Ragged Heroes

by Andy Peloquin

  “Can I come into your bed?”

  “It’s because I used to smile at you, isn’t it? That’s why you came to me.”

  Savarah nodded.

  Concern danced in his eyes, but it was not for him alone, for within them she detected anxiety for her as well. “If they catch us, we’ll get the whip—or worse.” He glanced at the Glory Watchmen by the door. “And besides, I’m trying to be strong now. I don’t want to be weak. And you shouldn’t be weak either. You have your initiation fight coming up in a few days.”

  Savarah nodded. She felt ashamed, but she didn’t let it show. “You’re right,” she said coldly. “I’m better than this.” She glanced one more time at Rilon. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  “No,” he said. “I promise.”

  She turned to crawl back to her bed again.

  “Wait,” whispered Rilon.

  Savarah turned her head.

  “Maybe you could come up, for just a little bit. I’ve always wanted to know what it felt like to have a friend. It’s just this once, anyway.”

  She returned to Rilon’s bedside. He lifted his blanket and now she hesitated, but only for a heartbeat, then slowly, quietly, she slipped inside. Under the blanket was a warmth she couldn’t have ever imagined. Awkwardly she put her arm out to hold Rilon as if he were her Su-zu doll, yet this was exquisitely different. He was solid, alive, and… he had the freedom to reject her, but he had not done so.

  His arms held her in return and something glowed to life within her at the physical touch of another. She felt like an ember pulsing with heat on the hearth, a treasure held close to another’s bosom. Warm tears formed in her eyes as she soaked in this indescribable power.

  Rilon’s touch unfettered something inside her. It felt like magma racing through her innermost parts.

  She heard Rilon begin to sob softly and knew he must be experiencing a similar sensation.

  Was this what it felt like… that dirty word that was the epitome of weakness?

  A warm cocoon of safety and need.

  Was this friendship?

  Though deep within her she knew it was undoing all the mental barriers she’d worked so hard to erect, it didn’t matter. This weakness was too powerful to resist.

  It was death, but it was so grand and beautiful, she didn’t understand how she could possibly fight it.

  To embrace this human frailty felt right, good, and natural. Worthy of any consequences it might birth.

  That’s what she told herself as she drifted into a deep, secure rest. She promised herself she would leave Rilon’s warmth soon, but not yet. Not until she sapped every last drop she could have of this forbidden experience, and as she drank it in, she fell into the deepest sleep she’d ever known.

  It wasn’t until the faint smell of smoke infiltrated her nose that she began to stir.

  And then her legs began to grow warm, then hot—until stabbing pain roused her in a panic and she flung herself from the bed sheets which she found engulfed in flames.

  On hands and knees, she looked up from the cold rock floor and found a hundred faces crouched in on her from every angle. Torchlight flickered upon the mass of encircling bodies, including the hard-lined visages of two Glory Watchmen, their cold eyes silently informing her that her punishment would be extreme.

  Her body went rigid at the memory of last night’s foolishness. It squirmed shamefully out in the open. Everyone had seen. Everyone would know.

  The Glory Watchman, called Asden, stepped forward and lowered his torch, pointing it at her, then swept it over the burning bed to point at the opposite side. “Children!” he called out in a dry, atonal voice, “Let this be a lesson. Outside these temple walls are the weak and powerless, those who are slaves to their emotions. But within the temple walls we teach you the way of our Master. Like the temple deep inside the mountain rocks, a heart of stone cannot be crushed. It is impenetrable, powerful. Now look at these two fools. Do they look strong to you?”

  “No,” replied a chorus of voices surrounding Savarah. She glanced across the burning bed and saw Rilon’s face ash white on the other side.

  Anger flared inside her at the sight of Rilon’s unmasked fear tainting his face. Any terror carved on her own features sank back inside, like a dead thing decaying into the earth. She swallowed down her fear and scowled in defiance at the Glory Watchman who was renowned for his vicious whippings.

  Every Three knew Asden’s name.

  “I’m stronger than you know!” hissed Savarah.

  Asden’s lips remained straight and grim. “We shall see, young one. Only fire can purge the impurities you two have committed. Fire… and death.”

  ***

  A line of five rats darted boldly across the dungeon floor, racing toward the dead body of a young man who she guessed had been thirteen or fourteen. It was hard for Savarah to tell anymore. Between the dim light of a torch glowing somewhere beyond, and the roiling horde of rats gnawing vigorously at the corpse, not much could be seen of his ragged flesh. She was thankful it had not begun to stink yet, for that would only add additional discomfort to the fact that her chains were hooked higher up into the wall than the dead boy’s restraints, forcing her to remain standing ever since she’d been brought there.

  The dead boy’s name was Learick. He had spoken a few words to her two days ago through cracked, bleeding lips just hours before he died. His sallow face and prominent ribcage indicated he’d been denied water and food, and the mix of old and new lacerations covering his body told her he’d been whipped by a dungeon keeper over the course of his stay.

  The teen boy had passed that first day while she was chained to the wall only a few steps away from him.

  The loud scamper of little rodent feet had woken her from an uneasy rest. Whether the rats had killed him, or the lack of sustenance, she was not sure.

  A white rat with red eyes darted past her, the fur lining its whiskered mouth smeared with blood. She kicked at it, catching the disgusting creature off-guard and sent it flying into the opposite wall where it cracked against the rough rock then spasmed where it fell. Quickly, another two rats raced from a darkened orifice in the stone and began fighting over the carcass.

  The dungeon was a long, narrow crevice deep in the mountain. How much deeper it went beyond the crook in the passageway in which she was chained, she hadn’t the slightest knowledge. She’d watched uneasily as Rilon had been taken further down the seismic crack in the rock, disappearing beyond the bend.

  Her stomach churned painfully, empty and twisting with hunger, but unlike the boy being feasted on beside her, a dungeon keeper had come and given her a small cup of water each day and a meager scrap off bread.

  The only other prisoner in her section of passageway was a blond-haired girl not much older than she. One of the four- or five-year-olds in the class above her.

  The right side of the girl’s face was mutilated, the flesh peeled away like the skin of a fruit, leaving raw pustules of red scabbing flesh and puss. Savarah had little doubt the girl had incurred the injuries from the proving grounds. But why she was there, the girl wouldn’t tell. Judging by the hopeless fog Savarah glimpsed in the girl’s one remaining eye, she’d soon meet the fate of the boy beside her.

  A shriek nearby turned Savarah’s head. She gazed at the turn in the tunnel. The flicker of torchlight upon the rock walls was no longer faint, but had grown stronger.

  Two figures rounded the bend. One held a torch, the other carried a thick iron ring of keys that jingled in his hand as he walked. These two wore the drab gray cloaks and bore the shaved heads of prison keepers.

  A procession of hooded forms followed the prison keepers around the bend, the one exception being the unmistakable man who stood a head taller than all the others, his long, flowing black hair running past his shoulders onto the fitted crimson gown. The man was her master, the Divine King, and somewhere upon his body dwelt Isolaug who possessed the king like a sea captain at the helm of a ship.
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  Surrounding the king were six Glory Watchmen.

  Beside Savarah, the hungry rodents began to stir. The more timid rats—or those whose bellies were full enough—darted from the boy’s carcass into the cracks and crevices of the mountain walls as the prison keepers came to a halt beside the body. The foulest rats stayed and chewed warily.

  The Divine King pointed to the mutilated blond girl chained to the wall. “Unbind that child,” said the King.

  The prison keeper with the keys unlocked her restraints. The girl attempted to put on a rigid face of confidence, but her hunkered posture and darting pupil revealed her true state of mind.

  Savarah grinned inside at the scent of fear.

  The long dark hair resting upon the Divine King’s shoulder parted like a rope curtain and Isolaug’s reptilian head protruded through. The lidded eye blinked as it took in the dungeon.

  “Neena,” said the Divine King, his voice fatherly, but holding a note of disappointment. “In your last five matches, you’ve failed to take down another child in the arena and I have resurrected you each time, but that is not why you are here. It is because of the fear in your heart. You are the weakest child in your class, and as the rule goes, the weak are not fit for my service.

  “I offer you one last chance to conquer your fear. Step forward.”

  Neena obeyed quickly, and Savarah saw hope harden in her good eye.

  “Do you see that runty little three-year-old chained to the wall?”

  Neena twisted her head and appraised Savarah with her one eye.

  “I want you to kill that child.”

  Neena looked back at Isolaug and gave a slow nod. “Yes, Master.”

  She turned toward Savarah, dark intent shading the smooth skin on half of her face while the other side, fire-charred and glistening under the firelight, made her appear like a half-human monster.

  Savarah quickly assessed the blond-haired girl in a new manner. She was taller, of the same stout frame as herself, but the girl was not at full strength from lack of food and water.

  The only weapons available to her were those parts of her body she chose to use—fists, elbows, feet, knees, head—and this suited Savarah, for as with all Threes, these were the weapons she’d been trained to fight with.

  Neena stepped gingerly toward her, spotting the impairment of Savarah’s hands chained to the wall above her head.

  She could see the girl calculating how she might rush in and deflect any kicks Savarah might use to defend herself. Savarah knew that if she allowed her legs to be pinched against the wall, Neena’s fists would have the freedom to strike her face until she lost consciousness. And then fulfilling Isolaug’s command to kill would be only a matter of stamina. It took close to fifty hard blows from a child to kill another unconscious child.

  Savarah knew well. She’d killed thirty-two children this way last year, and only once had it ever happened to her.

  Neena seemed to see the calculating thoughts swimming behind Savarah’s eyes, and she rushed in like a bolt of lightning.

  Savarah leaned forward, her upper body falling off the wall, and back-peddled up the rock she was affixed to as the chains provided a line to secure her momentum.

  Neena stumbled to a halt, suddenly recognizing Savarah’s maneuver. Savarah sprang from the wall, whipping her legs forward and wrapping them around Neena’s neck.

  As the chains snapped against her wrists, her momentum stopped and gravity pulled Savarah down while the chains pulled her back against the wall.

  Neena’s neck, held in the vice-grip between Savarah’s legs, made a loud pop as her upper spine snapped with a twist of Savarah’s legs and Neena’s face was driven like a battering ram into the rock wall.

  Savarah looked to see Isolaug’s reptilian eye blink, then the head pulled back into the curtain of the Divine King’s black hair.

  The king’s eyes glazed over, losing focus, and he nodded in congratulations to Savarah. “Let us move on to the second child, Rilon.”

  And just as they had come, the Divine King and his escort marched down the passageway, disappearing out of sight as they went deeper into the crevasse to wherever Rilon had been taken.

  Savarah released a shuddering breath and looked down at the dead girl at her feet.

  This was a forever kill. She was not going to be resurrected.

  Tears formed in her eyes as a swell of victorious excitement rose in her chest. She was alive. She had overcome this test. But battering against the sense of pride in her win was the weak child still pulsing with life inside her.

  She wanted to be held by Rilon again. His presence would soothe the feelings stirring inside. The sense of finality in the life ended at her feet.

  No resurrection for Neena.

  Stop it, Savarah snapped at herself. You’re stronger than this!

  Mentally, Savarah wrapped her hands around the neck of that feeble-hearted girl inside herself and began to squeeze. She had to kill that remorseful wretch within.

  “You’re a killer,” she whispered aloud. “You were born to be strong. You’re a Shadow Child… you will become a Shadowman.”

  ***

  Voices echoed faintly in Savarah’s ears and she opened her eyes. She’d drifted into sleep again standing against the wall. Her legs were aching from standing the last two days, as were her elevated arms which dangled uncomfortably beside her head.

  A large black rat with a bloodied snout looked up at her and hissed from where it had been chewing on Neena’s leg.

  Savarah went to kick at it, but the rat bounded a short distance away to hiss at her again. Two other rats skittered from the girl’s body at the commotion.

  The scratch of feet sounded down the passageway where Isolaug and his entourage had disappeared, and turning the corner, the same party marched into her nook of the dungeon.

  The Divine King’s eyes fixed on her, alert and exuding a curious warmth. “It is a rare day I make a trip down to the dungeon, and never before have I done so for one of the Threes.” The king bowed his head slightly toward her. “Your talent, though still raw, is worthy of my time.”

  He turned to the dungeon keepers. “Leave us.”

  At their departure, Isolaug’s scaly head poked through the king’s tangle of black hair, and then the king spoke. “Like Neena, I will give you an opportunity to rectify yourself in combat, but unlike Neena, you have earned this chance.” The king’s eyes flicked down upon the dead blond girl, then returned to Savarah. “I am going to tell you a secret that in centuries of Shadow Children trained in the proving grounds, few have ever heard. Most who fall into weakness are weak through and through, but this is not the case with you, Savarah.

  “Your cries and sniffling in the night have not gone unnoticed by my watchmen.”

  A slight tremor of fear vibrated deep in Savarah’s chest. Her concern had not been in vain. The Glory Watchmen had overheard.

  “You displayed weakness, and yet, you killed so efficiently in the Arena of Threes. It is a rare child who harbors a tender heart and can slaughter so violently. When I was told you had been found huddled in the bed of another child, I was not surprised. I’ve read your mind many nights while you slept, as I have all the children. With you, I knew it was only a matter of time.

  “Tell me, child, why do you think your night terrors have intensified in the last few weeks?”

  Savarah cast her eyes on the cold reptilian eye of Isolaug, preferring it over the warmth she felt in the eyes of the king. “I am anxious about fighting four- and five year-olds with weapons. I have not yet felt much of the pain that I inflicted on others.”

  The hair falling about the head of Isolaug’s brown pebbled snout shifted up and down as the king nodded, but Isolaug’s steady eye remained fixed on her.

  “You will feel pain, but fearing it will only cause you to feel more of it.”

  “I know,” snapped Savarah.

  “Of course you do. But that is not why you crawled into bed with Rilon. Tell me no
w, what weak longings fester in your soul?”

  Savarah choked down her emotions. She was being asked to reveal her most shameful weakness. She’d hidden it away for so long, hoping it would never come out into the daylight. But oddly, it felt safe here, for Isolaug already knew of it. And more, he’d made clear that she was worthy of his time, and this despite all he knew of her.

  She forced the embarrassing words from her mouth: “I want to feel loved.”

  Again the king’s head nodded and the silky black hair shook about Isolaug’s protruding head.

  “It is a natural thing to feel. A thing that I cannot fully remove from your being no matter how I alter your genes. You are days away from turning four and you have the mind of a twenty-year-old, the strength of a girl of ten, and yet I cannot remove the heart of a child from any of my children, for the Makers have placed that weakness into the very substrata of every human soul. As babes you were neglected, beaten, and isolated from human touch, but even that could not fully deaden what was embedded in your being. It is like a sickness inside humans, and only time can weed that wretched need for love from your heart.”

  The king’s face seemed to dance between light and dark. “Time, and occasionally circumstances. Such as the circumstance you now find yourself in if you wish to remain alive to contend for the position of Shadowman.”

  Savarah glanced at the Glory Watchmen surrounding the Divine King. They stood like statues, their eyes fixed on her. Each of the Glory Watchmen had risen in the ranks as a Shadow Child and had excelled, earning them the second highest position one could attain. But each had fallen short of the title of Shadowman.

  It was rare if more than one child achieved that status in the yearly graduation of the Twelves. Often years passed without a Shadowman being chosen. Savarah looked again into the Divine King’s eyes. That strange beguiling warmth called to her.

  “I am ready to fight to be a Shadowman. I am worthy.”

  “I believe you are,” said the king. “You will soon prove it to me in the arena.”