Meek

Chapter 5: Into the Mountains

The daylight burned Eli's eyes. He blinked--then staggered forward at a jerk from the chain attached to his collar. He was in a line of prisoners, a couple dozen of them, shuffling from the lower door of the prison onto a barred wagon.

When Eli stumbled, a guard caught his elbow to keep him on his feet. "This one can't hardly stay upright," he said. "Ain't much more to him than a skeleton's shadow."

"They'll feed 'em on the way," another guard said. "No use dead."

Eli stopped at the wagon, looking at the steps leading up to the cage. No way could he get up there, not without crawling. And with his chains, he couldn't crawl.

He expected to be dragged into place by the neck, but the first guard helped him into the wagon. She didn't even look too disgusted at his stench. She murmured, "Dreamers keep you," then stepped back.

Another guard told the prisoners to put their faces at the bars, then unlocked the collars.

Eli could finally collapse again, so that's what he did. Just flopped on the ground. The other prisoners talked a little, cried a little. Not him. He couldn't, with his ruined throat and broken teeth.

He looked at the gray clouds through the cage bars. He hadn't expected he'd ever see the sky again, or smell untainted air. He closed his eyes and kept watching through that one lingering spark. Been a month, at least, yet that one still clung to life. Getting weaker and weaker, but clinging to life.

Maybe if you were stuck in a lightless hole, if there was nothing else to distract you, the sparks stayed longer? Maybe not. Eli didn't figure it mattered. The last spark would fade soon. Except at least, when the wagon rumbled through the city, he could shut his eyes and still watch the buildings and, if he raised the spark, with a thought, a yard above the wagon, the foot soldiers marching in front, and beyond them the knights and nobles, mounted on powerful steeds.

He couldn't keep the spark that far for long, though. Three yards from himself was the outside of this range. Maybe only two yards. And that only for a handful of heartbeats. So he brought it back down inside caged wagon and with his eyes closed he inspected the other prisoners.

Some looked weak, some looked rough, all looked scared. None of them noticed the spark, though. Like it didn't exist. Which maybe it didn't. Maybe he'd gone mad.

The caravan passed through the city. People yelled but he didn't hear the words. A carrot, half a carrot, fell next to him. Soft, half-rotten. And thank the Dreamers, easy to eat. Sweetest thing he'd ever tasted.

The high, timber-framed city buildings shrunk into thatch-roofed cottages, then spread into widely-spaced farms as the wagon climbed higher in the foothills toward the mountains.

A range of peaks and valleys stretched north-south along the western bounds of the Valley. Five or six cities were the central hubs of defense against the creatures that lived there. And against--far worse--anything that lived beyond the mountains, beyond the Warding. Terrifying Celestial creatures that couldn't enter except when the moons aligned in the worst way.

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The trolls, though, lived inside the Warding. Native to the mountains. A horde of eight-foot tall horrors that the Marquis had vowed to eradicate. And he was succeeding, too, even if he had to feed prisoners into the trolls' ravening maws to slow them down.

But if Eli somehow survived? If he survived, they'd patch him up and give him a pouch full of coin before they sent him away, exiled from the city forever.

A few hours later, one of the other prisoners shoved Eli into the corner. So he curled into a ball and dozed and watched the sun touch the distant peaks. Then the caravan stopped. The footsoldiers raised tents for the knights and nobles. They tended the horses and, not long after sunset, one of them gave each prisoner a handful of scraps and swillings through the bars.

The next morning, Eli got another meal. Two every day? Luxury.

One of the rough-looking prisoners, a man with a bristly moustache, grabbed Eli's handful.

Eli sent the spark roaring at the man's eye, trying to scare him off, but the man didn't even seem to notice. He just picked the gristle and meat out of Eli's food for himself, then gave Eli his serving of soggy bread and boiled cabbage.

"Best for both of us, aye?" the man said

Eli grunted a yes. He couldn't chew anything tougher than mushy.

At dinner that evening, the man with the moustache said, "You'd best finish every bite, friend. They send the weakest ones first."

Eli gave him a look with his reddened eyes.

"Oh, aye. True. You ain't about to bounce back, are you?" He squinted at Eli. "Well, it'll be over fast. To a man in your condition, death ain't exactly the enemy, is it?"

Eli knew what he meant. As battered as he was, he should welcome death. But he didn't. He wanted to live.

In the morning, a group of nobles trotted past the wagon:. Lady Pym and Lord Ty, the Marquis's twin children, and their attendants. They looked like a tapestry come to life. Colorful and clean and unafraid. Eli barely believed they were same species as him and the other prisoners. They looked like warhorses instead of donkeys.

"--three or four more months," Lady Pym was saying.

"Six," her brother told her, while his warhorse nickered. "At least six before we break the trolls' strength completely. Then we'll finally make the push underground. Scour their warrens and wipe them out, once and for all."

"How sure are you?" Lady Pym touched a jeweled broach on her hunting dress. "I'll wager that father will order the final assault within five months."

Lord Ty snorted. "Wager your broach?"

"One day's service."

"Very well. You know that broach isn't my color."

She laughed, a silvery sound, and a few other nobles laughed along. Horses pranced and silk billowed and armor jingled and a hush fell over the wagon

The mustached man muttered, "They ain't called our 'betters' for nothing."

Eli closed his eyes and watched the nobles through the spark, so they wouldn't see the hate on his face.

His spark hadn't faded yet ... but almost. And its range kept shrinking. He couldn't send it more than an arm's length from himself anymore. Hell, it was barely even a spark. More like a grain of sand, a transluscent grain of sand. At least it was invisible to everyone else ... even the mages.

At least he thought it was. Still, whenever the scrawny woman or the man with the red-gray beard rode too close, he absorbed the spark into his chest.

The caravan climbed to a small mountain redoubt the soldiers called 'the hunting box.' Eli only caught a glimpse of a square stone building before the final spark died.

Gone.

And to his surprise, he cared. He felt more alone, somehow, trapped behind his own eyes.

"Tomorrow," the mustached man said. "We meet the trolls."

"Th-they can't think ..." a middle-aged woman with a shaved head said. "They know we can't fight them."

"Sure," the man said. "But we can slow 'em down. Give the ballistas and mages time to soften 'em before the pike-soldiers advance."

"They'll stampede over us. How will that slow them down?"

"Because they'll dally a while to snack and swallow."

"On ... on us?" a teenaged boy asked.

"Aye, lad. Trolls are fond of fresh meat. They'll linger to take a few bites, and while they're chewing they'll make easy targets."