Valiant

Chapter 24: Of Crushed Dreams and Stallions

I have heard it said that the wrath of the grapes is a test to character. It is said to be a cleansing process in which a man pits his soul against the demons in the bottle for permanent dominion over the body. As I struggle into consciousness, I can see why.

I gasp in pain and dry heave on the floor, where a pile of black, tar-like vomit already sits, unnaturally still and corrupted with toxic bubbles coming to the surface. Its stench clears my nostrils like burnt dog hair and stomach acid, coupled with something like meat left in the sun for a day or more.

I retch again at the sight, grateful for the distraction against the sheer agony my head is in. Hammers bash against my skull, along with a slight infection in my thigh, where dried piss turns my breeches stiff. Every inch of my body screams at me to return to slumber, or to roll over and die. Even my hairs hurt, sensitive and tingly, reactive to any and all stimulus. And my eyes. My eyes are surely evaporating under the harsh light of the sun which streams in through the open windows like rays of self-righteous fire.

I throw my arm over my head and chance a sniff, nearly dry-heaving at the odor. Suddenly, a great, unnecessarily loud scraping grates my ears, and Orik enters the room, rubbing his temples with great, round fingers. "'Morning yer highness. Sleep 'lright?"

"I remember nothing in truth. Keep your voice down," I snap, immediately feeling regretful, but too cantankerous to admit it. Surprisingly though, Orik is not cross. He simply sits down beside me on the furs and lays a gentle hand across half of my back, rubbing back and forth soothingly.

"Son, I hear tell that' you killed yerself many heathen at Baelik's Maw. 'Tis no easy thing to steal life from a man. How fare you truly?"

In truth, my dreams had been a dark, pallid mess of gore and death, of eyes that go dim as spirits flee. The more I see it, the more I wish that I could strike my own head and wake up forgetful. Kill or be killed, Isaac whispers in my mind. He had trained me well at the art of combat, but nothing could have prepared me for the sensation of hot blood running down my arm. No training involved grown men crying for their mothers and for mercy as their skin becomes white as bone. No obstacle course could have shown me what it is like to step on a human spine and feel it crack beneath you.

  There is no swordplay, no victory in the differing textures that vibrate up your sword and into your hand. Of steel and skin, then meat, then blood that fills the gap, through cords and sinews and fats that cleave asunder beneath blade's edge. Every man I saw besets me.

"In truth, I am grateful that it was not me who felt the bite of spear or arrow. It could just have easily been me who saw his innards spilled outward, or had his head cleft in two. But here I now sit, tormented by the ones who felt my blade. My hand made orphans, widows, and beggars. What am I to make of that? Where is the glory, I ask you?"

He pauses, and looks down at me, peering from a shaggy curtain of red hair. Then, placidly, he grips a steaming cup with leaves in the bottom. "Drink this, it'll help with tha hangover. I'll tell yeh a tale while you do."

The tea is a bit coarse, and very tart, but it washes my taste buds clear of vomit and stale beer. I bring my body to a sitting position while he begins his story.

"As you've pro'lly guessed b'cause of me damnable tongue, I be not from Castellan. Me father was from the North Territories, as eh highland barbarian from the land of giants and dwarfs. The story goes the barbarians raided a village and took some women. Me mother were one of them, although she escaped me father and ran back to her 'usband.

"She were shunned by the village though, for the babe in her arms and they drove 'er off at pitchfork tip. She shored up in the east a while, going from town to town and making money where she could, although she were often cheated. A few years later she died. Me father's last gift to me. She told me she never were the same after conceiving me, and to birth me was a torture that killed her slowly."