I'm going to keep this short and sweet this week. (Okay, so maybe not sweet, but definitely short.)
The prompt: Death appeared inevitable ...
Whether you choose to kill off your character or not ... Enjoy!
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My response:
Maybe I was too naïve. All I'd ever done was try to serve my people. It was surprising how quickly they turned against me.
I stumbled as I crossed the platform, my hobbled feet tangling and making me lurch forward. My hands flew up, but tied as they were, they only scraped against the weathered wood, picking up splinters, as I crashed to the ground.
Before I managed to reorient myself, a painful vice clamped around my arm and lifted me up, setting me roughly back on my feet. Rotten vegetables splattered where I had just been, the juice spattering my skirt. It was so dirty already, the extra spots didn't make a difference. I stumbled along, stopping beneath the noose meant for me. The man behind me kept walking, pushing up against me. It wasn't a mistake. I caught the look in his eyes just before the soldier wrenched him away, towards his own noose. A chill ran down my back.
I'd fought against the King's orders, against his demand for higher taxes, against his draft of able bodied young men to fight his wars ... and in the end, this was all I gained for it. A noose between a murderer and a rapist.
I didn't want to lift my eyes. I'd seen this kind of crowd before. But I knew my place. I had done no wrong, and I would not hang my head in shame. I lifted my chin.
To my great relief, I didn't see anyone I recognized. I knew quite a few of the local villagers, and they knew me. Before me was a group of lowlifes and vagrants, their clothing ragged and torn. They came to the execution only for the alms the Sherriff would distribute after. Blood money.
There was no grand ceremony, no reading of sentences or last chances to repent. The executioner just started at one end of the gallows and worked his way down. He patiently helped the accused to stand on the tall stood, fastened the noose, kicked the stool away, and made sure they were dead before he moved on. And now he was standing beside me.
I stepped up, careful of my dirt-caked skirts. My head spun, a result of not having eaten in two days, but I clenched my teeth, determined to face my end with all the pride of my family. The last remaining heir of the lands of Cavenah, and we bow only to the rightful King.
The noose dropped over my head, and the executioner pulled it tight. The fraying rope poked and tore my skin. I bit my tongue and tasted blood. One moment passed. Two. Then three.
I heard the scrape of sword against scabbard behind me, then the executioner lay at my feet, his neck sliced neatly through. Then the rope hanging above me dropped from the beam and fell down my back.
In my ear, I heard his voice, like a song of redemption.
Today would not be my day to die.
“We dropped out of hyperspace right on time, and in the right place, and trust me, no one was as surprised as I.”
ReplyDelete“But, you are Davric Yongsblud, are you not? The one they called ‘Davric Lucksblessed’ and ‘The Thread’?”
“Pfft. Yes, those were names given to me, but you, of all people, know how random hyperspace can be. I was just lucky that most of my catastrophic mistakes happened where no one could see them.”
“That reminds me, what does, ‘The Thread’ mean anyway?”
“Oh, that just refers to sewing. Sewing? Making clothes, and stuff like that? You don’t know? Really? No? Well, the thread goes through the eye of the needle. You know, the eye? The little loop at the top of the needle? Oh, well, the eye is a really small loopsmall and the thread is floppy so it is hard to get the thread into the eye so that you can sew.”
“I see. Let’s get back to the raid on the mining colony at Thrambu.”
Oh. OK. Well, anyway, we dropped out of hyperspace just behind the 2nd moon. We waited a bit for the rest of the attack group to arrive. Half of them dropped too far away from the moon, so they just immediately jumped again, surprise was all we had, see, and they were so far away there was no way they wouldn’t be noticed. We never did figure out what happened to the Unicorn’s Mane. My guess is that old Yuria jumped too far and they ended up in the middle of the moon, he always was one to take everything too far. There was this one time, on Horta 5, or was it Lander’s Tavern…”
“Yes, yes. So, you and 5 other pirate ships dropped in behind the moon, then what?
“Man, you sure aren’t a very good conversationalist. All right, all right. Where was I….oh yea, so, we pulled around above the moon, the others split off to come around the moon from below, around the sides, you know, classic pincer claw attack. We were the first to get visual contact, so we immediately signaled the others to withdraw.”
“Why is that?”
Because it was 5 against 30. Yea, half of them were just little frigates, but they still pack a mean punch when they work together. Doesn’t happen every often though. You really ought to teach your skippers to concentrate their fire on the outside nacelles. That is where all the delicate stuff is.”
“Thank you for that information. But, if you could please explain more about why you ordered the others to withdraw. You engaged the convoy at Solestia 3 with worse odds, and you were more severely outgunned at the Battle of Fornest, were you not?”
“Is that what you guys think? Your intel ops are worse than I thought. That convoy was trapped between asteroid belts, you had too many ships for the available space, your own ships disabled each other far more effectively than we ever could have. And, as for …, as for, as for…”
ReplyDelete“Fornest.”
“Right, Fornest. Well, at Fornest, we took control of the planetary defense turrets 3 days before that battle. You never knew? Now THAT is funny.”
“Yes, very amusing, I am sure. You were saying that you signaled the others to withdraw, did they acknowledge that message?”
“At Fornest? No, I never told anybody…”
“No, at Thrambu.”
Oh, Thrambu? Man, you sure jump around a lot. Makes it awfully hard to keep up with you with this pounding headache and all. My plan was to just run through their pretty little formation, take a few potshots, you know, make a nuisance of myself, and then jump when I got to the other side of the station.”
“Why did you change your plan?”
“Because I saw that the Thunderhead and the Yellowjacket were still with me. They are both nice men-o-war, pack a lot of firepower, but too slow to pull off a hit and run. I couldn’t just leave them, so I figured it was time to go out in a blaze of glory. I never dreamed that I would get off that lucky shot and take out those 4 battleships at once. Hehe, guess you need to shield those ugly ‘space-whales’ a little better.”
“We have already begun addressing the issues you so disastrously pointed out to us. Now, about, oh bother. I see that the truth drugs are about to wear off. It is unfortunate that I cannot give you another dose. I feel there is much more that you could tell me. Get a good night’s rest, Davric. I do hope that you remember this conversation tomorrow so that you can go to your execution knowing how you betrayed your friends.”
As Davric was led from the room, the Inspector General couldn’t help but smile at the confused look on the doomed pirate’s face.