Authors: Usman Ijaz
“My arm! The little bastard bit me!” Wendyl’s
incredulous cries rang out over the murmurs of the crowd. He marched over to
where Connor stood between the guards, fury contorting his face, and drew back
his sleeve to shove his forearm before Connor’s eyes. “I am bleeding, you
little bastard!” he shouted ... and then smiled, a smile that displayed his
crooked teeth and never so much as touched his cold eyes. “Now you hang first.”
The fear was back, and it was all that Connor
felt as the guards shoved him towards the gibbet. His heart pounded in his
chest. He suddenly felt lightheaded, as though he might simply pass out. The
guards half-carried half-dragged him beneath the gibbet, for he seemed to have
lost control over his body. His hands were pushed behind him and held and bound
tightly. His wide, frightened eyes roamed across the indifferent faces of the
crowd and the guards to rest on Adrian.
“
Adrian!
” he shouted desperately, and
felt warm tears running down his cheeks.
“Connor! No!” Adrian attempted to get to him,
tears coursing down his own cheeks, but he was easily restrained by the guards.
For a moment their eyes locked, and a clear thought rose up in Connor’s head,
odd in all the confusion and fear.
How could I ever have hated him?
He was held firmly in place as the noose was
placed around his neck.
6
“
Connor!
” Adrian screamed.
It was hard to believe that it was happening,
and yet all Adrian had to do was trust his eyes and know that what he saw was
the truth. Connor was about to die. He screamed for his cousin and attempted to
reach him, but found that he was easily restrained. He felt despair wash over
him and drown him as he struggled against the guards, but they wouldn’t budge.
And as it had been in his dreams all those times, he was restrained and
helpless to do anything but watch. The tears that spurted from his eyes now
came equally from shame at not being able to do anything and the thought of
losing his cousin.
This is not fair!
a
part of him screamed.
This can’t be happening! He doesn’t deserve to die!
Adrian turned to face Wendyl, aware of the warm tears running down his face.
“Please! Don’t do this! Don’t hurt him!”
Wendyl looked at him closely for a few moments,
and then smiled to himself as he turned away to watch the hanging. Adrian saw
at once that there was no compassion or remorse in that face.
“Connor!
” he
screamed, and realized his voice was breaking down into harsh sobs. He shouted
out to the only person who came to mind then. “Alexis! Help him! ALEXIS!”
But of course Alexis could do nothing. Adrian
thought he could faintly hear the Legionnaire’s shouts from his cell, but they
seemed to be coming from another world.
“Hang him!” Wendyl ordered brusquely, holding
his injured arm to his chest.
Adrian watched in horror as two large men took
up the other end of the rope tied around Connor’s neck. He met Connor’s
frightened eyes, and hated himself for having put his cousin in this situation.
You should have stayed home.
The two men heaved on the rope with all
their strength. Connor was pulled up like a fish from water, legs flailing and
a horrible wheezing sound escaping from his throat.
Adrian fought against the guards that held him
and shouted wordlessly, an inarticulate cry that was full of all the despair
and anger he felt then. He gained a foot, and the guards doubled their efforts
and held him where he was.
Connor’s body twisted wildly as he struggled to
free himself or gain a breath of air, but it did no good. For an eternity
Adrian watched Connor’s entire body racked with shivers. After a few moments he
could no longer hear the soft wheeze of breath, and those flailing legs seemed
to relax a little more after every throe. He could see Connor’s face turning
blue, and it pained him to his core to realize that he could do nothing.
Through watery eyes he watched Connor hang.
1
Alexis watched the proceedings from his cell
window, wanting to tear the walls down and reach the boys, and knowing that he
couldn’t. He smashed his arm against the bars furiously, but it did nothing
more than send jagged bolts of pain up his arm. He ignored the pain. All he
could hear were the boys’ desperate cries.
He looked out the window, which offered him such
a taunting view of the town square, and saw Connor hanging from the gibbet. He
no longer moved, only a slight illusion caused by the ripple of his clothes in
the wind. Alexis had felt a profound pride towards the boy as he had attacked
Wendyl to defend his cousin, but now that feeling was gone, replaced by a deep
helpless anger. He felt as though he could rake his face bloody in frustration.
He understood now why the gibbet had been
constructed as it had. A fall through a trapdoor might break the boys’ necks
and end it quickly, but in this manner the hanging would be prolonged and the
cursed crowd could slowly watch the life drain from the boys.
“Damn you!” he shouted out the window. “You
can’t do this! You’ll damn us all, you stupid fool!” A few people looked his
way briefly, but for the rest it was as though they couldn’t hear him at all,
or chose not to.
The shame and frustration at being so helpless
was enough to bring tears to his eyes, but he had no time for tears. He
attacked the bars again. He grabbed the short bars and tried to shake them
loose, as he had attempted countless times already, but they were set too deep
into the stone and wouldn’t give. At a loss, he began to smash his arm against
them again.
I can’t watch them die!
I can’t let it end this way!
And as if to prove him wrong, beyond the window,
Adrian was pushed into place and the noose placed around his neck.
Alexis could do nothing but stare in horror and
shock. He did weep then, realizing that all they had come through, everything
that Hamar and Owain had died for, and their mission given to them by King
Aeiron himself, would end with the boy’s death.
2
It was then that Alexis became aware of sounds
from the hallway. He turned from the window, feeling dazed, and walked to the
front of the cell.
“You cannot do this!” came a man’s outraged
voice.
A deep, confident voice answered. “And what am I
doing now? Move your cursed ass!”
Alexis angled his face along the bars to see a
man dressed in the blue of the Sune Guard being led down the corridor. Behind
the man were two others. The guard came to the cell opposite his and stopped
abruptly as the man behind him ordered him to.
“Open it,” said the man, and Alexis saw that he
possessed a gun, aimed between the guard’s shoulders.
Alexis’s gaze drifted from the gun to the man’s
face, and he was instantly struck with sudden recognition. He knew the man.
Those cold, hard eyes that had seen much in this life, that dark brown tangle
of hair that fell to his shoulders, and that grim cast to his mouth - it was
hard not to remember. Alexis’s eyes went back to the gun; the markings hidden
by the man’s hand, the size of it, the make of it.
“You’re a Legionnaire,” Alexis said, feeling out
of breath. Fragile hope began to grow in him like a dying amber amidst the
ashes.
The man glanced at him before returning his eyes
to the guard. The guard had the cell door open and stood waiting like a trained
hound. “What else would I be? Now let me see the mark on your hand, so I can
see for myself if what this girl claims is true.” To the guard he said simply,
“Walk inside.” The guard began to obey, and the Legionnaire brought his gun
crashing into the base of the man’s skull, knocking him senseless. He shoved
the man into the cell with his foot and then closed and locked the door. He
turned his attention to Alexis.
Alexis saw all of this from his peripheral
vision. He was too occupied looking at the other person in the hall. He smiled
as he saw Leah standing there, darting nervous glances behind her. He saw the
bundle on her back and recognized the shape of a harp beneath the cloth. “You.
I had given up hope you would be able to do anything.”
“Well, now you know better,” she said. “Now, can
we hurry this along? I have no intention of sharing these cells.”
Alexis stripped off his glove and showed the
Legionnaire the crimson mark of the Legion. The man looked at it closely, as
though not wanting to believe it.
“When I saw you at the inn I would have never
suspected you bore the mark.” He shook his head and muttered, “too young.” But
even as he spoke he was removing the ring of keys from the other cell door and
placing it in the lock to Alexis’s.
With a metallic clang the door was unlocked and
Alexis shoved it open. “God, how good it feels to be free,” he said as he
stepped outside.
The other Legionnaire clapped him on the
shoulder, nearly sending him staggering forward. “Well, you’re free, but what
are we to do now?”
Alexis was already moving down the hall. “You’ve
done enough. I can’t get you involved in what’s going to happen next; neither one
of you.”
The man grinned. When Alexis had first seen the
man he would have never thought a smile could crease that harsh face, but now
it seemed almost natural. “The Legion sticks together, boy.”
“My name is Alexis Marshall.”
“I presumed as much,” said the other man. “Call
me Michael.”
They came to the lobby of the jail. It was a
sparsely decorated room, with a cabinet against one wall, and a desk and chair
against the other. A small window let in what little light was still lingering
about outside. Alexis’s attention was drawn to the large cabinet. The two small
doors on it were locked with a heavy lock. Michael walked over to it and struck
at the hasps holding the lock with the butt of his gun. The hasps tore off and
fell to the floor with a heavy
clang
, and the small doors creaked open.
Inside lay many items, no doubt most belonging to men who were rotting in the
dungeons and to those who had met their fate on the gallows, but Alexis had
eyes only for his guns. They sat there, emitting a deadly beauty, and seemed to
be only waiting for his hands to pick them up. He couldn’t believe they were
still there; he had feared that someone would take them. He picked them up, and
cracked open both chambers to find that they were still loaded. He reached back
into the cabinet and pulled out his ammunition pouch and his money pouch, both
of which felt lighter to him, and attached them to his belt.
“I’m surprised to find you here,” Alexis said to
Michael as he rushed to the door. “I would have thought you would have moved on
by now ... unless king Aeiron is keeping you here?”
“I
was
on my way,” Michael growled. “I
was back on the road when this girl reached me.”
Alexis looked to Leah behind them. “It seems I
have much to thank you for.”
Leah looked abashed. “Well ... I remembered
having seen him at the inn when I played there, so I knew he would not be far
off.”
Alexis looked at both Michael and Leah. “If we
are to do this, then let’s do it now and get it over with.”
Michael smirked as he pulled out his other gun from
beneath the small coat he wore in the Mareth fashion. “We‘ll show them what the
Legion is about.”
Leah looked at them both uncertainly. “I will
wait with the horses.”
Alexis nodded. He looked at the guns in his
hands, and then up at Michael. “Let’s end this, then.”
3
The three stepped outside into the gloomy
silence that seemed to grip the entire city around them. A cry of jubilation
went up from farther away, and was followed by others, but not nearly enough as
the size of the crowd seemed to warrant. For the most part the silence held a
melancholy quietness to it.
The town square was to their left as they
descended the stone steps, and was entirely taken up by the crowd, staring
inward. The three stood there a moment, looking at the placid crowd.
“I will bring the horses around across the
street to the alley,” Leah said. “There are only two ... I do not know what
good it will do.”
“Have them waiting,” Michael told her.
Alexis said nothing. He only stared towards that
crowd, feeling an impatience to be off. He was startled when Michael placed a
hand on his shoulder.
“How do you want to do this?” he asked. “We
can’t simply rush in there with guns blazing.”
Alexis smiled bitterly. “Why not?”
Michael stared at him as though wondering what
sort of madman he had gotten himself caught up with. “Now you are thinking like
a fool. I will circle around and come from the west, and you ...” He let out a
vexed breath as he saw Alexis‘s face. “Well, you’ll do whatever you wish. It is
plain on your face.”