Dread Child: Coming of Age Epic Fantasy (Dreadmark Covenants Book 1) by J. L. Doty

Author:J. L. Doty [Doty, J. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J. L. Doty
Published: 2024-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

21

The Truth in a Lie

KET COULDN’T STOP shivering. The guardsmen had manacled his hands and ankles, and connected the two sets of manacles by a short length of chain. They’d finished by inserting a long spike through one of the chain links, then pounding it into the ground in one of the horse stalls, leaving him there chained and naked. He tried to burrow into the straw for warmth, but the cold ground sucked the heat out of his bones. In the darkness of the stables he had no idea how much time passed, but he felt as if he laid there for an eternity, shivering and pissing himself.

“Ket, me boy.”

Ket recognized Obregon’s voice. He tried to open his eyes, but the swelling around one made that impossible. “What faffa . . .” The swelling around his mouth also made it difficult to speak.

“Hold still, lad, let me check your legs.”

Ket felt Obregon probing at his feet, ankles, and legs.

“Okay, nothing broken there. Come on, lad, let’s get you to your feet.”

Obregon gripped him beneath his armpits and grunted with effort. Ket got a knee beneath him and helped a little. Then he got a foot on the ground next to the knee, and with the big man’s help he climbed to his feet and stood, but couldn’t stand up straight because of the length of chain connecting the hand and leg irons. Obregon pressed him against the wall of the stall. “You gotta stand on your own, boy. I gotta see if anything’s broken.”

Ket gripped the fence between stalls to stay on his feet while Obregon probed at his ribs. He hit something sensitive and Ket cried out. The monk probed at that spot for a few seconds. “Just a nasty bruise there.”

He probed at Ket’s face, paid close attention to his teeth and jaw, and the bones around his eyes. When he finished, he declared, “Ok, no teeth missing, no broken bones. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Obregon rubbed him down with a damp rag, then tied a loincloth around his hips and groin.

“I brought a blanket,” Obregon said. “I think that’s all I can get away with. Don’t burrow under the straw. That puts you in contact with the dirt, and the ground sucks all the heat out of you, even on a warm day. We’ll wrap you in the blanket, then you lay on top of the straw.”

Obregon helped him curl up in the blanket. “When you gotta piss get up and do it in the corner. Don’t just lay there and piss in your cloth.”

Ket didn’t recall the monk leaving, but he drifted off into an uneasy sleep. He had a hazy memory of Obregon returning with water and small amounts of food, and he took care to obey the man and piss in the corner.

• • • •

The girl was no one, just the child of a merchant of modest means, except she bore that mark. To her it was nothing but some discolored skin on the inside of her right forearm, at least in the beginning.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.