Fury is Born (Book 1 of Hanthalah)

Chapter 39

I remember little of the following few days.

I was in a pitiful state, huddled away from the harsh realities of the world, sulking in my sorrow, indulging myself in pity.

I did not speak, nor did I rise, preferring to soil my loincloth with piss and shit. Sleep would not come, and I thought of little else other than the sacrifice of a man who was as a father to me, the snapping of bones as stones crushed skull, the sight of brains and blood splattered all over the sands.

My bonds of rope were replaced with iron chains and I was heaved onto a lurching cart, smelling of manure and my own vile excrement.

"I'll see the death of you yet," Yazid said when I was slipped into my iron shackles. "In Damascus, the land of opportunity. You'll die alone, as you've lived."

I passed out and regained consciousness a number of times over the next few days. Yazid's mercenaries force-fed me, wrenching my jaw open to shove food and water down my gullet, just enough to sustain me. Yazid claimed he wanted me alive by the time we reached Syria.

And reach Syria, we did, though I saw nothing of the busy hustle of the city itself. Under different circumstances, I would have been giddy with excitement with the prospect of bearing witness to foreign, storied lands.

But my mind was clouded with starvation and unutterable grief. I wished for nothing more than to die, for the gods to end the farce that was my existence.

I had thought my years of suffering were the gods' way of forging me to be a warrior, to be their champion. To see all who would rid Arabia of their worship fall to the edge of my blade.

Yet, I was truly forsaken, and the Muslim god proved too powerful for me to stop. For anyone to stop.

Sulking in my woes at the back of the filthy cart, I cursed every god known to existence, Arab or otherwise.

We reached Yazid's mansion one sunny afternoon. The air was humid, and my energy had all but joined the gods in forsaking me. The mercenaries were forced to pick me up as though I were a burlap sack and heave me off the wagon.

The mansion was a formidable structure, one built at the summit of a cliff, eclipsing any feat of construction I had ever laid eyes upon.

It was a two-story building, made of pure brick and yellow plastered walls; it overlooked the sprawling city beneath, offering a magnificent view of Damascus. The opulent palaces and grand churches, the more modest abodes tightly packed against one another, only giving way to large spaces that acted as squares or marketplaces, where the din and hum of city life was at its apex.

Mas'oud's family had known great prosperity under the care of his son, it seemed. I remember yearning to see the storied lands of Syria or traveling anywhere beyond the desolate plains of Arabia.

I would have relished the opportunity to set foot in Damascus and gaze in wonder at the sparkling sheen of the sun's reflection on golden domes, or the glamorous plastered walls of the villas of the wealthy. To hear the chirping of birds mingled with the hum of a bustling city life.

I never imagined that my first experience with life outside of Arabia would be so tumultuous as this, in circumstances so unfortunate.

But what was I to do when fate was capricious and gods were fickle?

I remained manacled and caged in a formidable box reinforced with steel bars, like an animal.

It was long past dark when Yazid ventured forth from his mansion to visit me. I was in the cage, vulnerable to the harsh breeze washing over, in nothing but a soiled loincloth and chains binding my hands. There was one Roman mercenary keeping watch over me in my pitiful state.