James West - Reaper Of Sorrows

“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.

“See how he begs?” Treon said proudly. “Show them how you can plead, dog. Quickly, now, before your master grows angry at your silence and beats you.”

Rathe could only see the array of shifting, dirty boots gathered around him in the gloom, but he felt the weight of many expectant eyes. Some might sympathize, even share his outrage, but others wanted him to concede defeat, to surrender as each of them must have done at one time. In seeing the famed Scorpion of the Ghosts of Ahnok beg a man he would have raised his nose at not a month gone, he knew their sense of worth would be elevated, allowing them to regain some measure of lost pride. If he resisted, he rebuffed not just Treon, but all of them.

“Beg!” Treon eased his weight onto Rathe’s neck, crushing his face against the damp loam.

“Ask for the water,” Loro said in a pained voice. “We will not think less of you.”

Others took up the advice, all but pleading with him to beg a drink of water.

“I cannot,” Rathe groaned.

“What was that, dog?” Treon snarled. “Speak up!”

Surrender now, and fight the battle of your choosing later .

I will not break, Rathe thought in answer, knowing it was too late for such resistance, but unable to accept his downfall, even now, with the boot of his oppressor pressing him down.

“Seems your training is not as adequate as you thought,” Loro snapped, provoking a few derisive sniggers.

“Beg for the water, you slinking cur,” Treon said, mockery giving way to seething wrath, “and you shall have it.”

Rathe fought for breath, filling his lungs. “Bugger your arse with a flaming torch!”

Treon jumped back, his boot swinging. Rathe reared back, mere inches, caught the captain’s passing heel, and shoved it past his head. Thrown off balance, Treon tumbled to his backside, spewing curses with all the thrashing zeal of the enraged snake he resembled.

Rathe scrabbled forward, balled his fist, and smashed the man’s lips against his teeth, once and again, before a pair of sergeants slung him aside.