The world returned not with a whisper, but with a jolt that rattled my teeth in my skull.
Creak. Thud. Creak.
The wagon hit a rut, and my body slammed against the hard wooden slats. I gasped, the air hitching in my throat as a fresh wave of agony washed over my bruised ribs.
I peeled my eyes open. The sun was high overhead, a blinding white disc burning through the gaps in the forest canopy. It was an assault. The light stabbed into my retinas, turning the world into a painful wash of white and grey. My right eye was still swollen shut, crusted over with dried blood and sleep, leaving me with a narrow, blurry tunnel of vision on my left.
Then, the smell hit me.
It was thick. It was wet. It tasted like copper coins and spoiled meat left out in the summer heat.
I gagged, covering my nose with my shackled hands, but the stench clung to the fabric of my coat.
I turned my head slowly, fighting the stiffness in my neck.
The corpse of the old man was still there.
He lay exactly where he had fallen yesterday, but he looked... wrong. His skin had turned a waxy, greyish-yellow. His mouth hung open in a silent, eternal scream, his eyes clouded over with milky film.
And the sound.
Bzzzzz.
Flies. Huge, iridescent green flies. They crawled over his open eyes. They buzzed around the dried blood matting his beard. They feasted on the wound in his forehead.
I scrambled backward.
My chains clattered loudly as I kicked my legs, pushing myself into the farthest corner of the cage. I pressed my back against the iron bars until the metal dug into my spine, trying to put as much distance as possible between me and the rotting thing that used to be a person.
It didn't help. The cage was too small. The smell was everywhere.
We rumbled on for hours.
The forest remained unchanged a monotonous tunnel of dark, towering pines and gloom. The air was stagnant, holding the heat and the stench inside the cage like a greenhouse. I just sat there, knees pulled to my chest, staring at the body. I couldn't look away. It was a grim reminder of how fragile we were. One strike, and I would be just another pile of meat for the insects.
Finally, the rhythm broke.
"Halt! Midday rest!"
The convoy ground to an agonizing stop. Dust settled around the wheels.
I watched through the bars as the routine unfolded. The soldiers were efficient, almost bored. They unbuckled their helmet straps, revealing faces slick with sweat and grime. They sat on fallen logs or leaned against the wagons, passing waterskins back and forth. One guard laughed at a joke I couldn't hear, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Another stretched his back, his armor groaning.
They were alive. They were comfortable. They were monsters.
Clang.
The sound of a key turning in a rusted lock made me jump.
The door to our cage swung open with a screech of metal on metal.
A guard stepped up onto the wagon bed. He was a brute of a man, his face hidden behind that terrifying nasal helm, his surcoat stained with day-old blood. He didn't look at me. He looked at the man in the corner the one who hadn't spoken, hadn't eaten, hadn't moved.
The guard marched over to him.
"Stand up," he barked. His voice was muffled by the steel, deep and impatient.
The man didn't move. He just stared at the floor, rocking slightly.
"I said, stand up!"
The guard drew his leg back and delivered a vicious, heavy kick to the man's ribs.
Thwack.
The man let out a breathless wheeze, toppling over onto his side. He curled into a ball, his hands clutching his side, coughing weakly. He struggled to find purchase on the floorboards, his limbs trembling, but he didn't fight back. He looked broken. Not just physically, but spiritually hollowed out.
The guard loomed over him, hand resting on the pommel of his sword. He pointed a gloved finger at the rotting corpse of the old man.
"Pick that up," the guard commanded, his tone dripping with disgust. "And throw it to the side. It stinks."
The man in the corner stirred. It was a slow, agonizing movement, like a rusted machine trying to start. He pushed himself up on trembling arms, his breath hitching in his chest. He looked at the corpse with a mixture of horror and profound exhaustion.
He didn't want to touch it. I could see it in his eyes the desperate wish to just curl back up and die rather than handle the rotting flesh of the man he had shared a cage with.
But the guard's hand was already tightening on his sword hilt.
The man scrambled forward on his knees. He reached out, his hands shaking violently, and grabbed the corpse by the ankles.
He heaved.
The body was dead weight, stiff with rigor mortis and bloated with decay. The man grunted, straining, his boots slipping on the blood-slicked floorboards. He dragged the body toward the open door. The dead man's head bounced against the wood with a hollow thud-thud-thud that made my stomach turn over.
The guard stepped back, wrinkling his nose beneath his helm as the stench wafted out.
The prisoner grabbed the corpse under the arms, lifting the torso. He stumbled out of the cage, nearly falling off the wagon bed, dragging the dead weight with him. He landed in the dirt with a grunt.
"Over there," the guard pointed to a drainage ditch filled with stagnant, muddy water running alongside the road.
The man dragged the body through the dirt. When he reached the edge, he didn't say a prayer. He didn't close the dead man's eyes. He just shoved.
Splash.
The body tumbled into the ditch, landing face down in the muck with a wet slap. It looked like garbage. Just a discarded sack of meat left to rot in the middle of nowhere.
"Back inside!" the guard barked.
The man turned slowly, his face streaked with tears and dirt.
WHAM.
The guard didn't wait. He kicked the man square in the chest, sending him sprawling into the dirt. The man gasped, clutching his ribs, wheezing for air. He looked up at the guard, eyes wide with fear, before scrambling to his feet. He limped back to the wagon, climbing painfully into the cage.
The moment he was inside, the guard slammed the iron door shut.
CLANG.
The lock clicked. We were sealed in again.
I looked out at the ditch. I could just see the heel of the dead man's boot sticking out of the water. That was it. A whole life a wife named Uramel, a history, a name ended in a muddy ditch in a nameless forest.
I looked back at the living man. He had retreated to his corner, wrapping his arms around himself, rocking back and forth. He was broken.
The days began to blur into a grey smear of suffering.
We traveled until nightfall, slept in the freezing cold, and woke up to the same nightmare. The soldiers threw hardtack into the cage like we were dogs. I ate it. I hated myself for it, but I ate it. The dry, tasteless flour scratched my throat, but it kept me alive.
Two days later, the sky changed.
The heavy, suffocating canopy of the forest seemed to trap the humidity. Clouds, dark and bruised, began to gather above the treetops, blotting out the sun. The air grew heavy and thick.
Then, the heavens opened.
It started as a drizzle, then escalated into a torrential downpour. Cold, stinging rain lashed against the cage bars.
My reaction wasn't misery. It was desperation.
I scrambled to the side of the cage, shoving my face against the cold iron bars. I opened my mouth wide, sticking my tongue out like an animal, trying to catch every single drop. I cupped my shackled hands outside the bars, collecting a small pool of water and slurping it up greedily.
It was freezing, tasting of iron and dirt, but it was the best thing I had ever tasted. It soothed my parched throat and cracked lips.
But the relief was short-lived.
Within minutes, I was soaked to the bone. My thin nightclothes clung to my skin, offering zero protection against the chill. I curled up in the center of the cage, shivering so violently my teeth clattered together. My injured shoulder throbbed with a deep, aching cold that settled into the marrow of my bones.
The only mercy was the smell. The rain washed away the coppery stench of blood and the lingering rot of the corpse. It was replaced by the scent of wet earth, rusting iron, and damp, moldy wood.
We traveled for three more days.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
The sound of boots on gravel pulled me from a feverish sleep.
I peeled my eyes open. A thin, weak strand of sunlight was hitting my face, warming my cheek.
I blinked. My right eye, the one that had been swollen shut cracked open. It was stiff and gummy, and the light stung like a needle, but I could see. My vision was blurry in that eye, but it was there.
I pushed myself up, groaning as my stiff muscles protested.
I looked around. The forest was gone.
We were in a vast, rocky grassland. The terrain rolled gently, covered in tough, scrubby grass and scattered boulders.
But ahead of us... the earth simply opened up.
We were descending into a massive canyon.
It was a scar on the world. High, jagged walls of grey stone rose up on either side of the road, blocking out the horizon. The rock face was sheer and imposing, weeping with moisture. Patches of dark green moss clung to the crevices, feeding on the shadows. The road wound its way down into the belly of the ravine, a narrow path of crushed stone and mud.
I sat up straighter, wincing as my ribs flared with pain. It felt like I was being squeezed in a vice. Every bump of the wagon sent a fresh shockwave through my torso.
We entered the canyon. The light dimmed immediately. The air down here was cold and damp, smelling of wet stone and old rivers.
For hours, we trundled through the gorge. The walls seemed to close in on us.
Days passed in the canyon. Nine days of travel.
It was a tunnel of misery. My body had settled into a state of chronic, dull agony. I stopped feeling the sharp spikes of pain; now, it was just a constant, heavy weight, as if gravity had doubled.
From the cages behind us, the sounds of suffering echoed off the stone walls. I heard screams, sometimes of pain, sometimes of madness. Once, I heard the sharp bark of a command, followed by a wet thud and silence. Another execution. Another body left for the scavengers.
I didn't look back. I just stared ahead, counting the cracks in the canyon wall.