Author Archive: jsomers

One of the joys of having a Blog is being able to post whatever the hell you want. Used to be, a novel that fizzles after 23,000 words like this one would just rot in a drawer unless and until I thought of some way to save it. No more! Now I can post chapter one on a slow Monday just for fun. So, herewith, I give you

THE RITE OF DEATH

CHAPTER ONE: Execution Day

This is the story of how I murdered fifty thousand people.

It starts with one murder.

It was a holiday – Execution Day. The mob had started lining up for a good view an hour before, ruining my sleep. I stared up at the ceiling, tracing the cracks in the plaster.

Next to me, she snored. For such a handsome woman, the Lady of BarJef snored like a penny whore. And I knew my penny whores.

I pushed my way out of the bed and stretched until I was rewarded with several loud pops. My back ached. The fresh bruises on my arms had gone purple in the night. It was strangely pleasurable to feel their burn and throb, to relive the echo of those heavy wooden bats. Less pleasurable was my aching head: Three mugs of strong northern cherry liquor too many, as usual.

Naked, I ignored my urgent bladder and stepped to the blurry windows. Pushed one open, leaning out into the thick air, already hot. I scanned the milling crowd, scheming and jostling – and soon, fighting – for position in the huge courtyard. Normally off-limits, one day a month it became a boiling theater. I thought I could almost smell them, these fat, sweaty people, overdressed for the cursed heat of Salan, eager for the fun.

The platform had been erected overnight, in stealth and silence. The ancient block sat like a wart of blackened, polished shadow. Wood, I’d been told. Petrified and stone-like. Carried from the homeland across the mountains so we wouldn’t have to cut one special when we felt like beheading someone. Ancient and revered. I didn’t even like to look at it. How many heads had been chopped off on that ugly square of dense, heavy wood? Thousands, I thought. Tens of thousands. And six more today. Six! Not so long ago six executions would have been an embarrassment. But these were low times. Five simple criminals, convicted by acclamation and held in the palace jails for weeks, now to stand blinking and trembling in the sun for a few moments before Lekum pushed them onto their knees, pronounced their crimes, and separated them from their heads. Five simple beheadings, no challenge to Lekum and his massive shoulders and unkempt beard – a True! Heran! Hero!, my Lekum – but the crowds were swelling because of the sixth. A traitor. No simple beheading for her, thank goodness. Lekum would get some exercise.

We were not a civilized people.

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