He cries out.

Things change, he is back at the start, his eyes are open. His blade sinks through a man’s thigh, folding back the muscle, down to the bone, rivers of red run through the line’s space, overflowing and spilling out onto its banks. Fire, all around, red and puffing black. He chokes on the smoke, coughing, it stings his eyes, he hears desperate screaming, he shouts out, “Where are you, where are you?” He must find its source, he must, but he cannot pinpoint its location, every time he turns towards it, it sounds from a different place. He cannot see with the black smoke, it is blinding him, crawling underneath his eyelids, right through to his brain. He cries out in panic, he is confused, he is useless.

The day is bright, the street is clear for the orchestral screams to sing. The dust blows red and dry through the toes of his feet. The sky is a triumvirate of red, orange and yellow; bright but everything seems to be covered in a thin film, taking the edge from the colour, everything is greyed out. It is not as bright as it should be. Her face burns through the film, brighter than everything around, delicate, exact. Her face twists into a mask of betrayal, then transforms to terror and pain, her skin starts to melt, her bones show through her skin, she screams. He screams.

His eyes opened. He stared up at the now familiar concrete ceiling inches above his head. There were four others in the cell with him. The man sitting across from him, with a grey stubble of a beard and a scar above his left eyebrow leaving it partially bald, glanced in his direction. No doubt he had been screaming in his sleep again. He did not know how long he had been here. He surmised that it must be at least a full day, if not two. He did not know how he had gotten there. He had woken up to the cell and its inhabitants, confused and with a thumping headache. It took a few moments for him to start to remember, though his memories remained shrouded and fleeting. He was unsure of their truth; whether they were feverish dreams or reality. He shivered to think of them as real. But he remembered the flames, he remembered what they meant.

The cell was three feet tall and cramped with five within it. There were at least four more above him and probably four more again above that. Liam wondered how secure the concrete floors were, if they could come crashing down on their heads from the weight of those piled above. He doubted if the guards or anyone else would care. He held little feeling towards it himself.

The floor was damp, somehow, despite there being no rain that Liam could remember in the days preceding his imprisonment. Perhaps it had rained since. So far they had been given one bowl of gruel each, more water than substance. He was hungry but thirsty more. He had noticed one of his fellow inmates sucking at the wall for moisture earlier. How long had he been there? How long would he be here?

Outside of the greybeard, there was a man with a large winding nose, clearly broken and badly reset, that emitted a loud wheezing snore when he drifted off. The man next to him, wedged between broken nose and greybeard, was a small, stocky man with a round protruding stomach and the red cheeks and nose of a heavy drinker. Opposite him was a tall man, his knees almost touching the ceiling in the uncomfortable crouched position that they all held. All were slightly spaced so that knees and feet were side by side, making the most of the space. Even though Liam’s muscles were beginning to cramp, he reckoned that he suffered the least, being the smallest there.

All were manacled at the wrists, a chain roughly a foot long holding them together. The crude iron manacles, showing signs of wear and rust, chafed at Liam’s wrists uncomfortably.

The drinker had woken broken nose at some point earlier in the day as his snoring began to reach new crescendos painful to the ears. An argument started that threatened to descend into fists. The other three inhabitants had looked on with trepidation, knowing the space was too cramped for a fight to end well. Thankfully, the insults and anger slowly petered out, both seeing some sense. But tensions remained high. Five criminals, cramped together in a four by six foot cell with little water or food was a place of frayed nerves and tempers.

There had been some conversation over the day. Liam had paid little attention, dropping in and out of consciousness. It appeared that two of the men were murderers.

While there was anger and fear in the room, Liam felt none of it. Strange that the youngest there would be the most steadfast. But it was not strength that had Liam this way. He was unsure if he wanted to live. He was unsure if he could carry on even if he wanted to.
Racquel …

And suddenly he was weeping, like the boy that he was. He couldn’t stop, even as he became aware of the disdained looks turning his way from the other inhabitants. It was all too much; the emotion came flooding through him. He could not withhold it, he didn’t want to. He was a supplicating victim to the sorrow that wracked his body. His limbs went weak, his chest shook, bobbing his head up and down as tears streamed down his face regardless of his body’s dehydrated state, his loose fists pushed weakly against his eyes and forehead. He leaned against the wall and he didn’t care what the men thought of him, or what they might do to him. He didn’t care where he was or if he would ever get out. He didn’t care if he lived or died. His whole body, mind, soul and being was consumed by a singular sorrow, an unremitting truth, a disgusting travesty, that was too much to bear, too much to strain against. The beautiful Racquel, an angel, found in the most unlikely of places, in the slums of Teruel, had been burned away, like something that didn’t belong, viciously ousted by a hostile environment.

******

His eyes awoke. He stared at that ceiling above him for hours. Lying there, staring. The stone was hard and tough underneath him, covered in loose stone and dust; badly laid concrete, lumpy and uneven. Every now and then dust would break from the ceiling above, followed by fine stone that bounced off the knees below it. His legs were aching, bent and crumpled against the wall, his eyes forever on that ceiling, unmoving, barely blinking. Occasionally the other men spoke, but Liam didn’t listen to them. Their words floated over him like a breeze over stone. The noises and shouts from outside their three-foot cell were equally ignored. Things happened around him, but he was unmoving, unchanged.

A door opened and footsteps rang out on stone, nearing all the time, increasing in volume. Two sets. There were cries for help or succour that were quickly quietened. He didn’t turn his head as they stopped outside of his cell.

“That’s him.” There was a moment’s silence. “Vicious little fucker.”

“You’ve had problems?”

“Not much he can do in here, only lie in his own shit and piss.”

“You sure this is him?”

“Aye, came in two days ago, caked in blood.”

“Bring him out.”

Liam lifted his head and noticed nervous glances turned towards him from the cell entrance. Broken nose, nearest the railing, wore an interested frown as he looked at Liam.

“You have a bath?”

“I’m not washin’ that piece of shit.”

“Get him out first, then fill it with cold water.” There was a grunt and then the rattling of keys. Liam looked to the railing but couldn’t see much through the press of bodies. The key turned in the lock and the gated entrance wheeled open, creaking loudly, enhanced slightly within their cave.

“Alright, you lot, out! Stretch your legs.” There was a slow shuffle for the doorway, men groaning as they heaved to move their aching bodies. Some gave cries of pain as they straightened their legs for the first time in days. One by one, the men unfurled themselves and crawled from the three-foot cell out into the concrete floor beyond, needing no second telling. Liam was last out. He groaned as he rolled onto his front and pushed himself forward on his hands and knees, his muscles resisting the sudden movement after two days’ inactivity. He had to haul himself through the exit, which was a foot higher than the cell.

By the time he cleared the entrance, he was panting from the pain and exertion. The prisoners were splayed out behind the doorway, having crawled away to make space. There was much moaning, grunting and heavy breathing as they found room against the wall to sit against, tentatively stretching their legs out before them.

There was only about six feet between the cell door and the wall facing it. They were in a long corridor, lined with cells, three high as Liam had suspected. Still within two yards to his four companions, who were slow to spread out, slow to move for space due to the wincing pain every movement caused, Liam looked up at the two men who had orchestrated their release, however temporary. The ceiling above them seemed strangely high to Liam, the space expansive. The gaoler was easy to distinguish, ghoulish in feature. His face was flabby and pockmarked, his skin an unhealthy pallor, and there was a sordid look to his eyes. His nose was fat and slightly upturned. His tunic was loose, tied at the waist by a belt that dangled rings of keys.

The other man was darkly foreboding and impressive. He was covered from head to toe in black. He didn’t wear a tunic like was the style in Teruel, but instead wore black cotton breaches with leather knee pads, triangles of metal pointing upwards from them, and boots that were laced halfway up his calves. He had a woollen cloak, tied tightly to hang like a long braid from his shoulders and clasped to the belt at his waist. A leather codpiece was strapped in place below a leather jerkin. His arms were bare bar leather armour strapped to the sides of his forearms with metal plate sewn onto them. Three small throwing knives were sheathed on the left side of his belt while a sword hung from the right; another was strapped to his back, the hilt protruding over his left shoulder. Three more hilts were visible, stacked and horizontally pointing out from behind his back, the sheaths, unseen to Liam, must be sewn to the back of the leather jerkin just above the waist, or else incorporated in the original design. There was another large hunting knife strapped to the outside of his left boot. Everything from the steel on his forearms, to the leather, cotton, wool and even the man’s hair was of the darkest shade of black.

The man himself looked to be of about thirty years and tall, above six foot. His skin was tanned brown. His shoulders were broad and his arms finely muscled, the biceps round and full even as his arms rested lightly at his side. His arms, hanging loosely, somehow didn’t look in the least bit awkward but instead appeared comfortable, at ease, yet at the same time primed for action at the slightest notice, the fists half-closed. Only when Liam glanced at those hands did he see the bare metal spikes that protruded from the knuckles of the man’s leather gloves.

Even his face seemed muscular and expressionless. His brown eyes were blank as they regarded Liam. His head turned the barest fraction towards the gaoler.

“Bath,” he said simply, his voice like stone rolling downhill. The gaoler grimaced and glanced back across at him, his mouth half-forming a word before he seemed to stop himself. He licked his lips and turned to do as he was bid, grumbling inaudibly. He seemed nervous to Liam as his back disappeared from sight. Not so the black man, who stood stock still, silent, balanced equally on both feet as he stared down at Liam. Liam dropped his head, too tired to return his gaze; instead he rested on the floor, his legs bent and spread to his side, his hands spaced out and flat on the concrete dust to either side of his waist.

He waited, strangely not caring what this was about. The man before him was like none he had ever seen before, yet Liam did not possess the merest curiosity about him. He sat in the middle of the floor, his breathing slowing, his eyes, half closed, rested on the loose dust and rubble.

The gaoler returned after some time.

“Alright, back in the cell, ye fucks!” The prisoners looked desperately back to the hole they had come from but they started to move once the gaoler pulled the cudgel from his belt. He laid into them unnecessarily as they shuffled back inside. Liam turned his head from it, not bothered to continue watching. He noticed the stony expression of the man before him, his eyes on the gaoler behind. When the prisoners were back inside and Liam heard the rattling of the key in the lock, the black man turned.

“Bring him,” he ordered simply as he walked away. He turned his head back slightly as he went. “Don’t beat him, carry him.”

Liam had already braced himself for the kicks that would come. Instead he heard the curses of the man as he grabbed Liam with rough hands.

“Come on, ye useless fuck, up on yer heels.” He pulled Liam up onto his feet and pushed him forward. Liam stumbled, struggling to get his muscles working once more and fell on the floor. The gaoler grabbed him again, this time keeping a rough hold underneath Liam’s armpit as he staggered towards the exit.

He spared a glance to his right side as he went and found eyes staring soullessly back out at him. There must have been ten sets of cells, stacked three high, each one filled with as many men as they could fit.

Even through Liam’s dulled senses and emotions, he felt some vague relief at being taken from there. He dreaded to think what such a prolonged death would be like.