Caught

by **Gad** on April 1st, 2014, 6:48 am

Summer 13, 505AV
The Road to Zeltiva

Well, I was able to keep on like I had been for another day, and nothing eventful happened on that third day on the road. Guess Clyde didn't want to bring up how there was more of his goods missing, and that worked fine for me. On top of that, it'd seemed like his little spat with portly Porter was keeping him too distracted to wonder why I was sleeping a third day straight. By that point he probably wouldn't have cared if I'd jumped up and started doing a dance routine, though he might've been glad I wasn't making any noise; he had enough to worry about. By the fourth day, however, things came to a head. It was a two bells after sun up, or maybe more, I'm not sure, but the light was out. Having maintained a more nocturnal schedule for the past few days, I was genuinely in the deepest of sleeps. That's when I heard the voice of Clyde, with his whining crackle, spewing a chain of curses that might make a sailor blush. After he finished his breathless tirade, I heard what he was complaining about.

“Gods damn it, I knew it was one of you sods. I knew it, I don't know how you did it, but you're gonna tell me, and I'm gonna take it out of your hide until you do damn it!” He opened the cage and pulled Lefty out by the foot, and stuck him on the back- through his clothes- until he yelped for mercy. The Captain rode up, with the man with the changeable eyes, and looked over the scene.

“Clyde? What's this all about.”

“What it's about, Captain-” Clyde produced a cloth, soaked in brown meat juices and held it up for the men to see. “- is I finally found some evidence of the thievin' rat among these wretches. And now, I'm gonna punish them for it.” The captain shared a glance with the yellow-to-red eyed man and then nodded at Clyde.

“Alright, but we'll keep moving. Don't spend too much time on this. We've got ground to cover.” I could hear the hooves of their horses clopping away. Clyde was outside our wagon-cage, kicking Lefty.

“You motherpetchers crawl your sorry asses out here now. Go on! You! Get that petch boy up! Yeah, that one!” I felt a nudge from Jeff and pretended to come awake. I rubbed my head and blinked and said;

“What's going on?” Tuck shot me a glance of one-hundred proof hate. Well, what was I supposed to do? Feebly, I crawled out of the cage, after Tina and Tuck, and Jeff followed, moving almost as slow as I did, and making himself look twice as pitiable. So, we were there all standing in a row soon enough, and that's when I really caught how short Clyde was, in that he was barely able to look Tina in the eye. He started pacing back and forth in front of us, and looking his face was about to melt off with this evil look pouring out his eye balls. He did two or three go-arounds and stopped in front of me. Now, I know it's bad, but I had to fight cracking a grin. He was down there staring up my nose, and I'm just looking dead-eyed and confused straight ahead, with this expression on my face like I didn't know up from down. Well, he must've caught a look of something he didn't like, because he brought his fist up and- well, he didn't quite punch me- he slapped me with it. I immediately go down and take a knee clutching my cheek. Just as I was rising up, and using the ledge of the back of the cart to support myself, he planted his boot heel in my ribs. So I was sandwiched between the bottom of his foot and the edge of this cart digging into my side. He pulled his foot back and I thought I could get up but then I felt a kick to my calf that sent me to rest on my elbows and knees. He started laughing as he kicked the piss out of me, and just over to my left, next to Tuck, I saw Lefty getting up now from his own, earlier ass beating. I guess he saw there was a new punching bag and he didn't have to worry anymore. Now, Clyde was going off about me faking out like I'd been asleep this whole time and he was going to put me to sleep for good.

“Oh. Ohhhohhohhoo buddy. A tall strong boy like you's gonna fetch a nice price at the flesh Market in Kenash. But, damn if I don't want that pound of flesh for my own.” I took a few heels to the face till my lip and nose were bloodied, and then I looked up to see him pulling a blade from his belt. I heard Tina's weak voice pick up over Clyde's ranting. “What? What'd you say bitch?”

by **Gad** on April 1st, 2014, 7:04 am

“No. He's just- he's just a kid.”

“Listen bitch, I'll cut your throat right here, and drown that brat in his mommy's own blood. But not before I deliver that little shyke floating in your fat gut now, and lynch him with his umbilical cord.” Now, I'm going to have to be honest here. That was probably one of the most gruesome threats I'd ever hear in my entire life. Some threats are justified, or even if they aren't they might be useful, but I don't think any of us really saw the need for him to go that far. Tina took it about just aswell.There was all of a sudden this violent, wild, angry look in her eyes, and I swear I could see sparks of lightning shooting through her hair. She slid her baby to her hip and held him with her left arm, and set her right hand across her big tummy. She rose up on the tip of her toes, so that now she was definitely taller than Clyde.

“GO AHEAD BITCH! DO IT! DO IT! GO AHEAD!" Spittle flew out of her mouth as she cursed him and she raised her chin up so he could see her neck. He took a stumbling step back with this bewildered look in his eye and just blinked for a moment. The, he reached up and smacked her. But when he did it, Clyde still had this look on his face like he'd needed her permission to do it, and so did Tina, for that matter. The slap wasn't soft and you could hear it reverberate through the relative quiet of the Southern Woods. It left a red mark on her face, but she hadn't moved from the position with her throat presented, like she was carved from stone. Clyde swallowed and then let out a nervous laugh.

“Stupid bitch.” He muttered. He slapped her again, and she still didn't budge, though I could see from where I was on the ground tears welling up in her eyes, and maybe even one go down her cheek. After a tick of quiet, Clyde stepped back again, and then looked at all of us, and continued his pacing. I took the opportunity of his back being turned to stand back up and brush the blood from my face. Clyde finally got to what this was all about. “So, it's come to my attention that one -or more- of you flea ridden rats has taken it upon themselves to help themselves to my rations. To steal from me my food and leave me eating your rat chow. Well, it ends today. I'm not gonna waste my time looking for who did it, because you're gonna tell me. You are gonna give up the one who's been stealing my food, and then we can all get on with our lives. And if you don't? I'm going to take it out of your hide. It's that simple.”

I was shifting eyes over the line. It wasn't a matter of if one of them would give me up, just which one would do it first. I knew I was going to die. When they gave me up I knew, this Clyde, he was going to kill me, and that was it, that'd be the end. Of course, my eyes were shifting down the line back and forth, from Tuck who was still looking at me like he'd wanted to kill me himself, to Lefty, who was looking almost as miserable as I was. Tina, I didn't think it'd be her. She'd just spoken up in my defense, and I doubted she'd spin around just to do it again. Jeff, well Jeff was capable of anything, I thought. He had nothing to lose, right? Right. Well, I suspected Tuck to be the first to say something, but then his little brother Lefty stepped forward and shoots me this look as if to say sorry or something. Me? Well, I took that time to start working on some kind of plan, some kind of way to get out of there. I knew I was going to die, yeah, but I've never been one not to try. Not when it was my neck on the chopping block. I worked something out with a kick to the groin and maybe some projection and that was about as far as I got when Lefty's trebling voice warbled through the silence.

“It was-”

“-Me. I did it.” Surprised? Yeah, me too, but I figured owning up to my deceptive ways was the right thing to do, and might as well cut to the chase right? I knew it was inevitable anyways, right? Of course. So what was the point of dragging it out any further. I was always the type to do things on my terms, and if the jig was up then the jig was up and I might as well go down fighting like I planned to. Well, then Clyde swings his knife at me but I put my heel to his gonads and yanked the blade from his hands, slice his throat open, and then I run around to the front of the cart and hop on a horse. I cut that baby loose and start galloping back to Sunberth. Fat Porter and Porter Junior are in the way. I kick Fat Porter in the face as we gallop on and his son gets trampled underneath the hooves of my stolen steed. I pass the Captain on his horse, steal the hat from his head, and as a parting gift, toss my commandeered knife through his one good eye, evening him out. As I ride into the horizon, I call back and say “Haha you fools! None can catch the Great Wizard Gad!”

by **Gad** on April 10th, 2014, 2:47 am

No, it didn't happen like that. Of course it didn't.

“ -Me. I did it.” It was Jeff. He stood up straight and was now looking down his nose at Clyde. The old hobo was trembling a little, I could see. Clyde drew his knife and walked over to him, and looked him up and down. Clyde was standing now with his feet wide apart, the knife brandished by his side kind of hanging there, swaying back and forth as it was pointed downward. The fingers on his other hand were twitching like they were playing some invisible flute or tapping unseen piano keys.

“You? You did it? How?”

“I managed to get some sticks together whenever we passed close enough to the trees. Tied 'em together. Took me all night to undo that knot- then, I fished it out, skewered on the pointy end of my sticks.” Clyde was standing there with this constipated look on his face like he was struggling to put it all together in his head. Then I could he started nodding strangely, and then there was this faint smile on his mouth and a deranged look in his eyes.

“Well I'll be...” Clyde looked at Jeff, looked away, and looked back at Jeff. “You have any help?”

“No, I-” he was cut off by his own pained grunts. Clyde swung the knife around and jabbed it into Jeff's gutt. And all this blood squirted out and the old man doubled over. Clyde pulled him up by his hair, even as Jeff's knees gave out, so that his exposed stomach wouldn't be obstructed. And he just kept on, stabbing, and stabbing, I don't know how many times he got the guy. Seventeen. Actually, it was seventeen exactly. I counted. Not in my head, but in my own gut. Each one was for me. That was me bleeding to death on the ground, stabbed seventeen times and bleeding to death, that was me. Clyde was wiping blood from his chin and hands. Tina was over there gripping her kid tight with her eyes averted. Lefty had his one good hand over his eyes and it slowly slid down to his mouth to reveal those same eyes wincing. And Tuck was still staring at me with that hate. I didn't really account for all of this at the time, of course. I was still watching Jeff, laying there twitching. I've never been the charitable sort, and I'd never been the kind to throw my lot in with losers, if I could help it, or put my neck on the line for sentiment, but I thought, for some reason, maybe he could survive this, if I stopped the bleeding or something, I didn't know. Maybe they could patch him up. Who was 'they' anyway? How would I know. I knelt down next to him and pulled his shirt up. His stomach was ground beef. I leaned close to him, cause I could see he was trying to say something.

“What?” I whispered. “What'd you say?”

“He get me?” I looked wide eyed. He was grinning. There was tears in his eyes and he was cut to ribbons but the crazy old bastard was grinning about it. I shifted my eyes down to his stomach once again and the image was seared on the back of my eyelids.

“Uh, yeah Jeff, I think he got you.”

“Damn. I was just waiting, you know, for my turn to get him back, but he was too fast.” He sucked his teeth. “Tsk. And I was planning on making my break for it tomorrow too, ain't I just got the best luck? Huh kid?"I wasn't sentimental, I thought I was cold blooded. Right? I was from the mean streets of Sunberth, people got murdered everyday. Just, no one I knew, or cared about. I guess that's why I never made friends as a kid. You never knew if some one was gonna be there tomorrow or face down in the gutter, so why bother? This was something that got to me, something that hurt me like I didn't really think I could be. I leaned close to him and spoke soft.

“Why'd you do it Jeff?” He rattled out his response between heavy breaths and through a mouthful or his own blood, and his voice was just a whisper, a creaking hush.

“That first night. I saw. I saw what you did. You got- you got something there. You-... don't throw your life away. They'll... they'll always try and make you believe that your life is worthless, that you have no value, that you don't mean anything or aren't good for anything, that you can't do anything. That's how they work. You aren't worthless. Your life's got value. Don't throw it away, don't drink it away and gamble it away like I did. Don't live it all just for you -cause when you die- that'll be all you got. Don't throw your life away." His hands gripped my shoulders in a vice, shockingly powerful for a dying old man, and his eyes were now wide, and full of stars. "But don't be afraid to put it on the line, either.” I guess Clyde didn't have much patience for my sentimentalizing or the surprisingly potent last words of one dying old hobo so he kicked me in the neck. I'm glad, in retrospect, that his preferred method of abuse was by kicking, because he did, indeed, kick like a little bitch. He righted me up, pulling be to my feet by my hair, and he readied his knife.

by **Gad** on April 10th, 2014, 2:49 am

“Oh ho-ho. And don't think I forgot about you! Trying to run, and then playin possum for days on end, trying to make me look like a fool?”

“That's enough Clyde.” It was the Captain.

“But Captain-”

“That's enough damn it! You've already wasted too much time today! I don't want to fall behind schedule.”

“But Captain, this is the brat that tried running! In the slave market. He's been faking half-dead these past four days!” The captain stroked his mustache.

“Faking half-dead you say? Alright. Coral? Take care of him. Make an example, but I don't want to loose anymore merchandise. Boy?” He was talking to me now. “This here is my associate Mr. Coral, and he's just saved your life. Say 'Thank you Mr. Coral.'” Clyde's knife was pressed against my neck.

“Thank you Mister Coral.” I said flatly. The Captain laughed.

“Alright boy, that'll do. Mr. Coral here's gonna take real good care of you. Aren't you Mister Coral?” Coral nodded. “Now, you might've noticed Mr. Coral's lovely set of peepers. That's on account of him being a Vantha. Can you say 'Vantha' boy?”

“...Vantha.”

“Good! That's good. Now, the thing about Vanthas is, they've got these changeable eyes, see? And they change colors whenever their mood does. Now, I be you're wondering why Mister Coral's keeps changing eh? Well, that's because when his eyes are yellow, he's as docile as a dandelion, and when they're red, well, he's a real bloodthirsty sonuvabitch. As you see, they do keep changing back and forth like that. Maybe it's something wrong with his eyes, or might be something wrong with his head. Either way, they've been going back and forth like that every since he took a brick between the eyes back in a bar fight in '88. He used to be yellow all the time, or so I hear. Well, look at me, prattling on like an old hen. I'm sure you and Mr. Coral've got a lot of acquainting to do. Well, get to it! Yah!” He galloped off to the particular wagon under his charge. By this point Clyde had already gotten the other three back in their cage and he was moving along what was passing for a trail. Coral looked down at me and extended a hand. I looked at it, and then back up at him. He was sitting high on a horse still, and I was trying to figure out what his play was, whether he was going to drag me along or trample me. I approached with caution, and he flexed his fingers in that way that said 'come over here'. When I got close enough, he took me by the hand and pulled me up onto his horse. He immediately went to full gallop and I almost fell off. He brought me around to the front of the wagons, ahead of all the slavers and slaves in the carts. Coral slowed down -barely- and tossed me to the ground. I tumbled side over side through the dirt, then struggled to my feet. He just was sitting there was those shifting eyes on me.

“Well?” He said.

“Well what?” I said.

“Aren't you going to run?” I looked over my shoulder at the open path ahead. Of course, Sunberth was the other way, but in between me and it was seven slavers and four days on horse. I was already getting the idea of what he wanted. It's like, have you ever noticed a dog won't attack you, till you've got your back to it? It wants you to run. Wants to chase you down. It enjoys the chase. This was their idea of cruel irony, and damn, it was cruel. So, I stood there looking at him for a minute or so just dead locked seeing how many seconds his eyes spent as each color. That was the funny thing about his eyes. There was no transition color, not slow fading or gradient from one color to the next. It was red, then it was yellow, then it was red. The only constant were his black pupils that dilated with excitement at the thought of the chase. He blinked, and I spun around on my heels. I didn't go straight down the path, but headed for the tree line, where I thought his horse couldn't follow. I thought. I thought I was smart. Of course, he and that horse had probably done this plenty of times. They were there in a flash and I had to jump back to keep from getting stomped to death.

by **Gad** on April 10th, 2014, 2:52 am

“Clever boy! You'd be surprised how many people just start with the dead sprint, going straight. Alright now, back to the road. Let's give it a sporting go, eh?” Sporting go my ass. I twisted around and started down the road. To my surprise, then terror, he didn't start following me right away. He gave me a head start, a few ticks to realize that he wasn't just letting me go, but that he was showing me it didn't matter how much my lungs huffed and puffed or my arms pumped or my legs thumped against the ground. Soon I heard the hooves barreling down on me, I tried picking up speed but the horse was barely at a pace, and in five ticks he was on me. And so was the sting of the lash. Once, then twice. Now, of course I didn't slow down, I wanted to get away, so I keep running, and then coral gives me a little more space to go. Maybe another five ticks, and he was on me, with that whip. Snap snap across my back, my flesh bled, and it dripped down the back of my calves. Coral started to ease up, and give me more time to run. He seemed to enjoy tiring me out more than striking me with the whip, but it wasn't like the slightest of grins he held disappeared when he hit me either. He started giving me more time between catching me, and he'd say things like; “Whoa now! You got so far that time!” or “Boy you keep this up you just may get away!” and he always did so with an electric genuineness, or at least the veneer of it that covered up his psychotic passion for his profession. Each time when he caught up with me, he'd give me one or two, or five, nasty cracks with that whip. He did take a break with the rest of the slavers when they stopped after midday to eat. I considered running only briefly. I knew he'd just catch me, and I didn't want to was the only break I had. He tossed me some water and moldy bread and said. “Here, that's slave food.” He pointed to the stew he was eating. “This? This is people food. If you knew the difference I wouldn't have to hurt you like this.”

The only reason he feed me and kept me hydrated was because he didn't want me dying of exhaustion before he'd gotten the most out of me. It went on like this for the rest of the day. When the sun went down there was blisters on my feet and my knees were collapsing out from underneath me. I couldn't even feel my back anymore, though. That's not really true. I wished it were true, but I could still feel it, especially when I moved, or sweat dripped into the wounds, or the wind blew, and it was turning out to be a windier Summer than I'd thought it might be. Not that I had ever had too many thoughts on windiness levels from season to season, but I had a few reasons to consider it now. That and, how I was going to die out here, on the road. I guess you might say I made peace with it, but, when you're too weak to keep fighting, “making peace” is just a euphemism for losing. They didn't feed me in the evening, or give me water. That was alright, I was too tired and in too much pain to eat or drink. They just let me collapse a few feet away from the carts, face down in the dirt. They didn't need to cage me. I wasn't going anywhere. I was already caught.

Continued in "Choices