Elmara, Kingdom of Taruschkan

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5th Awaiting, 678th Year of the Common Reckoning

Jakob greeted the dawn of the next Venera's Day standing before what seemed to be half the Company of the Star, stripped to the waist and shivering slightly in the early morning chill. Arrayed ahead of him were two lines of men, forming a narrow alley of switches and clubs. Some of them brandished their weapons with apparent glee, weighing them in rough hands to position themselves to strike. Others merely gazed at him with a grim cast to their faces that told nothing of their hearts. He could hardly say which was worse.

A broad swath of ruined grass set before the officers' tents had been transformed this morning into the punishment ground. On all sides the various hangers-on of the soldiers' camp milled about as if in the last moments before some grotesque puppet show. Washerwomen clutched clambering children to their broad skirts while the Company's assembled bastards and orphans jostled for the best positions to watch the coming ordeal. Blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and coopers mingled with squires and peddlers as only entertainment or bloodshed could manage.

At the farthest end, a vanguard of officers in gleaming armor and spotless doublets, with a lone figure standing too serenely in the center: Captain Reral.

Jakob spat.

A big swordsman whose name Jakob had forgotten fell into place behind him. Instead of the man-high doublehander that was the proper weapon of his trade, he wielded a switch as thick as Jakob's thumb.

The man smiled and tested his grip on the switch. There could be no turning back.

Ahead of him, the last man who Jakob wanted to face today took his position in front with an unsheathed sword in hand.

"Can't have you running now," Lodric said, resting the sword blade flat on his right shoulder. "Would spoil all the fun. And the boys want fun, right?"

Several of the nearest soldiers started to laugh. At the head of the assembled crowd, one of his father's officers, a burly Varoschki with a curved scar that bisected his drooping mustache, raised a hand to call for silence.

"Company!" the man shouted and silence he had.

Get on with it, old man, Jakob thought. His right leg started to shake; he shifted his stance so no one would see but they likely did.

All eyes fell on Captain Reral as he spoke.

"The prisoner has been found guilty of selling counterfeit documents purporting to bear the seal of the Testator of Varoschk," his father said. A fly buzzed about Jakob's ear. He swatted it away but it returned just the same. He spat again. "Blasphemy is a crime against the Church and against God Itself. But in this Company, praise God, we cannot punish blasphemy."

That sent up a rousing cheer from the men but once again, the officer raised his hand and silence fell once more.

Captain Reral continued.

"However, we can and will punish deceit." And now his gaze fell on Jakob himself. "We will have order and obedience on this, the eve of battle. And should the prisoner overcome this necessarily ordeal, we will welcome him one and all back into proper fellowship."

Should, Jakob thought, the word piercing him like a pike. Not when. He urged his shoulders upward to stand straighter.

"The prisoner will proceed!" Lodric shouted and held the sword aloft, its gleaming blade level with the ground and its tip pointed at Jakob's throat.

He put his right foot forward as ordered.

The first blow landed on his left shoulder. Jakob did not see whose switch it was but he felt it, bright and stinging on his exposed flesh. He grimaced and went on.

Another blow, this time across his ribs that nearly stole his breath. When he turned his head to catch the culprit, Lodric tutted twice and gestured with the point of the sword. One more step and...

Jakob tasted dirt first; the hint of blood only came as the darkness cleared from his vision. His shoulders burned and the first time he tried to push himself up on his elbows, he slipped back onto the trampled grass below. Whoever had hit him must have used a club and all his strength. If he could find a way to do it without simply putting his own head on the block, Jakob determined then to kill whoever had struck him. But that was still many steps away, and each step would bring greater blows.

He brought himself up on his hands and knees, then lifted his gaze to the end of the gauntlet where stood his father. All else faded from his view. If the captain held any mercy or inkling of indulgence for his son, then he hid it well. Norianic Reral may as well have been a statue, watching only in silent judgement to determine his charge would succeed. Should he not, then who would remember a landless pikeman and a mercenary's bastard?

Would even Gerta?

Jakob rose on unsteady feet and took one more step, then another. Blows rained with every bit of ground he gained and more than once he fell. Blood stung his eyes and crusted in the pale wisps of a beard that had sprouted in the two days of his captivity. Ever ready, Lodric walked backwards before him holding his sword point level with Jakob's heart.

He wanted to run; backward to freedom, forward to death. No stag caught between the hounds must have felt more ensnared than Jakob did at this moment, more certain of pain that endured and pain yet to come. It was not only death he feared but oblivion. The former was still one choice of two, while the latter he knew to await him if he failed.

One step, then another, then three, finally more than he cared to count anymore.

A willow switch cut a sinuous line across his breast that soon filled with blood. As much as he wished he could say the pain had now dulled, that would be a lie. He felt each blow, the ache of their passage, the steady dripping of blood from a dozen new wounds, the grass and gravel beneath his bare feet, the hot and stinking breath of his tormenters. All sensations were equally present, equally urgent, overwhelming even his growing desire to simply fall and refuse to rise again.

Jakob took one final step and found no switch awaiting him. His eyes met those of the captain and searched in vain for pride only to find none. Satisfaction, perhaps, that justice had been done but nothing that approached what a father must feel for his child. The man who he called father was now fully the captain.

"See to him," called the scarred officer at the head of the gauntlet.

Jakob turned with great pain and saw a portly nurse approach him, then cast a blanket around his ruined shoulders. The cloth settled onto his oozing wounds like a coat of wet leaves. He drew it around his chest with trembling hands.

When he looked back to the front of the gauntlet, Captain Reral had already spun around back in the direction of his tent.

All the better that the man should not see his son faint. The ground rose up to meet Jakob and darkness took him once more.