Chapter One
Hell is Hot
Roric
The sun was hot and I felt a drop of sweat make its way down through the grime; days of built up dust that I hadn’t so much as had a chance to wash off yet. I was doing well to still be alive, but I hated that I reeked of the smell of stale sweat.
Still, it was better to be alive than a rotting corpse left out for the vultures to dine on in a lonely gully somewhere. I didn’t have any spare water to wash with anyway, now that I did have some time to think about how bad I smelled.
Water, at the moment, was the most pressing problem with which I was faced. The Hagathic Wastelands were just that, a wasteland without drinkable water. It was a good place to either lose a posse of enemy riders or die of thirst. Take your pick, but I didn’t want any part of either option.
To the east, about fifty miles away, was the edge of the Attorgron forests. I could get good water there, and it was closer than the other source of water I was heading for, but it came with its own problems. For one, my pursuers would be expecting me to head for water there, not to mention the cover that the forest could offer us as we made our way north, but running into the Attorgron people would be unavoidable at some point along the way.
To them, I was a wanted man with a bounty on my head. That made me more than worth the trouble it was to them to hunt me down and stick one of those poison darts they were so fond of into me. No thanks; I’d take my chances out in the open as opposed to dying from some poison burning out my insides.
Decidedly, all my options were somewhat grim. When had it ever been any different? Not for a long time.
I glanced through the shimmering heat waves back over the way we had come. I didn’t see anything amiss, so I decided to stay where we were for a while longer. Both I and the boy needed the rest.
It would have been nice to get some sleep, but the thought of a Zoarinian lance point being rammed through my middle while I slept kept my eyes open. I hadn’t seen any signs of visible pursuit in two days, but I could feel them out there all the same. It was like an itch that wouldn’t go away.
Rats! I smelled and now I could add itching to the list of maladies of neglect under which I was suffering. The chase was definitely starting to get to me in a bad way. Going without sleep for days and being responsible for a kid would do that to you.
How had I been suckered into doing this fool’s errand anyway? It was one thing to be a man alone and be chased, but carrying along a kid laid down a whole new array of problems to contend with. I didn’t know anything about kids! Taking this kid along hadn’t been a part of the plan, but he was here and that was that. A chase was tough on man and horse alike, but on a kid it had to be especially tough and I was grateful that this kid exhibited a lot of toughness.
The kid’s toughness reminded me of my own tough childhood back in the lowlands of the Hills of Ernor, near the Zoarinian city of Cassis.
My family was not of Zoarinian lineage or of the Ernorian people either. My father had brought us to the hill country to get away from some difficulty of the past. No one knew us there and that seemed to be what my parents liked most about the place. Only I could tell that my father hadn’t been happy to be there. He would often look wistfully off towards the land of his birth in the north, and that was where his heart seemed to have stayed. The Ernor Hills were the closest he could come to the mountains of the Valley Lands, which could be seen in the distance on a clear day.
My brother and I had grown up largely alone and had few friends, as our parents had, for the most part, kept us from mingling with the local people. The most we had seen of the outside world was when harvest time came. We would float our harvest on rafts down the Tegre River to the hungry markets of the Zoarinians farther down the river.
Though my brother and I were kept from much interaction with others, we still had the love of our parents and the security of the home they had provided us.
Those had been golden days, but I hadn’t known it then. Those kind of days weren’t likely to be seen again by either myself or the poor lad, who lay curled up in a ball over by the small fire, fast asleep.
The journey from Kharta had been rough. We had been chased from the onset and it had been a near thing for a while, before I was able to buy us some time and distance by losing our pursuers temporarily in a swampy stretch of territory with which I was familiar. The boy had stood up to the task remarkably well and my respect for him had grown daily. I hadn’t directly told the boy yet that his father was dead, but I think he had probably already guessed. I’d seen him crying quietly at times, mostly at night when he had thought that I wasn’t looking. I had respected his wishes and had not let on that I had noticed him crying.
I decided to let the boy sleep a little longer. It would be better to travel after dark now anyway. Settling into a somewhat more comfortable position against the bank of a long dead stream, I continued to rest. I let my mind wander back to the past again, when I had lost my family and the innocence of my youth.
All I had left of my past was my name, Roric Fortigar, the son of Lorn and Ni’isha Fortigar. My brother’s name had been Faron. While we had lived peacefully enough in the Hills of Ernor, the world around us was not so settled. The world outside was cruel and merciless and grew more so with every day that passed.
I had been naïve to the ways of the world, until one day when it made its harsh intrusion in a way that changed my life forever.
My parents raised my brother and I differently than the hill people around us, who had in large part adopted the Zoarinian way of life. Unlike our neighbors' kids, we were taught the old ways. We learned of the Great Creator, who had made all that we saw around us. We learned how man had fallen and how he had been redeemed and much more.
As boys we didn’t really understand the concept of a fallen sinful world, and what it meant that all things would be made right some day. At the time I hadn’t been convinced that there was all that much wrong with the outside world. From what I had seen in the fall of each year, when we had taken our goods to market, the greater outside world had looked rather exciting, especially when compared to our humble little home in the hills. Our parents' adherence to the old ways caused us to be looked down upon by those around us.
The central culture of the world as we knew it was the Zoarinian Empire to the south, with its many great cities by the sea. They went about their lives far differently than my parents did. Surely so many people couldn’t have gotten it so wrong in life to be worthy of the scorn directed at them by my parents? Maybe the Zoarinians had a good reason for abandoning the old ways to which my parents still adhered.
At the time I had begun to wonder if my parents weren’t the ones that needed to change. How naïve I had been then, I thought now, as I looked back on that period of my life.
The Zoarinian culture was presented as a free society, where one could do as one so pleased, as long as it had the approval of the ruling elite, who rarely denied self expression to take place in whatever form it took, just so long as it didn’t obstruct them from making a profit. Excesses were encouraged and the old ways of honor and self control were discarded as useless, outdated virtues that shouldn’t apply to life anymore. Dissenting voices were very few to this new, self styled destiny of life, as it had something for everyone to like about it. In fact the only dissenters I knew of were my parents and it had brought unwelcome attention to both them and my brother and I. I hated it most when, because of my parents' beliefs, I was pressed by others of my own age to defend those same beliefs. I wasn’t sure that I believed in those beliefs, but out of loyalty to my parents I had to defend them.
The real trouble seemed to start when my father refused to visit a temple priestess, who requested his presence in her private chambers at the city temple after she had seen him while out walking in the marketplace during the harvest festival. Such a refusal was unheard of, as few would turn down a sensual evening with a beautiful temple priestess
behind closed doors. Priestesses rarely made advances to commoners and to refuse such an offer was regarded as an insult. I had always respected the relationship my father had with my mother, even though it was old fashioned to be committed to only one person. Turning down the priestess's offer had been the right decision for father to make and yet the cost of it had been high.
One warm summer morning they came for us. I had almost finished with my morning chores when I had seen my father, walking towards me across the barn lot, stumble and gasp hard as four brightly colored arrow shafts slammed hard into his chest with dull sounding thuds of finality. Horrified by what I had just seen, I dropped the bucket of water I had been carrying from the well and started running towards father, but he had waived me off with a violent gesture of one arm.
Several mounted Zoarinian lancers started to converge on my father from opposite ends of the barnyard. My father, still upright on his feet, had yelled to me.
“Save your mother and brother, Roric!”
My eyes had locked with his for a moment and, in dazed realization, I had sensed the weight of the responsibility he had just conveyed to me, as if it was a crushing burden I was unfit yet to manage. I had not been overly close with my father, but in that moment I felt like I knew my father in a deeper, more powerful way than I had ever known him before.
Frozen in place, I had watched him turn to meet the onrushing lancers boldly. I had come unfrozen with a jerk of consciousness then, as I remembered the responsibility he had conveyed to me to protect the family. I’d run for the house with all I’d had in me. As I ran, I watched what became of my father; I had no choice, as I had to run past him to reach the house.
He had stood there, tall and proud, and I had watched as somehow he was able to grab hold of a lowered lance and rip it from the hands of its mounted rider. Balancing the lance overhand he had thrown it like a spear at the next rider and I’d saw it impale the rider through his middle, causing him to fall backward off his horse. A third lancer, who had come up from behind my father’s blind side, impaled him through the back with his lance. Tears streaming from my eyes, I had looked away from father and run even faster for the house, determined to save my mother and brother.
My mother had already fled the house and was at the stable pushing my brother up onto one of the two horses there. She then swung up behind him, and spurred the horse forward. My mother had been a strong woman, but her face had been awash with tears, as she fought to save her youngest son. She had to have known that father was dead, because she would never have left otherwise.
“Mount up quickly, Roric!”
She had screamed at me, gesturing towards the second horse before she was gone in a cloud of dust. I had jumped the rail fence of the corral and leapt onto the back of the second horse. Wheeling the horse around, I had kneed it forward brutally in order to catch up with her. After several minutes of fast riding I had narrowed the gap between us, when I saw a group of riders coming out of a low creek bed ahead and off to our left.
Their sudden appearance ahead of us threatened to cut us off from our only chance at escape. I remembered what I had seen in my father’s eyes just before his death. He had passed the responsibility of protecting the family to me and I wasn’t going to let him down! I clenched my jaw hard; not at all sure I was doing the smart thing, as I veered my horse away from my mother’s and towards the group of riders, who were gaining on us rapidly in an effort to cut us off. I heard my mother scream, “No!” in an anguished voice, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop; she had to keep my brother safe and, deep in her heart, she knew this was what must be done in order for there to be any chance of saving my brother’s life. Briefly I wondered if I would ever see them again, and then moments later all thought was gone as my horse had slammed full tilt into the mass of riders. Pandemonium had ensued and dimly I had felt myself fly free of the horse to connect hard with the ground.
I had awoken slowly and straightened up, only to realize that I was tied to a horse which was being led by one of the Zoarinian soldiers. Seeing me awake, the rider to my left had backhanded me across the face and as my head was flung towards the right, the rider to my right backhanded me across the face as well. All of the soldiers had broken out in laughter at the antics of their companions.
My neck had felt broken and, if I hadn’t been hurting before, I was then.
The days of riding and mistreatment by my captors had seemed to flow into each other and I had been surprised when we rode into the city of Capeacal. At that time I had never before been so far south.
The city of Capeacal’s market place was like nothing I had ever seen. It was far grander than Cassis’s marketplace. Cassis’s marketplace had sold assortments of fruits, vegetables, and household wares, but Capeacal’s marketplace dealt primarily in a higher priced commodity, slaves.
I was shoved into an ill smelling, dark room beneath the marketplace’s floor. At first I had thought I was alone in the room and then, after a moment of silence, I’d heard the sounds of many captive people begin to resume in the packed quarters of the room. I’d made my way to the side of the door and leaned back against the slimy wet wall, seeking shelter from both whomever was in the cell and those who had put me here, but there was little security to be found in such places.
A dreary vision of the future had begun to take place within my mind and I had been unable to shut it out, as it had overwhelmed me with its depressed vision of the road ahead of me. Caught up in my own misery as I was, I had been ignoring the hushed conversations taking place all around me.
It was a foreign sounding dialect that wasn’t familiar to me at all. I listened to it for a while and then it dawned on me that I had heard it before. It was a dialect of speech that the Imerickian Traders of the Tranquil Islands used. I had heard them speak a couple of times when I had been with my father trading in the city of Sharpe, which we had done but rarely. Sharpe was a seaport town on the western side of the Southern Settlements. Sharpe was the farthest south that the Tranquil Islanders liked to venture to trade, because they, like the Valley Landers to the northeast, were not on good terms with the Zoarinians.
Out of the sea of foreign voices I’d overheard a conversation that I’d understood since it was in my own language.
“Krista, listen carefully to me. You will be separated from me tomorrow.”
“No, Momma!”
“Yes, Krista! It will happen and you must promise to do as I say! You are young, but it’s apparent even now that you will be beautiful one day. Tomorrow you have to take advantage of how pretty you already are and carry yourself with pride! Keep yourself as clean as you can tomorrow and they will put you in a special class.”
“Special class, Momma?”
“You will serve your new master as I served Master Nivaron, but that is not important. What is important is that you’ll have good food and at least something of a life of ease, which you won’t get as a field hand.”
“No, Momma! You can’t tell me to do this!”
“Krista, I know what I ask is terrible, but in this way you will at least be given good food, shelter, and protection from too much abuse, as long as you please your new master. You will not last long in the firan cane fields as a manual laborer!”
“I would rather die in a firan cane field and keep my self-respect than be a soulless whore like you’ve become, to ask such a thing of me!”
Slap!
“Krista you will not speak to me like that again! I’ve done what I’ve had to do! I’ve survived to care for you and your brother, after your father died!”
“You mean murdered! Besides, what good has surviving done you? Look where we are mother! And he’s not my brother!”
“Yes he is, and as for what I’ve done, it’s been to keep food in your belly and of all the choices left to us this is the safest route for you to take! You will do as I say tomorrow Krista and that is final!”
Leaning back against the damp wall behind
me, I had shaken my head slowly in empathy for the girl. My world had been completely overturned and I was without comfort to turn to, in any form. I had never experienced anything in life to prepare me for the harshness of either what I was hearing a mother tell her daughter or the personal loss I had already experienced with the loss of my family.
Who knew what was yet to come? The knowledge of that yet unknown fate ate away at me like a preying animal in the darkness. Silent tears had coursed down my cheeks and I had been grateful for the darkness around me that hid my tears from the others.
I hadn’t wanted to appear weak to anyone. I had sympathized for the girl, as much as I had for myself at the time. My mother would never have asked me to do what her mother was asking of her. How blessed I had been and not even known it! And now that I knew what I had lost, it was gone from me forever.
A crow cawed loudly, breaking my remembrance of the past momentarily. I glanced back the way we had come, but it was still clear of any visible threat.
I glanced at the sleeping boy and studied him for a moment. Yes, he was an unwanted hassle, but in some ways I was glad to be of help in saving his life. I didn’t want him to experience what I had as a young slave, that was for sure.
I would get him to his kin in the Valley Lands, along with the information that his father had given me before he had died. It was a long way to safety though and a lot could happen. There was no guarantee that the boy’s fate would turn out any differently than had mine.
I glanced at the setting sun. I still had an hour or so to kill, so I let my thoughts drift back to the past again as I rested.
I had helped the girl change her fate. At least, I’d made it possible for her to die in a more preferable way anyway.
I looked out at the horizon, over the edge of which the sun was fading, but the sunset wasn’t what I saw. In my mind’s eye I was seeing back to the day when I had been sold as a slave to the arena fighting school of Carsea.
After we had been pulled from our underground holding cell at the slave market, I’d had to repeatedly blink my eyes to adjust to the harsh daylight of the marketplace. I had stumbled several times over the uneven cobblestones of the market floor, and several times heavily armored guards had lashed out at me with their sharp stinging whips that drew blood.
The marketplace was filled with tradesmen hawking their goods. Prospective buyers filled out the rest of the market’s space.
The noise of the mob of jabbering faces, which poked and prodded at me as I walked by, caused a renewed sense of anxiety to rise up inside of me as to what my fate would soon be. The guards had begun to divide us into groups; old, young, male, and female.
My attention throughout the walk from the cell had been drawn to a woman ahead of me. She would have been quite attractive, if it hadn’t been for the hard lines etched deeply into the skin around her mouth and eyes. She had a mean look about her, too. She held a baby in her left arm almost carelessly, while her right hand gripped the forearm of a young girl that walked beside her.
The girl’s bright cinnamon red hair hung all the way to her waist. She was sure to be noticed, even though she had yet to show the maturity of a grown woman. Something told me that these two must have been the two I had overheard the night before.
A sudden disturbance off to our left caused them and the guards to all turn and glance over in that direction. I kept walking forward though. I’m not sure what possessed me to do what I did, but it felt like the right thing to do and I didn’t question my actions any further than that. My manacled hands separated apart and, as her face was turned to the side, I raised a fist and swung hard at the girl’s head.
I intentionally sideswiped her left cheek with the chunky metal protrusion of the manacles binding my hands, instead of with my whole fist. Blood spurted from where the edge of my rough manacles caught her high on the cheekbone and lower down on the cheek, ripping the flesh badly. The force of the blow, even though I had pulled the majority of the strength behind the punch off to the side, knocked her forwards breaking her mother’s hold on her arm. She fell heavily into a muddy puddle of water, which splashed all over her, dowsing her in the dirty water of the marketplace gutters. Complete shock at the unjustified hit had widened her eyes in a questioning gaze, as she looked up at me from where she lay in the muddy water. Blood trickled down her face in abandon and I mouthed two words.
“I’m sorry!”
I had barely gotten the words out when I was slammed to the ground from behind by the guards. I was only pulled back up to my feet after I had been kicked and whipped several times savagely.
My aggressive actions got me placed in a group of other surly individuals, who were unified in their dislike of me. Hitting a woman was bad, a girl worse and a fellow slave even worse than that. No matter, I didn’t regret what I had done. They just didn’t understand.
I watched as the girl and her mother were led up to the examiners. They pulled the mother to the side and shoved her towards a group of older women, who also had small children. The chief examiner grabbed the girl’s chin and held it up, examining her. He paused for a moment and then muttered something and shoved the girl towards an attendant who led her away. The attendant dragged her towards a pen that was filled with other attractive girls and young boys.
As they drew near the pen, the girl’s head had fallen forward, her dirty hair shielding her face from view. The attendant dragged her past that pen though and on down the line of slave pens towards the pen at the very end of the line.
Looking around with a dazed expression she found me in the sea of faces. She lifted a hand and slightly waved it at me, before she was jerked onwards by the attendant towards what was the field slave pen. Everyone deserves the chance to meet their end in the best way possible and I was sure she would prefer the fate of an overworked field hand, than a longer life of being used in a brothel, as a cheap vessel in the gratification of other people’s desires.
The moment of connection with the girl helped to assure me that I had done the right thing after all. I glanced around and was surprised by what I saw. The hostile stares of the men around me were gone, and in its place was respect. All of them seemed to comprehend what I had done for the girl. The hostility had been easier to bear than the respectful deference they were now showing me. It made me feel like I had to do something or be something special now, to be worthy of their respect.
I may have only been fourteen at the time, but I’d already had the large bone structure and the beginning great strength of my father budding within me. It was apparent to the buyers that what I would be most useful for was the arena wars.
Gladiatorial entertainment was the favorite pastime of many Zoarinians throughout the empire. The mortal combat of men, against other men and animals, was big business. As such, it was closely monitored by the ruling elite of the day, who got fabulously wealthy by betting on the games fought out by slave warriors.
I was bought by one of Carsea’s prominent fighting school owners. He was a big bellied man that looked at me as if I were but a piece of meat or a chew bone fit only to be thrown to the dogs. After the sale was over, I was hustled to a wagon by armed guards and tied to a shackle bolt on the floor of the wagon along with several other men.
The wagon started to move out of the marketplace at a slow pace as my life as a slave had begun. Other slave wagons had passed by ours headed towards their respective destinations within the empire. In the last wagon that passed us, I saw the girl from the marketplace at almost the same time as she saw me. We stared after each other until we lost sight of each other; my wagon going towards the southern cities and hers headed out toward the open plain.
A Warrior's Redemption Page 2
