Birth of a Killer

by Shan, Darren

  When the silkworms had eaten enough, they spun a cocoon around themselves. It took three or four days. After that they were stored in an even warmer room for eight or nine days, then baked in an oven to kill the worm but preserve the cocoon.

  That was when Larten, Vur, and their team went into action. When the cocoons were delivered, they sorted through them, dividing them into piles on the basis of size, color, and quality. Then they dipped the cocoons into vats of hot water to loosen the threads. Once they’d done that, they passed the cocoons to another team, whose members unwound the threads onto spools, which were finally given to the weavers at the looms.

  Although Larten couldn’t remember what color his hair had been when he first came to the factory, he would never forget the first time he dunked his hands in a vat of near-boiling water. Traz watched, smiling, as the boy worked up the courage to stick in his fingers. The foreman laughed when Larten touched the hot water and jerked away with a yelp. Then he grabbed the boy’s hands by the wrists and jammed them in. He held them under, chuckling sadistically while Larten cried and his flesh reddened.

  Larten studied his fingers. They were callused, stained, and cut in many places. He didn’t mind the calluses and stains, but the cuts worried him. Silkworms were disgusting, filthy creatures. Larten had seen many of his team lose a finger or a hand when a dirt-encrusted cut became infected. Some had even died of blood poisoning.

  There was nothing worse than the stench of gangrene. Sometimes a child tried to hide an infected wound in the vain hope that it would miraculously cure itself. But the smell always gave it away, and Traz would gleefully cut out the rot with a heated knife or hack off the diseased limb with an ax.

  Larten lived in fear of infection. He hoped he would have the courage, if the day ever came, to cut himself before Traz could, and cleanse the wound with a firing brand. But he knew it would be a difficult thing to do, and he was afraid he’d try to hide it, as so many others had before him.

  “I see some green,” Vur murmured, looking closely at Larten’s left hand. Larten’s heart beat faster, and his head darted forward. Then he caught Vur’s smile.

  “Cur!” he growled, playfully punching his cousin.

  “They’re fine,” Vur laughed. “The sweetest pair of hands in the factory. Now let’s stop wasting time. There are cocoons to boil.”

  Sighing, Larten reached into his bucket. He took out a few cocoons, steadied himself, then drove his hands deep into the heart of the bubbling vat. The pain was fierce to begin with, but after a few seconds his toughened flesh adjusted, and he worked without complaint for the rest of the morning.

  Chapter Three

  The hours passed slowly and quietly. Dunking cocoons wasn’t a demanding job, and boredom quickly set in. Larten would have loved to chat with Vur and the others on his team. But Traz prowled the factory relentlessly, and although he was a large man, he could move as lithely as a cat. If the foreman caught you talking, he would whip you until he drew blood. There was a rumor that he’d once cut out a girl’s tongue and kept it in his wallet. So everybody went about their business in silence, only talking if it was work-related.

  The fires beneath the vats were kept burning around the clock–slaves worked throughout the night–and the room was forever smoke-filled. It wasn’t long before the children were coughing and spitting, rubbing grit from their eyes. Larten could never get the taste of smoke out of his mouth. Even in dreams his tongue was heavy with soot.

  His clothes stank too, as did Vur’s. Some nights, when Larten’s mother was in a foul mood, she would scream at the boys and force them to undress. She’d toss their clothes into the yard, and they’d have to go to bed early to hide their naked bodies from Larten’s jeering brothers and sisters.

  Larten’s father hadn’t wanted to send the boys to the factory. He hated the place as much as they did, even though he’d escaped and now labored elsewhere. He had managed to find work in other areas for the older children, but jobs were scarce when it came time for Larten and Vur to earn a living. The silk factory had recently won a lucrative contract, and Traz was offering halfway decent wages. There was nowhere else for the unlucky pair to go.

  Larten had to keep the fire beneath his vat at a constant heat. As soon as he felt the temperature of the water dropping, he fed the flames with an armful of logs from a mound at the back of the room.

  Across from him, Vur finished dunking another batch of cocoons, then set off at a jog for the pit out back. Traz reluctantly accepted the need for toilet breaks, but if he caught you walking instead of running, you were guaranteed a whipping.

  Larten grinned. Vur had a weak bladder, and most days he had to go to the pit three times to Larten’s once. Vur tried drinking less, but it made no difference. Traz had beaten him in the early days, when he thought the boy was making excuses. But eventually he realized that Vur’s complaint was genuine, and though he still cuffed Vur occasionally, he let the wretch go as often as he needed to.

  Vur looked worried when he returned this time.

  “What’s wrong?” Larten whispered.

  “One of the owners was with Traz,” Vur panted. “They were on their way to inspect the room of baby worms.”

  Word spread and everyone upped the tempo. It was bad news whenever one of the owners came to visit. Traz got nervous in the presence of his employers. He would meekly lead his boss around, a false smile plastered in place, sweating like a pig. As soon as the visitor departed, Traz would take a few swigs from a bottle of rum that he kept in his office, then storm furiously through the factory, finding fault wherever he looked.

  They were hard days when Traz was on the warpath. No matter what you did, he could turn on you. Even the most skillful workers on the looms–normally the best-treated in the factory–had suffered lashings at times like this.

  Larten prayed while he worked, begging a variety of gods to keep Traz away from their vats. Though Larten wasn’t religious, he figured there was no harm in covering all the angles when trouble was in the air.

  They heard a roar, and every child lowered their head and dunked cocoons as fast as they could. The problem was, they had to leave the cocoons in the water until they had softened properly. If Traz found hard cocoons in their baskets, it would be far worse than if he thought they were going slowly.

  Traz entered like a bear, growling and glaring, hoping someone would glance up at him. But all the children stared fixedly into their vats. He was pleased to see that most of them were trembling. That sapped some of the fire from his rage, but he needed to hand out three or four more beatings before he’d really start to calm down.

  A girl lost her grip on a couple of cocoons as Traz was passing, and they bobbed to the surface. He was on her like a hawk. “Keep them down!” he bellowed, swatting the back of her head. She winced and drove the cocoons to the base of the vat, soaking the sleeves of her dress.

  “Sorry, sir,” the girl gasped.

  Traz grabbed her hair–she was new to the team and had made the mistake of not cutting it short–and jerked her face up to his. “If you ever do that again,” he snarled, “I’ll bite off your nose.”

  It would have been funny if anyone else had made such a ludicrous threat. But Traz had bitten off more than one nose in his time–a good number of ears too–and they all knew that he meant it. Nobody snickered.

  Traz released the girl. He wasn’t interested in newcomers. He knew the younger children were terrified of him and probably dreamed about him when they went to bed every night. They were too easy to scare. He wanted to work on some of the more experienced hands, remind a few of the older lot of his power, make sure they didn’t start taking him for granted.

  He cast his gaze around. There was a tall boy in one corner, a lazy piece of work. Traz started to move in on him, but then he caught sight of Vur Horston and changed direction.

  Traz slowly strolled past Vur, giving him the impression that he’d escaped the foreman’s wrath. But when he was about four stri
des past, he stopped, turned, and stepped up behind the boy.

  Vur knew he was in trouble, but he worked on, not giving any sign that he was aware of Traz’s presence. Larten could see that his cousin was in for a beating, and although he risked drawing attention to himself, he raised his head slightly to watch. He felt sick and hateful, but there was nothing he could do.

  For a while Traz didn’t say anything, just studied Vur as he dunked cocoons and held them beneath the surface of the water. Then he stuck a thick, dirty finger into the vat and held it there for a couple of seconds.

  “Lukewarm,” he said, withdrawing the finger and sucking it dry.

  Vur gulped but didn’t move. He wanted to throw more sticks on the fire–even though the heat was fine–but he had to keep the cocoons down. If he released them early, he’d be in an even worse situation than he was now.

  Behind Vur’s back, Traz scowled. He’d hoped the boy would panic, release the cocoons, and give the foreman an excuse to batter him.

  “You’re a vile, useless piece of work,” Traz said. He tried to think of something more cutting, then recalled someone telling him that the boy was an orphan. “An insult to the memory of your mother,” Traz added, and was delighted to note the boy’s back stiffen with surprise and anger.

  “You didn’t know that I knew your mother, did you?” Traz said slyly, walking around the vat, cracking his knuckles, warming to the game.

  “No, sir,” Vur croaked.

  “She didn’t work here, did she?”

  “No.”

  “So where do you think I knew her from?”

  Vur shook his head. Across from him, Larten guessed what the foreman was up to, but there was no way he could warn Vur. He just hoped that Vur was reading Traz’s intentions too. Usually Vur was a better judge of people than Larten was, but fear had a way of shaking up a person’s thoughts.

  “Well?” Traz purred.

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Inns,” Traz declared grandly. “I knew her from inns.”

  Vur’s head rose and he frowned. Larten groaned—his cousin had swallowed the bait. This was going to be bad.

  “Beg pardon, sir, but you’re mistaken. My mother didn’t work in an inn.”

  “She did,” Traz sniffed.

  “No, sir,” Vur said. “She was a seamstress.”

  “By day,” Traz jeered. “But she earned a bit extra by night.” He gave Vur a few seconds to dwell on that. “Worked in a lot of inns. I met with her many times.”

  Vur was too young to have kissed a girl, but there were few true innocents in the world at that time. He knew what the foreman was implying. His cheeks flushed. The worst thing was, he couldn’t say for sure that it was a lie. He was almost certain that Traz was toying with him, but Vur had few memories of his parents, so he couldn’t dismiss the insult as an outrageous piece of slander.

  “She wasn’t a pretty thing,” Traz continued, relishing the twisted look on Vur’s face. “But she was pretty good at her job. Aye?”

  Vur started to tremble, but not with fear. He had always been able to control his temper–much better than Larten could–but he’d never been subjected to an insult of this nature before.

  Traz whispered something in Vur’s ear. The boy’s face went white, and a lone cocoon bobbed up inside the vat.

  “Keep the bloody things down!” Traz roared, punching Vur hard in the left side of his head. Vur was slugged sideways and lost his grip on the cocoons. They all shot to the top. “Idiot!” Traz yelled, and followed it up with cruder curses, each accompanied by a blow to Vur’s head.

  Vur tried to push the cocoons down again but was knocked away from the vat by the bullying foreman, then to the ground. As he hit the floor, Traz kicked the boy in the stomach. Vur cried out with pain, then threw up over Traz’s boot.

  The foreman’s fury doubled. Cursing the boy with his vilest insults, he grabbed cocoons from the vat and lobbed them at Vur’s face. Vur retreated like a crab, trying to avoid the soggy missiles. Larten and the others watched with their jaws open. They had never seen Traz as mad as this. Nobody was bothering with work any longer. All eyes were on the furious bully and his defenseless victim.

  When the vat ran out, Traz plucked cocoons from the vat next to it. He had never before manhandled the valuable balls of silken thread, but something inside him had snapped. It wasn’t anything Vur had said or done. This had been building within the hate-filled foreman for a long time, and Vur was simply in the wrong place at the worst possible moment.

  Traz stamped after the fleeing Vur, pelting him with cocoons, calling the boy and his mother all sorts of disgusting names. Larten saw Vur getting close to the door and prayed his cousin wouldn’t make it. He had a vision of Traz slamming the door shut on Vur, over and over, smashing the bony boy to pieces. It would be better if Vur collapsed in the middle of the floor. All Traz could hit him with then would be his fists, his feet, and cocoons.

  As if responding to Larten’s silent prayer, Vur stopped crawling and held his ground ahead of the advancing foreman. But Vur hadn’t stopped to take a beating. Something had switched inside him, just as it had inside the vicious Traz. Vur knew it was lunacy, but he couldn’t stop himself. Maybe it was a reaction to one of the insults aimed at his dead mother. Maybe a bone had shattered in his ribs and the pain drove him momentarily insane. Or maybe life had been leading him to this point since he first stepped into the factory, and it was simply his destiny to one day hit back at a world that treated helpless children so repulsively.

  Vur snatched a cocoon from the floor, hurled it at Traz, and screamed, “Leave me alone, you…” He paused as the cocoon struck Traz between his eyes, then smiled and finished with an insult every bit as crude as any the foreman had used.

  Traz came to a stunned halt. The cocoon had only left a wet, slimy mark behind, and he’d been called far worse in his time by drunkards, scoundrels, and women of ill repute. But no child had ever spoken that way to him. And he had never been struck in front of a crowd of gaping children.

  Traz was a beastly man and always had been. But in that second he slipped beyond the boundaries of mere brutality. He had beaten children senseless in the past. He had chewed off noses and ears, and the story about cutting out a girl’s tongue was true. Children had died under his watch from festering wounds and starvation, and he had laughed at their agonies. But he had never set out to openly murder one of his crew.

  As the cocoon dripped on the floor and the echoes of Vur’s curse died away, Traz lost control of himself. It was abrupt and awful, and before anyone knew it was coming, he had already launched himself at the boy.

  Traz scooped Vur up from the floor with one huge paw. Vur cursed him again and hit him with a fist instead of a soft cocoon. But Traz was in no mood to play. Instead of beating the boy, he swept Vur over to the nearest vat and shoved a cringing girl out of his way. Before Vur could protest, Traz upended him and thrust him underwater, pushing him all the way to the bottom and holding his head there with one thick, hairy, powerful hand.

  Vur kicked out wildly. One of his feet struck Traz’s chin. The foreman grunted and slipped. Vur bobbed to the surface like a cocoon. But then Traz regained his balance and pushed Vur down again, using his free arm to bend back the boy’s legs. Ignoring the heat of the water, he held Vur in place, fingers squeezed tight into the flesh of the boy’s skull.

  “Let him go!” Larten shouted, surprising even himself.

  Traz’s eyes flared and he bared his teeth. “Stay out of this!”

  “Stop it!” Larten cried. “You’ll kill him!”

  “Aye,” Traz chuckled. “That’s what I’m aiming to do.”

  Larten had lived in fear of the foreman since the age of eight, but there was no time for terror on that cold, gray Tuesday. Vur was drowning. Larten had to act swiftly, or it would be too late.

  Abandoning the safety of his vat, Larten raced towards the laughing Traz and threw himself at the monstrous man. The floor was wet,
and he hoped Traz would lose his footing when he was tackled. If he could get Vur out of the vat, they’d flee like rats and never come back. His father wouldn’t care, not when Larten told him what had happened. There were limits to what even the likes of Traz could get away with.

  But Traz had clocked the Crepsley boy’s every move. He anticipated the leap and adjusted his stance. When Larten threw himself forward, Traz simply let go of Vur’s legs–not thrashing now–and slammed a fist down on Larten’s skull.

  Larten felt as if his head had been caved in. For a few seconds he came close to blacking out. He would have fainted any other time, but he knew Vur needed him. He couldn’t afford to fall unconscious. So, drawing strength from deep within himself, he shook his head and lurched to his knees.

  Traz was surprised. He thought he’d killed the boy, or at least hit him so hard that he’d slump around simplemindedly for the rest of his days. Even in the midst of his murderous fit, he found himself respecting the way Larten hauled himself up, first to his knees, then to his feet. His legs were swaying like a drunk’s, but Traz admired the boy for rising to make a challenge.

  The worst of the foreman’s rage ebbed away, and he grunted. “Stay down, you fool.”

  Larten moaned in reply and staggered forward. This time he didn’t try to hit the huge man. He was only focused on Vur’s legs. They were as still as a crushed dog’s, and Larten knew he had mere seconds in which to fish out his cousin—if it wasn’t already too late.

  Traz squinted at the advancing child. When he realized Larten was only worried about the drowning boy, Traz looked down and hissed. Vur Horston was no longer moving, and no bubbles of air were trickling from his mouth.

  Traz felt no guilt, merely unease. Though he doubted his employers would care too much if word of this incident reached them, there was always the possibility that they might decide he had gone too far. Releasing Vur’s legs, he stepped away from the vat and wrung water from the sleeves of his jacket, thinking hard.