Good Death
(Previously: “The Death of Ferwin Howe”)
After slaying Ferwin, Rowan sets out on the road with nothing but his sword—the weapon, he assumes, with which he’ll demonstrate his might in some small-town arena, kill another foe and catch the eye of an important stablemaster; after that, he’ll rise up through the ranks, become a legend... Well, it ought not come as a surprise that Rowan’s fate is rather different from his fantasies. The first night of his journey, mercenaries take him, bind and gag him; at the southern border, he is traded for a jug of wine. The brigands keep his treasured blade, which he will never see again...
The next day, Rowan wakes upon the burning, sun-drenched sands. A small pit—makeshift, but most certainly a fighting ring. A boy about his age lies several feet away from him: a Bahar’sool he guesses, judging from the dusky color of his skin, a long, slim spear erupting from his bloodied stomach. Rowan reaches over, shakes him; when he sees the light has long since left the corpse’s opened eyes, he stops and stands up, sweaty, sand-caked. There’s a man—a very big one, hairy, middle-aged, with silver-streaked black hair—who barks at him, and thrusts a long, curved blade toward Rowan’s belly button.
Another boy is in the ring as well, behind the big brute. “Overseer Uk’tuk,” he explains—“say fight, or offer thok-chol.”
“What is Thok-chol?”
“Good death. Manly gut-gift.”
Rowan shivers as he hears the words; he doesn’t fully understand, but gets the gist. “Fight him? He’d butcher me alive...”
“No,” says the boy, “fight me.” The lad emerges from the hulking bastard’s shadow, back arched, stomach stretched and proffered. He is Rowan’s age, perhaps a little older—sixteen, seventeen at most. His hair is dark and curly, skin a golden brown. A smattering of fur erupts across his chest and down his hard, lean gut. Both he and Rowan wear slim, beaded loincloths, barely large enough to cover up their groins—but unlike him, the desert youth has got a spear in hand. The big man barks again, and points to what is jutting from the corpse’s stomach. “Uk’tuk say you take the dead boy spear. Come, fast—fight me, fight to death!”
Young Rowan smirks; his chest heaves with anticipation and excitement. Walking over to the body, he removes the spear and takes it up, the shaft well-slicked and stinking of the dead boy’s blood. “All right, then,” he declares, hunched over, spear-tip pointed at the desert fighter’s breast, “come at me!”
Smiling, the overseer leaves them to their bout, and watches from the sidelines...
Rowan’s got his father’s skill at arms; it doesn’t take much to defeat the other lad, who, brave as he may be, is overconfident and ultimately weak. The spear’s red point leaps into his opponent’s navel, almost as if meant to be there from the first—sklootch—and the boy grunts, spitting curses in his tribal tongue... but rather than attacking Rowan back, he lets his weapon go, and grips instead the one that’s plunged into his stomach. Strange, thinks Rowan—aren’t these desert men supposed to be impressive fighters? He could kill me in return; instead, he revels in his own death!
“Thok ook-dah,” booms old Uk’tuk from the sidelines.
“Take... g-gut...” groans the gored boy. “Give me... g-g-good death... Manly death...”
Take gut, Rowan thinks—he wants me to eviscerate him!
Breathing deeply, Rowan gives the shaft a good twist—“Urghk”—and his opponent doubles over; then he tugs hard, pulls the spear out and the boy’s intestines with it, greasy pink ropes tangled on the weapon’s point. Meanwhile, the big man’s bulging arms are crossed over his hairy chest; he gives a deep nod of approval. “Sheem-thok,” Uk’tuk says. “Bahah, sheheemah-thok badal kah!”
“Thok,” says Rowan, looking to the brute, “so thok means guts...”
“Hest,” says the overseer, rubbing at his broad and furry belly, clutching it with both hands like a fighter wounded—“Kistah thok, thok!”
“Kistah sheheemah-thok,” the boy says, lifting up the spear so that loser’s bowels are hefted high, a tangled, greasy mess. The big man laughs.
Another boy is brought forth, this one thickly muscled—he’s a Bahar’sool too, clad in scraps of beaded leather like the rest of them. He takes the slain lad’s spear and charges, tramping on the spilt guts; Rowan leaps back, only too late, and his naked, sweaty stomach takes the brunt of the attack, the sharp tip jabbing just above his crotch—thluckt!
“Arghk!” As Rowan takes the deep thrust, hurt as he has never known begins to blossom in his belly—savage, sharp and ice-cold—causing him to shiver uncontrollably. Oh gods, he thinks, done for already? How pathetic... but I won’t back down—no, I shall bear myself the very pain my father suffered, even should it mean my very death!
Resolved thus, Rowan steels himself for what’s to come. The muscled victor wastes no time; the spear is twisted in the boy’s waist—splurch—“Humphf”—only to be brutally withdrawn. As it emerges, Rowan sees his own guts tangled on the tip; just like the desert boy he’d killed, he lets his spear go, gropes at his emerging innards... though they finally elude him, slipping from his grasp as soon as he can catch them. Watching this, the hulking overseer snorts.
The stout young killer stands in front of his defeated foe and gazes on him, grinning. Other dying boys might holler out their pain, or bend the knee and clutch the winner’s ankles, begging for a swift and painless death... but Rowan, offspring of a gladiator and a warrior already at just fifteen tender years of age, intends to die with grace. Back arched and pressing chin to chest, he grits his teeth; the boy’s white, blood-slicked belly juts forth and he stares down, wide-eyed, fascinated as the full length of his small intestine slowly slithers down between his knees and dangles to the hot dirt. As the guts spill free, a stinking pile forms at Rowan’s bare feet, like the fallen offal of a butchered animal. The lad pants desperately for breath, his muscles quivering with agony... then perishes. The bright flame of his ardent youth is snuffed out, all too soon.
But soon enough another boy is prodded out into the ring, and the carnage continues. Like the others before him, Rowan’s gutted body is left to lie where it fell, his ripe, glistening innards strung across the sand. At the day’s end, once the trials have finished, the overseer watches as the corpses are removed, Rowan’s among them; they’ll be tossed into a pit and burnt. But the picture of the brave young novice lingers in the mighty swordsman’s mind—he died a man, he thinks, however young he may have been, and that is good.