J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8 - J. R. Ward [30]
As the beating commenced, V ate through the blows until he felt his calf bone bend until it nearly snapped. He let out a scream and lost the deer leg. Someone else picked it up and ran away with it.
All along, the Bloodletter laughed without smiling, the barking sound coming from lips that were straight and thin as knives. And then he ended it. With no effort at all he grabbed the fat soldier by the back of the neck and threw him against the rock wall.
The Bloodletter’s spiked boots planted in front of V’s face. “Get me my dagger.”
V blinked dry eyes and tried to move.
There was a creak of leather, and then the Bloodletter’s face was before V. “Get me my dagger, boy. Or I will have you take the whores’ place tonight in the pit.”
The soldiers who had gathered behind his father cackled, and someone threw a stone that hit V where his leg had been injured.
“My dagger, boy.”
Vishous speared his little fingers into the dirt and dragged himself over to the weapon. Though a mere two feet from him, the blade seemed miles away. When he finally closed his palm upon it, he needed both hands to free it from the dirt, he was so weak. His stomach was rolling from pain, and as he pulled at the blade, he threw up the meat he had stolen.
After the retching passed, he held up the dagger to his father, who had risen back to his full height.
“Stand,” the Bloodletter said. “Or think you I should bow to the worthless?”
V struggled into a sitting position and couldn’t fathom how he was going to get his full body up, as he could barely lift his shoulders. He switched the dagger to his left hand, planted his right one on the dirt, and pushed. The pain was so great his eyesight went black…and then a miraculous thing occurred. Some kind of radiant light overtook him from the inside out, as if sunshine had swept into his veins and cleaned the pain until he was free of it. His eyesight returned…and he saw that his hand was glowing.
Now was not the time to wonder. He peeled himself from the ground, rising up while trying to put no weight on his leg. With a hand that shook, he presented the dagger to his father.
The Bloodletter stared back for a heartbeat, as if he’d never expected V to get to his feet. Then he took the weapon and turned away.
“Someone knock him back down. His boldness offends me.”
V landed in a heap when the order was followed, and at once, the radiance left him and agony returned. He waited for other blows to land, but when he heard a crowd’s roar, he knew that the losers’ punishments would be the amusement for the day, not him.
As he lay in the swamp of his misery, as he tried to breathe through the pounding of his battered body, he pictured a little female in a black robe coming unto him and wrapping him up in her arms. With soft words she cradled him and stroked his hair, easing him.
He welcomed the vision. She was his imaginary mother. The one who loved him and wanted him to be safe and warm and fed. Verily, the image of her was what kept him alive, giving him the only peace he knew.
The fat soldier leaned down, his fetid, humid breath invading Vishous’s nose. “You steal from me again and you shall not heal from what I bring unto you.”
The soldier spat in V’s face then picked him up and slung him like useless debris away from the dirty pallet.
Before V passed out, his last sight was of another pretrans finishing the deer leg with relish.
Chapter Six
With a curse, V disengaged from his memories, his eyes flying around the alley he was standing in, like old newspapers caught in the wind. Man, he was a wreck. The seal on his Tupperware had cracked open and his leftovers had leaked out all over the place.
Messy. Very messy.
Good thing he hadn’t known then what a crock of shit the whole my-mommy-who-loves-me thing was.