by Aaron Bunce
“This is Tilith, our cleric. She came to your aid when you fell ill. She felt the dark presence inside you,” the Captain stated loudly, staring directly at Roman. “She came to your aid…to heal you, and it nearly consumed her.”
Roman flinched as Teague moved closer, driving the man’s blade painfully into his back. Teague stopped a few paces away, a stricken look embroidered on his face. He appeared to be on the verge of losing control.
"There is much that you need to answer for,” Teague said quietly. “You must know the Council has extended me with the authority to enact its justice, for the dead, and the living. If there is even a small semblance of mercy left within you, boy, tell us where the girl is. Tell me she yet lives!”
Roman locked eyes with Teague. “I don’t know. I am telling you the truth, I swear! Alina is the closest thing to family I have left. You have to believe me…I would never hurt her!”
“Family!” Teague scoffed and flipped Dennah’s bag, exposing the top of the glittering box. “You, of all people, have the nerve to speak of family.”
Roman’s forehead scrunched up, and he instinctively looked to Dennah. Her eyes darted from Roman, to Teague, and down to the half-covered box on the table.
“What do you mean? The nerve? My mother died giving birth to me, and my father but a few winter thaws ago. I grew up knowing only of a mother that died before she could hold me, and a father that couldn’t bring himself to speak of her,” Roman said, tears bubbling in his eyes and his fists balling up. He didn’t realize that he was shouting.
“It is probably for the best, then,” Teague replied quietly.
“What does that mean?” Roman growled back angrily. The Ifrit pushed out, his anger spurring it on. The chain around his chest started to tighten.
“Where is the girl?” Teague asked, sliding the box back into the bag and closing the flap.
“You know something about my family. If you know, tell me?” Roman said immediately.
“The girl?” Teague growled between clenched jaws.
“Please, I just need to know. Tell me!” Roman roared, the soldier’s dagger binding in the chain and cutting his back.
Teague came forward, his composure flown away. He stopped, his nose almost touching Roman’s, his face screwed up with anger. “A quick glance in that box told me everything I needed to know about you. You’re the offspring of a tainted bloodline, sired by a traitor to the Silver. You’re an animal, a monster, feeding off the pain and suffering of good people. And you will die, like your wretched parents before you.”
Teague’s words hit Roman like a hammer. The room spun, the staring faces and their gaping eyes twirling around him mockingly. He was from a tainted bloodline…his father was a traitor? It would have been less painful for Teague to simply run him through with his sword.
“W-w-what does that mean?” Roman stammered.
Tilith grunted quietly, and in a moment of quiet anticipation, her head tilted towards the ground. Dennah sobbed quietly, her eyes glistening with tears. They had all already formed their conclusions about him, based off of whatever they found in that box, but Roman had no idea what that was.
So who am I?
Teague, unlike the cleric, would not look away, however. His jaw muscles bunched up, and his lips grew tight, and before turning away, nodded to someone over Roman’s shoulder. The impact knocked Roman flat. The ground rushed up at him, slamming against his chest and face, yet again battering his aching head. Roman gasped, taking in dust and dirt that plumed into the air.
“Stand him up,” Teague said.
The room spun wildly as two men spun Roman upwards, and then shoved him hard, pinning him against the wall.
“Frenin was caring for the girl, why kill him?” Teague asked, walking to the opposite wall. His hand clutched lightly to the pummel of his sword. He inspected the knickknacks displayed on the oaken chest.
“I didn’t kill…him,” Roman grunted, as the room continued to spin. The heavy chain squeezed him, growing tighter the more he fought. He had to work just to spit out the words.
“Why did you kill the old man?” Teague asked, seemingly unsatisfied with Roman’s answer. He strode forward. “He so adamantly defended you, when all others would not.”
“I didn’t hurt anyone,” Roman grunted. His thoughts suddenly shifted to Frenin, and he swore that he could feel the elder in the adjoining room. The sour smell, as it had been in the orchard, and the field at Garon’s, lingered in the air like a foul perfume.
“I’ll ask again. Where is the girl?” Teague stepped forward, finally raising his gaze to look down at Roman.
“I don’t know. She was gone before we got here, someone else must’ve been in the room when Frenin returned,” Roman said desperately.
Teague’s expression hardened and his eyes narrowed. Roman could tell he didn’t believe him. Teague nodded and one of his men stepped forward. Roman barely acknowledged him before he lashed out, slapping him hard across the face.
“The girl?” Teague prodded when Roman lifted his head once again. His face stung. The soldier struck him again, slapping him with the backside of his hand this time.
“The girl?” Teague repeated, his gaze sliding to the ceiling.
Roman licked his lips, tasting blood. “I don’t know.”
Teague nodded and the soldier reared back and drove his fist hard into his stomach. Roman slumped, his knees going weak, but the men standing next to him wouldn’t let him fall away. Roman choked and gagged, fighting for breath that wouldn’t come, all the while searching desperately for anything he could say to convince them that he wasn’t the monster they seemed convinced he was.
“You set fire to a barn. We found three bodies inside, all mangled in ways even I have not seen before. And you…what happened to your hair, your eyebrows?” Teague asked. “You know…I don’t want to know. Now tell me, where is the girl?” Teague asked again.
Roman searched the man’s eyes, trying to read his face, but his expression was indecipherable and cold. “I would never hurt her…Alina. And I didn’t kill Banus, even…” Before Roman could finish the soldier standing before him swung in with several vicious blows to his stomach.
Roman felt his insides churn as his wind was knocked away again. He gagged, trying to plead with them, but what little breath he was able to prize was woefully inadequate. As the man reared up to strike again he felt a familiar and frightening sensation inside. He was losing control. This time when the man’s fist struck his stomach he didn’t feel the pain, only the heat that blossomed inside.
The heat exploded inside him, but the chain wrapped around him grew tighter yet. He could smell the iron links growing hot. It was a sour, metallic odor.
The soldier leaned in close, breathing hard from his exertions. He whispered in his ear, but jumped back suddenly, shaking his hand.
“Damn sakes! That chain is screaming hot, Captain!”
“You were right, Tilith. It works,” Teague said.
Roman closed his eyes, and fought to contain the Ifrit’s putrid will. The darkness of his eyelids wasn’t any reprieve either. He caught glimpses of fire and smoke, fire-bleached skeletons and mountains of ash.
“Open your eyes and look at me, filth,” Teague growled, but Roman couldn’t. He didn’t want them to see his eyes. He was afraid of what they would see inside him.
“Look at me, boy, and tell me where the girl is!” Teague roared.
He was so close Roman could feel the saliva spattering his face. Roman started to shake, and the chain grew hotter still. Something was going to break.
Teague grabbed the front of Roman’s shirt and wrenched him up so hard that his feet left the ground. Roman was floating backwards until he slammed into the wall. Fingers wound around his neck and pushed his head back.
Roman choked down a breath, finding a small measure of control, fighting for a moment to control the Ifrit’s fiery rage. He finally ripped open his eyelids and looked up into Teague’s face. The
heat welled up in his eyes, burning his lids and trickling down his face like tears.
Teague’s face was cut by hard lines and shadows. His expression broke, however, as a flickering light cut the shadow and reflected in the window behind him.
Roman watched as a hint of fear flashed over the stoic commander’s face. He released his bruising grip on Roman’s arms and stepped back, motioning to the men who stood by the door.
“Blindfold and gag them, so that neither of them can utter a single, dark word. Ensure the chain is secure and bind his hands and feet with rope. They aren’t left alone tonight,” Teague yelled as he backed away slowly, never breaking eye contact.
* * * *
During the remaining hours of darkness Roman sat, huddled in the dark corner of the bedroom, blind, gagged, and shivering from the cold. He could hear Dennah breathing nearby, and occasionally a soldier entered the room and paced back and forth.
Eventually he heard the feet of a chair scrape against the floor nearby and the groan of wood as someone sat down. The soldier started breathing heavily, and tapping the blade of his sword against the ground.
“Morning’s coming, boy…morning’s coming,” the man whispered. He continued making threats and promises, tapping his sword against the ground intermittently, making sleep impossible.
Not that he could sleep. Teague’s words continued to swirl around in his thoughts. He had never heard anyone say anything but kind and respectful things about his father. People loved him. Were they wrong?
Roman battered his mind over and over again, going over memories of his father, as well as the vision of his mother, trying to reconcile what he knew, versus what Teague claimed. The Ifrit swirled in and around his troubled thoughts, its fiery will a horrible and ceaseless reminder that he wasn’t truly alone.
He couldn’t tell when morning came. He could still hear the storm raging outside, but heard heavy footsteps approach from down the hall. The floorboards creaked and groaned subtly just beyond the doorway as a warm light flared, the gentle glow cutting through the fabric of his blindfold.
The lantern swung in close as the blindfold pulled free. Roman repelled from the piercing light. A wiry soldier stepped in and knelt down next to him. He heard the man fumbling with something.
Roman could smell his hot breath, and the sour odor of his body. He felt the chains tug, and heard them jingle. It was an unfittingly jolly sound that contrasted the weight they represented for him.
The chains loosened for a moment, but pulled tighter than ever. Two men wrestled him around until he came face to face with a third person. He knew it was Teague, despite the darkness that masked his face.
The captain lifted his lantern, allowing the light to spill out over his rigid form. Dark bags hung under his eyes, and his face looked haggard.
“Bring them,” Teague said in a low, gruff voice, before turning and walking out.
The soldiers hefted Roman out into the hall, dragging him along like a sack of grain. He could hear Dennah struggling behind him, her strangled sobs causing his panic to rise. The two men pulled him along until they reached the top or the stairs, where they paused.
“His feet…” the smaller of the two men said, drawing Teague’s attention to Roman’s ankles.
“Leave him bound. We take no chances,” he replied without turning, and trumped down the remaining stairs.
Roman felt his chest tighten a little more and deep inside, the Ifrit stirred. The chain was already growing warm once again. The two men tightened their grip around his arms and heaved him forward.
Roman’s feet floated for a moment as the two men hefted him down the narrow stairwell. They stumbled several times, clenching and cursing, until finally depositing him roughly onto the worn rug of the first floor.
The two men dragged him out the front door of Frenin’s large house. Roman’s stomach dropped as they stepped out into the swirling cold. It wasn’t the pelting snow or swirling winds, but the crowd of people gathered in the lane to greet him. He could feel all of their eyes upon him, judging, and scorning him with every step forward.
His feet dangling, they trudged out into the snow. The closest townsfolk, bundled in heavy coats and furs, scattered. They turned and Roman’s gaze fell upon a horrible sight. During the night, while Roman was wrapped in chains, Teague’s men worked to line the roadway with the bodies of the town’s fallen.
They passed somberly, to take account for the long line of prone bodies. He saw Max, and the other city guards, their shrunken and macabre forms instantly flashing him back to the orchard.
Frenin, and the women who helped care for Alina, were there too, left to lie in the snow as a morbid testimonial. They forced Roman and Dennah down the line of bodies, parading them along like buyers in a roadside market. Roman looked down onto Banus’ charred figure, his sword still skewering his char-blackened body. Even the blade was blackened and misshapen, permanently fused to wretched man’s flesh.
The frigid winds couldn’t mask the bittersweet smell of decay. Roman turned away from Banus just as something hit him in the back of the head.
“Murderers!” someone cried out as Roman pulled away, only to be struck once again.
A din rose up from the gathered crowd, and as the snow fell heavily around them, rotten fruit flew. The soldier’s pushed Roman and Dennah forward, elbowing and kneeing them in the back to keep them from turning, or shying away from the barrage.
Children ran out of the crowd, brandishing sticks or rocks. They darted forward, whipping at Roman and Dennah. Several threw rocks at them with complete disregard, cursing them as villains and monsters.
They reached the end of Frenin’s house and turned, tromping back towards the stable. One of Teague’s men was waiting for them next to a wide stump, his hand resting casually on the handle of a stout woodcutter’s axe. As Roman and Dennah approached, the crowd pressed in, growing louder and more unruly.
“Kill ‘im! Kill the murderers,” someone from the crowd yelled.
The soldiers shoved Roman down to his knees, pinning his chest onto the low, snow-covered stump. A boot pressed down onto his back and the soldier hefted the axe onto his shoulder. Roman turned his neck and looked up into Teague’s face as the Captain walked around beside him.
Grim faced, Teague considered him. “I act for what is right and true, as granted authority by your Council of Lords, as pledged and beheld by Earl Thatcher, your provincial Earl and due guardian. You will answer for your barbarism, Roman Erland. For the high crime of murder and savagery against the innocent, I condemn you to die.”
Markus Teague’s words faded away, effectively drown out by the din of Bardstown’s gathered. Roman caught a flash of silver as the soldiers above him shifted nervously. Teague turned away, considering the crowd as he slid his hand down onto the handle of his sword.
More rotten vegetables rained down, pelting Roman and the soldier holding the axe. The man flung his arm up and cursed, the movement forcing the axe head to grind back and forth against Roman’s neck.
The commander turned to the crowd before growling, “Silence!” The mob reluctantly fell quiet.
“May J’ohaven judge you,” Teague added, looking down to Roman one last time, and then nodded to the soldier holding the axe.
Everything went silent around him. Terror bit deep inside, stealing his breath and nearly seizing his heart as he felt the blade of the axe shift against his neck. In response, the fire started to churn. For a moment, he could feel the Ifrit’s will blanketing him. It wanted to burn everything and everyone around him, indiscriminately. But the chain held it back, swelling and growing hotter in response.
The weight of the axe lifted away and Roman shut his eyes, anticipating the strike that would end it all. Part of him welcomed it. Part of him longed for the peace of the black, and an end to the struggle and all of the pain, especially after what he learned the night before. If only it could have ended before Teague tainted every cherished memory of his parents.
A strange sense of excitement filled him in that moment. Maybe he would see her again. Maybe death would be the road that finally led him back to her. The crowd grew chaotic and then the woman’s voice broke through all of the rest.
“Captain, stop!”
Footsteps sounded as someone ran towards them. He heard people moving above him. Roman twisted his body and craned his neck. The soldier stood above him, the axe resting on his shoulder.
He watched the brown haired cleric, who now stood before captain Teague. Roman watched in horror, his mind struggling to decipher the unintelligible words passing between them.
“…never find…the girl.” He caught familiar words from Teague and the cleric’s heated conversation.
“There are still ways,” the woman argued, and Teague’s face grew very tight, his mouth pulling into a scowl.
“I tire of this argument, Tilith. He is too dangerous, especially if people learn the truth. He dies!”
“Markus please, hear me out,” Tilith argued defiantly, but Teague cut her off with an upraised hand.
“You would see these murderers live to take another breath, to see another sunset because of one orphan girl?” Teague hissed.
“If it means saving an innocent’s life…yes,” Tilith answered back honestly. “You know the oaths I have taken. What of her?” Tilith added, gesturing behind Roman, to where Dennah knelt, shivering in the snow.
“She was with him in the elder’s house. There are those that say they have been inseparable since the caravan arrived. Perhaps he bewitched her somehow. Muddled her mind and made her help him. I don’t know, Tilith. These dark affairs are supposed to be handled by your order,” Teague said.
