Murderer
The caged wagon groaned, its timbers shrieking in protest as it lurched down the broken road. The draft horse, a skeletal beast of mottled gray, wheezed and puffed, each labored breath a visible cloud in the cool morning air, as it strained against the heavy load. The driver, a man of considerable girth, his forearms thick and round, his belly a swollen mound belted tightly beneath his tunic, used a soiled rag to blot the sweat beading on his brow. Before him, the road, more a treacherous pathway than a proper thoroughfare, snaked precariously through towering mounds of jagged boulders. It climbed the sheer face of a steep cliff, winding toward the three distant peaks that pierced the sky like ancient, watchful gods.
From within the wagon's confines, whimpers echoed. The driver's hand, seemingly without thought, reached to the seat beside him, where a thick, coiled whip lay. He seized it, and with a practiced flick of his wrist, snapped the whip through the air directly above the caged enclosure. "Quiet that bawlin', you little worms!"
Cadal Valsheer flinched, the sharp report of the whip slicing through the air like a blade. He pulled his knees tighter to his chest, pressing himself into the wagon's left front corner. Through the grimy bars, the rugged, mountainous landscape crept by, each passing rock and gnarled tree a blur. He wore only the soiled rags that remained from the long, involuntary journey from his village. He forced himself to take shallow breaths, desperate to quell the rising tide of fear, to not consider what lay ahead.
A dozen other children shared his confinement within the wagon, some as young as six years, others, like Cadal, approaching their twentieth year, standing on the cusp of manhood. The sharp crack of the whip had silenced their weeping, but Cadal knew this stillness was fleeting. It was a monumental effort to suppress the raw terror of the unknown. All of them, gathered from various raids or captured for reasons unspoken, had found themselves trapped within this iron cage.
Another hour of the wagon's grueling progress brought the three mountains into stark relief. The setting sun cast long, distorted shadows that stretched across the jagged terrain, turning familiar shapes into monstrous silhouettes. Twilight deepened, and a full, swollen moon, a pale orb fighting for dominance, began its ascent. Yet, the mountains themselves rose so impossibly high that their colossal forms began to swallow the moon's light, their peaks piercing the heavens like ancient, dark teeth.
At the base of the central mountain, the tallest and most imposing of the three, an impossibly huge fortress came into view. It was carved directly from the living rock, its grim, stark lines showing its functional design and terrifying power. The sheer scale of the citadel was breathtaking, a monumental construct from a forgotten age or born from immense will. What little remained of the broken path dwindled, giving way to a wide, meticulously laid stone road that led directly to the front gates of this massive keep. These gates, vast and formidable, seemed built to repel not just armies, but giants, their immense bulk looking like a defiance of divinity. As the wagon drew nearer, lights flickered from countless windows and openings cut into the mountain's face, casting an unsettling, intermittent glow against the encroaching darkness. Occasional flashes of brighter, more intense light erupted from deeper within the fortress.
Cadal's knuckles whitened as he clenched his fists, the imposing mountain fortress filling his sight. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to blot out the terrifying vision, but the image remained seared into his mind. The younger children, sensing the wagon's slowing pace and the overwhelming sight of their destination, began to weep anew, their cries soft at first, then growing into a chorus of mournful sounds. Even the older ones, who had endured the journey with a grim, weary silence, now groaned and shivered, their stoicism breaking under the weight of what lay before them.
I am not afraid, Cadal told himself, the words a desperate chant. I cannot be afraid. After all, though he had been torn from his home, ripped from his family, he had, in a way, brought this fate upon himself. For a moment, the charred corpse that had once been his father flashed bright and vivid in his mind, the horrified expression on his mother's bruised face, the stinging burn of green flame or fire that had been fading from his own extended hands. He shoved the memories away, deep into the recesses of his mind. It was best not to think about it.
Other roads, less defined than the one they traveled, converged with the main thoroughfare. Cadal saw more wagons, much like his own, some pulled by horses, others by strange six-legged, lizard-like beasts he had never encountered. Their scales were a dull, earthy brown, and their movements were surprisingly swift and silent as they scuttled along the stone.
As they all neared the immense gates, Cadal saw that each side of the entrance was flanked by two massive, square watchtowers, their dark stone blending seamlessly with the mountain. Soldiers moved about with purpose, their bodies covered in armor made of small, interlocking tiles, giving them an almost segmented appearance. Some were mounted on horses far superior to the emaciated beast pulling his wagon, riding off toward destinations unknown, while others stood guard or entered and exited the watchtowers. A growing line of wagons, a grim procession of their shared fate, began to form before the colossal gates.
Off to one side, Cadal noticed what he first thought were specters, shimmering figures in the deepening twilight. But as his eyes adjusted, he saw they were men, women, and even more children, toiling at some repair or construction project. Their clothes were little more than rags, even worse than the tatters he wore, gray and threadbare, clinging to gaunt frames. A faint, acrid smell, like damp earth mixed with sweat and something metallic, drifted on the wind from their direction. They seemed to be cutting a deep moat or trench into the very base of the mountain, wielding tools of a primitive nature: crude stone picks with wooden handles, and wide, flat shovels made of what looked like hardened bone. There was a deliberate, joyless rhythm to their work, a slow, methodical chipping and scraping. No one spoke, no one laughed. Their faces were hollow, their eyes vacant, and in their slow, almost listless movements, Cadal sensed a profound resignation. Very few of them, if any, he realized with a chilling certainty, appeared to be there by choice.
The immense fortress gates, seemingly built to defy the gods themselves, were not a single, monolithic barrier. Instead, Cadal saw two smaller gates, each set within the colossal frame near the base of the watchtowers. The long line of wagons, now split, forming two separate queues, one before each of the smaller entrances.
One of the strangely armored guards, clad in those tiles of dark metal, stood before each gate, speaking with the drivers. They checked scrolled paperwork, their gazes sharp and penetrating as they peered into each wagon, counting the wretched cargo of people or assessing the goods loaded into those not carrying lives. Some wagons were so crammed with people that the drivers had lashed extra individuals together with rope, forming long, shambling chains that trudged behind the vehicles. Most of these unfortunates wore only worn remnants of footwear, their feet blackened and bleeding from the arduous journey. At this sight, Cadal shuddered, a cold wave passing through him. He found himself, for a fleeting moment, grateful that his own journey to this awful place had at least been within the relative confines of the wagon.
A forceful rush of heat, which he mistook for fear, suddenly flooded through him. He unclenched his hands, the rough fabric of his rags digging into his palms, and scratched at a sudden, insistent burning there. Memories, sharp and screaming, clawed at the surface of his mind: his mother's cries, the meaty slap of his father's belt, her desperate pleas for him to stop. He pressed his hands against his head, a futile attempt to shove the haunting images back down, to keep them buried.
Cadal's wagon inched forward in the queue, drawing closer to the gate. The guard, a figure of weird menace, now stood before their driver. The burly man, who had wielded his whip with such casual cruelty throughout the journey, now seemed just as terrified and subdued as his human cargo. His shoulders slumped, and his usually boisterous demeanor had evaporated into a meek, almost cowering posture.
The guard wore no helmet, revealing a strangely round face, almost perfectly spherical, with thick course black hair that stood up in short tuffs and spikes atop his head. His heavily canted eyes were covered by strange glass lenses set in wire frames, making them appear to bulge unnaturally from his face. Where Cadal could see the eyes themselves around the edges of the frames, they were the color of curdled milk, opaque and unsettling. A faint, metallic tang, sharper than the general smell of the road, now hung in the air around the guard.
The driver, his voice a strained croak, stammered, "Y-yes, Master Regidium sir. All accounted for, sir. Twelve souls, as per the manifest." He fumbled with a rolled parchment, his hands trembling as he offered it to the guard.
The guard took the scroll, unrolling it with a precise, almost surgical motion. His milky eyes, magnified behind the glass, scanned the document for a long moment before flicking up to peer into the wagon. His gaze lingered on each child, moving slowly, deliberately, as if committing every face to memory. The air grew heavy, thick with unspoken dread.
The guard's eyes then stopped, fixing on Cadal. On him they stayed, longer than on any of the others, much as a man might pin a rat beneath his boot.
When the guard finally spoke, his voice was a high-pitched shriek, like a cat being strangled, or the grating scrape of fingernails across rough wood. It assaulted the ears, a truly offensive sound that made Cadal's skin crawl and sent a shiver through the other children. The words were also stilted as if the language he spoke was not his first.
"This one," the guard rasped, a vibrating discord, as he pointed the rolled-up manifest directly at Cadal. "He not accounted for here. List say twelve soul. I count thirteen."
The driver, already a trembling mess, seemed to deflate further. "Master Regidium, sir, no, sir! Impossible, Master Regidium! Twelve, just as it says! I counted them myself, every morning and every night!" His voice was a desperate whine.
The guard's head tilted, a movement that seemed unnatural for his perfectly round face. "You a poor counter, then, Master driver." The word driver was delivered with an icy contempt. "Or maybe you believe my count is error?"
"No, Master Regidium, never! Your count is… it must be correct, Master Regidium," the driver stammered, sweat now beading on his forehead despite the cool evening air. "He must have… he must have slipped in! Yes! One of those stray waifs from the last village, trying to escape the roads! They do that, Master Regidium, they cling to the undercarriage, they climb in when no one is looking!" The driver's eyes darted frantically to Cadal, a desperate plea for understanding in their depths.
The high-pitched voice scraped again. "Story good, driver. But this one not waif. Something about him… I SEE it. It faint, but I see, I always see." The guard's gaze intensified on Cadal, a peculiar flicker in his curdled eyes. "You waste my time for falsehoods. Speak truth of this thing. Speak it NOW!"
Under the guard's milky gaze, Cadal tried to shrink, to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible. Those terrifyingly white eyes, magnified and unblinking behind the glass, seemed to pierce through the wagon's bars, seeing past his ragged clothes, past his fear, into something deeper.
The driver, his face pale and slick with sweat, finally broke. "Master Regidium, he… he is a murderer, Master Regidium!" His voice rose to a frantic pitch. "The others, the ones on the manifest, they are debtor children, or debtors themselves, bound by their families' failings. But him," he gestured wildly at Cadal, "I was paid a few extra coins to take him from his village, Welclen. The boy was accused of killing his own father, Master Regidium."