The cooking fires sent white smoke drifting through the camp. The guard was changed on the prisoners, so those who had watched through the night could be fed. When all the soldiers had eaten and were ready to march, reckoned Toli, they would be assembled to view the execution as an entertainment, something to dwell on as they marched that day.
Toli spent his last moments of life praying for his master, who could not pray for himself.
He was roused with a sharp kick to his back. The blow rolled him over, and Toli looked up into the hate-filled face of a giant who held a battle-axe with a head blade as wide as a man’s waist.
The giant, whose face was seamed with criss-crossing scars, pointed at the captives and growled. The guards seized them and dragged them out into the meadow where the army had camped, pushing through the mass of thronging soldiers who formed a solid wall around some object which held their attention.
Toli and Quentin were pushed through the assembled host and thrown down at the edge of a wide ring formed by the shields of the soldiers. In the center of the ring stood two horses, one facing east and the other west. Between the horses lay a tangle of ropes and two heavy yokelike objects. At the farther side of the ring stood the warlord’s black steed tossing his head and jerking the arm of the soldier holding his bridle.
As Toli watched, a ripple coursed through the ranks at the edge of the ring, and a wide avenue opened through which came a man wearing a breastplate of bronze and a helmet of bronze which had two great plumes like wings affixed to its crest. A cloak was clasped at one shoulder, beneath which protruded the thin blade of his cruelly curved sword. Toli had no doubt that he was seeing the warlord.
The warlord approached his courser and paused momentarily while two of his men dashed forward and flung themselves at his feet. One lay prostrate and the other crouched next to him on hands and knees. The warlord proceeded to climb to his saddle upon the bodies of his men. He then raised his hand in signal.
Toli swallowed hard, inwardly shuddering. He cast one last look at Quentin, unconscious on the ground beside him. “Stay asleep, Kenta,” he whispered to himself, “and fear nothing. I will go before you.”
But it was not to be. Two soldiers came forward at the warlord’s signal; one carried a gourd full of water. They rolled Quentin over on his back none too gently; a moan escaped his lips. Toli struggled against his bond and was struck on the head by a guard behind him
The soldier with the gourd knelt over Quentin and placed the vessel against his nose and poured.
“You will drown him!” shouted Toli, receiving another blow on the head for his trouble. He lunged at the soldier and was kicked in the ribs.
Quentin coughed violently and choked. Water spouted from his mouth and nostrils, and he awoke sputtering. His eyelids flickered, and he turned cloudy eyes upon Toli who now knelt over him. “My friend…” Quentin gasped, “I am sorry.”
Quentin seemed to know what was about to happen.
Both prisoners were jerked to their feet; Quentin was made to stand supported between two scowling soldiers, one of whom grasped a handful of hair in order to keep the captive’s head erect.
The warlord gave a second signal, and there was a sudden scuffle behind the two captives. A third prisoner was flung forward into the ring. He was a soldier, bound hand and foot as Quentin and Toli were. “One of the sentries of last night,” whispered Toli. He guessed the warlord would make him the first victim.
The man’s face was gray, he trembled all over. Sweat soaked his hair and ran down his face-a hideous mass of ugly purple welts, for the man had already received a sound beating. The luckless trooper was quickly wrenched to his feet by two other guards who then stripped him naked, cutting away his clothing with their knives. The soldiers looking on laughed.
The unfortunate was marched to the center of the ring, where the giant with the broadaxe waited between the two horses. He was pushed down to the ground where he writhed in anguish as his arms and legs were securely tied to the heavy wooden yokes. Then, upon signal, the two horses, harnessed to the yokes, were led slowly away in opposite directions.
The ropes pulled taut. The giant stepped into place over his prey. The victim was lifted off the ground to hang in agony while his body stretched by slow degrees. The horses leaned into harness and the man screamed terribly. The awful popping sound of joints and ligaments giving way seemed to fill the ring. As the victim screamed his last, the giant, quick as lightning, spun the broadaxe in a flashing circle about his head and with one hand brought the blade down with a mighty stroke.
The jolt of the blow almost felled the horses, who stumbled to their knees as the ropes suddenly went slack. The poor wretch was hewn neatly in half as the host wildly clamored their approval, rattling their weapons and cheering.
Toli glanced fearfully at Quentin, who stared emptily at the horrible spectacle; though his master’s eyes were open, Toli could not tell if they saw what had been played out before them. His look was vague and faraway.
The warlord ordered the corpse to be removed from the yokes and then led his steed across the ring to where Toli and Quentin waited. Toli gritted his teeth and stared stubbornly ahead. The warlord glared down at his prisoners for a moment. He spoke something in an unintelligible tongue. Toli raised his eyes, snapping with defiance, and for a brief instant their gazes met. The warlord grasped his reins and struck down at Toli and slashed him across the face-once, twice, three times.
Blood spurted from a gash over his eye and ran down his face. The warlord barked at him and shot a quick glance at Quentin, who still seemed not to know what was happening around him. Then the warrior chief swung his mount around and trotted back to the center of the ring.
He looked slowly around the entire circle of faces in his army and then spat out a short speech to them which, from the somber mood which suddenly fell upon the host, Toli guessed to be on the order of an official reprimand. When he finished the warlord nodded and soldiers began readjusting the yokes and harness. Toli believed the moment to be his last. He closed his eyes and sent aloft a prayer for strength and dignity in his moment of trial.
Across the ring a blast of a horn sounded. Toli opened his eyes to the far hills and trees, intent that his last memory should not be of his executioner or the grotesque corpse lying in two pieces beside the wicked blade. He felt a twinge of regret that he would not be able to comfort his master in his last moment, nor even say his leave as a man would, but he doubted whether Quentin would know or understand anyway.
The soldiers on either side of him tightened their grasp, and suddenly he was being dragged forward. His heart raced madly in his chest, and his vision suddenly became remarkably acute. He saw every blade of grass under his feet, and every leaf on every branch of nearby trees stood out in breathtaking clarity.
Time seemed to swell, expanding to immeasurable dimensions. He moved step by step, wonderfully aware of each moment as it slid by; he held it, savored it. Now be was raising his foot, taking a step-how long it took-now the other foot swung up. There were twenty more steps to go before reaching the axe-man, and each step seemed to last forever.
He was conscious of the air as it filled his lungs: the taste of it, the tingling freshness as it rushed in. He felt the sun on his neck and thought that if he tried he could count each single ray as it touched him. How strange, be thought, that every nerve and fiber of his being should be so fully alive this close to death.
Then he was struck with a horrible thought. In this heightened state, he would be able to see the executioner’s blade as it glittered in the air in its lazy arc. He would be able to feel each tiny fiber of muscle stretch and pull; he would feel his bones wrenched leisurely from their sockets; he would hear his own spine snap.