FROM PITS TO THRONE: A Crown Forged In Chains

Chapter 11. Life in Preliand (part 2)

In the northern hills of Preliand, where the vineyards gave way to rocky scrub and abandoned quarries, lay the Drayce training yards. The training yards was a cluster of grim stone buildings ringed by high walls and the top was covered with iron spikes. Here, slave children were deemed too young for heavy field labor or too small for the mines so they were seasoned into obedience. The air always smelled of dust, sweat and fear.

Silas was no longer called by his true name, he was now known as Boy 47 and had been here for over two years. He arrived at six, small for his age, clutching memories of his mother’s arms and the distant echo of a palace he barely understood. Now, he was nine, he was wiry and quick, with hazel eyes that missed nothing and a face still soft with childhood but hardened around the edges.

The day's labour began before dawn.

A bell clanged through the barracks which was a long, cold room with rows of straw pallets on the floor. Overseers strode between them, cracking whips to rouse the sleepers.

“Up! Up, you lazy rats! Work waits for no one!”

Silas rolled off his pallet instantly, the years of beatings had taught him speed. Around him, fifty other boys stirred with some as young as five, others nearing thirteen when they would be sold on to harder fates. The newest arrivals cried quietly while the older ones, like Silas, moved in silence.

Breakfast was a thin gruel ladled into wooden bowls. Silas ate quickly, pocketing a crust for later. Food was power here, it meant you had something to trade, something to hide from thieves.

After eating, they marched to the yards.

The work varied with the seasons. In spring and summer, they weeded the Drayce vineyards on the lower slopes, crawling between rows under the blazing sun. In autumn, they carried baskets during harvest with their fingers stained purple from harvesting grapes. Winter brought quarry work like hauling broken stone to repair walls, or chopping firewood until hands blistered.

Despite the season and the work that followed it, training was always chipped in.

Lord Drayce’s overseers believed broken spirits made obedient slaves. So every afternoon, after labor, came the lessons.

First was endurance training like running laps around the compound until legs gave out. Silas learned to pace himself, staying in the middle of the pack, he was never first as it drew jealousy neither was he ever last because it drew the whip.

Then came the obedience drills like standing at attention for hours in rain or heat, not moving even when flies bit. Any twitch earned a lash across the back.

The fighting training was last although they were not called fights rather they were called “Discipline matches,” by the overseers. Two boys paired and were either given sticks or fists and ordered to strike until one yielded. The winners got extra bread while the posers got nothing most of the time but sometimes it was often worse.

Silas hated the fights, but he learned them well.

His first discipline match had been against a bigger boy named Rulf, who was twelve and always bullying others. Since Silas was a newly arrived and still soft, he took a beating that left him bruised and spitting blood. But he watched and he remembered.

By his next match, he was ready.

When Rulf swung wild, Silas ducked and drove his small fist into the boy’s throat. Rulf dropped, gasping. The overseers laughed in surprise.

“The rat has got some teeth!”

After that day, Silas befriended a boy named Theo, he was thin, dark-haired and quick with a joke even in slavery. Theo had been in the yards two years longer than Silas and knew some tricks like which overseers could be bribed with stolen apples, where to hide during inspections and how to loosen a whip’s lash so it hurt less.

Together, they survived each day and shared stories in whispers after lights out.

“My ma was a princess,” Silas said once in a tone that was barely audible. “In a real castle. With banners and everything.”

Theo snorted softly, “Mine was a baker. She made honey cakes which are better than princesses, if you ask me.” 

To Theo, that was just a joke, yet he did listen when Silas spoke of his mother, of Tamira’s dark hair and fierce smile, of how she sang him to sleep on the ship before they were torn apart. He was beginning to note that Silas wasn't kidding about it.

“Do you think she’s still looking for you?” Theo asked.

Silas stared at the ceiling beams. “She promised she would find me.”

Theo was quiet for a long moment. “My ma promised me that too. Then the fever took her.”

Silas turned away, as his throat tightened. He said a prayer in mind, hoping that wasn't the fate of his mother.

The worst overseer was Harlan and he was first confused with the kind captain from Miraolden Silas dimly remembered. This Harlan was broad and red-faced, with a belt of keys and a whip he oiled daily. He favored the youngest boys, claiming they needed firm guidance.

One winter evening, after Silas spilled a bucket of quarry stones due to a hand numb from cold, Harlan dragged him to the punishment shed.

“Ten lashes, rat. For clumsiness.” he said.

Silas clenched his jaw as they tied him to the post. He would not cry out because crying would only make Harlan hit him harder.

The whip fell like fire across his back.

He counted silently, first for his Mother, second for Uncle Liam, third for Aunt Calista…

By the seventh lash, blood was already running down his sides. And by the tenth, he sagged against the ropes.

Harlan leaned close with a foul breath. “Next time it will be twenty.”

They left him there overnight, as an example.

Theo found him at dawn, slipping into the shed with a stolen rag and water.

“You’re bleeding bad,” he whispered as he dabbed the wounds gently.

Silas managed a crooked smile. “I’m still breathing.”

But Theo’s eyes were fierce. “One day we’ll run. You and me. We'll run over the walls when the guards drink in midsummer.”

Silas nodded, though his hope felt thin.

But he began to plan anyway.

He watched the walls, taking notes of the northern section where ivy grew thick, hiding loose stones. He noted the guard patterns, how Harlan drank most evenings and how the night watchmen were old men who acted half-deaf. He hoarded small things like a sharp flint, a length of twine and crusts of bread wrapped in cloth.

When spring came again, opportunity came knocking.

A new boy arrived, he was small and terrified, no more than seven. Harlan took special interest in dragging him to the shed that first night.

Silas heard the cries through the barracks wall and it caused something to snap inside him and the same fire he had seen in his mother’s eyes years ago was visible in his eyes.

He slipped from his pallet with a flint-knife in his hand, and crept to the shed.

The door was barred but not well enough. He worked the twine around the latch, lifting it silently, applying the trick Theo had shown him.

Inside the shed, Harlan had the boy bent over a bench.

Silas moved like a shadow and drove the flint deep into Harlan’s calf and twisted it. The overseer roared as he spun to hit Silas but he ducked under the wild swing and stabbed Harlan again in the thigh this time.

Harlan lunged, catching Silas by the hair and slamming him against the wall. But the new boy, who was now recovering from the beating, grabbed a stool and smashed it across Harlan’s head.

The overseer dropped to the ground and was stunned.

Silas scrambled up, panting. “Run!”

They fled into the night together with Theo who had followed Silas.

Alarms rose minutes later and dogs began to bay.

They ran through scrub and rock as their hearts kept pounding against the ribcage. Torches bobbed behind as searchers spread.

They hid in a dry creek bed until dawn before pressing on. 

But freedom was fleeting.

Two days later, hunters cornered them near a river. Theo fought back bravely, but it was a foolish act as he took an arrow in the chest. Silas held him as he died, whispering promises he could not keep.

Milo, the new boy, was recaptured. So Silas escaped alone, slipping into the river and floating downstream until exhaustion claimed him.

He washed up half-drowned on a peasant’s riverbank and the family there hid him for a week, feeding him in secret, then they passed him to sympathetic travelers heading west.

Thereafter, he lived on the run, stealing food, sleeping in barns and moving from village to village. He grew cunning, forging paths through woods, spotting patrols from afar and lying with a child’s innocent face when questioned.

He kept his mother’s name in his heart like a talisman, including that of his uncle.

He had heard whispers in markets about a fighter in distant Etoibard called Laim the Unbroken, a slave who defied death. Some said he was foreign royalty.

Silas clung to the rumor believing that if one Walton lived, others might.

Now he was ten years old and he hid in the wilds near the Varyn borders, scavenging and watching.

He did not know his mother was only miles away, planning her own escape during the spring fair.

He did not know his uncle was far in the south and had just earned the right to bear arms for a new master.

And young Silas, who was no longer innocent, carried the fire of the Waltons in his small, fierce heart. An

d one day, he would find his way home. Or die trying, like Theo.