Barfuß-Hanna
Spectator
Part 1
Eila slept poorly since she’d been condemned. When someone turned the key in the dungeon’s door, it tore her from an exhausted half sleep. Prisoners chained to the walls looked up, relaxing only when they realized the jailer and the two soldiers came walking straight towards Eila. The soldiers‘ faces displayed disgust at the cell’s strong smell of sweat and feces.One of the soldiers kicked Eila in the thigh. “Get up, slave.“ His leathery face looked battle-hardened. As Eila rose and the jailer unlocked the shackles on her feet, hands and neck, he asked the soldiers could he keep the cloth around the prisoner‘s hips, the only clothing Eila had worn through her two years in the Ergastulum and these last few days in the city‘s prison. The soldier who’d kicked her took a good look at the filthy piece and with another look at his younger companion, he seemed to decide it wasn’t worth keeping for themselves. By a nod he signaled to the jailer it was his, and the jailer smiled and thanked the soldiers and then unknotted it from Eila’s body.
The soldiers seized her arms and pulled her towards the dungeon door. Eila resisted initially but finally put the first foot in front of the other. “No,“ she whispered as a slight drop of urine escaped her. She hadn’t eaten or drunken much in the dungeon as fear of what lay ahead had killed her appetite alongside her sleep. Also, she hoped decimation might shorten the ordeal.
The soldier who had kicked her showed amusement rather than anger. “Just follow us, slave,“ he said. “No need to be afraid, we know the way.“
Eila remembered an occurrence from her childhood days, where a warrior and hunter in her village had shot an arrow into a wolf. The wounded animal had shown no fear, not even for as long as an eye glimpse, as the attacker neared him with a knife in hand. The wolf died trying to bite the man until his very last breath, when the blade was driven into him for the third time, and before his eyes were an empty blue like a cloudless winter sky, his gaze fell upon Eila.
She had told her uncle later that day and he had explained to her how in that moment, the wolf had passed his fierceness and courage on to her.
“That’s right slave,“ the older soldier said as Eila made use of her shivering legs. “Just keep walking. There’s still quite a way to go.“
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