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The storm began again, rushed over the dark walls cracked with frost, howling. It threw itself against the walls of Castle Lock, but they held against the relentless tide. For now.
For the storm was patient. It had raged for days, weeks, a month, then its victims had stopped counting. Days faded into one other, becoming a haze of memories that couldn’t be placed.
Isolation was ripe for boredom and so drink had become the cure. But fear grew when cups were empty. Fear of the other. Fear of the cold.
The storm would win in the end. All it had to do, was wait.
The wind clawed Shaw’s skin red, tearing at his exposed flesh, sending the lantern he gripped with blistered fingers screeching on its rusted hinges. The arduous struggle towards the cellar was pain enough without being harassed by the storm. He tried to draw up the blood splattered scarf in a desperate attempt to shield his face and the scar which spanned it. It gave little comfort.
The storm was ruthless. To be trapped out here for too long and your muscles would go numb, your skin turn pale, change colour, become dry. Stay longer and the mind becomes weary, disillusioned. Then the cold stops becoming your enemy, you feel warm, drowsy. You fall asleep.
A deep, never-ending sleep.
The snow caught one of his legs and Shaw stumbled into the frozen hellscape.
Shit!
He thrashed and twisted his leg to get it free, but the snow had a bloody good grip. The cold teeth of winter gnawed, bit him, driving its chilled fangs through his woollen cloak and garments.
He lay down the lantern, clenched his jaw, and started to dig where the snow had swallowed his leg. The cold burned away the warmth in his hand, the little his fingers remembered.
But in the end, he got himself free.
Fighting back to his feet he retrieved the lantern and hurried forward.
When he finally he shone the lantern’s light upon the cellar door a smile broke upon his frozen lips. Frost had infested the old oaken door and ice crystals had bloomed on the lock.
Shaw heaved himself against the door with whatever force he could muster. Repeatedly, he heaved himself against it, the wood shivering and rattling beneath the impact, until it snapped open.
Behind the door, stairs descended and melted into a crude blackness. Shaw stepped inside, closed the door behind him and the wind’s wailing faded as the lock clicked into place. He was left with a cold silence; his ragged breath filling his conscious, his beating heart a resounding bell in the narrow space. He held forth the lantern and saw the familiar steep stairs, cracked in places, and no banister to speak of. When he began his cautious descent, he became fully aware of his thoughts — the subtle paranoia imbued in his mind. He cast a glance behind him, but there was only darkness. No one had followed him.
The cellar held no warmth, but it concealed him from the wind and the snow. It was the little things you had to be grateful for. Warmth was scares in Castle Lock. The kitchen held some, the common hall little, and your own room had whatever warmth you could keep.
Stepping down into the vaulted cellar, Shaw wandered through the myriad of barrels, sacks, and boxes that conspired in the dark. The lantern in his grip made the darkness yield and release its secrets.
No restless soul resided here twenty-six feet below the earth. Except for rats. Behind the walls they were heard, scratching, thrashing. Endlessly, tirelessly. Before they had roamed the cellar, but his brothers of the garrison had contained them. They had started to consume each other, murder, and maim for no other reason than for their own survival. To kill, that basic instinct when faced with annihilation.
Shaw stopped when the light revealed a barrel hidden among the myriads of others and crouched down to find the X engraved in the wood. The one he had been looking for.
He knocked on the lid and heard its hollow sound. Satisfied, he drew a dagger from his belt and pried it open. In the light he saw bundle wrapped in old, tattered cloth. Shaw picked it up, then he heard footsteps upon the rough stones.
Shaw blew out the light and threw himself against the wall, trying his best to melt into the shadows.
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‘I know you are down here, brother.’ A familiar voice spoke, followed by a scrape of steel.
The light from the man’s lantern drew closer, searching like the grey hounds of Aturn.
‘Shaw?’ When the blinding light withdrew, Shaw lowered his hand that shielded his eyes. The young man that held the light seemed to have stepped out from a fairytale. A prince with a regal face and black hair that curled down to his shoulders. But his expression was callous, cold. Castle Lock wasn’t a place for fairytales. ‘Why are you here?’
Shaw shrugged and gave a mummer’s smile. ‘I came down on the orders of the tongueless cook himself. For what else would a brother be down here?’ Shaw felt the blade cut into his skin.
His eyes tracked down length the blade and up towards John’s gaze.
‘Is this way to treat a brother?’
‘Don’t play the fool, Shaw. When you walked out into the storm, the cook had sent for the boy. Not you.’ The blade cut into his skin.
Now did he. Shaw felt blood trickling down his throat, so warm against his cold skin.
‘So, I’m asking you again. Why are you here?’
Shaw released the contents of his bundle, letting it spill out over his lap. All the food Shaw smuggled away for himself. John’s eyes grew in the sight it.
‘H-how did you…?’ John stammered. In that moment, he looked like the boy he was.
‘If we have decided not to tell lies. I stole it.’
John’s eyes narrowed, he thumped his boot into Shaw’s chest, catching him off guard, forced him against the wall. ‘WHAT!’ The cold steel bit deeper into Shaw’s flesh. ‘Our brother’s walk day and night hungry, sharing the little we have!’
‘I didn’t steal it from them!’ Shaw forced out from gritted teeth.
‘Then from whom!’
‘The bloody Lord Commander!’ Shaw spit out the words.
Shaw could feel the steel retreating. He gasped, spitting, and coughing.
‘The Lord Commander?’
Shaw wiped away the spit from his mouth. ‘He has… a secret stash. I found it. A horde of the best provisions all for himself.’
‘Is that the truth?’
‘What else would I be speaking?’
John scoffed. ‘You already lied once.’
Shaw licked his gums ‘I would be foolish to do it twice.’
‘Then tell me again, from whom did you steal it? No lies.’ The egg of the blade tasted his blood again.
‘I stole it from him,’ Shaw said, not shifting his gaze away.
‘I told you to speak the truth.’
‘It is the truth!’ Shaw spat.
‘The truth, Shaw? It is a fruit you have never tasted. The Lord Commander wouldn’t steel from his men. Wouldn’t let them starve while he revelled.’
Shaw chuckled, ignoring the pain it brought him. ‘Oh, but he would. He does what is best for himself. He hasn’t changed.’
‘Have you, Shaw?’ John said. ‘You are lying to save your own skin. I know. Because you haven’t changed either.’
‘You know nothing, boy—!’ Shaw growled before his head was forced back, the steel digging deeper into his flesh.
‘You lie, Shaw! Lie to others! Lie to me! Before I covered your faults in my mind. I was a poor judge of character.’ He twisted the blade and Shaw hissed and gritted his teeth. ‘But I’m no longer the boy who believed in fairy tales. I shall mend for my own mistakes. I condemn you to die, Shaw, on the charge of stealing from you brothers. My blade shall deliver the gods justice, it will be swift and merciful. Pray your last words, traitor.’ Shaw saw murder and hatred in those young eyes.
He chuckled. ‘Is this how far you have fallen, John? Sentencing a man to die without the chance to a trial? When did you become an executioner? Where is that precious honour of yours?’
John clenched his jaw, his sword hand trembling. ‘You? You dare speak of honour?’
Shaw could feel the cold’s freezing fingers rise from the stones, caressing his skin. ‘It’s true I forsake mine. But of the two of us, you were always the better man.’
With a scream John lifted the sword with both hands; its carved raven pommel holding Shaw in cold judgement.
Shaw closed his eyes and waited for the blade to fall. Are the dead whispering through the cracks in the mortar?
But it never did.
When he opened his eyes, John stood with his head sunk, the blade resting against his side. ‘You deserve a trial.’
Shaw sighed…
…Then gave a quiet chuckle. ‘I do.’
He drew his dagger and within a span of a breath, drove it into John’s throat.
Shaw hugged him close, feeling John scratch and tear at his chest, struggling to break free.
Shaw didn’t let him go, held him like a crying child against his chest. ‘” It doesn’t matter if he is a companion, friend, or brother. When he threatens your life, you don’t hesitate,” Shaw whispered to himself, the words Judge had once told him.
Shaw drew out the dagger in an arc of blood.
The warmth in John’s face bled away under his skin and his eyes contorted with fear, lips quivering with a final word. Which never came.
Shaw released him and John collapsed to the ground, and he watched the young man soak in his own blood.
‘Why did you have to be a nuisance, John?’ He knelt and cleaned the bloodied blade on the dead man’s clothes.
Then he heard it, the tap-tap of boots on stone.
Shaw, stood and spied into the lurking blackness. A light bobbed in that void, slowly entwining with his.
‘H-hello?’ A boy’s voice.
Shaw saw the boy step into the light; it was the cook’s apprentice. He was a scrawny little thing that seemed to have been left to starve, with locks of red hanging over his eyes.
When he saw John’s lifeless corpse he stopped, staring, frozen with horror, his face turning pale. His mouth babbled soundless words, until his shaking legs gave way and he collapsed to the cold stone floor, trembling.
‘He had to die, boy,’ Shaw said walking up to him. ‘I caught him red-handed stealing from us. Stealing the little provisions, we have.’ He knelt next to the boy and forced his eyes to see his. ‘Would you let that go unpunished? Would you let a brother live, even if he tried to kill you to hide the truth.’
‘No, b-but—?’ The poor apprentice’s eyes were filling with tears that he tried to hide. ‘John always said… he was good to me… he said…’ The boy trailed off, staring at John’s bleak green eyes.
Shaw lay a hand on his shoulder. ‘Desperate men say a lot of things.’ He rose to his feet and picked up John’s blade, sheathed it, the raven carved pommel still holding him in a cold gaze. ‘What they do is something else.’
He took hold of John’s legs. ‘John was a good man. Let’s see to that his death does not go to waste. Come boy, help me with the body. The news of fresh meat will surely gladden your master.’