Morgan Rice - A Rule of Queens

“No,” Loti screamed.

Darius saw men step forward and restrain her, yanking her back as she flailed. He was overwhelmed by her loyalty to him, and it touched him deeply, gave him solace before what he knew would be his death.

Darius felt himself yanked forward, and soon he was tied him to a pole, his face against it, his hands and ankles tied to it. He felt rough hands tear the shirt off his back, heard a ripping noise cut through the air, and felt his back exposed to the morning sun and the cool wind.

“Because I am in the mood for mercy,” the commander boomed, “we shall begin with just one hundred lashes!”

Darius swallowed, and refused to allow anyone to see the fear on his face as his wrists were clamped down to the wood. He braced himself for the terrible pain that would come.

Before he could finish a thought, Darius heard the crack of a whip, and suddenly every nerve in his body screamed out as he felt an awful pain across his back. He felt his skin rip from his flesh, felt his blood exposed to the air. It was the worst pain of his life. He did not know how he’d recover from it, much less take ninety-nine more.

The whip cracked through the air again, and Darius felt another lash, this one worse than the last, and he groaned out again and clutched the wood, refusing to allow himself to scream.

The lashes came again, and again, and Darius felt himself getting lost in another place, a place of honor and glory and valor. A place of sacrifice. A place of sacrificing for someone else whom he loved. He thought of Loti, of the pain that she would have suffered for this; he thought of her lame brother, a man Darius loved and respected too, and of how she had sacrificed for him. He took the next lash, and the next one, knowing he was taking it for them.

Darius retreated deeper and deeper into himself, into a place of escape, and as he did, he felt a familiar feeling rising within him, felt a heat coursing through his palms. He felt his body willing him to summon his power. It was aching to be summoned. He knew that if he did, he could break free of this. He could overcome them all.

But Darius would not allow it; he stopped himself, preventing it from welling up. He feared to use it. As much as he wanted to, he did not want to be an exile among his people. He would rather die a martyr than be remembered as a magician they reviled.

Another lash came, then another, and Darius struggled to hang on. He gasped for air, and would do anything for water. He was starting to wonder if he would survive this—when suddenly, a voice cut through the air.

“Enough!” came the booming voice. “You have the wrong man.”

The crack of the whip stopped and Darius turned weakly, and saw surprised to see Loc, Loti’s lame brother, stepping forward out in front of the others.

“It was I who killed the taskmaster,” Loc said.

The Empire commander stared back, confused.

“You?” he called out, looking him up and down in disbelief.

Suddenly, Raj stepped forward, standing beside Loc.

“No,” Raj called out. “It was I who killed him.”

Desmond stepped forward, beside Raj.

“No, it was I!” Luzi called out.

There came a long, tense silence amongst the crowd, until finally, one at a time, all of Darius’s friends stepped forward.

“No, it was I!” echoed one voice after the other.

Darius felt so deeply grateful to his brothers, so moved by their loyalty; it made him feel willing to die a million deaths on their behalf. They all stood there, proudly facing off against the Empire, dozens of them stepping forward, all wanting to take the punishment for him.

The Empire commander snarled at all of them and let out a groan of frustration. He marched over to Darius, and Darius felt rough hands behind his back, as the Commander grabbed him tight and leaned in and whispered in his ear, his hot breath on the back of his neck.

“I should kill you, boy,” he seethed, “for lying to me.”

Darius felt a dagger pressed against his throat, felt the commander pushing it against his skin, and he felt that he just might.

Instead, Darius suddenly felt a tug at his hair, his long, unruly ponytail being pulled back, and suddenly he felt the blade touching his hair—his hair which he had never cut since birth.

“A little something to remember me by,” the Commander said, a dark smile on his lips.

“NO!” Darius yelled. Somehow, the idea of his hair being cut affected him more than his being lashed.

The village gasped as, in one clean cut, the commander yanked back his hair, reached up, and sliced it all off. Darius hung his head low. He felt humiliated, naked.

The commander severed the cords binding his ankles and feet, and Darius collapsed to the ground. Weak from the beating, disoriented, Darius felt all the eyes of his people on him, and however painful it was, he forced himself to his feet.

He stood there proudly and faced the commander, defiant.

The commander, though, turned and faced the crowd.

“Someone is lying!” he boomed. “You have one day to decide. At daybreak tomorrow, I will return. You will decide if you want to tell me who killed this man. If you do not, you will all, each and every one of you, be tortured and killed. If you do, then I will only cut off the right thumb of each of you. That is the price you pay for lying here today and for making me return. That is mercy. Lie again, and by my soul, I swear it, you will learn what it means to have no mercy.”

The commander turned, mounted his zerta, signaled to his men, and as one, they took off, charging back onto the road from they came from. Darius, his world dizzy, dimly saw his brothers, Loti, all of them rush forward, reaching him just in time, as he stumbled forward and collapsed into their arms. How much can happen , he thought, looking up at the sun before he lost consciousness, before a day breaks .

Godfrey, joined by Akorth, Fulton, Merek and Ario, marched down the dirt road leading to the great city of Volusia, and wondered what on earth he had gotten himself into. He looked about at his unlikely companions, and knew he was in trouble: there were Akorth and Fulton, two drunken slobs, good for witty banter but not much else; Merek, a thief who stole his way through life, cheated his way out of the King’s dungeons and into the Legion, good for his back-alley connections and his sleight of hand, but little else; and finally, Ario, a small, sickly-looking boy from the jungles of the Empire, who looked as if he’d be better suited in a classroom somewhere.

Godfrey shook his head as he considered the sorry lot, the five of them a pathetic group, the most unlikely heroes, setting out to achieve the impossible, to enter one of the most barricaded cities in the Empire, to find the right person to pay off, and to convince them to take the gold that even now weighed him down, hanging in sacks on all their waists. And with Godfrey himself as their leader. He had no idea why they put their trust in him; he didn’t trust himself. Godfrey would be surprised if they even made it past the city gates, a feat which he still had no idea how he was going to accomplish.

Of all the crazy things he had done, Godfrey did not know how he had gotten himself into this one. Once again, he had stupidly allowed his rare and uncontrollable streak of bravado to take over, to possess him. God knows why. He should have kept his mouth shut and stayed back there, safe with Gwendolyn and the others. Instead, here he was, practically alone, and preparing to give his life for the villagers. This mission, he felt, was already doomed from the start.

As Godfrey marched he reached out and grabbed the sack of wine again from Akorth’s hands, taking another long swig, relishing the buzz that went right to his head. He wanted to turn back, more than anything. But something inside him could not. Something in him thought of that girl, Loti, who had been so brave, who had killed the taskmaster defending her lame brother—and he admired her. He knew the villagers were vastly outnumbered and had to find another way. And he knew from his years of fighting that there was always another way. If there was one thing he was good at, it was finding another way. It was all about finding the right person—and at the right price.