Who am I kidding? I was still a noble. My worst days were much better than the best days most of these folks ever had. I wonder how many of them would have endured father’s beatings for the chance to have a place to live, food to eat, and clothes to wear? Everything I think I know means nothing as soon as I walk through those gates, Blaine thought. And my real education begins.
The huge gates opened, and the wagons rumbled into the prison’s inner courtyard. Torches in iron sconces cast a red glow, illuminating the open space nearest the gate. Velant was larger than Blaine had supposed, with at least a dozen large, boxy wooden buildings, likely barracks, dormitories, or work buildings. A single squat, ugly building of hewn stone hunkered on one side of the courtyard. Rows of soldiers stood not far beyond where the wagons came to a halt.
The prisoners stumbled out of the wagons, heads down, doing their best to attract as little attention as possible. They were all hungry, since there had been no food since early that morning. A few of the convicts looked as if they might collapse, and Blaine wondered if the guards would leave them where they lay, a warning to the others.
Even Verran had the sense to remain quiet as the soldiers who drove the wagons lined the new convicts up for inspection. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the torch light, Blaine could make out more details—a set of stocks, a whipping post, and a large, prominent gallows. The guards marched them to stand in front of a hole dug in the ice that looked an awful lot like an open grave.
While Blaine had been lucky enough to know little of Velant before his sentencing, his fellow prisoners had heard plenty or rumors from the sailors who frequented the bars in Castle Reach, and from the family and friends of other unlucky convicts. On board, they had traded tales, and even if the stories had grown with the telling, Velant was a place of horrors.
Standing in the cold night air beneath the flickering torches, under the merciless gaze of the guards, Blaine could believe it. Though the prison guards, like the convicts, would never return to Donderath, sailors gained plenty of news from the colonists in Bay-town. Aboard the Cutlass, Blaine heard the whispered rumors of oubliettes, of prisoners left to die in of exposure or staked out for wild animals to savage, of convicts worked until they dropped in the ruby mines or hard-scrabble farm fields or tossed overboard from the herring ships when their usefulness was over. Velant was likely all those horrors, and more.
“Attention!” The guards snapped to rigid formation as two men strode from the stone building toward the new prisoners. “Prepare for review by Commander Prokief and Warden-Mage Ejnar.”
Prokief was a bear of a man with the manner of a brawler, tall and broad shouldered with a cloud of unruly dark hair and a full dark beard. He wore a full dress uniform here at the end of the world, where Blaine would have thought such formalities were likely to have given way to practicality. Prokief’s chest glittered with a row of medals, a medallion hung from a wide ribbon around his neck, and a gold ring with a huge ruby glistened on his right hand. His cape was draped over one shoulder as if to show that Prokief defied even the weather. On first glance, Blaine might have been inclined to dismiss Prokief as a puffed-up martinet, but a glance at the commander’s cold, pitiless eyes revealed that would be a mistake.
Prokief was known for his brutality on the battlefield as much as for his effectiveness. Blaine had heard whispers about Prokief, a man some still called the ‘Butcher of Breseshwa’ for a battle he had won by sheer brutality and unmatched cruelty. Prokief had been awarded a medal for his service, then ‘promoted’ to his position at Velant Prison when King Merrill no longer had need of the monster Prokief had become.
Ejnar was taller than Prokief but thinner, and wore long gray robes beneath a smoke-colored cape. The guards seemed to regard him with even more fear than they felt for Prokief. Where Prokief’s hair and beard were trimmed to military regulation, Ejnar had long dark hair and a shaggy, unkempt beard. He had the look of a fanatic in his eyes, and a hard set to his mouth.
Prokief stopped halfway down the line of assembled prisoners. He regarded them disdainfully, eyes narrowed, as if already deciding who to winnow.
“Today, you are dead men.” Prokief’s voice boomed over the quiet courtyard. “There is no escape from Velant, and no return from Edgeland. Your lives are in my hands. There is no higher authority than me, here in Velant Prison. I decide whether you live or how you die, whether you eat or starve.”
Two of the guards strode forward when Prokief snapped his fingers. One man lifted a horn and blew the mournful notes of a song Blaine recognized with a shudder, a hymn to the god Torven, lord of the Sea of Souls, a petition for the dead. The second soldier sang the chant, a litany familiar to most Donderans, the last words said over a corpse before it was lowered into the ground.
Prokief snatched a cloth away that covered something at the head of the icy grave. A body lay shrouded on a pallet, and in the dim light it took Blaine a moment to realize it was an effigy and not a corpse.
“You are the dead,” Prokief shouted above the cold wind. “This is your grave, your body, your ritual of passing. No one returns from Velant, as no one returns from the Sea of Souls or the Unseen Realm. Here, you are the ghosts, and I am the left hand of Torven, empowered by the king and gods to mete out your punishment. So shall it be.”
The singer and the horn finished the notes of the funeral dirge as soldiers lowered the effigy into the grave and shoveled the ice in on top of the ‘body.’ Blaine knew that it was all sadistic theater, part of Prokief’s way of breaking their spirits, but he could not suppress the shiver that chilled his soul.
Prokief raked the prisoners with his gaze, but no one was bold or foolhardy enough to challenge him. Blaine noted the bullwhip coiled at Prokief’s belt. It did not look as if it were for show. But his attention returned to the tall, silent man who stood just behind Prokief and whose presence raised the hackles on the back of Blaine’s neck.
Ejnar is a mage? Blaine wondered. It would make sense for Prokief to have an unfair advantage. After all, there must be more prisoners here than guards, and even an army can’t hold off a rebellion when they’re outnumbered without reinforcements.
“Tonight,” Prokief said, “you will be assigned to barracks, given clothing adequate to the environment, and put into the work groups you will form in the morning. Life here in the arctic is very simple. Obey my rules, obey the guards, do what is required of you, and you may live to collect your Ticket of Leave, if the gods smile on you.” The hard line of Prokief’s mouth gave Blaine a suggestion of just how unlikely the commander considered the odds of that working out well to be.
“Disobey, cause problems, and you will be punished. Repeated infractions will not be tolerated.” Prokief eyed the line of new prisoners. “You cannot hide from the warden-mages. Step out of line, and I will know. Death in Velant, to those who cannot or will not comply, is not quick or painless.” A cold smile came to his lips. “I assure you, there are much, much worse things than death, and those who break the rules discover that.”
Prokief and Ejnar stood back and a man in a captain’s uniform stepped forward. “I am Captain Jumon. Let me introduce you to your new home,” he said. “Over there is the gallows. How often there’s a hanging depends on you. We don’t have the food or the patience for shirkers or troublemakers. Just realize that the more prisoners we hang, the more work there is for the rest of you to do.” His implication was clear. Prokief intended to rely on the self-interest of frightened prisoners to keep the would-be rebels in line.
“Hanged men are the lucky ones,” the captain continued. “That pole in the yard gets used for whippings. Sometimes, once discipline has been administered, the prisoner is left hanging there until the body freezes solid, as an example to the others.” There was no inflection in the captain’s voice, no acknowledgement that the prisoners were human beings. Any humanity the captain possessed had disappeared long ago.
“And then there are the Holes,” Jumon said. “Deep in the ice
, dark and cold. Toss the strongest man in one of those Holes after a thorough whipping and let him freeze for a few days in the darkness, and what’s left of him that doesn’t freeze off comes out crying like a baby.” A glint of satisfaction in the captain’s eyes told Blaine the man enjoyed seeing prisoners put in their place. “Got gibbets too—they get plenty cold in the winter wind. Best you keep that in mind.”
“Magic is forbidden,” the captain continued. “The warden-mages will know if you’ve got magic and they’ll know if you use magic. Any use of magic against the guards or the warden-mages will be dealt with swiftly, painfully, and permanently.”
Interesting, Blaine thought. Most people in Donderath had some kind of small magic talent, whether it was being able to call a flame without a spark, keep milk from souring, or heal a wound gone bad. Can they actually keep people from doing magic or just intimidate them out of trying? And if magic still works here, I can’t believe prisoners don’t use it—they just don’t dare get caught.
“Female prisoners will work in the kitchens and laundry,” Captain Jumon shouted above the wind. “You’ll tend the sheep, shear them, and spin the wool, run the looms and sew the clothing.” He paused and looked up and down the line.
“Male prisoners are not to be in those areas unless delivering materials; any disobedience will result in flogging. Try it a second time and you’ll lose your balls.” His smirk made it clear that he would not object to meting out punishment.
“The rest of you will work where you’re needed. That means the ruby mines, the farm fields, and on occasion, the herring fleet. There are chores to be done—blacksmithing, cartwright, tanner, joiner, and gravedigger,” he added. “We’re on our own up here, so there are crops to sow and harvest, livestock to tend and butcher, nets to weave, hides to tan. How much food is available depends on how hard you work. You don’t work, you don’t eat.”
Prokief and his bully boys seem to figure that if they set us against each other, they’ll have less trouble keeping us in line, Blaine thought. I wonder how it really works, out of sight of the guards.
“In case you thought about trying to get out over the walls, forget it,” the captain added. “Our warden-mages can track you, if the bears and the wolves don’t get you first. The colonists won’t hide you. They owe their freedom to Commander Prokief’s good will. We patrol the town. Try to escape, try to hide in the mines or run from the farm fields, and we will draw and quarter you and feed you to the crows.”
Maybe a saner man would have despaired at the overwhelming odds. Blaine found his anger rising, felt his jaw set against the challenge the captain and the guards set. I didn’t get rid of my father to knuckle under to Prokief, Blaine thought. I’m going to survive to get my Ticket, just for spite. I’m just going to have to be smart about it.
Prokief and Ejnar headed back to the squat stone building that Blaine assumed was the commander’s headquarters. The guards plunged into the ranks of prisoners, separating them into barracks groups, though Blaine could see no method to their choices. Verran, Dunbar, and Garrick ended up in Blaine’s group, as did Coan and two of his buddies. Fultz and Jern were taken for another group. Blaine wondered how often the different barracks saw each other, and whether the work details kept them separated or moved men around.
Prokief may be ruthless, but he doesn’t look stupid. I wonder how they test for skill and ability. Not everyone’s suited for every job, and you can beat a man senseless for having no talent, or match the man to the task. As he and his new bunkmates trudged toward the processing building where they were to receive clothing and rations, he tried to figure out what useful skills he might parlay into an advantage.
As far as Prokief’s concerned, reading and writing are probably a liability, and he’ll be harder on me if he suspects I’m noble-born, Blaine thought. I’ve helped the hired men put crops in the field and handle the harvest, but beyond that, I’m good for nothing except general labor. Goddess help me! That means the mines or the fields—or the boats—for certain.
Blaine and a group of forty other men followed five guards toward one of the large wooden dormitories. We outnumber them eight to one, he thought. Even unarmed, we could overpower them. But then what? Ships came from Donderath every few months with supplies and additional soldiers. Blaine suspected that Prokief made some kind of report back to the king, carried on those ships. Even if the whole camp rose up and killed the guards, killed Prokief and his warden-mages, word would get back to the king. More soldiers would come, and there would be reprisals—against the prisoners and the colony.
He pushed the thought of vengeance to the back of his mind. It had been a long time since any of the prisoners had last eaten or had water to drink, perhaps another intentional humiliation to weaken them and make it clear just how dependent they were on Prokief’s goodwill.
When they neared the barracks, Blaine caught the scent of food. “Smells like roasted meat and cabbage,” Verran murmured.
“I’m hungry enough to eat the salt pork and biscuits from the ship,” Blaine returned. A glare from one of the soldiers silenced them, but Verran managed to shoot Blaine an insolent grin.
They were herded into a large room with bare wooden tables. Tin plates and cups were stacked on a pile near where two men stood beside a large cauldron and a basket of bread. Blaine guessed that the cooks were also prisoners. They regarded the newcomers with bored looks.
“Line up,” the lead guard shouted. “Take a cup and a plate. You get one pass through the line, and you get what the cook gives you—no more. Better eat it when you get it, because there’s nothing ’till morning. Just after dawn, you’ll hear the morning bell ring. Best you be among the first in here—food doesn’t always last, and the slow ones go hungry.”
Blaine and the others waited for the guards to unlock their manacles. He shook his hands to get the circulation back, and warm them from the touch of the ice-cold metal. His fingers were numb, and he was chilled to the bone. The large open room was warmed only by a small brazier beneath the cauldron, but it was better than the rapidly dropping temperatures outside.
The closer Blaine got to the food, the less appetizing it smelled. Then again, after more than a month of sea rations, he was ready to eat almost anything. He accepted a scoop of the questionable stew and a piece of bread hard enough to break teeth. The water in his drinking cup smelled fresh and lacked the greenish cast the barrels of drinking water had gained onboard the Cutlass. Blaine and Verran moved along quickly, eating their portions before they even got to the tables. Blaine had a nagging sense that something was going to go wrong, and when it did, he did not want to miss out on his meal.
“Hey! That’s not food,” a burly prisoner shouted as he got close enough to see into the cauldron. “Looks like someone cleaned out the shit house, and it smells like it, too.”
The man next in line slapped the complaining prisoner across the back of the head. “Shut up,” he hissed. “You’ll get us all in trouble.”
Too late. The guards were already heading for the stocky man and the prisoner who hit him. They grabbed the two men out of line, though the second convict protested that he was just trying to keep the big man from causing a problem. Three large guards went after the two prisoners with fists, boots, and bludgeons, and when they were finished, the two troublemakers lay in a still, bloody heap.
“You there,” one of the guards said, pointing to Blaine and Verran, still breathing hard from the exertion of beating the two men. “Haul their worthless asses out to the courtyard and leave them by the pole.”
Blaine and Verran exchanged a glance, but moved quickly to comply. Blaine was glad he had downed his dinner, and did his level best not to have it come back up on him as he and Verran hefted the two unconscious prisoners. They were slick with blood, and at least one of the men had been beaten badly enough to soil himself. Someone had retched, and Blaine had to close his eyes and swallow back his own dinner, reminding himself that there would be nothing more unt
il daybreak if he lost the contents of his stomach.
“We don’t like problems,” one of the guards lectured the others as Blaine and Verran dragged their charges toward the door. “That’s what happens to people who cause trouble. Anyone want to wager their grog ration on whether or not they’ll last the night outside?”
Verran was half as big as the man he was trying to drag. Blaine gave the limp body a shove, as Verran ducked to get his shoulder under the unconscious man’s arm, while Blaine had taken the larger of the two men and staggered under the weight.
“You think he means it, about wagering?” Blaine asked as he and Verran trudged into the courtyard with their burdens.
“I’m sure he does, mate,” Verran replied. “That’s prison guards for you—always up for a wager, and willing to turn a blind eye some of the time if you let them win more often than not.” It was apparent from his tone that this was a truth widely known to all but Blaine.
Why not? Blaine thought. After all, the guards are prisoners here themselves, and probably eating the same food. If they can be bribed, then there might be a way to survive this place.
“Mine’s not going to mind the cold, that’s for sure,” Verran said as he dropped the man he carried near the blood-stained whipping post. “He’s dead. They broke his damn neck.” Verran was covered in the dead man’s blood, and Blaine suspected that he did not look any better himself.
“This one’s still breathing,” Blaine replied, letting the big man tumble from across his shoulders and fall beside the corpse.
“Ah well,” Verran said, managing a wan smile and wiping the worst of the blood onto his pants. “At least it’s not us this time, eh? And we got our food down before the shoving started, so all in all, it could be worse.”
Blaine nodded. “We’d better get back in there, or they’ll be dumping us out here next.”
“Just a minute,” Verran said. He bent down and searched the men’s pockets with the efficiency of someone who knew what he was looking for. “Here,” he said after a moment, palming a few coins and a couple of other small items for himself. He passed a dirk to Blaine, along with a bit of thin rope. “Never know when it’ll come in handy, and they’ve got no use for it now, poor blighters.”
Arctic Prison: King's Convicts I Page 3
