The guards didn't so much drag Kael as haul him like a sack of rotten potatoes sloshed through mud. His boots carved jagged lines into the muck of the street, the leather cuffs around his wrists cutting deep and rubbing his skin raw. His breath was hot with curses, spit flecking as he twisted against them.
"Get your filthy hands off me! You think I'm scared of you bastards?!" Kael barked, his voice cracking into a snarl and a laugh.
One of the guards yanked the chain hard enough to wrench Kael's shoulder. "Keep running your mouth, rat. Won't be no teeth left when the lash is done with you."
"Good," Kael spat back with blood on his lip from where they'd already cuffed him. "Less for your wives to dream about when they're sick of your limp dicks."
That earned him a slam to the gut with the butt of a club. His knees buckled, but the guards didn't let him fall, they dragged him upright, forcing him forward, step after miserable step. The mud was ankle-deep from last night's rain, sucking at him and swallowing his feet like it wanted to claim him before the whip ever got a chance.
Behind them came Runt and Spit who were released because of their young age. Their small voices weren't small now. They were ragged and cracked, tearing through the gray morning air.
"Please, sirs, don't take him! He didn't mean it, he's just hungry!" Runt's voice was high and sharp like a bird trapped in a cage.
"He's all we got!" Spit yelled, running up close enough that a guard shoved him back into the muck. "He looks after us, damn it! You'll kill him!"
The guards didn't spare them more than a passing glare, their faces as blank and hard as stone walls.
Kael twisted his head back, his lips curled into a red grin and his breath wheezing from the blow he'd taken. "Don't waste your time begging on these pigs. They've got hearts stuffed with sawdust. Save your tears for yourselves."
"You shut your mouth!" one of the guards snapped, jerking the chain.
"Make me," Kael hissed, leaning forward and dragging his heels against the mud like he meant to stall them. His voice rose, a cruel, defiant bark that cut through the drizzle still dripping from the rooftops. "You've been waiting for this day, haven't you? Dreamed of it. Kael Draven on your leash. Well, here I am! Let the whole damned city watch! I'll curse your mothers with every lash you lay on me."
Spit tried to lunge again, tears cutting streaks through the grime on his face. "He's just a kid! You think this makes you men? Beating a boy?"
"A boy who steals is no boy," the broadest of the guards said, his voice flat as a shovel hitting dirt. "He's rot. Rot gets cut out."
The whipping post loomed ahead now, dark wood rising crooked from the earth like a gallows. Townsfolk were already drifting toward it, pulled as if by some quiet hunger. Their faces gray and tight, eyes bright with that eager, nasty curiosity people reserved for other people's pain.
The boys' cries echoed through the street, chasing after Kael. He stumbled once more, then wrenched himself upright, glaring at the onlookers gathering. "Take a good look!" he bellowed with a raw voice. "This is what happens when you starve dogs and expect 'em not to bite!"
The guards shoved him forward and the mud splattered up his legs as they dragged him closer to the post. The rain had picked up again as the fine needles of drizzle stitched the air.
Kael spat blood into the mud, lifting his chin, and grinned wide enough to make his split lip gape like a wound. "Better men than you have tried to break me," he croaked. "None of them lived to brag about it."
---
The magistrate walked with slow, certain steps that said the day was already written, and he was just here to read it aloud. His black robe was heavy, dragging in the wet dirt, the hem frayed from years of ceremony. The rain slicked his bald crown until it gleamed like a stone pulled from a river. He didn't look at Kael at first, he looked at the crowd, eyes sweeping across them like he was tallying cattle.
When his gaze finally landed on Kael, there was nothing there. Not a sign of hate or pity. Just emptiness, a hollow man doing a hollow duty.
Runt and Spit shrank back, their faces gone white. Runt's voice cracked like glass. "Kael…" It wasn't a plea, not even a call for help. Just his name, small and broken in the wet air.
Kael wanted to sneer back something cruel, something that'd make the guards flinch and the onlookers mutter but the magistrate raised the whip and Kael saw it.
The cords glistened, each strand dark as oil. The knots at the ends winked with pale, jagged bone and iron chips that caught the morning light.
Then Kael's throat tightened. His mouth dried, words clung there like they'd been nailed in place. His arms strained against the ropes as his shoulders burned, and he twisted at the post like a man drowning in shallow water.
"Hold him," the magistrate said simply. His voice was flat and deadpan, like he was ordering someone to fetch a broom.
The guards wrenched the ropes tighter until Kael could barely breathe.
"You son of a bitch!" Kael spat, his voice breaking. "You think a whip makes you a god?!"
The magistrate didn't reply as the whip sang through the air.
CRACK.
The sound was obscene, not like leather on skin but like a wet cloth torn in two. Kael's body arched, a scream ripped out of him that startled even the birds from the eaves above. The pain was like fire chewing through muscle and the feeling of teeth carving his back open.
Spit screamed too, clutching at Runt. "Stop it! Please, stop! He'll die!"
The crowd murmured uneasily. One man whispered, "Christ save us… that for bread?" Another muttered, "A boy, not yet a man…"
But none stepped forward. They never did.
Kael's chest heaved, sweat mixing with the rain. Blood was already dripping in thin red streams, staining the post. He ground his teeth, forcing the words out between shallow gasps. "That… all you got?"
The magistrate drew the whip back again, slow and steady, as if Kael's defiance was just wind against stone.
Inside, though, Kael's stomach rolled with dread. His legs trembled against the wood. He knew the whip and what came next. And still, the cords sang again.
CRACK.
The second lash split him open. His scream this time was hoarser, scraping up from the bottom of his lungs like broken glass. The boys wept openly, Runt clutching his head in his hands, Spit shouting at the crowd, "Help him! For God's sake, someone help him!"
But the people only lowered their eyes, shame curdling in their throats.
The magistrate raised the whip once more as rain pattered on the iron studs, dripping like cold tears.
Kael's voice, ragged but still alive, broke into the silence: "You'll… have to do better than that… old man."
The magistrate's arm moved again, unshaken as the third lash was coming.
By the fifth lash, Kael was no longer a boy tied to the post, he was meat. The whip had chewed him open, left strips of his back hanging like butcher's trimmings, his shirt in ribbons stuck to him with blood and rain. His legs gave out and only the ropes kept him upright, sagging like a broken scarecrow.
The sound of that last strike still echoed in the square long after the whip fell limp. A hush covered the crowd, heavy and thick that made every breath feel like a sin. Mothers clutched their children tighter, and men looked down at their boots. Even the drunks were sobered.
Kael's mouth opened once, as if he meant to say something sharp and defiant, maybe even one last curse but nothing came out. His lips trembled as the blood bubbled faintly at the corner, and then his head slumped forward as the silence claimed him.
Spit gagged, doubling over. "Christ Almighty," he whispered, as his voice broke. His small hands trembled like reeds in a storm. Runt pressed his face against his filthy shirt, trying not to look, but the sobs wracked his narrow shoulders all the same. "They're killin' him, Spit. They're killin' him…"
The magistrate turned, not sparing Kael another glance. The whip dangled loose at his side, dripping with blood and rain as he retreated into the shadows of the courthouse. Duty done, meal finished. He was a man wiping his hands after slaughtering an animal.
The guards moved in. Thick, scarred men with no faces left, just hard stone masks set into flesh. They cut Kael loose, his body sagging instantly over the platform and into the mud with a wet slap. When they dragged him by the arms, his heels carved streaks in the dirt.
Runt and Spit stumbled after, desperation raw in their voices. "Please! He's just a boy! Let him be!" Runt cried, his voice cracking like a child too young for this kind of grief. Spit shoved at one guard's arm, tiny fists like gnats against stone. "You bastards! You'll rot for this, you hear me?! Let him go!"
The guard shoved them back with one rough hand, and they stumbled into the mud. Then came the bell.
The Town Crier stepped forward in his tattered red coat, raising the iron clapper high. He didn't need a drum because his voice was the drum. It cracked across the square like thunder:
"By order of the Magistrate, Kael Draven shall be confined within the holding cell!" The words rolled like stones tumbling down a cliff. "There he will remain until further discipline is carried out. Henceforth, he and all other offenders shall serve as labor to the Towers! To the ruling elite!"
The bell clanged, deep and hollow, shaking through the bone.
The crowd shifted uneasily. Nobody spoke against it. Nobody dared. It was routine here. A ritual of punishment and silence. Every family knew someone who'd vanished into those cells, fed into the belly of the Towers, never to be seen again.
Spit clutched Runt's sleeve, both boys pale as chalk. Their eyes darted from the guards to the looming horizon, where those black towers rose like the bones of some long-dead god. They were built to remind the town what power looked like, and what happened to those who stole a crumb of bread.
And Kael who was bleeding, broken Kael was sadly going there.
The guards dragged him toward the iron gates, leaving a dark red smear in the mud behind.
Runt sobbed openly, his voice small but sharp. "He'll die in there…"
Spit didn't answer. His jaw was tight as his eyes blazed with trembling fists. He knew the truth. Everyone did.
The holding cell wasn't just stone walls and iron bars. It was a pit of wolves, a nest of men who'd slit your throat for less than a crust. And now Kael, who barely had breath left, would be thrown in among them.