Beyond the Hell Cliffs

by Case C. Capehart

  “Oh we will have satisfaction, traitor,” Falfa said to a roar from the men. “This is the once proud Paladin whose cowardice and depravity overcame him and sent him forth to make a deal with the enemy! This Paladin kidnapped a half-breed boy and took a young girl and made her serve him, all the while dressed as a boy! He is a deviant and unworthy of his title. What say you?”

  “Death!” The cries of the men present were unanimous. Pyrrhus simply looked on, emotionless.

  Falfa raised his hands and suddenly brown vines and roots broke free from the ground and lifted into the air, like the treacherous arms of some beast. The ends of the dirt-crusted tendrils pulled away to reveal barbed spearheads like wooden claws. The limbs came up and spiraled around Hemmil, arching down at him in preparation for the killing blow. Hemmil held steady, propped up by his unwavering arms, even as the crowd gasped and pulled back.

  “Honor and discipline, Raegith!” Hemmil exclaimed. “Look after the girl, I beg you!”

  The vines collapsed on Hemmil, stabbing him through from all angles. There was no cry from the man, only a grunt as he fought back the pain. Then he was gone and the life had disappeared from his eyes. Raegith watched as the vines receded into the ground, pulling tight against the man like sutures until he was pinned to dirt and grass. He heard Zakk cry out in anguish as the ground opened up like a mouth and swallowed up the body of her mentor. It was a ghastly site and nothing that Raegith would have expected in the cheerful, beautiful world that Rellizbix was supposed to be. It was not extraordinary or fantastic magic that Falfa used, but terrible sorcery that belonged in the nightmarish lands of the Greimere.

  “We will not allow this traitor’s body to sully our beauteous land,” Falfa said as the soil stitched itself up under his command. “I shall erase him and give him to the worms beneath us, for that is where his kind belongs.”

  “Pyrrhus, you rat! First you allow men to kill Onyx and now you stand beside Falfa as he murders Hemmil?” Raegith asked the Faeir mage, glaring up at him. “Pray! You pray to whatever will listen that I meet my end before I find you. You and Garret, you’re on the list, you hear me! The blood of Onyx is on your hands, you son of a bitch and she will be avenged!”

  “Faeir do not kill Faeir, peasant,” Falfa said. “The Stone Seer was the unfortunate victim of a foolish and insubordinate Saban and a treasonous plan. If you want to swear vengeance upon us, at least do it for honest reasons.

  “I am still uncertain of your role in this deceit. The Paladin may have taken away the surety I need to sentence you to death, but you will still face punishment for remaining in cahoots with that traitor. You will be sent to the deepest pit in Galveronne to die at the hands of criminals and deviants, on my order.”

  “Vi-Sage Falfa, if I may ask something?” Pyrrhus asked. “The soldier, Garret, who killed Onyx… will he face no punishment? There is vengeance in this boy’s eyes for him and I do not think it wise to let him accompany the prisoners. Besides, we do not know the circumstances of the Stone Seer’s death and the motives behind it.”

  “I don’t care about the man’s motives,” Falfa huffed, giving the Flame Mage an absurd look. “The soldier killed a Stone Seer in self defense after more than half of his comrades were slaughtered by traitors to Rellizbix. I would not have elevated myself this high as a combat Mage by making enemies with the Sabans below me, so… I’m going to overlook it. Besides, you and I are leaving for Thromdale, to report to the Council.”

  Chapter 9

  Zakk was inconsolable that evening, as the cell pulled away from the camp and the detail of nearly a dozen soldiers led them further south. She would not speak or move from her corner and the molded scrap of bread given to her was refused. Falfa and Pyrrhus left, returning to the north as the prison wagon and the soldiers took the group towards the prison at Galveronne.

  Raegith continued to simmer in his anger and hatred, but the feelings started getting mixed up inside him as he failed to process them all. He felt rage at the men around him for what they were doing, but as he thought of all the ways he wanted them to suffer, the humorous part of his mind kept triggering, as if he were hearing one of Ebriz’s jokes. Anger, fear, frustration and even lust kept getting jumbled up with all the lighter emotions and he could not understand how to feel about the situation.

  The emotions inside him were so out of control, raging beneath a barely composed exterior, that he felt a need for something physical, just to take his mind off of all the shit flooding and choking his mind.

  “You keep glaring at me, half-blood, and you’ll catch an ass-whoopin’ for sure,” the soldier named Garret said as he walked alongside the cart.

  Out of all the ways he thought he should have reacted to the man, he was surprised to find a smile breaking his mouth open. “Like the kind you caught from a teenaged girl yesterday?”

  “Still have a sense of humor, huh?” Garret snapped. “That one is going to cost you tonight.”

  “Can I put it on my tab?”

  “Of course,” Garret said with a grin.

  Raegith’s tab was called in after nightfall, when the group came to a halt for the evening. The prince, the bard and the hunter were all shackled, pulled from the cart and beaten by the Saban soldiers escorting them. After the soldiers tired, they were tied upright to trees to deprive them of sleep through the night. It took five men to pull Boram from the cart. He was still unconscious. They laid him out on the ground and stood over him, pondering what to do, while two others dragged a struggling Zakk out of the back of the cart.

  “What should we do with this one?” one of the men asked the lieutenant.

  “She’s a traitor and a willing deviant. Do whatever you want with her. Just do it out of my sight. Such things do not amuse me.”

  Raegith didn’t have to think too hard to realize what was about to happen. He had not considered what the men might do to her once they were on their own, away from their commanders. When he realized their intentions, he hoped someone might have the decency to put a stop to it. He prayed to the Fates that the Saban soldiers were better than this; that they had some honor. The corporal that had kept Garret from killing Zakk protested to the lieutenant, but the officer paid no attention and dismissed him.

  There was no one with any authority to stop the men as they dragged the poor girl behind the cart. Raegith tried to block the screams from his mind; tried to let his consciousness drift off to that fantasy he sculpted for Onyx as they lay in the cart at night, wrapped in each other’s arms. He put himself on the beach of that unknown coast, sitting on the porch of some shack with room only for a large bed and a cabinet full of liquor. Every time he got to that place and turned to find Onyx there, he saw only her dead face and his fantasy melted and crumbled beneath reality.

  Garret was suddenly in front of him, smiling. Before Raegith could say anything, the man reached up and smeared a warm liquid onto his face. Raegith squirmed and cursed as the Saban giggled.

  “Virgin blood, boy. Either the Paladin was lying or he really was treating her like a young boy.”

  “I’m sure that got you off, didn’t it,” Raegith laughed, his mixed up emotions spilling out inappropriately again. “I get it now! You’re not angry at her for kicking your ass and making you shit your pants in fear. You’re mad because she turned out to be a woman and you lost your hard-on! Well, I guess you have me at your mercy, but what will your buddies think?”

  Garret reared back and slapped Raegith with all his might and then backhanded him across the other side of his face.

  “Stop, Garret, please stop!” Raegith cried out. “You’re going to break your hand if you keep this up!”

  Garret screamed and threw a punch directly at Raegith’s nose, but the prince’s head was not restrained and when he rolled his face away from the blow, the man’s knuckles connected with the sturdy tree trunk behind him. There was a crunching sound and Garret’s hand folded the minute it hit the tree, ramming his wrist into it as well. The soldier groan
ed and clasped his reddened hand. A second later he screamed in pain and doubled over, holding his shattered hand against his lap like a child whose fingers were caught in a closing cabinet. Others scrambled to his aide.

  Raegith roared with laughter. “Oh, the Sabans are masters of their own emotions, indeed! Come on, Private, I think that tree has learned his lesson. Nope, you won’t be getting any sass from that one!”

  “Raegith, have you gone mad?” Ebriz asked.

  “Oh, I’m just having a fucking blast here with these guys! You Summer Guards sure know how to party. Rape, torture, murder… you’re all a credit to your fucking race, you know that?”

  “Do you not hear your friend? Can you not hear how brutally she is fucked?” Garret screamed. “Your insults only add to the atrocities you will experience. I am adding them all up for you; each and every one!”

  “If I were you, soldier, I would be more worried about the sins I’m adding up for you,” Raegith said. The humor was gone from his voice, but the determination remained.

  Chapter 10

  After the men were done with Zakk, they hung her from a limb by her wrists. She was barely conscious and blood stained her legs, but she was still breathing. Some of the Sabans had tried to wake Boram, kicking him, burning him with brands and cutting on his massive chest, but the man was dead to the world and did not react.

  Raegith and the others were loaded onto the cart in the morning and the caravan carried on toward the south. Despite her injuries, Zakk crawled to where Boram lie on the cart and did her best to doctor his wounds.

  “Zakk, are you going to be alright?” Raegith said, pulling close to the girl. Her face was purple and her hair had a patch missing on the back.

  “Fuck no,” she whispered. It was the first time he had heard her curse.

  “I’m sorry, Zakk. If I would have known what they would do, I would not have agitated him so. I had no idea…”

  “Of course you didn’t,” Zakk said, turning up at him. “You’ve been in a hole all your life. How could you know? How could you know that this is how Sabans are. It’s why my uncle raised me as a boy. It’s why he took me away from the regulars and brought me on this quest.”

  “Hemmil was your uncle?” Raegith asked.

  “You know, I actually hope we do die,” the girl continued. “I hope we all die out here, because if the deal is not made, then maybe something bad will happen and destroy this place.”

  There was insanity in her azure eyes. There was despair in them, but there was also the kind of fantastic hatred that would cause someone to set themself ablaze just to embrace someone else in the flames. She was in a very dangerous place. Would she devolve into a hopeless wreck or would she turn her anguish into loathing and malice? As she cared for Boram throughout the day, her demeanor stayed the same and Raegith feared for her. He knew the torment she would suffer at the hands of the Sabans would not stop after the previous night.

  For two more nights Raegith, Ebriz and Tavin endured torture all while listening to the sounds of Zakk being raped. She still fought at the beginning of each night, but she was growing weaker and each time her struggles were briefer than the last. Boram still slumbered, enslaved to his coma, and his breathing was growing softer. Zakk continued to care for the man, no matter how injured she was. Ebriz did not hold out hope for him and asked Tavin to end the man’s suffering, but Tavin would not listen to anything regarding his friend.

  The hunter had lost hope as well. Carver, his war shrike, had been killed during the arrest and one of the soldiers had tacked the bird’s corpse to the front of the cart, so that Tavin could see it each day. The hunter was in worse mental shape than any of them, screaming in his sleep and clenching the rails during the day. He whispered to himself and would not let anyone touch him. When the soldiers beat him, he cursed them in a foreign language and cackled at the pain, like some old witch devising a plan against her innocent quarries.

  On the fourth night of their journey to Galveronne, after all of the men had tired of Zakk and were upset about being unable to satisfyingly torture the large warrior, the lieutenant proposed a contest for the girl. Boram was hauled out of the cell and laid out against the ground. As soldiers held Zakk down beside the large man, the officer had two men fetch something from the carriage. They returned carrying Boram’s giant sword, bringing it up to Zakk. Her eyes were wild with fear as Raegith guessed that the poor girl thought the end was finally upon her.

  “I will make you a deal, child,” the lieutenant said soothingly. “I will give you the opportunity to save yourself a night of punishment. All you have to do is hold your companion’s weapon, outstretched, over his throat for the entirety of the night. If you succeed, none in your party will be harmed and I might even spare some food for all of you. If you falter, your friends will be tortured and this man will die by your hand, but you will still be spared.”

  The man stepped in close to her, leaning the hilt of the large blade toward her.

  “But listen to me now; if you move the blade or try to use it on any of us or any other manner of cheating, I swear to you, I will command every male in this unit to take his turn with you tonight, even if they have to go three at a time.”

  “Just fucking kill me, you wretch!” Zakk growled.

  “Certainly… just fulfill your end of the deal and I’ll accommodate any wish you like. Now take the sword and hold it out over this man’s neck.”

  Hesitantly, Zakk got to her feet and folded her skinny fingers over the wrapped hilt of Boram’s sword. Raegith held to hope for her, remembering how hard she trained and the strength contained in those corded arms, but when she grunted in simply lifting the blade off the ground, he knew she would not succeed. She looked back at Garret, obviously knowing the same truth Raegith did, but the lieutenant insisted she start or else the punishment would begin immediately.

  “Just do it, girl!” Tavin cried out. “Just do it and let’s have an end to this! I’ll eat your eyes from a soup bowl, haha!”

  The hunter had gone delirious. Raegith looked to Ebriz, but the bard was looking directly at Zakk, as if he were concentrating. Then he began to sing. The song was a ballad of courage and of hope and it was so odd in that horrendous situation that Raegith felt his emotions mixing all over again. Ebriz, the bard, had no weapons to fight against these men with, but his song could give Zakk the assistance she needed. The girl steadied her breath, taking in the Twileen’s song that told of giants and men, of Boram the Great against the monsters from beyond the edge of the world. It was a ballad for Boram and it gave Zakk the strength she needed to heft the heavy blade and level it over her comrade.

  Against expectations and even physics, Zakk held the blade over Boram’s throat for over an hour. Her arms shook and tears welled at her eyes, but she held firm, her rigid arms like steel cables. But the night was too long and no one can hold such a tremendous weight for such an extensive time. Her arms went from shuddering to trembling. Her whole body convulsed and she arched her back against the weight. Raegith and Ebriz cried out for the officer to end the contest, but the man simply smiled and waited. Within minutes of her body trembling, the sword began to drop downwards, only to be jerked upwards before it landed. Zakk was tearing her body apart to keep the sword from dropping, but it was simply impossible for her to keep it up. She would give out and not be able to stop the downward drop of the blade. It was only a matter of seconds as her battered and malnourished body threatened to fold in on itself from exertion.

  Zakk screamed and her body jerked forward, as if one side of a stretched band had been released. The sword dropped and bit into the dirt, sinking. Garret leapt to his feet and shrieked.

  “Easy now, Zakk. Easy,” the big man said, reaching up and pulling the girl down to him. “You’re alright.”

  At the last minute Boram had awoken to Zakk’s scream, just in time to slap the blade upwards as it came down towards his neck. Four inches above his head, the massive blade rose out of the ground like an
embedded artifact.

  “What trickery is this?” Garret yelled. “He was dead, wasn’t he? Was he not dead to the world? This was cheating.”

  “She didn’t break the rules, Asshole,” Ebriz said. “You said nothing about anyone else moving the blade.”

  “Do not push your luck, treewalker,” The lieutenant hissed. “This bitch may have avoided breaking the rules, but she did not win on my terms. I will give up only what was promised, nothing more. Men, lock them back in the cart and pick up the watch. Do not give them food or water. We are done with them for the night.”

  “Fates, so the old man is really dead?” Boram asked. They had been placed back in the cart and left alone. Boram was still too weak to lift himself into it and he could barely keep himself upright as he leaned back against the rails.

  “It was horrible,” Zakk said. “They made him confess to all sorts of horrible things. He broke his honor for us and let that monster kill him for things he never did. You’re unfortunate if you’re still alive, Boram.”

  “It was your voice that I heard, little one,” Boram said, lifting Zakk’s chin as he spoke to her. “I dreamed that I was in Hell and a woman’s voice whispered to me. I spent years trying to find that voice; to follow it out of the darkness. It wasn’t until your scream that I found you. Now I find out that instead of some splendid babe, I was following Zakk? Such a disappointment.”

  “Shut up.”

  It was not quite a smile, but it was the first sign of life from Zakk that wasn’t fear or fury. She may have even been blushing in front of the big man, but no one could tell under all the deep purple and black. With Boram back, it suddenly seemed like the old group again, but the overwhelming sense of dread was not gone. That the lieutenant would not kill her was little consolation, now that he saw what horrors could be inflicted upon the living.

  Darkness seemed to come a lot quicker that night and when the soldiers complained enough about the big man being up, the lieutenant decided to go back on his word, or at least change the reward to only apply to the wakeful prisoners. Boram was beaten, bound, dragged out of the cell and beaten some more, all the while laughing and insulting his attackers.