Reaper Of Sorrows (Book 1) (11 page)

Nesaea’s gaze swept around the chamber, finding a charred and flailing figure wreathed in flame, and an eyeless old man covered in bleeding wounds. Roaring fires entrapped the burning figure—
Oh gods, it’s another girl!—
and a faintly transparent wall of flowing blood entombed the old man.

Nesaea shivered in horror. “Please, do not do this!” she begged, mortified by the fleeting idea that she would do anything to avoid what had befallen the other three.

Sanouk faced her. Over his shoulder, a handful of blazing pits formed where eyes should be in Gathul’s face. “Alas, it’s already done,” Sanouk said with a greedy smirk.

“What is done?”

“Can you not feel the poison’s taint in your blood?

What poison?
She nearly asked, but she already knew. Had not her fear and dismay been so great, the strange confusion and effort to speak would have alerted her earlier.

As though enlivened by recognition, the effects of the poison fell fully upon her. She tried to clamber out of the queer depression in the tabletop, but it held her fast. Her insides clenched violently, and her skin came alive with an awful crawling, burning sensation.

“I am … dying,” she rasped.

Sanouk touched the table, and a sucking noise sounded beneath her, even as the pressure on her limbs dwindled. He heaved her up off the table, and her head dropped back so that all appeared inverted. The table was an arcane, greenstone altar, its heart alive with dark, agitated shapes. With not a whit of care or caution, he tossed her into a nook in the wall—her tomb.

Struggling, Nesaea clawed her way to her feet and spun drunkenly. Already a barrier stood between her and Sanouk. He was laughing, but no sound came to her ears, save the pounding of her own heart and ragged gasps. She fell against the barrier, its color that of decaying flesh.

“Let me out,” she moaned, wishing for the first time in her life that she would die, for surely in death she would escape the wracking ills plaguing her body.

Sanouk cocked his head, making a mockery of trying to catch her words, then he threw back his head, laughing his silent laugh. As if seen in a dream, he departed.

Death did not come, but Nesaea’s pains increased tenfold, a hundredfold, more. She retched until blood replaced bile, her limbs quivered, and the poison gained potency every passing moment. Mind awash with the delirium of endless pain, she sank to her knees.
Do not come, Rathe. For your life, stay away,
she managed to pray, before delirium swept away her wits.

Chapter 13

R
aining….

That recognition meandered through the valleys of Rathe’s weary consciousness, trying to reach the surface of greater awareness. He groaned, rolled over, and threw an arm over his head to block the drizzle. Half-asleep, he did not want to sacrifice even a precious moment of rest to worry over something so minor as a little dampness.

Warm, stinking rain….

Rathe came fully awake, sputtering at the bitter taste on his lips. Unconsciously knowing what was happening, he lunged to his feet, but the staked tether tied to his waist jerked taut and he slammed against stony ground. The stream followed, running over the back of his head and down his neck.

“A dog needs a bath, yes?” Treon rasped in his leathery voice.

Crablike, Rathe scuttled away, the tether forcing him into a circular flight around the stake. Treon came after, spurting jets of urine and chuckling.

After he drained his bladder, the captain said, “Looks to be another fine day for running, dog.” Still laughing, he spun away and returned to camp, now readying for departure.

Rathe lay shaking, piss dripping from his head to the yellowed grass and lichen-crusted rocks under him. His fists clenched, grimy fingernails digging against his palms. It was not the first time Treon had made water on him over the last several days, and was not the worst of his abuses, but frequency and degree did not ease Rathe’s outrage.

“I will not break,” he murmured through clenched teeth. Always before, the mantra had allowed him to face each new mistreatment with some measure of dignity, had given him strength to rise above encroaching weakness. Taking longer than ever, the words eventually diluted the black hopelessness within his heart.

When Treon returned, the light of dawn had fully come upon the thinly forested land, and he found Rathe sitting cross-legged, a serene smile on his lips.

The captain smiled in return, the breeze tugging his long white hair. “As my dog seems hale, I suppose there’s no use wasting this on you,” he said, holding up a waterskin in one hand, and a heel of bread in the other. “Of course,” Treon added slyly, his narrowed eyes the hue of a winter sky, “if my dog were to beg, even a little, I might concede that he needs sustenance.”

Rathe’s defiance withered as he tried to imagine another day without food or drink. His belly cramped with hunger, and his dry throat convulsed painfully. Somehow, his smile remained affixed to his face, but it felt as brittle and as false as it was.

Treon waited awhile longer, shrugged, and tossed the bread away. He leaned over and pulled the stake from the ground and gave the tether a snapping tug. “Come along, dog. We have leagues to travel this day.”

I will not break!
Rathe’s own voice of warning shouted in his mind, even as he saw himself catching hold of the rope and jerking it out of Treon’s hands, envisioned himself rising up and wrapping that hempen cord around the captain’s neck and pulling the ends tight; he saw Treon’s eyes bulge, heard the man’s wheezing struggle to draw breath….

He saw those things, desperately wanted them, but he lowered his gaze and clambered to his feet. Treon laughed as he led Rathe to camp. Standing apart from the others, Loro glared at the remaining outcasts and the Hilan men. When his eyes fell on Rathe, his face briefly softened in pity before tightening in anger. Before the man could say anything that would bring suffering upon himself, Rathe caught his glowering stare and shook his head. It was the same every morning and evening, when the sack came off his head.

Taking Rathe’s suffering as his own, Loro looked ready to balk, then abruptly wheeled and stomped to his mount. After he climbed into the saddle, he refused to look at Rathe again. Anger did not twist his face, but abject misery.

As in days past, Treon hooded Rathe, tied the leash to his saddle, and ordered a fast march. Rathe shambled along behind, nostrils thick with the reek of sweat, urine, and burlap. Choking dust made breathing all the more difficult.

Though it strained his eyes, he could look at the ground through a gap in the hood and see coming obstacles in the roadway. Unfortunately, he had less than a heartbeat to react to any jutting stone or fallen tree branch that might trip him, and the effort of looking down at such an acute angle made his eyes ache. Worse still, to avoid anything on such short notice left him mincing along like a drunken dancer, much to the brutal delight of Treon and his sergeants.

“Dance, dog!” someone yelled, as Rathe stumbled into yet another deep pothole. He had almost regained his balance when Treon heeled his mount into a canter, jerking Rathe off his feet. He landed hard on the roadway, the breath crushed from his chest. Rathe tried to rise, but Treon rode on, leading the chant, “Run, dog, run!”

The rope about his waist bit deep, scoring already chaffed skin. He bounced and rolled over the road, like a fish on a line. Gritting his teeth, Rathe caught hold of the rope and heaved himself up its length toward the captain. When he had ample slack, he let the rope slip through his hands and jumped to his feet. Rathe had only an instant to revel in his success before the captain kicked his mount into a gallop. The last foot of rough cord burned through Rathe’s grasp, snapped tight, and wrenched him off balance. He cried out when he struck the road again. Treon kept on for a hundred paces, dragging Rathe, then drew rein.

“Get up, dog,” Treon called. “I will not have you weary my horse by dragging you all the way to Hilan.”

“Get up, dog!” came a chorus of laughing shouts from the handful of men ringing him about. “Dance, dog!”

Hooves drew nearer, kicking up dust and flinging a hail of stinging pebbles. Groaning, Rathe curled in on himself, fearing one of the horses would crush him. Every limb shook from the bruising abuse, and fury was an inferno in his breast, but Rathe fought against his instincts to retaliate.

“Water my dog!” Treon invited in a merry tone.

At once, men bounded from their mounts and, forming a circle around Rathe, pissed on him as Treon had done many times before. Outraged murmurs went up from those holding back, but no one made the attempt to intercede on Rathe’s behalf.

As urine splashed over him, burning his many cuts and scrapes, Rathe thought of Nesaea’s warning about Khenasith
,
the Black Breath, and the curse upon him.
“Yours is a fate buried in shadow, a life of woe, a harrowing storm to trouble your every step. Turn this way or that, but you will never escape distress until the grave draws you to its loveless bosom.”
He had made light of her telling that night, but now it seemed all too accurate.

A blunt object rudely prodded Rathe’s ribs. Through a tear in his hood, he saw the leering serpent’s skull of the Reaver’s banner flutter past. The standard bearer jabbed the tip of the pole into his ribs again, followed by a clacking blow to his head. Someone else pelted him with a ball of steaming horse dung. A heckling chant went up above him.

“Up, dog! Up, dog! Up, dog!”

As Rathe struggled to his feet, he thought again of Nesaea. While her end had been terrible, it had been short-lived. There was a mercy in that, which he could not help but envy.

“Does my dog have any more tricks?” Treon asked.

Rathe stood with his head bowed, unspeaking.

“My dog looks overheated,” Treon announced. “Strip him.”

Rathe stood impassively while Treon’s men tore off his jerkin, tunic, and trousers. A final indignity was to deprive him of his breechclout. They left him only his hood and boots. When they retied the rope around his waist, its weight alone burned his tender skin.

“That’s better, yes?” Treon drawled.

“Dance for a treat, dog!” someone jeered, but the sport had gone out of the moment, and no one else took up the new chant.

Treon ordered the company on, and Rathe ran after, doing all he could to stay on his feet. Without garb, to fall and get dragged would tear his flesh all the easier. Moreover, he feared that if he fell again, he would never get up.

As had all the days prior, the present day progressed slowly. Now, more often than not, the roadway tilted upward, making the going all the harder. Rathe stubbornly kept on, refusing to bow to exhaustion. Despite his resolve, he fell more often than before. Treon always kept on, dragging him over the rock-studded roadway. By will alone, Rathe would scramble up and stumble after, gasping for breath, feet and body blistered and bloody.
I will not break
, he told himself, a mindless conviction with little potency.

By the time dusk fell, Rathe noticed the air had grown cooler and damper, chilling his bare skin. Despite the stench of his hood, he scented a high mountain forest of fir and pine. Without question, the company was finally climbing the flanks of the Gyntor Mountains, and thus nearing Fortress Hilan. He vowed to hold on a little longer, to endure as would a true Ghost of Ahnok.

After night fell, Treon called a halt, and led a staggering Rathe away from camp. “A poorly mannered dog cannot be trusted to eat at the feet of his master,” Treon explained, the same as he did every night.

Although Rathe did not resist, the captain jerked hard on the leash, grinding the rope into the raw wound around Rathe’s middle. Thoughts muddled after two full days without food or water, covered head to foot in new bruises and scrapes, Rathe noticed the fresh pain distantly.

“Here we are,” Treon said, using a rock to pound a stake into the ground. He whipped the hood from Rathe’s head, glared at him a moment, then sauntered back toward camp.

“Water,” Rathe croaked, forgetting himself in his desperation.

Treon spun on his heel with a sneering grin. “What’s this, my dog has learned to speak?”

Rathe’s jaw clenched tight in anger at his weakness, and he studied his worn boots. The toe of one had been worn away, and a wide split showed in the other. Turbid thoughts and images revolved in his mind, leaving him uncertain what he intended, doubting his resolve to hold fast to his dignity.

Captain Treon produced his waterskin and let it swing before Rathe’s eyes. “Beg for a drink of cool, soothing water, dog,” he suggested. “Bow down on your knees … and I might even throw in a morsel of food.”

I will not break!
In his confused state, those words did not mean what they had before. Did asking for water and food truly mean his spirit had been broken?
Yes
, a voice answered simply, but he did not think he could trust that voice.

“I … I,” Rathe struggled, “I request water.”

“You
request
?” Treon sniggered. “A dog does not request—he begs … on his belly.”

Bending is not breaking
….

Oh, but it is
….

Bend now, grow stronger later
….

Rathe groaned in answer to the warring voices in his head. He knew the last voice spoke true, but hearing truth and accepting it were not the same. His knees bent and he sank down. Slower still, he pressed his face to the ground at Treon’s feet. Already he could feel the water’s cool, sweet wetness cleansing his palate of the dust he had eaten all day. The thought of refreshing liquid blinded him to his humiliation.

“Water … just a little … a
taste
.”

Treon laughed, a sound deeper and richer than the voice with which he spoke, and jammed his boot onto Rathe’s neck. “Come, men,” he urged. “My dog has learned a new trick!”

Fury swept through Rathe’s mind, clearing his thoughts, and he tried to push Treon’s boot aside. The captain pressed down all the harder. The soldiers gathered with haste, eager to see what their captain was going on about.