DALE
Dale felt pain. A sharp, tearing pain that spread through all his bodily nerves and seeped into his bones.
He groaned softly, his voice sounding hoarse and pathetic in his own ears. His eyes were tightly shut, crinkling to endure the torment centered on the right side of his head. A burning heat throbbed there, as if hot coals had been deliberately pressed against his skin. He desperately wanted to pour a bucket of water over his head to feel even a bit of relieving cold, but his remaining common sense knew that was a stupid idea. It would only add to the endless suffering.
He panted, his chest rising and falling with difficulty as he tried to control himself. He held back with all his might so the tears welling behind his eyelids wouldn't flow down. I am stronger than this, he thought, trying to convince himself.
Slowly, he forced his eyelids open.
The bright morning light immediately pierced his vision. At first, everything looked blurry, only a dazzling colorful shadow, until finally the world became clearer as the seconds passed.
Above him, green leaves from the trees filled the view. The leaves swayed gently blown by the wind, looking very peaceful and full of life. The clear and bright blue sky was visible through the gaps. The sounds of forest birds chirping back and forth, singing a melodious morning melody.
Dale moved his eyes. Around him sat the remnants of his group. Hundreds of men who the night before were still shouting about feasts and loot, now sat huddled with bowed heads. Their faces were dirty, smeared with blood as well as mud.
Many of them were severely injured, there was no longer the fire of rebellion in their eyes. No spirit. Dale knew why. Everyone here knew that the fate of their life and death would be decided in just a matter of hours.
Dale's defenses collapsed. A tear escaped, falling down his cheek. He hurriedly raised his trembling hand and wiped it away roughly.
He had made a choice. He would not cry just because his choice failed and ended like this. He had to face this like a grown man.
But... thinking of his mother in the village made Dale feel a deep guilt, squeezing his chest tighter than the pain in his head. He had left his mother alone. His mother was old, her back already hunched from working in the fields all her life. And Dale ran away instead, disappointing her, and now might leave her forever without having the chance to say goodbye.
Steeling his jaw, Dale stood up with difficulty.
As soon as he stood upright, the morning wind hit the right side of his head. Dale winced, a hiss of pain escaping through his teeth. His right ear had been sliced off last night by a sword slash from an enemy cavalryman, and was now only wrapped in cloth. He remembered the glint of steel under the moonlight, the sound of tearing flesh, and his own shrill scream. He was still struggling to digest the reality of it.
He forced himself to walk with a limping step towards the edge of the prisoner group. He looked around. Outside their area, enemy soldiers stood watching with flat faces. Then, Dale's gaze fell on something in the distance.
There, near a large tent, was a row of wooden spears planted lined up in the ground. A foul stench was suddenly smelled, carried by the wind in his direction. The smell stung Dale's nose, similar to iron soaked in water, but much fishier and thicker.
Neatly severed human heads were spiked at the tips of those iron spears. Blood still dripped slowly from their necks, staining the spear wood blackish-red. Swallowing hard. He recognized some of those faces. The leaders of their group. And on one of the spears, Dale could see Jarett's head.
The eyes of the old man who always mocked him were now wide in disbelief, frozen in his final moment. His mouth was slightly open, and the fear on his face could no longer be hidden.
Dale just stared at the head in silence. He stared straight into those open and empty eyes. And strangely... he didn't feel a shred of pity. But he also didn't feel victory or satisfaction. Only a cold emptiness.
Jarett deserved it, thought Dale. The man was a monster. Many innocent people, especially the women and children in the villages they looted, had suffered and died by the dirty hands of that bastard. If Dale had had just a little courage before, if he wasn't a coward who only stood guarding the horses, maybe he would have been the one to slit Jarett's throat when the man slept drunk.
Dale gritted his teeth, turning his face away from the spectacle, and looked towards Lord Tully's main camp.
"Don't just stand there, Boy. Or those guards will think you are trying to resist and punish you. You know that, right?"
A rough voice was heard from behind him, making Dale flinch and turn around.
The man speaking sat on a tree root. He looked very thin, his cheekbones protruding, and his hair and beard messy. His age was probably mid-thirties.
Dale stared for a moment at the guard soldier who started noticing him, then immediately followed the man's advice and sat on the grassy ground beside him. His back touched the rough bark.
"What will happen to us?" asked Dale softly, wincing slightly as the friction nudged the bruises on his back.
The man looked into Dale's eyes, chuckling humorlessly.
"What do you think? Maybe killed? Beheaded, or hanged?" The man shrugged casually. "We can also consider other options. That they might burn us alive. After all, that is what we did to the previous villages, isn't it?"
"Are... are you not afraid?" Dale asked.
The man snorted. "Afraid? Yes, of course there is fear somewhere in there. Pain is unpleasant. But there is no use making all this complicated in your head, right? Before I joined this group, I was already so broken. I have long been prepared for this thing called death."
The man stared at the blue sky above them. "I used to always think that I would die of starvation. Slowly, cold, and very painful. Your stomach eating itself. Because of that, I will accept it. Whatever happens after this, let it happen."
The wind rustled again, a little stronger, carrying a few leaves flying and falling onto Dale's lap. Dale's gaze occasionally glanced back at the row of severed heads in the distance.
"Do... do you not have family waiting for you at home?" asked Dale carefully.
"No," the man sighed. "All my family died long before all this happened. They all died from an illness. Sometimes, when the night is very quiet, I ask myself... why I can still survive until now. What am I breathing for?"
Dale fell silent. He didn't know how to respond.
Dale's mind drifted back again. His father also died of an illness. A stomach illness when Dale was still little. He remembered very clearly how his mother panicked back then, searching for medicinal plants in the forest here and there, pounding bitter roots. But nothing worked.
Every day, Dale could only see his father getting weaker. He could only sit huddled on their straw bed, his hands constantly holding his stomach tightly bound by a cloth. The cloth was tied so tight it looked ridiculous on his body that was getting thinner like a skeleton. But his father said the wrapping could slightly reduce his stomach pain. And indeed there was nothing they could do but wait.
His father then died not long after on a cold dawn. When Dale saw his corpse, his father's face looked very peaceful. Very relaxed and different compared to when he was still breathing and always groaning in pain in his sleep.
"I... I still have a mother," Dale said suddenly. "And now, it seems I will never see her again."
"You love her?" said the man without turning.
"Of course, she is the one who took care of me since childhood, it's impossible I don't love her, right?"
"You can try to go and run away from here tonight, you know. Sneak away when those guards are sleepy. But of course, the risk is very great."
"The risk is dying instantly on the spot. At least for now I am still sure we have a chance to live. They couldn't possibly execute everyone here, right?."
"You are still very afraid of death, aren't you?"
"There is nothing more terrifying than death," Dale muttered softly, hugging his own knees. "No one truly knows what will happen there. At least, no matter how bad this world is... this world is familiar."
Suddenly, the sound of loud clapping echoed across the camp.
Dale looked up. A knight stood in front of the tent. Behind him, several fully armed soldiers began dragging dozens of men from Dale's group. The commotion made all the sitting prisoners immediately lift their faces.
There would be another trial. This apparently was still not over.
The knight stepped forward, his voice booming and echoing loudly throughout the valley.
"You all have seen what happened previously to your leaders, haven't you?!" shouted the knight while pointing to the row of spears adorned with heads.
"This is absolute punishment for you thieves, rapists, and murderers! This is the consequence you must pay for daring to lead destruction and chaos in this land! You made many innocent families suffer because of your savagery!"
The knight drew his sword, pointing it towards the men being dragged by force to kneel on a piece of wood placed on the ground.
"Now, in the presence of Lord Hoster Tully and under the watch of the Seven Gods, you will be judged! The punishment is death!"
Another man stepped forward. In his hands was a long and heavy sword. Dale held his breath. His heart beat so hard it felt painful in his chest.
He watched the people about to be beheaded. Some of them sobbed uncontrollably, begging for mercy. Some took deep breaths, closing their eyes with difficulty, their faces pale as death and almost fainting from terror.
The man raised his greatsword high into the air, then the sword swung down. The sound of flesh and neck bone being slashed sounded horrific. Blood sprayed like a small fountain, soaking the surrounding grass.
Then one by one, their heads were beheaded. Again. And again.
Dale stared at the spectacle without blinking, his body trembling uncontrollably. The metallic smell of fresh blood smelled stronger in the air, as he saw those heads rolling on the ground.
...
Those heads were spiked on the tips of rough wooden spears, lined up neatly facing towards the prisoners. While several other heads, had their hair tied using hemp rope and hung on the low branches of ancient oak trees around the camp.
Blood dripped slowly from the severed necks, staining the green grass below into blackish-brown. Forest insects began to swarm, buzzing with noisy sounds.
The purpose of the spectacle was very clear: to frighten and teach a lesson to them all. And indeed, Lord Tully's tactic worked perfectly.
The horror had silenced hundreds of mouths. Not a single prisoner dared to make a sound. Even the wounded held back their groans of pain as much as possible, afraid of attracting the attention of the guards pacing back and forth with spears in hand.
As the sun crawled up to its peak, lunchtime arrived. The soldiers threw baskets filled with makeshift roasted root vegetables into the middle of the crowd of prisoners. Exactly like a farmer feeding pigs.
Dale got two medium-sized root vegetables. The skin was charred black, leaving charcoal stains on his trembling fingers.
He ate the root vegetable slowly, peeling the skin with his nails. Honestly, he had absolutely no appetite. The image of slashed necks and spraying blood earlier still danced behind his eyelids every time he blinked. Nausea churned his stomach contents.
But his stomach kept rumbling loudly and forced him to finish the food. Fortunately the inside of the root vegetables was quite soft and sweet, making it easy to chew and swallow past his dry throat. It was not too bad food, if only there hadn't been that mass neck-cutting session previously.
"How long... will that hang there?" said Dale with a voice that almost resembled a whisper. His eyes glanced towards the tree branches, not daring to look straight.
He spoke to the man beside him again. Dale still didn't know this man's name, but in a place like this, it didn't mean it was important.
"Until we leave here, maybe?" The man shrugged. "Those hanged corpses will soon rot and cause an unbearable stench if left too long in the open air. Especially with that many corpses. Flies and crows will feast. Perhaps Lord Tully's army will burn them all later, or bury them en masse in one big hole?."
"If... if we don't die beheaded today," Dale started again, his voice trembling slightly. "What do you think those people will do to us, in the end?"
"The punishment for rebels and thieves like us, besides a quick death, is going to the Wall," replied the man. "I heard from travelers' tales, the Wall is made of solid ice. Very cold, and very, very high, so you cannot see the top from below. They have many members there, the Night's Watch, they call it. Murderers, rapists, and thieves wearing black cloaks, whose lifelong duty is to fight the barbaric wildlings from the North."
"That is far from here, isn't it?" asked Dale.
The man nodded. "Very far. At the edge of this continent. In the deepest place in the North. I heard the snow never truly melts there. The ground freezes hard as iron. There, you will never truly be able to breathe spring air like now again."
"In that case..." Dale swallowed. "Better we try to start getting used to the cold from now on, right?"
Dale tried to joke, a pathetic attempt to raise the morale of both of them. But the joke fell apart, sounding tasteless and heartbreaking.
"Yes," sighed the man. "The wind there must be very strong and freeze the blood."
Hour by hour passed slowly like drops of tree sap. They sat on the ground, talking constantly in whispered voices about anything, about food, about past memories that would never return, just to keep their sanity.
Until finally, as the tree shadows began to lengthen in the afternoon, the sound of a trumpet shrilled from the direction of the soldiers' camp.
They were suddenly ordered to stand and gather. The sound of soldiers' barks and spear tips pointed forced the injured and exhausted prisoners to move. They were herded by the soldiers like a herd of worthless cattle, pushed and hit if they moved too slowly.
They were taken to a wider and flatter grassy yard. There, the hundreds of prisoners were roughly sorted. The soldiers separated them into two large groups, forming two square formations surrounded by armed guards.
Dale was pushed into the left group, his body stumbling and bumping into the back of the person in front of him. As he turned, the thin man he talked to earlier was also pushed into the same group, standing not far from him. Dale didn't know what the criteria for this separation were. Would one group be pardoned and the other killed? Or would they be sent to different destinations? The ignorance tore at his nerves.
They were forced to wait there for hours.
While they stood enduring hunger and sore legs, Dale noticed the scene in the distance with a twisting stomach. In the soldiers' camp area, the troops' dinner time had arrived.
White smoke billowed from large campfires, and the incredibly delicious smell was carried by the afternoon wind, approaching the prisoners' olfactory senses. It smelled like thick-fleshed river fish grilled over charcoal, mixed with the sweet aroma of sautéed onions, and also a strong sprinkle of black pepper. The aroma of spices and meat felt very torturous.
Hour by hour passed again, and night finally truly fell covering the world. The sky turned starry black.
The prisoners were again given rations of the remaining cold root vegetables, then ordered to sleep on the open ground, still in the heavily guarded square formation. Luckily for Dale and the others, grey clouds did not appear. There was no rain tonight, so he could lie on the dry ground, curling up hugging his own knees to withstand the night wind. The extraordinary physical and mental exhaustion finally overcame his fear. He fell sound asleep without dreams, sinking into a peaceful emptiness.
However, that peace was short-lived.
He was forcefully awakened by someone. A hard kick to his leg made Dale jolt awake, his eyes opening wide in panic.
"Wake up, bastard! Stand up!" barked a torch-bearing soldier.
In the sky, the day was still very dark, perhaps just past midnight or approaching dawn. The air felt very freezing. Dale stood up staggering, his muscles all stiff and sore. His eyes were still half-closed from exhaustion, he rubbed them and started to observe his surroundings.
There was something strange.
The people in the two large groups had slightly decreased in number. And as he turned towards the soldiers' camp, many tents that previously stood tall had now disappeared, dismantled and placed on baggage carts. Part of the troops seemed to have moved away while he was asleep.
Before his brain could process what happened, he was already herded again with his group. This time they were pushed more hurriedly, jostling each other in the darkness illuminated only by the swaying torchlight.
They were directed towards a row of large wooden cargo carts, which were usually used by farmers to transport straw or wheat harvests in large quantities.
Dale was forcefully pushed to climb onto one of those carts. The soldiers kept putting prisoner after prisoner onto the wooden cart, not caring if they had to sit stacked or stand crowded. They were separated into several small groups for each cart, continuously put in until the cart Dale rode was truly packed tight, shoulder to shoulder, without the slightest room to move freely.
"Move!" shouted a soldier.
Whips cracked, and the large draft horses neighed softly. The wooden carts jerked forward, their thick wheels creaking loudly as they began to turn on the rocky ground.
Dale staggered, forced to hold onto the wooden edge of the cart so as not to fall onto other prisoners. He looked back, staring past the crowd of heads on the cart.
In the slowly fading darkness of the night, Dale noticed the remnants of other prisoners and soldiers left on the grassy yard slowly fading away. The further the cart drove, their shapes became smaller, until finally they became just faint dots swallowed by the morning mist and the shadows of the trees.
The cart kept driving through the cold night.
And Dale didn't know where he would be taken.
...
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