Chapter 7

He had been absolutely sure that he would not be able to fall asleep that night. How could he? The thoughts and worries about the next day would keep him awake all night. But when he startled violently at the sound of rapping at the door he realized that sometime during the night he had nevertheless fallen into a restless slumber. Medora had wakened too and Seka instinctively clung to the big man with the desperation of a truly frightened human being. Medora sighed and tore his fingers from where they clawed at his arm and scrambled out of bed to let his men in. It was the same three men as the other day. They looked stern and unyielding as they walked in. "We’ve come for the prisoner." Their self-acclaimed leader said. Medora just shrugged as if nothing of this concerned him and spread his arms in a generous gesture towards Seka that still sat on the bed but had crawled into a corner as far away as he could get from them. "Help yourself." Medora said. They did. Seka didn’t say anything as they neared him, didn’t try to plead with them. He knew it was a waste of breath. But he did not intend to come willingly. As the first man that reached the bed put one knee on it to crawl to crawl over and reach for him Seka launched out a leg and kicked him in the chin. Had he aimed better and the man being a bit closer Seka would have caused him quite some damage. Now the kick hurt enough but really didn’t do much more than startle the man… and make him very angry. "Why you little…" Before Seka had time to react the angered man got hold of the chain and pulled him forcefully out of the bed. He landed in a rather ungraceful and hurtful heap on the floorboards and gasped and coughed loudly from the strain put on his neck. There was still fight left in him though as all three of them now closed in on him and leaned over him to retrieve him. As soon as they grabbed him and hauled him onto his feet he started fighting them again. Fear and despair giving him the speed and courage he normally didn’t possess. Medora watched from the door where he still stood how one of the men suddenly flew backwards uttering a cry of pain as blood flew about him from a nose that seemed to have almost exploded. Seka had got hold of the end of the chain and had whipped it across his face. The second man had no better luck as he got kicked again… in a much more sensitive area. He went down on his knees with an agonized wail after getting a hard knee driven as hard and far up between his legs as Seka could muster. The third man grabbed him from behind then and Medora watched, not without amusement, how he had a hard time fending of Seka’s now hysterical flailing. Seka obviously had no fighting skills. He had not the strength and he was scared and desperate. Which meant he didn’t exactly fought fairly. There was a regular cat-fight going on where it was all the third man could do to try and protect his eyes from being gouged out and his gonads from being kicked to mash. It was a rather hilarious sight actually, Medora thought. Three of his soldiers, strong fearsome warriors getting their asses kicked by an 18-year-old lanky kid with no fighting experience whatsoever. But of course, they had not expected this at all. He had surprised them with his sudden violent defiance. Seka couldn’t fight them for very long though. The man holding him soon got a better hold and twisted his arms up along his back and forced him to his knees. In the meantime the other two had regained their composure a bit. They were really angry now Medora could see. Fire seemed to shoot from their eyes. Both of them rushed at him with the obvious intention to give him a few kicks and blows in return. To beat him into submission once and for all. Medora had no intentions of letting them do that though. He stepped between them and used his authority to calmly but very strictly make them back off. There was a fight between their anger and the respect they had for their leader inside of them, one could clearly see that but the respect won out in the end. "For goodness sake," Medora roared, "can you not even take down a small kid without screwing up?" The men looked somewhat embarrassed. "Get out! I’ll bring him down myself… well? Just go outside and wait and I’ll bring him in a couple of minutes." They murmured and muttered sourly and cast piercingly dark looks at both master and slave but obeyed. Medora laughed behind his hand as he saw them leave. One pawing at the scratches in his face, the other walking with his nose in the air to try and stop the bleeding and the last one just walking really oddly out the door with a pained expression in his face. He would have given much to hear what explanation they would give their comrades that probably waited outside on the yard of the inn. His big amused grin disappeared though as he turned toward the boy. Seka had crawled into a corner and huddled there, arms covering his head, sobbing and shaking. Medora neared him, not without a bit of caution. He didn’t want a knee in his groin too. Above all he didn’t want to be forced to hurt him. Well, he thought, maybe no force would be necessary? It had been possible to reason with this slave before. He crouched beside him. "Now come on… you’re going whether you want it or not. Why let yourself be beaten up in the process?" No reaction. "I won’t let them hurt you… I promise…" He took hold of his arm then and pulled him on his feet, the boy did not protest. He seemed as frightened and desperate as before by the looks of him but obviously did not dare to defy him in the same manner he had the others. Medora unlocked the chain from his neck then, prepared to seize the boy if he would try to bolt. "Come on!" he urged again pulling gently at his arm. Panic rose in the boy’s eyes. "No… no no… please…" He dug his heels in the floorboards and clawed at the bedposts to try to get hold of something to cling to. Medora easily tore his fingers from their weak hold and pulled him towards the door. Seka tried to stall. "All right… I’ll come… but let me… please wait… please just let me… put something on… please don’t make me go down there naked… pleeease…" Medora did hold it for a while then and looked at him, sighing. Then he tore a sheet from the bed and wrapped it around him. "Now you’re not naked, come on…" He took him by the shoulders and half led him, half carried him out of the room. Seka tried to be courageous about it then but he felt about the same as he had done when those soldiers had taken him to the scaffold that Lord Medora had saved him from. His knees buckled half way down the stairs and Medora cursed and hauled him up in his arms. Everything was kind of hazy as they stepped out onto the yard of the inn. He couldn’t think straight. Wasn’t able to react. There were a lot of people out there. Soldiers, curious people from the village... Hands grabbed him, hands from everywhere it seemed. And he would have fought them but he couldn’t find any strength and he was so tangled up in those damn sheets. Before he knew it some of those hands brutally yanked at his wrists and tied them off. Other hands grabbed at his ankles totally ceasing his pathetic kicking through the sheets and tied them off too. Another rope was wound around his upper arms and chest. All these hateful and brutal strong hands were making him completely immobile. He felt like a trussed up pig waiting for slaughter and now he knew why they wailed so much… He couldn’t even scream though, yet another pair of hands shoved a piece of cloth in his mouth effectively muffling any sounds coming from him. He was lifted in to the air and carried off, whereto he had no idea. Medora quickly ran up the room again and got as quickly dressed. He had shouted an order to bring his horse up front over his shoulder as he went and when he came down a few minutes later it was there waiting for him. He mounted in a hurry without one look at the stable boy holding its reins. He just tore them out of his hands and rode after the small train of soldiers and villagers carrying his catamite on their shoulders. He soon caught up with them, cutting off the small group that was carrying him. "Haul him up here!" He ordered. "I’ll take him out to the shield on the horse." They looked at him suspiciously for a fraction of a second, as if he had intended to steal their little victim from them and spoiling their fun. But of course their general would not do a thing like that. Sure he liked to fuck the boy but he wouldn’t do that for such a one as he. They hauled him up. The procession waited on a big field outside of the village and it was a few miles to go, just let him take him on the horse. Medora could feel him tremble and shiver through the sheet as they lifted him up but he seemed to calm down a bit after a while. He pulled the dirty rag out of his mouth then with a warning. "I don’t want to hear any whining you hear? Or I’ll stuff it back, understand?" The boy nodded and said nothing but pressed his face into his chest to try to stifle his sniveling. Medora allowed it and cursed inside. He had got this one into pretty good shape. Well tamed and all… considering and now he would probably be reduced to some kind of wreck if he even survived it? Damn waste… >>> * <<< The sight meeting him as he peeked through the slits in the sheet cramped up his stomach. Everything was so large here. The fields outside the city walls stretched out for miles it seemed in every direction and the walls of the city itself was larger than anything man-built that he had seen in all of his life before. The sight of the big city would probably have had him awe-struck in any other situation but now he hardly noticed it. The only thing he saw was the army standing beneath its walls. There must have been thousands of men standing there. Tens of thousands. The sight of so many people at one place was frightening. And they were all soldiers? No wonder his land had crumpled to pieces under their feet. It seemed to him a wonder that this nation had not invaded it long before. How could anything resist such an overwhelming power? The army seemed a single entity to him. A giant monster. The sounds of the individual men talking merging together into a noise like the monster’s heavy breathing. The shield stood at its adorned and gilded wagon drawn by black horses like it had been a hearse. The monster’s gleaming eye. This monster was about to devour him and not even Lord Medora was strong enough to stop that. Seemed he was what they all had been waiting for. As Lord Medora neared the whole army gave up a roar that made the horse shy away and nearly made Seka piss him self all over again. It must have been over a hundred men suddenly coming rushing towards them, crowding in around the horse like a pack of hungry wolves. They clawed at him from all directions and he panicked and screamed to high heaven as they tore him from Medora’s hands as easily as if they had taken a toy from a small child. Medora had not even tried to keep his hold of the boy. That would only have resulted in them tearing him to pieces. Better let them have him. But he wouldn’t stand for this behavior anyway. With some effort he managed to steer the frightened horse away from the maddened crowd so he could signal for his own men to interfere. They did. With cold efficiency they stepped into the crowd of soldiers aroused with blood thirst and it was only minutes before the calm was restored. Medora strained his eyes over the now calmed crowds and tried to spot the boy and soon got sight of him. Seemed his men had been just in time. Seka was still alive. Two of his officers held him between them. But he hung so limply in their grasp he might have very well been dead were it not for the tremors that shook his small framed body. He seemed not to have been seriously hurt. There was only tatters left of the sheet though and he had some bleeding scratches. The officers did not return him and didn’t look in their general’s direction. They turned and walked towards the shield dragging the small pale figure with them. Medora trailed after them. Seka wasn’t really aware about what went on around him by now. He though he had all but passed out from pure fear as the crowd had started tearing at him. He had been absolutely sure to die a horrible death right there and then being literally torn to pieces by the roaring soldiers. He had no idea how it was that he wasn’t. Only that he suddenly was as naked as the time he saw the light of day for the first time and that the ropes that had bound him were gone. He couldn’t have moved even if he had been able to regain that much composure though. Four men held on to him and lifted him up on the wagon. For a short time he was held up high in the air on their raised arms and turned around at the rising and falling of thousands and thousands of voices roaring. The clear blue sky was spinning like crazy in his vision and he thought he was going to throw up but then they put him down… The cold that hit his body as they pressed his back to the shield was numbing and he gasped and then he moaned when they spread his limbs painfully wide and tied his wrists and ankles hard to the shield. He didn’t even try to test the strength of his bonds… Everything went surrealistically quiet around him. The four men had left the wagon. Medora’s men who was going to lead the procession guarded the wagon like hawks and didn’t let any soldier from no other cohort near it. After a while things calmed down considerably. The moment of watching the prisoner being tied to the shield was over and after an hour or so no one was interested in it anymore. They just waited now for when the procession was about to begin. Waited for the main gates of the city walls to open up for them. There was excitement in the air but a relaxed sort of excitement now. They had got their chance in screaming out a great deal of it as the prisoner had been brought. Medora was a bit annoyed. They could have waited a while tying him to the shield. It was a strenuous position to force someone into and the sun shone hard on the shield now. It could be hours before the city dwellers had prepared for the procession and opened up the gates. But he guessed the men had wanted that little show as an appetizer. Things were calmer now. He took a water flask and went up to the wagon, which jerked a bit back and forth at the pull of the six restless black horses. A stern soldier put the shaft of a spear across his chest and hindered him. "No one’s going near the wagon!" He bellowed. Medora didn’t even answer that but just looked at the man as if he was the biggest idiot he had ever seen in his life. The man grinned sheepishly and stepped aside. "Sorry general… didn’t see…" Medora ignored the excuse as well and just walked on. They boy didn’t move and didn’t look up as he climbed onto the wagon and stepped up to him. Medora thought he might have lost consciousness all together but he moaned a little as he lifted his hanging head up. "You all right?" He asked trying to get the boy to focus. Seka finally looked at him and there seemed to be at least some sanity in his eyes. "No" he croaked bitterly through parched lips. Medora smiled. There had been a whole lot of hate and bitterness in that answer and it showed that the kid was not entirely broken… yet. Good, he would try to see to it that he wouldn’t be later on either. He put the flask to his lips and Seka drank greedily from it and Medora washed his face too, it seemed to revive him a bit. "You’re doing fine. It’ll all be over in a few hours. This was probably the worst of it." He said reassuringly. Seka just shook his head. "There…" he whispered, "there will be… a new crowd… right? Inside… inside the… walls…" Pure unadulterated fear in his feeble voice. Medora shrugged. No use in lying to the poor sod. "Yes." He said simply. Seka moaned. "Oh God… please Master… just kill me now… just slit my throat… or… anything…" Medora just shook his head and didn’t answer that. He gathered Seka’s hair from where it hung over his shoulders to his waist and made a lose braid of it, tucking it in between his back and the shield. "No use in getting this pretty hair of yours destroyed. " He said. Seka didn’t even have the strength to react to that. What damn difference made his damn hair in a situation like this? He hung his head again and slumped as far as the bonds allowed him. He just wished for everything to be over right now, and not only the shield ride but all of his sorry existence too. Medora turned to leave but that seemed to make the boy really desperate. His head flew up and he pulled frustrated at the leather thongs binding him and sobs racked his meager chest. "No, please don’t leave me…" Medora tuned back and leaned closer whispering in his ear. "I won’t! I’ll be close nearby all the time. Don’t worry I won’t let anyone hurt you. I’m not that sloppy with my belongings…" he silenced and then spoke again as he gave him a fleeting caress with his knuckles against his tear stained cheek. "Don’t think me cold Seka…" Medora went up to his most trusted officer and seemingly pulled him along in the passing. "Come with me!" He asked and they withdrew from the crowds a bit. "Now listen to me! I want you to take a few men, four or five or so, and tell them to stay close to the wagon throughout the procession. I want them to see to it that nothing happens to the boy." The officer leaned back on his heels with a surprised look in his face. "But general… that’s impossible… There’ll be thousands of people lining the streets; they will throw things… We won’t be able to stop them." Medora growled impatiently. "I know that. I just want them to do their best in seeing to it that nothing really lethal is thrown at him. Never mind the clogs of dirt or the horse shit and the rotten fruit… look out for rocks, beer jugs and any kind of weapon, things like that. Do you understand what I mean? The kid’s not a prisoner, he’s my private belonging and I want him as unharmed as possible at the end of the day. I didn’t drag him over the mountains just so he could be torn to pieces at the amusement of a lot of common street thugs! Now I let you have the kid even though I didn’t have to so now you do as I say and go and find some men that are not hot-headed idiots if there are any in this army." The officer straightened his back. "Yes Sir!" He said and turned on his heels to execute that order. Medora knew he would do it to the best of his ability. He always did. As the train led by the gilded wagon snaked its way through the opened gates and was met by the crowds of the city. Medora was not at all sure though that he would be able to keep the promise he had made to his little slave.

Previous||Next Bibliotheca Doloris All text, images & graphics © Francesca Bathory 2002 - The end of time |Main| |News| |Fiction| |Art| |Miscellaneous| |Links| |Guests| |Contact Me| |Guestbook| |Mailing List| |Original Pain Home| All rights reserved.