Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Able Forsyth was a mountain of a man with shocking red hair that seemed to burst from his head in tight ringlets. His eyes, large orbs of blue stormed like the sea when he was displeased. The large man stood with his hulking back to the stables’ entrance. A training whip coiled tightly in his right hand.

“You’re late,” his father said, still facing away from him.

Set brushed bits of dirt and sod from his trousers, wiping the side of his face as he spat pieces of grass from his mouth. “My apologies, father. I must have slept in again.”

The whip uncoiled and fell on golden straw which lightly covered the ground where they both stood. Horse stalls lined either side of the tall wooden building and shadow covered the large man, sunlight failing to reach him through the open doorway.

Set hesitated and then stepped forward. His father did not move.

“You are eighteen,” his father said in a low baritone that echoed through the darkened building. Horses neighed and clopped their hooves upon the hard red earth of the Scarpathian foothills. “Yet, you are still a boy enraptured with the puerile passions of pubescence.”

“Father, I know that I am late and I apologize but that hardly qualifies-”

His father dropped his hips and flashed the whip in Set’s direction, striking him across the face with a CRACK.

He cried out in pain. Blood fell into his eyes and the blow that lanced from temple to chin sent stars coursing throughout his mind.

“Do you think I do not see you?” his father asked with a calm that did not match the storming fury within his eyes.

Just then, Jessenia came running into the stable. Her eyes went wide with fright when she saw the streak of blood that stained the ground below. It poured from beneath Set's hands as he tried to cover his face. He crouched on one knee, body quivering as pain racked his body. When he saw Jessenia’s horrified expression hovering over him, he tried to look away.

“Able!” she yelled. “What have you done? He’s just a boy!”

“No! He is eighteen years on, it's time he experienced life as such. As a man!”

Jessenia dropped down beside Set and held his face in her hands. “Are you alright, Set?”

“Stop coddling him! Don’t you see the way he watches you? Leering like a feral cat in heat. If he thinks he is strong enough to take what does not belong to him, then let him prove himself.”

Able strode over to the edge of one of the stalls and retrieved a woodcutter’s axe that lay propped up against it. The long handle of the axe measured the full length of Set’s arm and the double-bladed axe head weighed heavy as a gravestone.

Able palmed the handle with his free hand and tossed it to the ground. It hit the dirt with a THUMP that reverberated through the soles of his boots.

“Able, what has gotten into you?” Jessenia yelled.

“He wants to have you for himself, Jessenia. Can’t you see that? I won’t have it. Pick up the axe, boy.”

Set looked down at the axe. The weapon appeared impossible to wield. Confusion flooded his mind and he could not comprehend what drove his father’s reaction. Was it because of Jessenia, because he tripped and fell when he said goodbye to her?

“Able, stop this! He’s your son!”

“And you are my woman, Jessenia! Mine! It’s time that ungrateful whelp learned his true place in this household. Stand aside, lest you place yourself next in line to feel my whip.”

Set remained crouched on the straw, the scent of autumn leaves and manure invaded his nostrils as it crunched beneath his knee. The metallic tang of blood entered his mouth, and he tried not to let Jessenia see him cry. None of it made any sense. He was supposed to help his father saddle the brumby. He was late but he was supposed to help him. His father said as much three days prior when Jessenia brought the wild horse in.

The brumby neighed and reeled back on its hind legs in its stall. Its front hooves slammed down on the ground again and again as his father stepped closer, the whip uncoiled, dragging behind him.

“I’m sorry, Set,” Jessenia said, her voice an unfamiliar whimper. She got up and stepped away. “I’m so sorry.”

“Stay right there!” he yelled as Jessenia attempted to turn and run out of the stables.

By this point, one of the stable boys who witnessed the event had gone sprinting back to the house. Bigby and Ms. Lawrence stood just beyond the threshold of the stable, aghast at what they saw before them. Set’s mother stood behind them, her eyes crestfallen.

“Mother!” Set cried out, reaching a blood-soaked hand in her direction but she turned and looked away.

“Pick it up, boy!” his father roared, unfurling the whip to prepare for another strike.

Set reached down and gripped the handle with both hands. He pulled up into a squatting position and hefted the hilt toward his body with all his might.

“Look at you,” his father said, chuckling to himself. “To think that an impotent runt like you spawned from my seed.” He cracked the whip again, lashing Set across his chest.

Little Folorn and Joden ran out from beneath the legs of Bigby and Ms. Lawrence.

“Set!”

“Father, no!”

His father wound back, preparing to let loose another strike. Jessenia threw herself between them and scooped the children into her arms before quickly carrying them back to the house.

CRACK. CRACK.

Blow upon blow brought Set to the ground. He pressed his face into the dirt and rolled into a ball in an attempt to shield himself, but the slicing shrieks of pain found him, nonetheless. Tears streamed down his face, and he glanced up toward the stable’s entrance to see Bigby hugging Ms. Lawrence as she sobbed into his shoulder. His mother was nowhere to be seen.

His white shirt, now torn and ragged bloody red, hung loosely from his back. “Father, why?” he croaked.

“Bigby!” his father yelled.

Bigby fell silent, attempting to console Ms. Lawrence as she wept.

“Bigby, take this runt into town. Tell the constable I found him trying to have his way with Jessenia and gave him the beating he deserved.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me, Bigby. You tell that fat bastard that I want Set drilled off to the Marching Platoons by daybreak tomorrow. Maybe the frontlines will turn him into a man.”

“By your leave, sir,” Bigby said quietly before walking solemnly into the stable to retrieve Set.

“The frontlines, Bigby. Make sure of it. Or you will take his place,” his father said. “Look at me, boy.”

Set fell over onto his side as he cradled his bloodied abdomen and chest.

“I said look at me, boy!” his father yelled, kicking him in the back.

Set yelled out, writhing in pain. He struggled to lift his head and tried to count the objects that he found in the stable. He noticed three bales of hay that he hauled in the morning before, straw that he himself spread over the ground with a pitchfork. He noticed the leather saddle which straddled a wooden post, polished and ready.

The brumby, corralled in the stall shook its head from side to side and trotted backwards before reeling back once more, dropping its hooves down onto the top rung of the fence. The sound of splintering wood caught his father’s attention. He turned to see the horse pushing at the broken rungs with its head in an effort to break free.

“You see?” his father said. “Even the horse has more spirit than you.”

Set pushed himself up on all fours and looked at his father, blood and tears obstructing his vision. “I’m sorry, father,” he coughed. “I-”

“Quit your whimpering, boy. Look at you, soft like your mother.” He knelt down close to Set’s ear. “Worry not, son . I will make a man out of you yet.”

His father stood. His red ringed hair dropped down around his shoulders. The man’s neck bulged and the muscles along his forearms flexed like tightened ropes beneath his shirt. He brought his knee up to his chest and with one swooping motion, smashed the sole of his boot down onto Set’s head.

The blow knocked him back down onto the ground. He felt clumps of dirt, wet with his own blood and urine beneath his fingertips. As he lay, body splayed out on the straw, his fading consciousness noticed a figure off in the distance. Dark brown eyes nearly black as coal looked back at him, crying softly as his mind faded back into himself.

Don’t cry, he thought. Someone like you should not have to cry. You shouldn’t have to.