4. The Limitations of Scripture.


  

  The Dradican Guard were the fiercest soldiers in all of the Far North. The icy tunda that crowned the world. Everybody knew it. Trained since the age of five, raised in a freezing snow-bound desert to do nothing but kill, scout, hunt, interrogate, dismember and dismantle. All for the glory of The Holy Dracadian Kingdom.

  Keln Gimal always knew she was destined for greatness amongst these fine men of arms. Her fellow soldiers of blood-red and divine-blue.

  The chance came earlier this month, with the knowledge that a large detachment of their forces would be leaving their snowy desert kingdom to spread the faith of Ravus down onto the southern hedonists. Gimal, long in her training, top of her class, was chosen, amongst the highest honors, to be a member of The Silence. His Holiness’ personal guard to The Blessed.

  Keln was sent to guard Blessed-Prophet Atkun, leader of the Blood Rite Crusade down into the South. Specifically a Northern peninsula along the Western ridge ebbing to the side of the mighty ‘Northern’ Expanse, quaintly named by the uneducated natives living there “The North Folk.”

  Apparently the jagged, separated, tapering shape of the peninsula resembled one of their backward culinary utensils when seen from a map. The Prophet Atkun quickly came up with a better name for when they brought this land to heel.

  ‘God’s Hand’, he deemed it, for in its divine conquest they would be taking the hand of God with their own, if only for a moment.

  The past few weeks, standing guard in front of the Blessed’s mighty command tent, working rigorously, mercilessly to insure the holy man's safety as he began planning their cleansing, had been the singular most important span of time in Holy-Defendant Keln Gimal’s entire life and probably will ever be.

  Which was why it peeved her so terribly when she was informed by a runner-boy, not strong enough to fight but, as they say, ‘no meat to waste’, that a single man, boy by some culture’s approximation, had simply walked into their camp. Allegedly he’d made it halfway to the Blessed-Prophet’s tent before anyone had even noticed him, nevertheless attempting to stop him. The worst part was, he didn’t even hide, run or attempt an escape. When finally accosted he put his hands behind his head and asked to see their leader.

  It was infuriating. The indignity. If what this runner-boy had told her was true, the young man had strolled into the camp, hands in his belt loops. Traveling with such miraculous luck no one noticed him till he was halfway to the Prophet, and so confident in his stride that no one thought to stop him till he was only a few short rows away.

  He should be about forty rows down now, tied to post, beaten and bloodied. Gimal marched there as fast as the formal step she was required to maintain could allow.

  It wasn’t quick.

  Eventually, utterly fuming by this point, Keln Gimal finally saw a ring of men in painted red steel with blue sashes in a rough circle. Simple footmen. Peering between tall shoulders she could barely make out a shirtless young man tied to post, on his knees in the dirt.. But, by some madness, he appeared to be laughing. Getting closer Gimal realized that quite a few of the men were. They tried to hide it, as was required by holy law as soldiers of the faith.

  They were all focused on the loudest laugh amongst them, one who did not even try to hide it. It boomed from a towering brute of a man, who stood shirtless in front of the vagrant with what would seem like pretty clear intentions, had the giant not been bellowing uncontrollably.

  The rage was almost too much, had Keln not undergone such strict training. These men would all be thoroughly reprimanded later.

  “Form up, AT ONCE! Gentlemen. At Once!” her voice cut across the training yard. A flat section of mud and dirt amongst the towerings tents around them.

  At first the soldiers milled around, confused, but as they slowly began to see the owner of their verbal assault, and the fine gold she wore engraved into her Redsteel armor, a murmur shouted through the crowd. She couldn’t make out the words but definitely caught “Holy-Defendant”.

  A second later, in awkward unison, with a sound like a hundred steel drums banging together, the soldiers snapped to attention. Everyone was silent, even the big shirtless man.

  All except the fool.

  His laughter bounced out across the yard. Reverberating off their armor, echoing as it rose and fell in tandem with his breath. Eventually, painfully, so slow she was sure it was intentional, the man-child finally quieted.

  He looked up at her, cool confidence beaming from his young face. He was a scrawny kid, barely enough muscle to qualify for armed work back home. More than likely he would have been a messenger-boy, maybe a cook if he had any talent. More than likely he’d shovel yakmat shit. Big lumbering brutes yakmat’s are. Good for meat, better for riding. Lots of shit though. Maybe too much for the boy's thin arms. Kimal broods on it a moment, letting her men sweat in their armor. Eventually she got what work he’d be good for. Sewing patches with the elderly.

  And his face, much too pretty. Barely a scratch on it, accept a clean bruise around the side of his mouth, splitting his well-shaped lips. Seems the dumb brute at least got one hit in before he lost his wits. Gimal made cold eye-contact with the vagrant, fishing for some fear in the boy’s eyes.

  She found none. That was shocking. She probably had more scars on her face from nasty near-death encounters before this boy had learned the right way to hold a sword. If he ever even had learned. Yet, no fear as she gave him her best killer’s stare, interesting.

  Then he spoke.

  “I assume, from the nature of everyone’s sudden, instantaneous case of rigor-mortis, that you, my dear, might be in-charge?”

  It took Gimal several full seconds before she realized that it was she the man was addressing. His voice, by the Blessed Gifts. He spoke with more music than the Speaker of His Holiness.

  “I, yes.. well.. No.” That was all she could muster, so lost she was in shock. She didn’t even like men. Truthfully, she rather hated them.

  “I am confused, pardon the inconvenience, are you, or are you not the man or woman, person and or persons, I will be bartering with for my freedom?” He added the slightest grin to the end of his sentences, like a cherry on a cake. Keln hated men, but she was finding it hard to hate this one. Dumb floppy brown hair, pointy nose and hazel eyes that laughed at you.

  She knew what she was supposed to say next, nothing. Keln was supposed to beat him senseless, yell at the footmen to run sprints till they puked, then bring the bloody vagrant kneeling before the Prophet.

  She would, eventually.

  “What did you say that was so funny?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “When I was walking over. The laughter.” Keln gave the big shirtless man her killer’s stare, on him it worked just fine. The big man wilted like a flower. She turned back to her captor. “What could you have possibly said to make these boys break scripture?” Keln took some slow steps toward the kneeling prisoner now. “Your answer will mean a lot more than you think.”

  “Then I’m afraid to disappoint you.” he grinned his sly grin, kneeling before her looking up like he was in-charge. “It was a rude tale I told. A glib poem. A, how you say, promiscuous.. fable?” The men holding attention scuffed their boots in the dirt as they tried, failing, to hold their laughter.

  Keln barely held her rage,“Ahktan! The lot of you, to shame.” She moved on the vagrant and grabbed his chin. His stupid face was soft as silk. “Fable? Say what you mean and say it clearly, then state your name and purpose in these camps.” She squeezed tightly, the metal of her gauntlet biting into his cheek.

  He grimaced, showing teeth like an angry dog. “A sex joke, my dear. I joked to them that life under the holy scripture must be quite dull.” He cast a gaze to the big man, and raised his sharp brows in a suggestive manner. The big man stifled a giggle. This mad vagrant made the gesture as if the two of them were life-long friends, not a torturer with his would-be victim. “-After a punch from the pink giant, I offered to trade some truth of the dirty fun from the real world in return for.. Well, we hadn’t quite worked that out yet.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nope, not much of a comedian.” He looked about. “Only under pressure.”

  She slackened her grip and he wiggled his head out of her fist.

  “-but, presumably, if you wish to know more about the trade.. I was going to ask for what I came for, if I got the chance.” He did his best to straighten out his spine with his hands still tied to the pole behind his back. “The name’s Ferrino Castronelli, and I’d like to speak to your leader,” leaning in, fake concern clearly plastered on his face, he whispered “I fear your army is in.. grave danger.” He then shined another of those crooked grins. “I’d like to offer the services of me and my own to prevent that.” He winked. He actually winked. “Assistance in the wars to come.”

  It was then Holy-defendant Keln Gimal finally decided to punch this Ferrino fellow in the face. Her armored fist cracked into his jaw. Barely a jab and yet, he went down like a sack of potatoes.

  “Weak southern fools.” She cursed under her breath, then turned to face the crowd. She nodded at the two nearest. “Tie him up, carry him for me.” this vagrant, Ferrino, dare suggest the blessed’s army is weak, in danger. The thought made her blood boil. All her training kept her from unleashing her rage on the soldiers. “The rest of you.” Keln gave her killer’s stare to the crowd. “Repent.”

  In unison the soldiers shed their armor and began running laps around the training yard. Keln watched on with hard, uncaring eyes.

  “Blessed guard, we have done as you requested.” Keln turned to see the two footmen had bound the ankles and wrists of the vagrant, whose head hung limp. Unconscious. These southerners really were weak.

  “Alright then, this swine wished to meet our leader, he shall.. after a few days enjoying our hospitality .” The two nodded and began dragging the body toward a low black tarped tent they saved for the… special prisoners. Keln almost broke into a smile as she followed, if only scripture would allow.

  

  
5. Flames.


  

  The smell was revolting, like a butcher shop set aflame then set to rest till mold grew. “Ferino fucking Castor, If I don’t die of this smell, or them that made it, he is a dead man, I say, a dead man. That bloody fool.” Kara’s sharp tongue echoed in the darkness not more than a few steps in front of him, yet Lem could barely make out her figure in the darkness.

  They stalked down tunnels that chewed through the mountains and served a better passage than the hike-ways when the weather’s gone sour, which it had. Still, it shouldn’t be more than a couple hours more till they were back in the North Fork, out these mountains. Things were starting to look good, then Lem stubbed his toe and cursed.

  “Care to light a flame..my dear?”

  “Don’t call me that.” A flame sputtered into existence a second later nonetheless. It illuminated Kara’s perfect form. The long red, tangled hair that she now had cascading down her back. No longer all bound up under a hood. The low height of the tunnels did well to conserve heat.

  “Ferrino always calls girls that.”

  “Ferrino understands women as well as a duck would mathematics.”

  They both laughed. It echoed through the darkness, against the walls of stone and mud they passed through. The tunnels looked supernatural, something to do with melting ice flowing down from the peaks. The walls were curved, lined with flowing waves of stone made from endless cycles of water running down to the valley below. “It's kinda.. Beautiful.”

  “The fire.. I’ve always thought so too.” Kara didn’t look back as she spoke.

  Lem tried his best to catch up and stop her. It might not be the best time, but when was it ever? “No I mean..” he grabbed her shoulder lightly and turned her around.

  They locked eyes and all thought left Lem’s mind. Hers were a brilliant orange, a rising sun in each eye. She raised a red brow. He literally shivered.

  “Cold?”

  “What, no..” he rubbed his palms together. “Well, kinda.”

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  Kara did something she rarely did, smiled, and held out her hand, cupping it with her other. The flame rose from within the folds of her palms. Purely of her own, fiery will. She breathed in deep, eyes closed, palms together and up.. Held the breath, then.. exhaled.

  The flame burst with life. It erupted, shooting a tower of fire upward, painting the walls of the tunnel with light.

  “Woah.” the words just slipped from Lem’s mouth he was so stunned.

  Kara, face all scrunched up in focus, took another massive breath inward, the fire followed back down toward her flowered palm, where she then took her other hand and cupped the flame within. She rubbed her hands together as one would a ball of clay, or fresh dough. The light within slicing through her fingers as she worked, cutting lines of light through the dark tunnel until she finally exhaled once more and opened her hands.

  A ball of flame floated out. She took her hands away and it remained in the air, rising slowly, but looking as if it did so of its own free will. The ball was thick with the flames, all rolling over each other.

  Lem closed the distance and took Kara’s hands. They singed the skin of his palms with their heat but he cared not. To hold her was more then worth the pain. The ball of flame danced warm light on her perfect face. Their own little miniature sun. “You are, truely, an incredible woman. You know that, Kalkara Davros?

  “Definitely don’t call me that.” but she blushed all the same and that was something she never did. Her eyes sparked as she closed the distance further between them. “Don’t you have a silly name too? I think I heard Bedlam joking about it one time. Lem can’t be all it is.” Her breath smelled like a perfumed campfire as it blew against his cheek.

  He shrugged, leaning in further. “Just Lem.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “That’s unfortunate.”

  They kissed then. Kara moved first and Lem jumped at the chance. They went at it quick, and a little messy but it lit something in Lem’s chest much hotter than the flames.

  Then a joking, sly voice cut the mood down the middle. “Devils Above… look what we got here.” the voice floated out from the darkness they were heading into.

  The speaker stepped into the light. An ugly man of middling height. Slick black hair and pink scar that ran across his face, slicing the end of his nose off. One eye was a sickly yellow, the other a dead green. “A couple o’ lovebirds lost in the dark.” He wore dented, mismatched armor of bronze and steel and had the largest flask Lem had ever seen hanging from his hip beside a wide, curved sword. His eyes flicked up to the ball of flame. “-And it would appear, one of ‘em is a magician!” he clapped his hands together. “Fantastic!”

  A chittering muck of laughter bounced around them. It would appear they were very much not alone. Lem and Kara looked at each other and immediately turned to leave, just as..they emerged from the other end of the tunnel, the way Lem and Kara had just come from.

  Lem gasped and Kara pulled closer to him as the horde of creatures finally caught the light.

  The creatures weren’t exactly.. Humans. They were shorter, with hunched spins and only a thumb with three or two fingers instead of four. Partially bald and greying skin. “-Cause we are in need of magical aid.” the scarred man declared, seemingly in answer to the question he assumed Lem and Kara were thinking.

  Lem wouldn’t exactly have called the creatures frightening, and he and Kara were a fierce couple of fighters. What the creatures lacked for looks they made up for in numbers. They poured down the tunnel, shoulder to shoulder. Some, larger folk with longer than average arms, climbed the tunnel walls where there was no space to walk.

  Two such creatures, twice the size of their average peers, armed with hammers that could knock a tree down, slunk from the darkness astride the scarred man.

  Lem cursed, they were well and truly surrounded.

  The scarred man clapped his hands together, pulled his curved sword from its scabbard and said, “alrighty then, drop your weapons, hands in air, you're comin’ with us.”

  There was a breath of silence where Lem and Kara looked at each other, toward the clogged ends of the tunnel in either direction then back at each other.

  “Ferrino fucking Castor.” Kara mumbled as she put her arms up. Lem threw his bow to the ground as he followed her lead. He was furious as well, but at least he got a kiss.

  

  
6. All an Army’s Good For.


  

  “My goodness, it positively stinks.” The emperor’s emissary put a perfumed cloth to his nose, using his other hand to hold his eggshell white, bunched robes up and away from the mud that surrounded them.

  “A latrine situation, my lord, but it is well and truly being handled.” Mentus responded, little legs shuffling to keep pace with the richly adorned emissary. Colonel Lapille just rolled his eyes and tried his best not to yell himself silly as he followed behind the two at the furthest reasonable distance.

  The emissary, Tantos Florian Valintelle, or something of the like, looked back at the Colonel. “Not much farther, is it Colonel Lapille, to the command tent?” The old man had a face wrinkled and flaky, not fit for the rough conditions of the field. Not fit to be commanding a man around like the Colonel himself, but these were trying times.

  “Not much further at all, just past that next row.” Lapille responded through gritted teeth. He watched as the emissary stopped for what felt like the hundredth time to scrape mud off the bottom of his boots, as if they were not surrounded in the stuff.

  “We should have the camps…” the emissary cast an eye around the scene with visible disgust. “cleaned, before the arrival of his Majesty.”

  “I said just the same.” Mentus bit as his chance to say the words. “Just the same.” The checkered dunce moved to give the emissary a hand for balance as the wrinkled prick switched on to his other boot soul.

  Cleaned. As if you could scrape all the mud of the earth itself. The demands of the empire grow ever more unreasonable.

  The Colonel cleared his throat. “When might that be, my lord?” The old man was not quick to find an answer, so Lapille pushed. “Its just that, the men, they grow eager, the Morven Freeholds are a days hike through the mountains and as the seasons shift to winter, the passes between these peaks may close up with snowfall, I sug-”

  The emissary put a hand up to silence him. The old dolt might be completely out of his element, but back in The Crystal City, he was a man with much respect. Not one to be talked down to.

  “Colonel Lapille, the workings of the Crown fly far above the station of your regiment.” He finished his work with his other boot and plopped it promptly back down into the mud. “His Majesty must attend to this conquest.” Emissary Valintelle smiled up at the sky. “When the history books write of the Ionian legacy, of its dominance over the Northern Expanse, the first union to ever unite the plains under one crown, they shall write of how Silenius T. Invicti, Emperor to the Ionian Empire under the Sun, rode gloriously at the head of his army as it brought the last speck of northern freeland into the Ionian folds.” He patted Mentus’ hand who smiled at Lapille with quiet satisfaction. The two turned and walked on, the situation supposedly handled.

  Lapille’s mind was elsewhere, however. It felt empty, cold. Like all the substance of his mind had just been ripped out of him. He’d never felt this way before, he never thought he’d have to. “Hustrad fell?” empty air pushed the words from his breath.

  The two men were already steps away. “Mhm, what was that, Colonel?” the emissary said, without looking back.

  Anger growing, Lapille took two sharp steps and caught the man’s shoulder, spinning him around.

  “I say!” The emissary’s old eyes were wide with incredulity and content.

  Lapille just felt dryness in his mouth. “Hustrad, the free-city of Hustrad.. It .. they joined the Ionian Empire.. joined us?” The idea was unthinkable. Septim Pallins, the old righteous bugger, would never allow it. Never.

  “Forcibly. ” Mentus corrected, giving the answer with his typical nasally sneer.

  The emissary put a hand lightly on Mentus’ shoulder, clucking his tongue. “Now now, Secretary Mentus, we forget ourselves, I realize now the motivation beyond the Colonel’s sudden..” the old man’s eyes lit with malice, “fervor.” He fixed his embroidered robes where Lapille had grabbed him. “The Colonel here is a native Hustradian..” The emissary made a show of ‘noticing’ Lapille’s clear facial distinction,“ah, I can see it now, the thinning around the eyes, high-cheekbones, the.. Tanned complexion.”

  Balling his fists, fighting a growing urge to punch the wrinkles from this old fops face, Lapille tried his best to measure his voice, “I am in fact. Proudly.” he stood up a little straighter. “The city.. the..fighting..” he lost his words. The sadness was growing in him then, simmering the rage.

  Emissary Valintelle put a fatherly hand to Lapille’s shoulder. “Fear not, Colonel, the city's legendary architectural beauty was mostly spared, where it could be.”

  “And..” Lapille could barely bring himself to ask, “its denizens?”

  “Well,” the old man winced, “decidedly less so.” he screezed Lapille’s shoulder, gave a sad look, then turned and walked off. Over his shoulder, he added “-but such is war, eh? you understand, don’t you Colonel? Butchery, it's all an army is really good for.”

  “huh.. of.. Course.” Lapille stared limply into the distance as the men walked away, clucking at each other about something unimportant.

  Lapille looked down at his palms, lost in the nothingness of his dismay. They saved the architecture but killed the ones who sculpted it. A fitting metaphor for the empire, Lapille mused as he quietly muttered to himself, “All an army is good for.”

  He balled his fists, ‘all an army is good for’, that simply was not right.

  He’d prove it, too.

  

  
7. Death Wish


  

  Shit, pain and bloody agony, that had become Ferrino’s new reality. For the past two days that's all it was. His initial dive into the sea of red and blue went.. Less gracefully then he’d hopped.

  Their torture wasn’t original, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t affective. Beatings in the morning, noon and night. Beatings with clubs, with armored fists with whips and metal rods. Every part of Ferrino’s body hurt. From the edges of his toes to the actual top of his scalp.

  “You failed.” Bedlam said, slipping from the shadows of the tent as easily as one would walk through an open door. It was a grim sight for someone to have to walk in on, Ferrino had to imagine. All the blood and grime and stench of waste. Himself kneeling, arms bound behind his back. Beaten and bloodied. Nose crooked, lips cracked, skin around the left eye nearly swollen shut.

  He looked up as best he could. His neck cracked painfully with the effort. The guards had beaten him something fierce these past few days.

  “I wouldn’t say, failed.” He twisted his back, it popped loudly. “We are still in the process of.. negotiation." he tried to rise and promptly slid to the ground when his arms, still bound behind his back, were caught by their rope.

  Bedlam grunted, “These Dradovian’s, they seem like real rough.. negotiators.” he looked around the tent. The black lining, stained with blood, the three other tied up men, either too broken of body or mind to speak.

  Between heavy sighs, Ferrino admitted. “They are less pliable than I hoped.” He scoffed. “So rule oriented. Stuck up in their ways.” He twisted his neck a couple times some more, trying to loosen up the muscle. He only caused more painful cracks.

  “Religion will do that to a person.”

  He really didn’t want to listen to Bedlam’s criticisms. “Not all of them.”

  Bedlam raised one of his large ice white eyebrows. “Didn’t take you for a holy man.”

  Ferrino just shrugged, not really listening, “They are nothing like a southern force, let me tell you that. These Dradovians.” Another pop as he cracked his shoulder. “I could walk into a southern camp no problem, do it blindfolded and backward just for fun.” a growl churned in his lungs he was so angry. “ They'd offer me a round of cards and a fucking drink those southern dandies.” He looked off into the nothingness that was the shadows of his tent. “-but I’ll break these Northern stuckups, I know I can.”

  “Or you can just be reasonable.” Bedlam took a small knife from within the folds of his cloak. “Just let me cut the bonds, we can take you out of here. Fix you up” He took a step. “Will give the Morven Folk their gold back and then.. Tell them to brace for the worst.” A long thin knife flashed out from the folds of his cloak.

  “What more can you tell me about the Dradican faith?” Ferrino shook his head. Bedlam was a crutch, he couldn’t let the man always clean up his messes for him. Not again. “I don’t want the basics about their strict lifestyle. I need the juicy stuff. There has got to be something else we can use. Something dangerous.”

  “... Ferrino.”

  “What can you tell me about their God? Any shortcomings? Fables of his failures? They seem quite proud of It.”

  Bedlam just stared back. Saying quite a bit by saying nothing, but Ferrino wasn’t going to bite. The big man always got like this when work went sideways. He had been in tougher situations than this. Ferrino knew he had.. Even if it was hard to remember one.

  “Bedlam, I’m not giving up.” He shook the doubt from his mind, pulling at the ropes tying his wrists together. “This..” another few tugs. “..is a minor setback.” Bedlam didn’t look convinced so he pushed. “I’m in their camps… I have a meeting with this pale prophet fellow tomorrow.” He wriggled in agitation. “I’m so close, I know I can convince them.”

  “Ferrino.”

  “They’re zealots! We can use that. I bet these people would leap at the bait to bloody some imperials.” Ferrino nodded, a plan growing in his head. “Yes, yes, A chance to display which nation their God truly favors.” A real twisted grin had grown on his face then. “A bloody effigy to their lord.” An ugly laugh bubbled in his throat. “The Ionian Might, skewered upon the StoneBlades. Food for their God” The laugh whined quietly out of his seething lips, dripping with blood. Ferrino knew how he must look, knelt with a broken face, covered in blood and muck. Like a demon. One of the Watchers Above they taught him about in seminary. A beast born to dine on the flesh of man.

  Good. Maybe that’s what he was.

  Then a thunderclap nearly broke his eardrums.

  In an instant, Bedlam was inches from his face. The tent snapped in the aftershock of his momentum. The big man’s breath was hot on his skin. It was sweet like poison. “Do you have a death wish?” he whispered.

  It took Ferrino a few moments to feel the knife's edge along his neck. The big man had moved so fast, it was quite literally superhuman. He always knew Bedlam’s kind were different, but experiencing it was something else.

  “What?” it was the best he could say. The shock was thick in his mouth.

  The big, now bright blue, eyes of Bedlam rolled as if he was schooling a child.“A death wish, Ferrino Castor, do you have one?” The knife moved just a hair closer.

  “Why would you think I do?

  “Have you seen your surroundings?” His forked tongue flicked out, reptilian in its quickness. His bright, shining blue eyes pierced through Ferrino’s own. As if he was reading his soul, maybe he actually was. “You're just waiting for the ax.”

  Ferrino didn’t respond. He had none.

  Bedlam shook his head and stepped away, slipping his knife back into the folds of his endless cloak. He looked down.

  “I expected more from you.”

  The words hurt Ferrino more than he’d care to admit. He’d taken a liking to the quiet giant, even if he was growing sick of the parenting. He tried to find the conscience behind Bedlam’s eyes. “Just watch,” he shifted in his forced kneeling position as best he could so that he looked up at the giant in defiance. As he had with that stuck-up guardswomen in the gold thread. “I don’t have a death wish” Ferrino felt his classic smirk growing on his face. “Just a normal one.”

  Bedlam looked back with uncaring eyes. He shifted to leave. “Enjoy the execution.”

  “-wait, wait. Bedlam. Wait and watch.” He strained against his ropes. “From your shadows. At sunrise I’m brought to the Prophet, where.. Yes they will decide my execution.” Bedlam moved further into the shadows. Ferrino risked another beating and raised his voice. “But I bet you everything I got! Everything Bedlam, that comes sundown.. They march the other way. I bet it all! Just watch!” he was panting when he finished. Ferrino could hear the guards coming, but as he looked up at the pale face of his friend, he saw the hint of a smirk.

  “I’ll watch.” his deep voice boomed, slipping into the nothing.

  The guards flew the flaps of the tent over a moment later but it was all worth it. Now he just had to figure out how the hell he was going to convince them of anything other than killing him.

  A guard advanced, red and blue first readying for a blow. For now, it was just more shit, pain and bloody agony.