style="font-size:15px;"> She strode over to me, looking over my broken, filthy form. She looked down at the blade, and then back to me. The crowd hushed, no doubt awaiting her killing stroke. Just below the chin, Jeannine. Below the chin, just like I taught you. My thoughts were not given voice, though I hoped she would hear them nonetheless. I waited silently. I closed my eyes.
I prepared myself for the end. Perhaps it would finally, mercifully, send those terrible angry eyes from my dreams. Perhaps in death I could finally shake free from the keep which I realized far too late was a poison to me. I smirked, in spite of myself. Freedom was at hand. When the sword stroke did not come, I opened them to look upon her once more. She was as she had been, still, with the blade in her hands.
"Do it, girl!" someone cried out in earnest.
"Kill him, the way he killed poor Gern!" another demanded.
Jeannine looked once more at the sword, and then again at me. She shook her head, and with time seeming to slow down to emphasize the moment, she dropped the sword. It clanked and rattled upon the cobblestones.
The crowd was dead silent as it watched her retreat from the scene, followed closely by Erik. The crowd stood in silent, furious awe. Most eyes were upon me, but many looked down to my fouled sword.
Though she had not walked away with my blood spattered upon her, leaving me instead to live on, I felt my fear and panic increase tenfold. I watched the angry crowd slowly close in on me. My breathing quickened and the air would not find its way into my lungs. My vision swirled as though I was fast sinking to the bottom of a gloomy, fouled lake. I felt a sudden rush of blood in my head, and with an outward exhale of fear and breath, I passed out.
***
The sound of horse hooves upon the dirt awoke me. Everything was black. The world rattled about me, shaking my sore, swollen body. I tried to move, but my hands were bound tightly behind my back with cord. My feet were likewise bound, though by what I could not say. My boots had been put back upon my feet, and though my toes tingled, I could not move them. I had been in this position for a fair bit of time, though I could not say for how long.
The air was foul, the smell of fish all about me. I was in some manner of cart, obviously one used to carry fish to market. There was a tarp over my head, its stinking material touching the right side of my face as the cart rumbled down some old road. I could hear the horse breathing, and it complained as it hauled the cart up a steep climb. When it finally leveled out, the cart rattled all the more, as though we rode across a field of small stones. The sound was painful to the ears, as the wood of the old cart rattled and crashed around me. I worried the cart would simply disintegrate, but it held.
I cannot say how long I lay there, suffering the travels of this cart along its unknown path. Perhaps it was several hours, though likely it was far longer. I drifted back to fitful sleep several times, as much from the nausea of the bumpy trip as exhaustion and lack of food. When finally the cart stopped, I was barely able to focus. I had been without food or water for some time.
A pair of feet thumped upon the stones beneath the cart. They walked heavily toward the side of the cart, and I heard the sound of a sword hefted, the blade making the slightest of scraping sounds as it left its leather strap. It was a back-slung sword, and I knew instantly who it belonged to.
The tarp suddenly came away, pulled back to reveal a clear night sky. The stars were bright and plentiful, and the few clouds in the sky were but wisps against the canvas of twinkling darkness. The air was clean and cool. Into that vision of serene beauty, Erik appeared. His eyes were sunken. He had not slept in some time. He had no care in his eyes for me. Somewhere between our arrival in Clearlake and the next morning, Erik's fondness for me had been replaced with disgust.
His powerful hand grabbed at me and hauled me from the cart. I was set upon the ground with only the slightest care, though as swollen and bruised as I was, I felt little at all. With his sword, he cut the cords holding my hands and feet. I lay there, motionless, unable to move. I was helpless, and looked up to him, this towering figure that loomed over me, with the uncaring stars behind him.
"Where are we?" I asked, after some few moments of silence spent staring at him, as he stared at me. "Where are you taking me, Erik?"
"No further than this, Jovan." He looked past me, though I could not see at what.
I strained to look, but my body would not obey me. My entire body felt as an arm does when slept upon. I must surely have been tied up in the back of the cart for some time. When Erik saw my ordeal, he pushed me with his foot, so I rolled over. I saw what he saw.
Mountains. He had taken me the entire three day journey from Clearlake to the Eastern Mountains. They loomed over me, over us, like motionless gods. We were at the foot of the mountains. I saw the Winding Pass, the only easy road through the range. Beyond it, perhaps a walking journey of three days, was the endless expanse of the Great Waste, the desert which had but fifteen years ago swallowed up our king, his people, and his enemies.
"Why did you bring me here?" I asked, still staring at the pass. "Why take me all this way, just to kill me?"
"I did not," Erik replied from behind me. "I did not bring you here to kill you."
"Then why?" I asked again.
"You hung from that stake for three days, Jovan." I could hear the sadness in his voice, though I felt that it was not for me he mourned. "The villagers watched you for hours. Some watched through the night. By the second day, not even the children came to watch you, as you hung like a piece of rancid meat. By the third day, none would even look upon you."
"You offered them my life," I started. "Why did they leave me be?"
There was a pause, and then a deep breath. "I think they have seen enough death in their lives. I think we all have. Nobody wanted your blood on their hands. Perhaps they just wanted you dead elsewhere, instead of in the middle of the village. I do not know, in truth, but I know that after three days, I had had my fill of seeing you hang there, limp and broken."
I heard him reach into the cart and remove something. There was the sloshing sound of a water bladder, and something leather dropped behind me. A pack, likely.
"This is not mercy, Jovan," he continued slowly, exactingly. "This is not mercy. I have nothing left for you. Neither does Jeannine. I poured water down your throat every few hours of this journey, and was happy that you were never more than partially awake. Now I have nothing left to say to you. I just want you to go. Go far away, Jovan, and never return."
"Where do you expect me to go?" I demanded, angrier than anything else. Was I not even worth enough thought to kill?
"Go through the Winding Pass." He nudged the small of my back with his boot, like some beast's master freeing his kept animal. "Go into that endless desert. After that, I do not care."
With that, with not a single word of goodbye, he stepped over my limp form, and mounted his cart. He goaded on the horse, and turned the cart back for home. His eyes would not even meet my own as he passed me.
I listened as the cart's rattling faded in the distance. To my fore, the gaping maw of the Winding Pass welcomed me with silence. Not even the wind blew.
I lay there for some time, and slowly, very slowly the feeling returned
