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Gore drenched Shaw’s face, he could feel the blood slithering down his temple, dripping from his nose, but when he touched his skin with his fingers, he found nothing. I washed it all away yesterday… or was it today…?
He couldn’t remember.
His skin felt clammy, sweat crawling down his temple. He found it hard to breathe, the smoke from the fire poisoning the air.
The darkness of the common hall had grown, encroaching as the firelight waned and yielded. The firewood had become sparse, and the storm had not relented to give them a chance for more. The whole keep was standing on the edge, they couldn’t run much longer.
A tension was imbued in the hall, thick and suffocating, a string strung to its breaking point, a sword held over their heads. The string would break, and the sword would fall, for the Lord Commander was gone. Dead.
No one said it, but they all knew he was, and someone had to take the blame. Someone had to die. The question was who?
When Cook and his apprentice entered with the steaming black cauldron, the tension, like the black cloud it had become, cleared.
The smell of venison stew made brothers give murmured prayers around Shaw as Cook placed the cauldron on a table closest to the fire.
Brothers jostled to get to the cauldron with bowls in their hands and blessed the smoky hall with their laughter.
Shaw took a bowl and saw the meaty chunks bob on the surface. He seated himself in hopes of enjoying the stew in peace, but he couldn’t help but let his gaze wander.
Amidst the relief of supper, he caught the sight of a burly brother with short, raven black hair. He didn’t touch the stew, how he scooped up a chunk of meat with the spoon before dropping it back with a frown. Then the brother rose.
‘Cook,’ the Burly Brother said with a gracious tone. ‘I wanted to thank you for providing us with the food that gives us hope. These are horrible times, especially with the loss of our Lord Commander. You, brother of mine, give us reason not to despair.’
Cook grunted, indifferent to his brother’s praises. But the boy smiled with delight.
‘I just have one question.’ The Burly Brother grinned. ‘What sort of meat is it?’
The Cook said nothing, and his eyes gave no answer. But Shaw could see the worry in the apprentice’s eyes.
The Burly man strode forward looming over Cook. ‘Venison? Cow? Sheep? Pig? Bird? No? I’ve inspected our stores and I can tell you that we have no such thing.’ He drew a knife from under his furs. ‘So, I’m asking again, what sort did you use?’
‘It was rats!’ The apprentice said, jumping in between them. ‘It was rats!’
‘The chunks are too thick for rat meat, boy.’ He shoved the boy aside. ‘Its human flesh, isn’t it?’
‘Leave him alone!’ A brother shouted and others started to move towards the burly brother.
‘Silence!’ Others shouted.
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‘The Lord Commander vanishes without an explanation and two days later you serve us venison stew when there is no venison to be served. You killed him, didn’t you? It wouldn’t be a surprise knowing what you are.’
‘He didn’t!’ The boy screamed but the Burly Brother had already decided. He was the judge, jury, and executioner. Let him take the blame.
‘You’re willing to let another man die for the sins you committed!’ John cursed him, hidden in the back of Shaw’s mind. He ignored the ghost.
‘Coward,’ Darshan muttered.
This isn’t my fight!
‘I’ll be the one to cut your throat, traitor—!’
A short blade cut through the top of the Burly Brother’s mouth and jutting out from the top of his skull, fresh blood and brains dripping from its sharp edges. Shaw saw Cook holding the hilt and he could see a smile on those pale lips. He drew out the blade and the heavy brother collapsed with an audible thud.
‘Butcher!’ An axe fell, cracking into the back of Cook’s head, gore splattering upon a brother’s face lost in the haze.
The boy’s scream cut through the brewing chaos. Everyone watched their slain brothers, watched the blood pool around them. They could sense it, smell it, taste it. The blood stirred the trapped beast inside. It howled in their thumping hearts, growled in the darkest places of their souls.
Aike strode forward and with his battle axe and decapitated the murderer, it rolled through the crowd. There was brief silence.
Hate shattered reason, giving way for all the fear and paranoia built up for so long to explode in a cathartic release of intense bloodlust.
The hall became soaked in blood, straw dyed red, steel crushing flesh and bone.
Aike transformed back into the beast he had been, swinging his long axe near the fire. Shadows danced upon his face, and corpses lay mangled by his feet.
‘Burn,’ his father said, watching the chaos. ‘They must be burned. Their sins, their wickedness, burned. There can be no mercy, no ease of ways. This is who they are.’ He gestured towards them; they were nothing more than beast now: biting off ears, yellow teeth ripping out throats, scratching and hollowing. Shaw’s mouth was filled with the taste of iron. It was massacre.
‘These violent men, they can’t be changed, only fire can cleanse them.’
‘Burn,’ Shaw muttered, watching the Cook’s apprentice crying over his master’s slain body. ‘Burn.’
*
Shaw’s raspy breaths scraped against his chest; two bodies sprawled near his feet.
He continued to stumble across the hallway, the sound of the fighting dying down as he came further and further away from it all until his strength gave way and he collapsed against a chamber door.
He heard steps approaching. He peered his eyes down the hallway, and there he saw the boy. His red locks were a mess, tears streaked his dirty face, and blood stained one hand, the other tucked behind his back.
‘Boy,’ Shaw croaked with pained breath.
‘I have a name; did you know that?’
Shaw didn’t say anything, eyes fixed on the hand hidden behind the boy’s back.
‘It’s Theo. My master knew it, but he couldn’t speak it,’ The Boy’s voice quivered. ‘He couldn’t speak it, but he didn’t need to. He was kind, kinder than anyone I have ever known. And now he is… he is…’ He bit off the word as if the word seared his tongue. ‘It’s your fault!’
Shaw snatched the knife inches from his chest. Blood ran from his hands as he wrestled with its edges. ‘I didn’t kill him!’
‘You killed John! You killed Darshan! This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t done it!’
‘I had no choice. You have to trust me, boy!’
‘I did! That is why he is dead!’
Shaw manged to twist the blade from the boy’s hand, and it clattered to the ground.
Theo collapsed to his knees. ‘I hate you,’ he hissed, tears running over bared teeth. ‘I hate you.’ The boy’s eyes had become two black pits, gaping with lost innocence, loathing, hating.
Shaw saw it now, he saw himself, the boy he had been, sitting under his father’s corpse, crying, wishing that he had been the one who had done it. He saw it now, the cruel repetition.
Time is a flat circle.
He picked up the knife and killed the boy.
It was a mercy. That was what he told himself.
He could hear Aike’s words in his head — Justify. Justify.