“You will be taught what punishment is. You will learn what it means to defy your masters!” The pain was horrible. It coursed through his body with such exaction, it left no part of him wanting for attention. Never could he have imagined agony so intense, so pervading, and he wished with all his being that he could die. “When I am through with you,” the keeper yelled, “I will feed your soul to the evil you dread most!” They had isolated him from the rest of the slaves. From humankind. He had become little more than a beast, straining to pull a sled full of timbers three times his weight. The heart inside him was no longer beating to keep him alive. It beat to punish him, just as the whips lashing down on his defenseless body punished him. “Let me die,” he had begged, but the mirthless laughter had only tormented him more. Pain. Such an easy word to say. Such a hard concept to endure. “Let me die.” In his shivering late at night, when the rest of them were asleep, he had tried to make a covenant with the Wind that swept icily around him.
