Page 26 of Tair

Resisting the darkness inside him became harder the weaker he grew. It ached like a wound that refused to heal. At the same time he knew if he didn’t suffer this could well be his last lifetime. Druid kind never truly had to die; after the death of their body they could choose to return to the mortal realm to live a new life as many times as they wished. All Kiamh hoped was in his next life he would be loved.

Yet he would not be permitted to return or live again unless he made amends for his grievous mistakes, which had brought him to this sorry end.

The sound of rustling leaves made Kiamh glance over his shoulder. Two of the guards approached with expressions that boded nothing good for him. He looked down at the two pieces he’d managed to chop from the big trunk and reached for one, muttering under his breath as he placed it on the splitting stump. The wood sparkled for a moment as he feigned bringing down the axe, and then fell into four pieces off the stump.

“The first, maisters,” Kiamh said as he bowed and stepped back out of their reach. “I shall chop the rest for the fire swiftly, I vow.”

One of the guards lashed out with a fist, making him flinch and avoiding it. Both men laughed at him.

“Mayhap you shall truly eat today, bonny lad.” The second man crowded in on him, bending his head to mutter, “More of you for me and my friend to enjoy tonight, eh?”

Since his capture they had been hinting about hurting him whenever they could. Kiamh understood why they had waited: they wanted him starved before they carried out their threats, so he wouldn’t try to fight them. Such tormenters always believed the hungry were also weak. What they didn’t realize was how he appeared and what he could do to protect himself were two very different things.

Refrain. You must refrain if you’re to redeem yourself. The echo of his pledge faded, disappearing as a different urge seized him. Fack that. Let no one steal what you dinnae gift.

“As you wish, maister,” Kiamh said, bowing his head in order to murmur soundlessly more words as he pressed his fingers to the split wood the guard held in the crook of his arm. Neither man noticed the faint glow that appeared in the center of the split.

He kept chopping as the pair walked back to the fire pit to add the wood to the flames. He didn’t have to watch as the fire flared suddenly, catching alight the splits the men held as well as the sleeves of their tunics. Kiamh stopped only when he heard them scream to watch them run about, colliding with each other and the slave cages as they slapped their burning garments. Unable to extinguish the flames, both ran in the direction of the stream.

’Tisnae wrong to defend myself against such bastarts, Kiamh thought, grimacing at the stench of burning wool and scorched flesh.

The man who had threatened him fell and struck his head on a stone as the flames spread across his belly and down the front of his trews, which possessed a large wet patch of urine. The one-eyed man hastened to him and used a toilet bucket to put out the fire, but the guard didn’t move or breathe again. The stink became noxious as the slaver went over to the cages and released a handful of the older prisoners.

“Dig a hole for that one,” he told the slaves, pointing to the corpse. He then trudged off in the direction of the stream.

By the time Kiamh had finished chopping the wood, the dead guard had been unceremoniously buried in a shallow grave, and the other taken inside the woodcutter’s shelter. From the frequency of his wails and the trace of unpleasant odors that drifted to him, he guessed the one-eyed slaver was using whiskey mixed with horse dung to treat the burns. If the guard survived the day, the burns would fester and kill him before they reached the highlands.

“You did that, didnae you?” a querulous voice muttered from behind him.

He glanced at the skinny crone who had helped to bury the dead guard. She had bruises all over her wrinkled face, and split lips that had scabbed. He’d watched her join the caravan from her village on the same day he’d been captured; her own kin had sold her to the slavers so they could use the coin to buy a milk goat. The crone had sobbed and begged them not to abandon her so cruelly, but her kin had left without once glancing back.

“Their sloppiness set them alight, no’ me.” Although her fate could only be called wretched, he couldn’t summon any pity for her.

“You cursed them to burn. ’Tis said you’re an outcast because of your evil.” She pointed toward the shelter. “What more could do such but dark magic?”

Kiamh began stacking the splits. “Why do you ask, cailleach? Hoping to learn the spells I ken for yourself? ’Twillnae save you.”

She drew back, her care worn features twisting with revulsion, and made an old gesture of protection over herself. “Using dark magic to take lives ever damns your spirit to oblivion. The Gods, they shallnae forgive you.”

Before Kiamh could argue the point the old woman scuttled away to rejoin the others by her cage. She would go meekly to her new master, doubtless some fiend who would buy her for a coin or two and then starve or work her to death by winter. Her kin had already forgotten her. By the next thaw no one would recall her name, her time in the mortal realm, or anything she had ever done. She might as well have never been born.

The Gods may do as they please, only they shallnae forget me.

After carrying the chopped wood to the fire pit Kiamh stopped by the shelter to look in on the surviving guard, who lay covered in the whiskey-infused dung. Half his face and most of his body had been burned, and since no one in the camp had any healing skills he would be dead within a matter of hours.

“I thirst,” the guard whispered through his blistered lips.

“Go and fetch water,” the one-eyed slaver said, shoving an empty bucket in his hands.

Kiamh walked down to the banks of the thin, muddy stream and crouched down to fill the bucket. As he did the scabbed weals on his back stretched, some cracking. The warm dribbles that trickled down his bruised skin told him he would have to attend to himself when the slavers weren’t looking. A sudden, stabbing pain from his shriveled belly made him lose his grip on the bucket, which floated away, and then the terrible guilt swept over him.

Why cannae I stop? Kiamh hunched over, closing his eyes and resting his brow against his knees.

“Here, now, lad, dinnae weep,” a kind voice said.

Kiamh looked up at the stranger, whose head was surrounded by a beautiful halo of light from the sun. For a moment he thought he saw his long, copper-red locks glow as if flame instead of hair, but it turned out to be a trick of the light. The stranger had luxurious dark brown hair and a face so handsome it made his breath catch in his throat. He held the bucket, now brimming with water. In the man’s warm, kind eyes he saw two tiny reflections of himself, his tunic spotted with blood over his spine, his light brown curls tangled and filthy.

He couldn’t bear that this man had touched him with those long, clean hands.