2 Subjugation

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The History of Alta - "The empire of Bastion was a holy one. A kingdom founded on the concepts of our god, Gaia. She gave the world life and light. She turns the tides and shifts the seas and moves the great mountains. Her twelve stones represent her sacrifice during the Astral Cataclysm. She gave part of herself so we may all live, and now we worship her kindness. We worship her grace."

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A glint of dew covered the pine straw and leaves around me. Fog wafted between the trees, slowly sifting down. Brair brambles mingled in patches, vines crawled up the spines of trees, roots burrowed all throughout the ground, half-hidden by earth.  Boulders scatter about, covered in moss with hordes of insects crawling beneath them.

The ground pushes up against my shoulder, leaving me stiff and cold. I push against the ground, wondering where I am. After looking around, I find myself on one of the king's roads that criss cross through the great forests, carving a tiny slice of civilization in the wastelands. More a patch of dirt than a royal road, I rub the sleep from my eyes, and a harsh reality comes crushing down.

A murder of crows, craving a bite to eat, peck at the bodies of my parents. As the birds wrench slithers of meat from their festering wounds, the nauseating scent of rotting flesh slides inside my nose. I gag as I close my eyes. This can't be. I don't understand. I was on earth, and now I'm wallowing in hell.

My breathes grow short and panicked. My eyes dilate, and my fists clench. Tears fall from my face, coming in an endless torrent. They died. My mom and dad are dead, and I am alone here. I pound my brittle fists against the ground, drowning in misery and madness.

Right as I lose myself in sadness, the song of my mother booms in my ears. My breathing steadies and using her words, I calm the sudden spike of emotion. She wanted more from me than just sadness. She wanted me to live a life worth living. By Gaia I would find one.

Gripping my hands into fists tighter than a piano's wire, I lunge towards the murder of crows covering the carriage. I scream and shout and howl until they scatter like a horde of flies. Biting my lip, I take a strong stick from the forest before digging them both graves. The hard ground grates against the wood until a sheen of sweat shines on my skin.

The sun bears down on my shoulders, turning a neccessary task into a difficult one. I press through the discomfort, my hand shaking with each strike on the earth. Mom and dad deserved a burial, and I would give them one or die trying.

When I finnally finish, the sun creeps over head. At least I wasn't cold anymore. After fashioning two gravestones out of vines and sticks and stones, I lay beside the graves beside and ironoak tree. The shade shields me from the heat outside, and despite how hungry I was, I drift to sleep.

A nightmare invades my mind as I sleep. Walking through the same forest, I creep past a set of trees, revealing a hollow in a rotting tree. Curious, I enter inside with the wood curmbling in my hand as I lean against it. Deep inside lays a tormented man of ashen gray. His red eyes meet mine whenever I enter, like the eyes of a hunter.

Slowly and surely, he stands up, tall as a mountain and with hands harder than granite. A sinister smile lines his lips, showing a set of sharpened canines. A set of bloody, white talons slides out of his fingertips as he comes close. In a voice deep as darkness and harrowing as death,

"I'll invade your flesh and swallow your soul, little boy."

My knees wobble and my shoulders shake. My hands tremble and my skin shivers, but I hear the sound of my mother's voice. I listen to my father's lessons, preaching courage and defiance in the face of terror. I clench my hands into fists harder than stone and steady as steel. I grit my teeth. I stomp my heels. I ground my feet and I ground my soul.

Nothing will stop me from fullfilling my mother's last wish. Not death, not pain, and surely not some nightmare. I howl back,

"I will rise. You will fall."

My eyes snap open as wagon wheels turn in the distance. The grunts of slaves sound through the air, voicing their constant struggle. Glancing upwards, I spot a man covered in a leather outfit worn by mercenaries. Tiny bits of dry blood laced his choulder pads, and his full beard covered his hooded face. With broad shoulders, heavy hands, and a quick violence in each step, he reached me and said, "Come over here little guy. We won't bite yah."

I blinked, sleepy and solemn and silent before grabbed my collar and pulled me from the underside of the ironoak. With the ground grinding my back, he drags me like a sack of grain by my collar. The trees shift as I turn around. A malicious anger eplodes in my chest, so I grab his hand and crunch my teeth into his fingers, but he slams his palm against my cheek with a trained efficiency. The impact blurs my vision while leaving a lasting pain that pulses from my cheek.

He roars, "Anymore of that and I'll pull your teeth out."

I bite my lip and cease my struggle while he drags me further. After thinking it over some, I was lost in one of the great forests. Considering how weak I am, I'd have surely starved out here. Finding someone who'd help, even if its slavers, was better than dying.

So I keep silent before he picks me up and throws me into the backside of the wagon like a bale of hay. I roll on the hard, wooden floor before clanking against a set of chains near my face. A dozen dirty ankles meet my eyes before I look up, finding a ragtag group of slaves. My dad had hated the practice. I remember him mentioning how his own family treated their slaves.

He said they'd twisted and warped the souls they held in bondage, but I never believed him. In his eyes, the Donovan family was the heart of all evil. I heard horror story after horror story about it. They couldn't all be true, or else the world would've ended a while back. Dad could be pretty dramatic. I wouldn't be able watch him tease my mom with his simple stories and sayings anymore.

The mercenary sprint forward before leaping up. Pinning one heel on the back, he lunged up onto the wooden floor with a single leg. Turning to me, he pointed at the seats lining the wagon's wall, "Sit down boy."

I scrambled up before sitting at the end of the built in bench. The mercenary clamped a set of shackles on my ankles as he said, "What's your name? I can't keep calling you boy."

I replied, "It's Jack Donovan."

He frowned before shaking his head and saying, "Eh. I suppose it doesn't really matter anymore."

As the cool steel hugs my ankles, a man with broken eyes and a wiry, thin frame greets me with his gruff voice,“Yuh chose the wrong day tuh be sleepin on the road kid.”

I bit my lips as I said, "Thank you for pointing that out. I hadn't noticed yet."

The old, tanned man nodded his head before saying, “You got a mouth on yah, don't yah. Try to keep this in mind. Life moves quick. Yeh’d best remember that."

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The mercenary man pulls out a key. He walks over with calm, composed steps until he reaches me. Leaning on one knee, he locks the irons around my feet with obvious experience. He's done this hundreds of times before.

I've seen slaves before. Everyone has, but no one dwells on it too much. For most, their suffering was better left unexposed. Besides long days of back breaking labor, I feared something more pressing and painful at the moment.

On every slave's forehead was a brand signifying their owner. Every holder had a different symbol they used so they could tell them apart, and having the brand burned onto your forehead stopped you from hiding what you were. Soon, they'd carve their own symbol into my skin, and I'd be a slave till death. That was far from a blessed life. I'd call it closer to a curse hanging over my head like a rope around a man at the gallows.

Interrupting my worry, a portly man with graying hair and a brown mustache showed his face from the front. With a charming and sleazy smile, he opened a set of ringed hands and beamed a golden tooth in his grin. With an eloquent, drawn out drawl, he said,

“Slavery ain’t so bad. You just have to accept it like ol Caric here. Though you haven’t any freedom, you aint got any worries either. Just go through the motions I tell you without a thought in your head, and we’re gonna be fine.”

After hearing him speak, I wanted to floss out my ears and eyes. Still, if I said the right things in the right way, he might just give me what I want. He's not like the mercenary earlier. He could be reasoned with, so I reply with a hint of confusion, “You seem smart, like someone who knows how to make the most of what he has. You own this caravan, don't you?”

He raises an eyebrow as he says, "Well, of course you did son."

I grin as I say, "Then let me tell you something useful. It turns out, I know how to sing songs and make music. Wouldn't it be a shame if you sold my old wooden harp when we got to the nearest city? It would hardly fetch even a bit of coin, and I can play it better than an instrument ten times its worth."

He grips the edges of his velvet vest saying, “How about that. We have ourselves a gentleman. How old are yuh boy?”

“Thirteen right now. I'll be fourteen soon.”

His eyebrows lift as he says, “Then you got a head on yuh shoulders if yuh talk so smoothly at such a young age. I may manage tuh incorporate those skills if your can prove your words true. I may even keep you rather than sell yah off if you manage yourself well. Tell em, Caric.”

The old man chimes while leaning towards me, “Yuh be glad yeh got yourself a chance here. Rahuul feeds us well, and he treats us with more respect than yeh’ll find anywhere else. Trust me on that one. I've been around.”

Rahuul says, “Tryin to get yourself more rations I presume?”

Caric grins like a child being caught stealing from a kitchen  as he says, “Yeh see right through me.”

Rahuul tilts his head saying, “For givin our new compatriot such a warm welcome, I may bless you both,” he leans closer, “If you behave yourself now.”

I hated it. All this was some carefully crafted falsehood. These men didn't give a damn about me or my singing, but if I could get on his good side, I may be able to find a chance for escape. With this in mind, I open my palms towards him with my arms wide, saying, “Thank you sir. I appreciate the chance of gaining your good graces.”

The mercenary says, "That's enough ass kissing for me. Any more and you'll make me sick."

I lift my right hand while leaning my head with a sly smile saying, “We both have our weapons. I use words while you use weapons."

Rahuul shakes his head saying, “Now if I have ever met a boy with such a silver tongue, then may my grandmother slap me where I stand.”

Rahuul turns around while waving with the back off his hand, “I’ll get Dirk to give you back your harp later. We'll see if your playing justifies you keeping it.”

As he pivots himself over the wooden barrier, the smell of burning wood fills my nose. Apprehension leaks from my chest as the scent expands until a haunting idea grates at my mind with callous claws. Cold sweat pours from my back while I fiddle my hands with nervous sweat lacing my palms.

Caric says, “I won’t lie to yuh boy. brandin hurts like you wouldn’t believe. It helped me when I thought ah how the pain was gonna end at some point. Yuh see, no pain lasts forever. Maybe the thought’ll help you like it helped me.”

Minutes pass as Caric chats on without end on anything that could distract me, but my thoughts never wander from what awaits me. We traveled for several hours, slaves pulling the carriage. The sun starts setting before Dirk hops off a carriage in front of us. He sprints right up towards the side and leaps up before saying, 

"It's time, silvertongue."

Pushing my hands against my head, my eyes water as the dry scent of heat floats in the air. The carriages stop, and so does the smell of burning. A man who's face I can't recall walks up. My throat chokes as the red hot iron glows while blurring the breeze around it with hateful, biting heat. The pressure builds in my face before I cry and weep and pray for mercy, then I whisper for freedom from my fate.

Gaia doesn't hear me. I learn that there is no kindness here.

A man lays his arm behind my neck, offering me a rag with a look of pity like a mother offering bitter medicine to her sick child. With shaking hands, I clasp the cloth in my mouth, moving the fabric into place with a slow sadness.

The unmemorable man says, “I’m sorry we got to do this lad. You got to lay on the floor so we can restrain you, otherwise the brand might smear some. It’ll only hurt more if it does.”

Nodding my head, I stand up compelling my legs. They lift me like pillars of jelly. As I lay down, he and another man restrain my arms and legs pushing with all their weight. The man without words nor joy walks with the iron in hand. The lines on his face crinkle while he grits his teeth.

His arms wobble before he shakes his head and says, “Are you ready?”

I whisper, “No.”

He moves his head back and forth sideways saying, “That ain’t gonna change. Let’s get this over with."

And so the remnants of my life die as agony begins.

The brand lowered like a guillotine towards my face. At the end of the slow descent, the faceless man jerks the last three inches pressing the white hot metal onto my skin.

Blistering agony detonates from my forehead. Heinous howls blare from my throat without restraint. My arms hammer against the wood bruising my limbs while I clench my teeth hard enough to cut the cotton that dries my mouth. With carnal instincts, I jerk my head from the brand closing my eyes, but the torture only grows.

Excruciating tendrils of burning pain erupt from my skull as I writhe in the grip of these demons. The anguish engulfs my mind. Nothing else exists besides pain. Strength leaves my limbs numb. As I turn my eyes towards a soft murmuring, Caric prays with his hands pushed together. His praying gives me no rest nor refuge. I receive no cooling nor comfort. Hatred wells from the pits of my stomach as I spit out the cloth. I bellow,

“What has your praying done? I still suffer. You are nothing but a slave. You’ll die alone before worms eat your bones.”

He says while I clasp my eyes shut, “It’s ok son. This’ll end. You won’t suffer forever. Say what yuh need to. Make it better however you can.”

I scream with the frustration of a starving beast, “Aghhh. I hate, hate, hate.”

The men release my limbs. I didn’t know when they moved the iron from me, but the burning skin still lingers in the air, like lead in blood.  I curl into a ball while the man who stuffed my mouth says, “Your gonna be alright. We only had to hold you down for 5 minutes. You're a tough one. Do your parents proud. Show em your courage wherever they be watchin.”

My eyes snap open. With a commanding will, I discipline my breathing, calming myself until I my chest rises and falls like waves in an ocean. As I inhale, the cool air offers meager release, but each and every ounce of focus eases my suffering. As I exhale, I imagine the pain leaving my body.

These pieces of patience build until I barely control the discomfort that oozes from my brow allowing me to whisper with hoarse tones,

“I’m sorry Caric.”

“In Gaia’s name, all is forgiven. You may rest now as her child.”

Glancing up at the ceiling, I temper my thoughts. Enslaved or not, this was no end. This was a beginning. I had two choices ahead. I could forget everything and fall, or I could face everything and rise.

With the song of my mother loud in my ears, I closed my eyes. I didn’t have a choice. I could descend no lower. I could only rise.