"Four men at each gate, three at each tower. Two gates, eight towers."
The young man muttered the words under his breath, his voice barely audible over the faint hiss of grain shifting in the heavy sack slung across his frail shoulders. Each step sent waves of agony through his body, reopening the wounds that crisscrossed his back, their sting amplified by the coarse, sweat-soaked fabric of his tattered shirt.
One would easily think the lashings to be the worst part.
They were not.
The searing pain of the whip lasted only moments; it was the lingering ache, the slow healing, and the humiliation that truly broke a man.
He wasn't a king, nor a prince, nor even a free man. To those who commanded him, he was no more than a tool, a fragile, disposable thing that they could use until it broke.
As he trudged toward the kitchen tent, the clamor of clashing steel though not of weapons, and raised voices filled the air.
His knees threatened to buckle, but he pressed on. A single misstep, a sack torn open, and he wouldn't survive the punishment, not again at least.
The last whippings have been more than enough, but they had been worth it for what he got in exchange...
With a trembling hand, he pushed aside the tent's heavy flap. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of boiling meat and stale bread. The cooks and camp followers barely acknowledged his presence, none moved to relieve him of the weight, as each had their work to attend to.
Not that he expected any aid from them.
"A second mistake, and they'll toss my corpse to the dogs , they won't even bother burying me" he thought bitterly, their glares burning into his back.
A raspy, high-pitched voice soon reached his hear, the sounds only as grating as the person that it belonged to.
''Make sure not to break another sack, or I'll swear on the gods you won't ever make another mistake. "
The voice belonged to Virvana, the head cook, a towering woman with a scowl that could curdle milk and spoil it faster than the sun could. Her greasy, unkempt hair clung to her damp forehead, and her eyes glinted with cruelty as she referred to the sack he broke that morning, which earned him the lashes that were burning his back at the moment.
Alpheo bowed his head; complaining would only earn him more lashes, and he sure as hell could not spare more.
Kind as a snake and as beautiful as a cockroach, he thought darkly, his lips curling in a bitter smile.
Lowering the sack to the ground with aching arms, he glanced at her once before turning to leave.
I wonder if she'd be gentler after a good fuck. Or does she eat everything but cock?
The thought made him laugh as he stepped back into the sun, but he quickly stifled the sound, was there really anything to laugh about? Was he just going crazy?
How long could he live like this? How long could he survive?
The sun beat down relentlessly, its rays blinding him as he squinted against the light. He stared at his hands.
They were rough, calloused, scarred, with nails jagged and dirty. Blisters and untreated cuts marred his fingers, evidence of years of unending toil.
For a fleeting moment, he let himself remember.
Five years. Five years since peace had slipped through his fingers. He laughed humorlessly at the irony of it. Back then, I thought it was hell. Now I know better. That was heaven compared to this.
His back throbbed with each labored breath, but it was nothing compared to the ache in his heart. He had once known luxury: a warm bed, a loving family, a life of learning. He had been a student, history his passion. Stories of kings, conquerors, and wars had fascinated him. There was something magnetic about tales of men who rose above their station, of heroes and villains etched into eternity.
But no one sang songs for soldiers, and much less for slaves. No one wrote stories for the nameless who suffered and died in silence.
Alpheo clenched his fists. He had once lived in a city that never knew hunger, where friends and entertainment were plentiful. Now, those days felt like a distant dream, stolen by cruel fate.
When death finally claimed him, and it surely woud in these conditions, no one would mourn.
They sold me for three silver coin, he thought, his mind spiraling back to that day. He had been a farmer's son then, born into poverty but still not despair. His parents were humble. He had never known the whip, never tasted the cruelty of man's worst instincts.
That peace had ended when the slavers came.
They weren't invaders, not in the traditional sense, though they certainly invaded his life.
They came with silver coins in hand, not swords. They bought lives as casually as one might purchase livestock.
For the fifth son of a poor family, the price of freedom was a single silver coin; they offered three.
He was five , perhaps six , when they took him, a thin boy with too many brothers and not enough food to go around. The three coins sealed his fate, and with it, his world collapsed.
Years of toil had followed.Years of pain, degradation, and hopelessness. All that remained were the scars, on his back, his hands, and his soul.
As the sun continued to bear down, he lifted his head, his gaze unfocused.
Alpheo shook his head, forcing himself to move. His musings wouldn't fill his stomach or ease the lash's bite.
If I ever escape this hell, he vowed silently, I'll make sure the world remembers me .
But for now, the world didn't care.
His name was Alpheo, a mythical name, though its significance was lost on him. It was a strange name, and the fate of the one who bore it was stranger still. If he had to choose one word to summarize his second life, it would be "pet." Like a mere animal, his existence had been defined by the whims of those who bought and sold him.
He had lived in many homes, passed from one master to the next, each a new chapter of misery. His first master had been a nobleman, a man who saw value in him not as a person but as an object of entertainment for his young son. The boy had adored Alpheo's stories, tales woven with wit and imagination, his voice a balm to the child's boredom.
For a brief moment in his life , Alpheo thought the worst was over. But the boy soon grew bored of his stories, too. He found new distractions, and Alpheo's purpose in that household ended. He was sold again, a transaction as simple and thoughtless as the trade of a loaf of bread.
By the time he was twelve, he had been sold to a soldier, his new role that of a camp follower. This life, too, was merciless. He cleaned, carried, fetched,starved, always the lowest of the low. When the soldier who owned him died in battle, Alpheo became the property of the military camp his master served in.
In this endless cycle of servitude, Alpheo learned to survive. He mastered the art of appearing weak while slowly toiling toward his freedom. He knew the sting of whips, the crack of fists, the bruises that never fully healed.
Yet, through it all, he never forgot who he was, the moment he did he would be truly lost. He clung to the fragments of his identity, his dreams, his desires.
Anything that could distract him from his toils, pains, and that horrible weakness of it.
He wanted freedom, how much he craved it....
It was such a simple thing, a life where his will was his own, where he could walk unchained, where no one's hand would rise against him unless he raised his first. Yet, it seemed so impossibly distant.
But the fire in his heart refused to die, and truly, for now that was the only thing that pushed him forward to life and away from death.
His simple desire to pay it all back.