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Chapter 6 - Lars

I

        Spoiled clothes and filth covered the room’s floors as well as every surface. The room’s door bent, then cracked, before being flung open. A splintered fragment remained locked to the frame by a latch. They marched into the room with a soldier’s discipline. A few intruders cursed at the unkempt apartment, after covering their noses.
        Lars stirred groggily at the intrusion. Rough hands pulled him from his cot, and his head slammed against the floor with a sickly crunch. He did not have the ability to fight back. Drink had incapacitated him. His head swam and his stomach emptied.
        “Sit him up,” A stern female’s voice ordered. “Someone, please open the curtains.”
        The light stung Lars’s eyes and he grumbled at the pain it caused. His head lolled as he was forced into a sitting position. Spit strings dribbled from his mouth onto this sullied tunic. The hands quickly withdrew, and Lars flopped back to the floor, unable to keep his body stable.
        “Gods be damned!” A man cried and examined his soiled hand. “He shit himself!”
        The man was tossed a towel by a fellow intruder. He rubbed the filth vigourously from his fingers. Quiet chuckles bounced around the room, form those who had not had to touch Lars. Only the stern female maintained her discipline. Her cold eyes silenced the others as they scanned the room. With more power than her frame suggested, she knelt beside Lars.
        “Sit him up,” She repeated her command.
        More carefully than before, Lars was raised to a sitting position and held up with tentative and unwilling hands. Lars was beginning to smell himself as his senses came to life. He gagged and heaved. Nothing came from his empty stomach and it just spasmed as if punched. He blinked away the water and morning gum in his eyes, then met the female’s cold stare.
        “Captain,” Lars addressed her, without any welcome. He squinted at the sun before continuing, “What brings you to my home at such an early hour?”
        “Where are the others?” Her voice was as cold as ice and harder than stone.
        “What others?” Lars replied with genuine confusion.
        She snapped her fingers, and a fist flew into Lars’s gut, causing him to keel over. His stomach was not empty after all; bile erupted from his mouth in a stream, as a testament to that fact. His throat burned, and his tongue recoiled from the acid in his saliva causing him to gag. He spat to make the taste go away – it was a futile attempt. He was forced upright, and this time could not meet the woman’s stare.
        “Where are the others, Lars?”
        Lars swallowed hard and yelled, “I don’t know who ya’re talking about!”
        Another snap, another fist. Lars was allowed to fall into his bile’s puddle. He curled in pain with his hands wrapped around his heavy gut. The hands grabbed and pulled him back up. Again, he spat, this time with a pink tint to the saliva.
        “Ya’ bastards,” Lars muttered.
        Snap.
        The fist made his head spin. He blinked tears from his eyes and tasted iron. The skin on his jaw pulsed, tightened, and heat formed beneath. This blow finally woke him up. His grogginess subsided as his blood quickened. With a fighter’s mind, he scanned the room. Two men held him, a woman stood at attention at the door, and someone else, who he felt rather than saw, was behind him by the window. All were armed to the teeth and armoured. He knew them all as other members within the town’s guard and liked none. The last person in the room, knelt at his eye level, staring at him with hard unblinking eyes. Lars liked her the least.
        “Captain,” He smiled, addressing the kneeling woman once more, “Pleased to finally have you in me room.”
        The Guard Captain held up a hand to stop the fist from coming.
        “Captain Vadia?” The guard - who was about to strike - asked.
        Lars head spun. He did not see the blow coming. It hurt worse than the earlier punches. The Captain spun her wrist as she let her hand back down to her side.
        He turned to the guard who struck him the other times and said, “I guess you are the one that hits like a girl.”
        His head rocked back from a fresh blow from the guard he taunted. The Captain’s blow was still harder, which made him chuckle, even as blood erupted from his nose and drained down his face. He wondered how she did it. She was not overly large or muscular. It was the first time he had any respect for the woman. He grinned.
        “Where are the other’s Lars?” Vadia repeated her question.
        “The young whelps you put in the cold with me last night?”
        Vadia nodded.
        “No clue, Captain,” Lars lied.
        Vadia’s eyes narrowed and her face grew tight. Lars met her glare and smirked. He was not intimidated. His whole life had been violent. This was not the first captain he had difficulty with, but he was still here, and the town still gave him the coin to drink.
        “Take him to the stockades,” Vadia said after a long pause, “Interrogation will persuade his memory.”
        This, however, was a first for Lars. His jaw dropped in shock.
        Captain Vadia stood, strolled casually to the door, and said, “Clean him up as well, I would rather he not make the stockades smell worse.”
        The others laughed and Lars’s vision went black as a sack was drawn over his head.

II

        Lars had never suffered such a beating in his life. He would never claim to have won all his fights, but he always gave an attacker pause for any future confrontations at the least. This was entirely different. He could not fight back. They took turns and riddled his body until their fists were bloody. After a while, he only felt the blows at a distance. Swelling prevented fresh pain from touching his nerves. He found it funny how the human body could get use to abuse.
        “What did you do to the others!?”
        The shouting was muffled and distant, like the blows that followed the unanswered question – he felt like he was floating away. All they asked was the same question, over and over again. He no longer bothered to answer. Even when he broke and told them that a monster had eaten the young whelps, which was the truth, he doubted they believed him; the continuous assault was testament to that. Gods be damned, He thought through the fog, I could use a drink.
        At first, he did not know they were finished. Silence and unfeeling became uncomfortable as seconds passed into minutes. Through clouded vision, he found he was alone in the cell. He could not open his eyes for long and did not fight to keep them that way. They had left him tied, naked, on a chair with is arms firmly secured behind his back. Before he let the swelling consume his sight, he caught his reflection in a puddle at his feet; a remnant from the ice-cold water they had showered him with before the beating. He was reminded of the bloated corpse he had had to drag from the nearby river two summers ago. That was disconcerting. He wondered if his face would be the same after it fully healed - if it could fully heal.
        Even though his face was in ruin and his body felt like his face, he could live with that. What he could not live with were the pale white rat corpses in the cell’s corner. They were hairless as if ravaged by disease. They reminded him of the white thing.
        With a blink, he found not all were dead. Some feasted on their dead and stared at him with red beading eyes. Lars screamed at them until exhaustion overtook his will to stay awake.

III

        “Untie him,” The stern female voice ordered.
        Lars was beyond foggy and he would have bagged for a hangover to make him feel better. The voice was familiar, but it took what felt like an eternity for him to place it as Vadia’s. The ropes fell free and he felt the rawness in his wrists that only added to the pained soreness that permeated his body.
        “Lars,” Vadia said.
        “What do ya’ want, woman,” Lars mumbled weakly.
        “I wanted to let you know personally that you will be crucified.”
        Lars pushed against the swelling within is eye lids and met the guard captain’s unforgiving gaze. He clenched his teeth and growled, “What do ya’ mean crucified!?”
        “We found the others,” She said coldly.
        “So?”
        “You are a monster.”
        “Me!?” Lars stammered, “I did not do anything to them! It was-”
        A fist silenced him, and he felt a tooth come free. He fell sideways from the chair and the stone floor did nothing to arrest his fall. What little strength he had, faded with the blow and sorrow took his heart. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he wept. These were not the natural tears that came from physical pain, such as when they rebroke his nose in the earlier interrogation. These came from defeat and emotion. Lars knew he was a troubled man, deep down. He was not generous and far from charitable. He was a barely functioning alcoholic if he were honest with himself. However, those character flaws did not mean he wanted to die. Life was the one thing that he always clung to.
        “I-I did not kill them, Captain. You have ta’ believe me!” He begged.
        “I did not think you were capable of what you did to those boys,” Vadia said with a calm authority, “I’ve never seen a body...” She paused and for the first time she showed emotion. An angry flush rose in her cheeks. She took a breath and continued, “... a body mutilated in such a way.”
        “Captain, please.”
        “Chain this criminal,” Vadia ordered. “You have ten days - make your peace with the Gods.”
        Lars made an attempt to struggle and lay flat on the ground - like a toddler not wanting to be picked up - but a kick to his gut ended that. The guards huffed as they dragged him to the cells rear wall. The chains rattled with an almost sweet chime as they cuffed his wrists and ankles. The metal links were pulled tight through a ring above Lars’s head, forcing his arms up. They chewed into his wrists. Lars could only guess that the trickling liquid he felt down his forearm was blood as the whole cell was wet and ripped with water.
        “Goodbye Lars,” Vadia’s voice was cold. “Maybe the vermin will give you mercy before the cross.”
        Vadia left without glance backwards and her entourage was slow to follow. A fat and sickly rat crawled from the shadows, as if summoned. Its red eyes seem to glow in the dark and its teeth were sharp, like a snake’s fangs. Its maw was bloody and red gore painted its hairless pale skin, which was marked with black veins that throbbed with an unhealthy tenacity. Just as it reached Lars’s ankle, a sword dropped. Two rat halves splattered black blood across the cell's floor as if the vermin were crushed.
        “Why’d you do that?” One guard asked.
        “I want to see the bastard crucified,” Said the guard who had killed the rat.
        The other chuckled, “Have a good time, Lars. Don’t let the rat’s get too full off your lard ass.”
        The cell door clanged shut behind the guards and sounded like a bell’s toll.
        Lars wept until he could weep no more.

IV

        It is strange how time passes.
        It is never constant.
        During happy times, it passes like charging cavalry at full speed and force. In boring times, it passes slowly but without thought. Torture was another matter completely. Lars was learning this lesson and even his unrestful sleep passed with dull pain and tedium. Hunger knotted his gut and thirst made his tongue crack. He would have killed for a beer, even if it were just a taste to wet his mouth. A sip...
        The bastard rats, with their glowing red eyes, watched him from the shadows. They were his only companions for what felt like days. They seemed hesitant to come closer, despite their familiarity to his presence. Lars had never seen rats move in packs, like these ones did. His only guess as to why they did not come closer were the shatter remains at his feet. He did not understand why. At any other time, he thought they would have devoured their mutilated kin. He had seen them do so on many occasions throughout his life and had even seen these ones corner and gang up on a traditionally hairy rat a few hours ago. These pale, hairless, and white-skinned bastards were different. He began to hate them more than the Captain but could not tell why. The feeling was animalistic in nature and he wished they would come closer, so he could boot them with what little slack was given to his legs.
        As time moved onwards, his swelling dwindled. He had no idea how long had passed but felt it significant, especially with the pain ebbing away. At the same time, he had always healed quick. Even after the most punishing beatings he had received from brawls in the drinking halls, he still showed up to his guard post the following day. In the end, he did not know and cared little. He kept his eyes on the rats and, whenever he met their beading little eyes in the dark, his breath came out as a rasping growl.
        “Come here you little bastards,” He said, “I’ll beat your heads off against the walls and quench my thirst on yer blood.”
        Somehow, he knew they understood. They knew he meant it too. So, they waited and stayed in the shadows, unwilling to break the fragile truce that formed, which was maintained even when he slept.
        Lars began to wonder if he would get any decency from his jailors. From his last encounter, he doubted they would give him any means to ease his suffering. Still, with all the cards stacked against him, he refused to succumb to anguish. He would not be murdered like a criminal.
        They will pay, he decided.
        All of them will pay... He thought bitterly and vowed to the rats as his witness, “I will make them pay.”

Thanks for reading!

Brett