The anguished screams of a hundred souls drowned out his thoughts, a wailing crescendo of torment. The legionaries smacked a few heads with the butts of their swords, screaming, “Silence!” to no avail.

Kramena sat hunched over next to him, clutching her crying girl in a futile attempt to comfort her. “Quiet now, sweetling. Everything will be okay,” she said in their native tongue with a shaking voice as a lone tear ran down her cheek.

“I will have silence!” the tribune said. He spoke in the Chosen Tongue, which Jaroslaf had learned long ago, but most people in the hall only knew the native Rodevian. The Chosen Tongue sounded queer and foreign to Jaroslaf’s ears, and strangely meek. Its words always involved a strange twisting of the tongue, where Rodevian was quick, elegant, and to the point.

Nevertheless, all understood by the tribune’s rage that he wanted silence. His armour clattered as he pushed through the hunched crowd of prisoners. Jaroslaf did not know the man by name, but he could tell he was a tribune. Identifiable because a plume of black horsehair crested his shiny ridge helm, and a deep blue cape flowed from his right shoulder, covering the steel beneath.

Jaroslaf had become accustomed to these men, unfortunately. He hardly remembered a time when the Orisian legions had not warred with the Rodevians, or the Yariki, or whatever other tribe in all Rodevia. They are so far from home. Why do they bother us? What is it about this dry, desolate land they bloody love so much? There were always foreign metal soldiers running around one place or another, but these metal soldiers were out of their jurisdiction.

A pungent stink of sweat and fear hung over the hall now. The piss reeked stronger and stronger as more of his older companions lost control of their bladders, sitting hunched over with their heads in their shaky hands, begging the gods for mercy. The older ones always pissed themselves, and the fat ones, too, Jaroslaf thought randomly. He’d seen it many times himself, in the days when it may have been him standing amongst the soldiers who imprisoned him now, ready to take his bounty and execute the rest.

But Jaroslaf wouldn’t piss himself. Aye, my time may be up now, he thought somberly. He would greet death with open arms, not as the crooked old man he was today, but as the warrior who’d ridden through the torrent of war a thousand times in his youth, who had stared at the gates of the underworld and willed to turn away. The same could not be said for his war-brothers, each of whom had slowly vanished under death’s cold shroud as the years went by. He oft wondered why the gods spared him. Was it their twisted sense of humour, to leave him to rot, turning weak and frail and powerless to do anything about these legionaries that slaughtered his village?

Perhaps it was no godly jest at all, but a testament to his unyielding spirit. Jaroslaf outlasted his war-brothers not because he was lucky, but because he was too stubborn to die. He refused to die. His bones may have been brittle, his step awkward, but his mind remained sharp as any blade. Hardened only by years of experience, years he had in abundance.

Death was merely a companion he had danced with for decades, staring it down countless times and never flinching. If his time was up now, so be it. He’d face it with his chest puffed out with only cold determination in his eyes.

After a few of the crying prisoners had their heads smacked by a baton, the hall slowly fell into a grim silence. The hall where once the elders sat to hear petitions and plan raids, where travellers could find a safe roof for a night.

Now it was to be their tomb.

The legionaries dragged a young man in from outside, a slave by the looks of him. “Translate what I say,” the tribune told the skinny lad. He nodded as his lips quivered.

“There will be a drawing of stones!” the tribune shouted so that all may hear, and his slave translated accordingly in Rodevian. “One of you dirty rats will have the privilege of running to your savage chief and informing him that the glorious blue banner of Vero shall wave over all Rodevia.” He held up a linen sack that rattled every time he swung it.

Kramena looked around frantically, keeping her daughter’s head under her chin so that the girl couldn’t see what went on. Her auburn hair had been ruffled up from when she was dragged in here with Jaroslaf, and muck splattered her white linen dress. “What is this, Jaroslaf? Why do they play these games? They haven’t even brought the men in. Ogi was out there!”

The men were dead by now, Jaroslaf knew. Including Ogi, who was Kramena’s brother, and an expert hunter in the village. The best hunter the Dumori had known. Most of them would likely be rotting on crosses around the village. “Who knows…” he mumbled.

The rattling of the bag sounded again, and the tribune clattered past his guards that surrounded the prisoners in the great hall. “Whoever draws the white stone lives, the rest are black. Your fate is in the hands of your gods now.” And he began working his way around the hall, handing the bag to elders, women, and children alike. Even for Jaroslaf, that was cruel. Any child drawing that white stone would be as good as dead out there. He looked down at Kramena’s little girl, biting his lip nervously.

Each time a person drew a black stone, they screamed or cried or begged. The tribune looked as solemn as a statue as he calmly sentenced one person after another to their deaths.

When the armoured Orisian came up to him, he stuck the bag in Jaroslaf’s face, looking rather impatient by now. Jaroslaf didn’t even hesitate. Let me die, he thought as he drew the white stone.

The tribune’s eyes lit up, probably glad he did not have to circle the rest of the hall. There were at least one hundred and fifty of them here. “We have a victor!” he proclaimed, dragging Jaroslaf up by the wrist so hard the bones cracked.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Jaroslaf only looked down in sorrow, meeting Kramena’s gaze. The woman looked like a ghost now, that woman who used to heal him when he had a cut and a splinter. There was no life left in those blue eyes as she realised what that stone in his hand meant for the rest of them. She could only clutch her child harder, whispering in her ear, telling her all will be well.

Jaroslaf looked back at the tribune. “Let her have the stone. I’m an old man. It’s wasted on me.”

The tribune laughed, shaking his head. The horsehair atop his helm bobbed frantically. No wonder so many of them die in battle, he sticks out like a sore thumb.

“That’s not how it works, old man.” The tribune tied his sack up and handed it to one of his subordinates. “Your gods have chosen you.”

My gods are cruel.

“And what of your message to my chief?” Jaroslaf protested. The whole hall looked at him in tense silence. Hundreds of wide eyeballs, begging that he be allowed to release the stone so that one of them may have another chance at life. How pathetic they looked, all huddled there like animals, sitting in their own piss. For the first time in his life, Jaroslaf felt regret. Regret that many times he had been the man sentencing people like that to their deaths. Another time… another life. “I can’t deliver a message if a wolf or a mountain lion mauls me. I can barely defend myself!”

The Orisian raised a brow. “Men who live to your age survive for a reason. You know how to take care of yourself. Think I don’t know a soldier when I see one?”

“Give me a sword and find out,” Jaroslaf barked.

The tribune and his men threw their heads back in laughter, which only enraged Jaroslaf more. “He’s got teeth, this one. As much as hacking you to death would be amusing, there’s no sport in it. I’m sure you can handle a few wolves. Now let’s go.”

They seized Jaroslaf by the arms and dragged him out as the hall went hysterical once again. The shrill voices of people knowing they’re going to the underworld was a sound like no other. A horrible, ear piercing cry.

“And what of Yarikhad?” Jaroslaf yelled when they threw him out of the hall. The hot sun beat down above from the clear blue sky, harshly flashing his eyes as they adjusted to the daytime and baking his skin with heat. “The Dumori tribe is under her protection. They will come.”

“Good, I hope they get the message clearly.” The Orisian smirked. “For too long has that city of merchants and hagglers laid claim to Rodevia. You tell them tribune Titus Silvius sent you, and that general Rodevicus Vulcan Aventus will not stop marching until all Rodevia bends its knee before the senate.”

“They will kill you.”

Titus snorted. “I don’t see any Yariki auxiliaries around, and Yarikhad is many hundreds of miles away, across the Chenean Sea, yet we are here. Now begone, run off to your next village.”

The tribune turned without another word, his blue cape now a shade lighter from the dust swirling up around his feet. Jaroslaf spat, cursing both Orisium and the gods above. Why had they chosen him once more?

Behind him, the dusty landscape of Rodevia stretched endlessly. A rug of ochre and amber, where the parched soil was cracked from aeons of heat, bathing in the harsh light of the afternoon sun. Old, dark olive trees with twisted trunks and dry bark stood scattered across the rugged terrain, their leaves whispering in the dry breeze. In the distance, a small mountain range painted the horizon with its earthen beauty, its jagged slate peaks like the sharp teeth of an old dead god. A nice sight for such a sordid day. Most of the round thatched-roof houses were empty and ransacked, with pots and utensils scattered all over the ground. The others in the middle of being burned to charred skeletons of their former selves. The stink of smoke and fire overwhelmed his nose, then followed a strange bland smell, almost like roasted beef.

Then he saw them.

The crosses.

All the young men of the village, or anyone capable enough to fight the invaders, had been nailed to a crudely erected wooden cross. A pair of charred corpses, each pinned high above the ground to their own blackened cross, marked the entrance of the small village. The flesh scorched and coarse and crackling, thick metal nails through the wrists and feet. The fire had washed away all the features of their faces. 

Next to one of the crosses, a deep blue banner waved in the light breeze, bearing the symbol V, wrought in silver, within a laurel wreath, also silver.

Jaroslaf grimaced. One of the bodies looked like a man his size, the other… a child. A shiver crawled across his skin. And along the path leading to the big Elder’s hall in the center of the village stood more crosses, each bearing a crucified young man. Some weren’t burned.

They may yet live. A murder of crows drifted above the crosses like a dark toxic cloud. They landed on each frail person, helpless to wave them off for the nails pinning their limbs to their upright prisons. The black birds pecked at flesh, at eyeballs, at anything they could grab, and the prisoners screamed.

Jaroslaf yanked a stick from the ground and waved the crows off where he could. They cawed in protest and fled, leaving a trail of black feathers in their wake.

But the worst sight was yet to come.

“Bring that log, come on!” tribune Titus yelled in the distance. Jaroslaf turned. The Orisian legionaries had gathered around the great hall, and two of their younger lads brought up a thick log to bar the door with.

Then they lit the torches. “Throw them now!” one of the centurions said. “High as you can, make sure it catches the straw.”

And the torches flew. The wailing of the Dumori villagers was dim at first, shielded by the circular hall’s wooden walls. But then the flames grew, first consuming the roof, then dripping down like an orange liquid of death to catch the dry, sunbaked wooden walls.

How the screams rose up to a terror then as those locked inside realised what was happening. Kramena… her little girl. Jaroslaf pursed his lips, having to turn away as all the Orisian legionaries cackled under the glow of the flame. Some plucked at grapes while they watched, others cheered, and some drew bets on how long the screaming would last.

It would last, Jaroslaf knew. Their cries would echo all across this desolate land.

The great hall cracked and splintered, the fire roaring high into the sky, so hot that Jaroslaf still felt its heat brushing over him as he left the village.

He had been cursed to live once more. But he would make sure chief Kresimir and Yarikhad would learn what happened here.

He left the village alone, as fast as his old legs would carry him. Up above, the crows circled him.

I am cursed.