James West - Reaper Of Sorrows

Rathe struggled up, swaying, weak, so unutterably weak. “Any who stand with this serpent,” he grated, “are not men, but bleating sheep awaiting the slaughter.”

“Unlike you, dog, we sheep eat and drink our fill,” a man said, one shadowed figure among many.

Contemptuous laughter bubbled past Rathe’s lips. “I misspoke. You are not sheep, but worms crawling through the dung of your betters.”

Pensive silence held for a moment, allowing Rathe to believe he had convinced at least a few to look inside themselves and find the men they had been.

Spitting blood, Treon growled, “Take him.”

A handful of his men attacked. Weakened though he was, Rathe gave back until the flood of fists and boots drove him down into a thudding, bloody darkness….

Shivering and naked, Rathe gradually came awake sometime later, eyes swollen, face puffy, and covered all over in bruises and crusted blood. All was dark and quiet, save the faint rustlings of night creatures. In letting one hand wander over his torso in search of broken ribs, he found a waterskin nestled against his hip, and with it a loaf of rock-hard bread.

Rathe remembered the derisive sniggers at Treon’s expense when Loro had questioned his training tactics. Where one man openly criticized, a handful of others felt the same, even if they held the silence. Loro had probably left him the food and water, but there was a chance a Hilan man might have, and Rathe found in that possibility something upon which to rest a little hope.

Twice over, for concentration of any sort taxed his wits, Rathe counted back the days. Each time he came to the same number. A fortnight had passed since his leashing, where Rathe had feared only a ten day journey. Despite all his talk of haste, Captain Treon seemed more interested in prolonging Rathe’s torments than returning to Hilan. The torments had not eased in the slightest after the night he pummeled the captain, but thanks to Loro, or some other commiserate soul, food and water had become less scarce.

Night was falling when Rathe’s feet thumped onto a wooden surface. All around him, hooves clattered to a halt. He smelled the smoke of hearth fires on the air, and under this the distinct scent of penned livestock.

“Open the gates!” Treon bawled, his voice hoarser than usual after berating and taunting Rathe throughout the day.

“Captain Treon?” came a man’s shocked voice, who doubtless was looking on Rathe’s state of abuse.

“Open the damned gate,” Treon roared, “or I will cleave off your manhood!”

Rathe waited in hooded obscurity, listening to the clack and rattle of a rising portcullis, then the groaning squeal of unoiled hinges swinging open. Where Rathe would have expected calls of greeting, even insulting hoots at his bloodied nakedness, silence prevailed. He supposed the men of Hilan-all outcasts at one time or another-were sizing up the newcomers.

A moment later, hooves rumbled over what Rathe guessed was a wooden drawbridge. His rope snapped tight, forcing him into an agonized trot. After the bridge, the pitch of iron-shod hooves changed, ringing against stone flags. Captain Treon halted a final time, and dismissed his men with a sharp word of caution about showing up to dawn formation with a head of wine. Raucous chuckles met this, dwindling as the men moved off. From far away, a crow croaked greeting to the coming night, and a drizzle of rain began.

“You are home, dog,” Treon said. “Soon, we will begin your training in earnest.”

Rathe said nothing.

Treon grunted to himself, then shouted, “Alfan, Remon! Lock my cur in the Weeping Tower.”

“Should we feed him?” one man asked, provoking an unwanted rumble in Rathe’s belly.

“Water. No more. He can eat when he learns proper respect.” Knowing laughter met this, bouncing off stone walls.

Rathe stifled a relieved sigh when the rope was slashed from his waist. Hands shoved him forward with a warning, “Struggle, and Alfan’s like to toss you over a barrel and have his way with you.”

Rathe had no intention of resisting, threat or not. For the time being, he wanted only to sleep and to regain his strength. After, he would decide what he intended to do with his new life.

Alfan and Remon hustled him up a winding stair, hurling an endless parade of insults at his back. After the long climb, one of his guards dragged him to a stop, and the other rattled open a door. They shoved him through a doorway, and the door began creaking shut.

“Did you idiots forget Captain Treon said I was to receive water?” Rathe said.

“Nah,” one growled.

“Leave it by the door,” Rathe instructed. “I can help myself.”

A sloshing bucket crashed into his head, the blow dropping him to his knees. The door slammed on brutal laughter, and a key turned in the lock. Rathe knelt there, head thumping and drenched, listening to the retreat of heavy footsteps. When the door at the base of the tower boomed shut, he dragged off the reeking hood and cast it aside. He wanted for sleep, but he took the time to study his quarters.

Four windows circled the Weeping Tower’s highest chamber. Plain wooden shutters, gray and cracked with age, blocked off three of those windows. Disrepair or a storm had taken the fourth shutter, allowing a damp breeze to slither in and steal the heat from his naked skin. The last prisoner had used a bit of stone to decorate the walls with obscene, childish scrawls.

He stood and shuffled to a scatter of straw in one corner. Judging by the threadbare blanket nearly lost in that rat’s nest, Rathe supposed he had found his bed. Wincing at the prickly straw, he draped the blanket over his shoulders, crossed frayed carpets thick with mold, and came to the fireplace on the other side of the chamber. Miraculously, a store of cordwood and tinder waited to provide warmth. Flint and steel hung by leather cords from an iron peg driven into a crack in the wall.

He built a fire and warmed his hands, grimacing as he looked over the map of red misery covering every inch of his skin. With scant hope in his heart, he returned to the bucket lying on its side. A couple of mouthfuls still splashed about inside. He drank it down, wishing for more as he set the bucket aside.

A bawdy shout from the courtyard below drew him to the open window. Resting his hands on the sill, he looked on Fortress Hilan’s rain-soaked defenses with an eye trained for war.

It was a stronghold meant to secure nothing but itself and its occupants, and looked the part, stark and foreboding. The keep had been built into the side of a mountain, exposing only one graystone wall. Other than the glow of torches brightening scores of arrow slits, it resembled the face of a cliff sheared smooth by the axe of a god. A high, crenelated curtain wall ran around the bailey, shaped like tongue that jutted toward a grassy, rock-studded slope. A half mile down a broken cart path, a terraced village slouched behind a wooden palisade. Smoke rose from dozens of chimneys, chickens scratched outside the wall, and bedraggled villagers went about their evening chores. Beyond that, the forest pressed in on all sides, stirring with night shadows.

Nearly asleep on his feet, Rathe turned his attention to the lightly armored men striding the wall walks. All thoughts of sleep vanished, and his teeth began to grind together. Within nooks, flaming braziers and flickering torches sheltered from wind and rain, casting a fitful light on men he knew: Joeth, Othan, Elgar, Wyin, and Kevel. They were outcasts from Onareth, the same five that Treon had claimed escaped. He scanned the other guards and found a handful of Hilan men who had ridden with Treon-all had been presumed dead at the hands of the plainsmen.