Wicked Hunt

Chapter One, Part II

Rafe: The Gilded Rite

A piercing scream erupted from the calming blackness followed by scraping bodies being drug across the stone floor as the recruits were torn from the blackness and dragged to crude cells in the back of the tunnel. They would be taken to hollow rooms with faint flickering candles. Rafe put his hands behind his back and awaited the silence again.

The final shouts faded, the stillness resuming as if it had never been interrupted. Rafe heard a sharp intake of breath in front of him. Then, a dangling lantern alighted to produce a flame inside its cast iron frame. It hung right in front of Rafe's face. He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the sudden light.

"Commander," one of the mountain men, Sergio, greeted through pointed teeth. His head was lower than his thick shoulders, his neck curved like the blade of a scythe. The man was made crookedly, a cruel jest from the gods. His back was bent while his neck protruded diagonally from his shoulder rather than in a straight line. The ratty robes he wore were made too big to compensate for his twisted back. A puddle of murky fabric pooled on the floor behind his bare feet. "This way." The man swung around and led Rafe into a dank antechamber at the end of the passageway.

A jagged archway led into a room with a tall, vaulted ceiling. It was one of many such spaces deep within the belly of the Red Cliff. They had been carved into the mountain long ago, and the men who dwelled up on the cliffs used it to assist the Commander with the Gilded Rite. It was a symbiotic relationship, as the mountain men were paid handsomely by the king. The ritual was important to him. He wanted only the strongest recruits for his Watch.

Rafe was taken to a round table in the far corner of the cool space where a feeble platter was laid out. The same food was presented to him each year: a tray of thin veal paired with a chunk of hardened bread. Several goblets perched along the edge of the rough table, their murky contents a mystery. Rafe declined the food, as he always did. As if he could eat something before playing his part in the Rite.

"Still you do not partake in the meal," Sergio observed with distaste. "Surely you must be hungry from your long journey?"

"I'd prefer to begin the Rite," Rafe intoned coolly. "I'm needed at the castle."

Sergio eyed him with milky eyes. He shrugged, as he normally did at Rafe's indifference to their rudimentary hospitality. "This way then." Sergio retrieved his lantern again and unlocked the dark wooden door that would take him to the hallway. That dammed hallway. Rafe gritted his teeth in preparation as Sergio shoved the door open. He stepped aside, a snarling smirk upon his lips. "We've given your men a fine selection this year." The man knew of Rafe's uneasiness and sought to extort it.

"They are not my men truly yet," Rafe remarked with just as much vehemence. He stepped around Sergio. "That remains to be seen."

"By all means Commander," Sergio rasped as he began to slowly close the door behind him. His grey lips were barely visible through the dwindling crack. "See to it then." He slammed the door shut and broke into a coughing cackle on the other side.

Rafe took a deep breath and then made his way along the corridor. Torches perched beside the doors that ran along each side of the space. Still, the corridor was dark. Not for the first time Rafe wondered why the damned men even bothered with the torches at all.

He could make out the doorknob of the first room. The Commander wondered who would be up first but decided that it didn't matter. The He stepped up to the door and jerked open the barred grate to peer inside the room. It was filthy, littered with torn garments caked in dried blood that seeped into the cracks of the floor. Chains jutted out of the opposite wall menacingly, their links rusted and worn. A tall man wearing a black hood that hid his face stood just inside, leaning into a corner. The man's purpose was not to judge or study the recruits as they performed their task, he was there to make sure the Commander watched. The man was not necessary however, Rafe would not shirk his duty no matter how sick it made him. It was his burden to bear as the Commander of the kingdom's most valiant of men. And now, they would show just how valiant they were.