The Execution (24 page)

At some point, he recalled when he’d
been strong, remembered running for hours in the forests. It was
now that he recognized his weakening state and decided to monitor
his health as best he could, eat or drink when offered any food or
water, turn over more frequently in the cage.

His wounds slowly mended, his
breathing became more normal, and his hair was growing longer
again. However, his legs became weaker. He was allowed out only
rarely, sometimes to relieve himself, but more frequently, he
simply urinated from between the rails. He was forced to defecate
in his cage and pushed the waste between the rails with as little
straw as possible, trying to conserve his bedding.

Disheveled as he became, his
appearance made him appear more animal than human. With the tarps
covering most of the cage, the effect was complete.

This was very convenient for Duval. In
the small villages they did visit, it was easy to brush off any
local curiosity with a short explanation that Ravan was simply a
prisoner being transported to the prison in Belfort. Public
scrutiny was limited and no one suspected the creature within was a
mere boy.

When the band of men stopped in a
village for local revelry or supplies, children would sometimes
call him names and throw stones at him. Men occasionally spat at
him, and women, when they noticed him at all, hid their eyes and
turned away.

Most of the time, however, he was
ignored—a nobody, an unworthy creature-man. There were no kind
gestures or acts of compassion to be had from the whole of
humanity, it seemed.

It made his heart ache that people
could be so unkind to someone they knew nothing about, and he
struggled to remember if he’d ever been guilty of such an unkind
thing. He wondered if hatred was something that the human heart
required, just for the sake of it, and turned this question over in
his mind for hours at a time. He eventually decided that for some
it must be so, and it made him sad that such a thing must be true.
It was at this moment that despair threatened, and he closed his
eyes and tried to sleep the thought away.

Ravan spoke very seldom on the trip,
partly in belligerent defiance, but mostly because of a
subconscious reversion to an earlier time in his life. This seemed
to perplex and irritate the other mercenaries. They, like himself,
had been chosen, sold or bartered into their service with Duval,
and they found the arrangement satisfactory. There had been no
great resistance from them, not like there had been with
Ravan.

Resources had not been wasted for
their enlistment as they’d been with the boy. In fact, most of them
had jumped at the opportunity to become a mercenary for Duval. They
received notoriety, salary, and good keep. They seemed to resent
that Ravan should be so reticent and stoic about the whole affair,
as though he were someone special. Convinced that the job they did
was acceptable, they believed that with time Ravan would join their
ranks and become one of them.

Finally, they simply assumed a
bewildered acceptance of the odd boy that Duval, in their opinions,
had sacrificed too much for.

Sometimes, Ravan used his time to
study them, to study each of their mannerisms and
characteristics.

There was Renoir, oily and thin with a
hooked nose. He carried with him two rapiers and delighted in
exhibiting his skills with them. He was fast, arrogant, and
short-tempered. Ravan watched as he frightened a young maiden into
submission after dragging her from a roadside market outside
Brignais. Duval ignored the incident, not even bothered enough to
intervene, and none of the villagers had dared to interfere either.
It shook and paralyzed the boy to see such a thing as he observed
the atrocity of it. Renoir was cruel, reckless, and very dangerous.
He, Ravan decided, was like the plague—black and vile, dragging
life from those he touched.

Then there was LanCoste, the giant. He
was quiet and slow, but an enormous mountain of a man who stood
nearly seven feet tall. Easily dwarfing even Pierre Steele, he was
never far from Duval. Ravan thought the monster might be Duval’s
first in command, and he studied him closely.

The giant’s brow was protruding and
thick, his body hairy, and his jaw like a mammoth. His crooked
teeth were long and overlapped in a mouth too large to close
properly so that he appeared to be engaged in an eternal snarl.
Drool ran unfettered from his maw. He did not grow or shave a beard
in the fashion of most of the other men, but simply used a knife to
hack from it chunks of hair when it became so long as to be
considered by him. Without the benefit of a looking glass, the
effect was bizarre.

His weapon was an axe. It was
enormous, a good four hands across the blade. Though Ravan never
saw him remove it from where it was strapped onto his back, he was
sure that with one blow, the giant could cleave a body in
two.

LanCoste’s horse was a stallion, a
Belgian-Perche valley draft, and an enormous animal by its own
right, but only just big enough to carry the giant.

Ravan had heard once of a great
warrior who’d crossed an awful mountain range called the Himalayas
riding a mythical beast. He wondered if they had mistaken this
awful warrior for the giant, LanCoste.

When this man was assigned to the cart
and it became his turn to take the prisoner out, he was rough but
matter of fact about it. He never jerked on the throat shackle the
way the others did, but waited more patiently as Ravan hobbled
weakly from the wagon. Ravan would squint at the brightness of the
sun on the snow, his legs increasingly unsure beneath him, and the
giant would simply watch, impassive and almost—patient.

At times, Ravan tested him, pulling on
the chains as though he may attempt flight, looking at him sideways
with squinted eyes to see what the giant interpreted of
him.

LanCoste would grunt and pull the
smaller one to him, lifting him from the ground easily by his
chains, until he could see the prisoner eye-to-eye. As Ravan
grasped at his shackled throat and gasped, the giant would grunt a
single, deep throated sound as if to say, ‘Do not betray my
master’s trust in me, small creature. It would be
fruitless.’

Lastly, there was Pierre Steele. His
bulk was fat, and he had a vicious mean streak. Ravan had already
seen that. Steele enjoyed causing others pain just for the sake of
it—a true sadist. The larger question was, what was he to
Duval?

In addition to a clumsy sword, Pierre
carried a strange weapon Ravan had not seen before. It consisted of
a wooden handle with straps of leather, a half dozen or so attached
to it. Something glistened along the length of the straps, though
Ravan could not make out what it was.

Of course, given their history, Ravan
had already developed a healthy disdain for Pierre. This was the
first man that Ravan ever truly hated, and the feeling was new,
raw, and a bit frightening. He allowed it to stay. It was like
armor and he needed it.

The hatred was returned entirely.
Pierre would try to strike Ravan’s knuckles whenever he rode close
to the cage, especially if Ravan didn’t see him coming.

More than any of the others, Ravan
studied Duval every second he could. The mercenary leader, for all
practical purposes, seemed oblivious to him, and this confused him.
It was ironic that the man had invested so much time and money, not
to mention the death of two men and three hounds, to gain his young
captor. His whole journey south had been to get the prize he now
wholeheartedly ignored.

It seemed illogical and Ravan puzzled
over it, struggling to figure the man’s motives. Despite his youth,
Ravan realized this made Duval the most dangerous for he was an
enigma. The boy was most at ease when he knew his attacker. A bear
was straightforward, a lumbering rage that could be anticipated.
The mountain lion, however, struck without suspect...Ravan had
always feared it more, and Duval was a mountain lion.

Thinking again of Duval, he
reflexively shuddered. The man’s eyes were incendiary, like a
predator's eyes, forward facing and with too much white around
them. To Ravan, they appeared black, dull, and too small—not quite
human. He begrudgingly admitted to himself that Duval was to be
feared.

As the weeks passed, the terrain
became more rugged, more mountainous, and colder.

When, Ravan wondered, had the frosty
breath he puffed started leaving icicles tugging from his scant,
adolescent shadow of a beard?

* * *

Duval never allowed Pierre to take
Ravan from the cage. He knew Pierre’s intent, to rape and possibly
kill the young captive. He also knew that Pierre only feigned
allegiance to him. Duval preferred sodomy not be part of the
conditioning he intended his new capture endure. It was his
observation that sexual liberties on new captures created problems
further down the line, complicated battles, delayed
conditioning.

He was content to keep Pierre on, only
as long as he had work for him. Eventually, he would kill
him.

The mercenary king, for all his
apparent indifference, did spend time studying his young captor,
though careful not to let on. He knew that this one was different.
Ravan was most superbly suited for the plans Duval had for him. He
must be cautious not to fracture the primitive instinct the young
man possessed. It would serve to make a decidedly profitable killer
of him. He weighed his losses with his gains and was ultimately
satisfied, deciding that he had come out favorably
ahead.

To be on the safe side, he ordered his
men to limit Ravan’s meals, though not his water. He wanted the
young man weak, but not ill. It would make his training that much
easier when they reached the fortress.

* * *

Ravan had no fat to lose and dropped
lean weight rapidly. He slept as much as possible to conserve
energy, but even so, he knew his senses were becoming dulled. He
shivered more and spent more time curled up, his shirt pulled over
his head, breathing precious warmth back onto his own chest and
belly.

When Renoir opened the hold in the
middle of the night, Ravan was defenseless—and caught utterly by
surprise.

He smelled the alcohol, sweet and
thick on the man’s breath as the mercenary yanked upon the neck
shackle, nearly dragging the boy out the door. Ravan had been
deeply asleep and sputtered, not sure who pulled at him. “Why are
you—?” he started to exclaim.

It wasn’t until Renoir dragged him out
of the hold, allowing him to tumble to the ground, that Ravan saw
Pierre Steele, swaying, sick grin and gruesomely scarred face
shining in the moonlight. He stood, un-girthing his belt, reaching
to stroke the small of his own penis to life.

Ravan panicked, struggled to gain his
footing and started to yell.

Renoir yanked him viciously off his
feet by the neck shackle, choking the alarm from him before it had
chance to escape. He plunged face first into the snow, failing to
catch himself as his hands clawed at the shackle, trying
desperately to protect his throat.

He felt a rag forced into his mouth
and bit down savagely on a finger, taking brief satisfaction in the
scream that the man had to swallow. It was at that instant that
Steele hit him, violently, across the temple with the butt of his
heavy sword, dazing him almost to the point of losing
consciousness.

Then he was vaguely aware of Renoir
tying the gag into his mouth and the crushing ice and snow pressing
into his eye sockets and nostrils as his face was pushed harder
into the snow drift. He only faintly recognized that his trousers
were yanked to his ankles and he was held, bent and spread eagle,
scarcely able to breathe.

Pierre Steele knelt, grunting and
panting, and fulfilled his desire, raping him abruptly and
violently as Renoir bent with a knee cruel upon the back of his
neck, masturbating to his own relief as well.

It was over in moments.

The men stood, lacing their trousers
and sneering at the boy lying in the snow. Ravan lay on his side,
naked from the waist down, trousers tangled about his ankles. Blood
smeared down the insides of his thighs and stained the snow beneath
him in dark spots. His eyes were fixed and vacant, black as a
midnight slaughter.

“
Get up, you little
bastard,” Renoir kicked him between the shoulder blades.

Ravan just lay still, dazed from the
blow to the head, in shock from what had just happened. It was
forever before his subconscious slowly permitted recognition of the
horrible defilement.

“
I said get up!” Renoir
hissed from under his breath, kicking him again, “Hurry
up!”

Ravan gasped, reflexively protecting
his only recently broken ribs. He struggled to turn himself onto
his knees, grasping for his trousers. Staggering to his feet, he
pulled at his pants, clutching them as they draped baggy upon his
slender frame, staring at the horrible red that stained the moonlit
snow.

Renoir dragged him back to the cage
and shoved him inside, so that moments later he was again in the
hold. It had all happened in a matter of minutes.

* * *