They sat shackled, legs and arms together, their whole bodies arched back. They flopped about the tent rug, wobbling from side to side as we looked down. Me, Vincent and Soveros. Somewhere in the corner, Sylas was posted with eyes closed and his head down. Light broke through the cracks of the corners of the tent, a wind blew sand from underneath and it painted them yellow across their backs. I rubbed my eyes. 
  “Tired?” Vincent asked.
  “Yeah.”
  “How much have you slept?”
  “Not a wink for two days.”
  “It’s been the same on my end.” Vincent sighed.
  He stepped back and pulled a chair and flipped it. He sat with his body towards the spine, arms resting upon it and his head lowered a bit. There he kept tapping along, sweat stains around his armpits and neck. Papers scattered about, a crow in a cage squawked and flapped its wing. Somewhere upon a reading table, it jumped around and pecked at a little ribbon knot on its foot. 
I bottle of wine rolled down and hit my foot. I pressed my sole against it and buried it.
  “We should kill them.” Soveros said.
  Sylas opened his eyes. Arms crossed, his forearm twitched.
  “That’s not your decision to make.” I said.
  “Be quiet, you’re far beyond your rank. Boy.”
  I stood straight and breathed. My shoulders tensed. Sylas stepped forward.
  “They belonged to the fourth. The sixth. And the seventh, respectively. I believe some words should be shared from all captains involved.” Sylas said.
  “Pelts.” Soveros said. “All of this for stupid pelts. We might as well had collected bottles of sand and given him that.”
  “It’s a good idea. And it’ll be a good gesture.” Vincent said. “Why else would they waste their lives trying to steal them.”
  The three rolled. Sven stopped and looked up, gag in his mouth that was wet with drool. Lines of spit hung from his mouth that left dark spots on the sandy floor. A dead look in his eyes like two black buttons with the thread disjointed. His whole body flappy, tired, aged. A white cloth slacked where it’d been tied to his ankle. It unbundled, showing a scar. Green rotten flesh where the blade had driven into the bone of his foot. I stood. I blinked, tight in closing my eyes, and released. It still looked to same. I still felt the same. Nothing changed.
  “You look like you’re about to have a stroke.” Vincent said. “What is it, Virgil?”
  “Shouldn’t they be allowed words.” I said.
  Vincent looked up to Soveros. He flicked a finger, pointed to the three. Soveros shook his head and walked over, bending over. His blade hanging low around hist waist as he pulled the cotton gag from Klep.
  “Not that one. He’s the stupid one.” I said. 
  “Are we giving them their dues or not?”
  “Believe me when I say, Sven will do a better job defending the three.”
  Soveros looked to me, sighed, and plugged him back. Klep kicked his legs out and whined and Soveros leaned over and undid Sven.
  “Alright. Say your peace and be done with it.” Soveros said.
  I observed. Sven looked up and around, the sand on his face falling. He looked around the room and stopped when he spotted Vincent’s red glare. Vincent and his relentless foot tapping, scratched at the chair and breathed heavy.
  “You committed a great offense.” Vincent said.
  “I know.” Sven said.
  “If you knew, then why’d you do it?”
  “Precisely because it was a great offense.”
  “Did you know you would get caught?”
  “I had reason to believe I would, eventually.”
  “So then it was doomed from the start?”
  “I figured.”
  Vincent looked to me, his glare making me go cold. 
  “I figured he was supposed to be the smart one.” Vincent said.
  “He is.” I knelt down to Sven. “You need to start thinking about the people around you a little harder, because this isn’t cutting it.”
Sven closed his eyes. The march of men went on from behind us, wheels were beginning to spin and grind against the floor. It sounded like machinery, all the rickety wood cracking and whining to start. Horses stomping along the floor, men screaming for attention. A bustle as loud as any cities, and a desperate one too. Shadows raced from beyond the walls of the tent. A wave of sand struck and people shouted profanities. I felt the hot air rush up my leather armor. Pebbles stuck in my shoe. Fuck sand.
  Sven adjusted himself on his belly and flattened as best he could. His chains chafed. 
  “If I may speak, Vicentius.” Sven said. “For more than my men and for more than this crime.”
  “You may.”
  “You are a fool.”
  Even I was starting to sweat. Soveros’ grip tightened on his blade and he flashed steel.
  “Check my right shoe.” Sven nodded to me.
  Vincent was still. I gulped. I reached down and pulled his boot. Something rattled inside, somewhere near the steel-toed tip. I shook the shoe and flipped it upside down. Out came some sand, some rocks. And three shiny silver coins plopped into the sand. I picked them up and gave them to Vincent and I dropped the shoe on to the floor.
  “Is this bribery. I don’t understand?” Vincent rolled the coins between his fingers.
  “It’s what I got paid in the last four months.” He said. “I’ve been here long, Vincent. You know that. We’ve never seen pay that low, for work this stupid.”
  “Stupid work?”
  “You sent the seventh to clean the sewers.” Sven said. “Mercenaries. Warriors. Hunters. And you had us tidy shit-streams.”
  “The governor of Ornn was worrie-”
  “You were dining with him. You were sharing words. I saw you.” Sven said. “We labored and we got three coins for a weeks work. He didn’t even pay you, did he?”
  “What if he didn’t? You got money.”
  “You’ve been doing this the last few towns. Leading up to Xanthus, we all know it.” Sven said. “You’ve been looking for favors, sweet-talking; Silver haired. Silver tongued.”
  “If you wanted to leave. You could have left.” Vincent said.
  “The hell I can. And the hell anyone else can.” Sven said. “This is all we have! All we had! Now you’re turning us into janitors one day? Political guards the other? Hell, you had us clear out a forest for a damn road? What in the hells do you think the Flock is?”
  “It is whatever I need it to be.” Vincent gripped him by the hair.
  “And that’s it. That’s the problem.” Sven said. “I am a hunter. I know one thing. I do one thing. I think what you’re looking for are slaves.”
  “If you had these opinions you should have said so.” Vincent dropped his head. “If dignity was that important to all of you, you should have said so.”
  Vincent sighed.
  “The fact is that no matter your reason, I can’t let this go unpunished. Because a conqueror must be respected, of all else.”
  He took his sword and walked out and I followed him. Sylas remained, looking down at the three in silence.
  I chased after Vincent, we walked between the carts and the men and I clasped his arm.
  “Respected or feared?” I asked. “What is it you really want?”
  “What’s the difference, Virgil?” He got my arm off. “Am I supposed to send a message that it is okay to betray and steal?”
  “You can send a message without damning all of them.”
  “But damning, I must do.” Vincent said. “They won’t learn any other way.”
  “Spare the two fools then.” I said. “Sven came up with the idea. He’s the one who deserves it.”
  “I take their arms.” He said.
  “They can serve you still, please.” I said. 
  “Is that what you think?”
  “It’s what I know.” I was speaking so fast. So desperately, that I was out of breath and Vincent saw it. He shook his head and nodded. Then he tapped my along the chest. 
  “If they do anything, it will be on you. Do you understand?”
  “I do.”
  “Okay.” He nodded. “Okay…”

 

That night, Sven was hung. Before we reached the city, with a sourness in our mouths. Eating was remained of the barley wheat, cooked in a sludge of beef stock. Few vegetables, no meat. We ate and chewed woodenly and all our jaws seized with how hard and vile the gruel was. The taste of bone. Of blood and marrow. Of hard, almost oat-like, granules. Chewing and chewing and watched Vincent. He came to all of us, quietly in our dinner with the glow of the fire to his face. Saying, briefly, we have caught the thieves and one of them will be hung. 
  We left our bowls unfinished and stepped into the cold desert and tightened coats around our shoulders and watched as two men dragged by long rope, a platform. How it raked the sand and dragged stone and foliage and how it stopped and the two men gauged the distance with their hands and jumped up. They fumbled a wooden post. One of them stood it straight, the other hammered it in place. 
  Oh how high it rose. Bleak, a dark obelisk stood tall, with no features in the dead-night dark save for the side where the glare of fire reflected back. The torch switched hands and lit the corners and Vincent gave his speech. Perhaps, it’s best to just call them words. 
  Klep was stood up to the platform and pressed down onto the floor with an armored foot. Mel followed, struggling a bit more underneath the steel. 
  Sven however was dragged, placed ginger on the stand with the rope falling delicate around his neck. Two boys from the seventh helped him stand. His foot hadn’t healed and he stood on one leg, leaning to his right side. 
  “Any words?” Vincent asked?
  Sven looked around. Down. Then up. 
  “I fought for the Crows that were.” He said. “I have no regrets. Do your duty.”
  We went hummed and buzzed with questions. Vincent pulled his sword, steaming and red hot in the dark. It left a scorched scar against the platform as he dragged it through the ground. A trail of fire here to send Sven to worse hells. Or perhaps to relieve him, who knew. Who knows.
  Vincent raised his sword. He swung. The rope rose high up and snapped. And what silence that followed after.
  A pair of feet that dangled south, then north.