2 The Gallows.

Both bulky men of black cutlasses entered the cell room, and one by one, they untied the filthy prisoners from their rotting hole. The lack of light didn't allow them to discern much, other than the dark and sharpened armors of those guards, and the bone masks covering their faces. They looked like deer or horse skulls.

But the scrawny and fearful prisoner next to William put resistance, and ended up taking the worst part of their treatment: he tried to resist getting out of the cell by throwing weak punches and kicks at their kidnappers, to which both masked pirates responded by beating him up until his face was a bloody mess and he urinated himself.

He finally obeyed, although they had to drag him up from the hatch above to take him out, as he was too hurt to climb by himself. William could hear both masked men chuckling behind their cover.

The rest of the prisoners preferred to not suffer the same fate, and voluntarily left the cell and climbed through the ladder to the first deck, although the pirates poked their backs with their sabers at their minimal show of slowing down.

They were outside now. William didn't know if the windy air was the purest and most refreshing he had breathed, or it was just cold. It was nonetheless the best thing he felt in the last days. But that was about to change.

Three pirates stood on the first deck, one with a cutlass and another two with heavy crossbows. Their armor was ashen dark as if they wore giant beetle shells covered by lizard scales, and their upper chest and shoulders were protected by pinkish-white seashells. Their boots and gauntlets were made of the same materials, and their legs were covered by combat skirts tailored with rusty chains.

What were they made of? William had seen no armor or weapons like theirs before. They looked oddly organic, made of no leather and no metal alloy. The most likely response was the chitin of some insectoid or maritime beast, and a fantastic one pulled from a fairytale.

No beasts like that lived in Sunia, and Reniram sounded like the only place where you could find them, based on what he just heard. He understood the fear of the rest of the prisoners; maybe they had it worse than they thought.

"Form a line, animals," ordered one of the pirates, the crossbowmen using the bayonets in their weapons to force them to do so.

They tied their hands once again. But they were weakened, unarmed, and outnumbered, and their chances of fighting back or escaping were remote. Where would they go?

"Well, that's it," spoke the vomiting prisoner, going at the tail of the line. "they are going to kill us. And all I wish was I had some booze with me right now… mother of the holy divinity."

The pirates pinched their backs with their bayonets, forcing them to leave the dark wood of the ship and step on the dock's brick stone decking, which was crammed with rusty chests, swollen boxes, and missing bricks that made the cold water raise and flush on it.

Another pair of prisoners were guided on the deckings of the right by more of those insectoid-armed pirates. A group of them conglomerated on the gallows ahead, where they pilled the bodies of those they had executed before, probably making space for them.

"Now I'd rather die by one of you insurgents instead of these bastards," cursed the blond with the missing eye.

The foreign figures behind kept their bayonets against their backs and kicked their legs to make them keep going. The black soiled beach was 20 meters ahead.

"Would have liked to fight you, blondie," responded the bearded prisoner. "Look at this, we're soldiers and honest men, and they're gonna kill us off like criminals. Such inglorious fate…" he spat to the tiding waters below.

William was in the middle of the line. The mechanisms of the gallows became audible from their distance, releasing their platforms and letting a pair of prisoners fall with ropes around their necks. The abrupt way in which they fell and forcedly stopped mid-air sent shivers down in their spines.

William could feel his head and neckbones separating from his shoulders just by looking at that. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment.

"Don't stop!" cried the armored figure behind them as the prisoners stopped for a second when they saw the execution scene. But the pirates behind had little empathy left for them.

They were forced to continue and reached the black sand of the beach, stepping on its sharpened fragments that scrapped their swollen and infected feet, but they were already too desensitized to feel anything.

"N-no! You can't do this to us! What did we do to you?!" the thin and bald prisoner at the head of the line panicked at the sights of the gallows and its hanging bodies, halting the way of bloody steps he printed on the bricks and sand from the beating the guards gave him

"Why are you stopping? Move now!" yelled a pirate on the beach, grabbing him by the shoulder and tossing him ahead. He was too weak and thin that he fell like a ragdoll.

"N-no! Y-you're not gonna kill me!" he cried and got up as he could, starting to clumsily run away on the dead and cold beach. He was too slow that any of them could have trapped him by walking fastly.

But the pirates didn't even bother going after him; the two that were on the beach, and the two behind the prisoners raised their crossbows and aimed at him.

The four weapons whistled with a roar before his skeletal back got crammed by four bolts, punching with enough strength to tackle him down. His skull smacked a rock, sounding like an egg getting hammered. He didn't move again.

William frowned and closed his eyes, the rest of the prisoners doing the same and looking down.

Damn. How could they end up in that situation? Those pirates and their ships appeared out of nowhere, killed those who resisted too much, and now were executing those who they captured!

Had not they been captured, some clean and low-casualty skirmishes would have happened, and none of them would be to die on foreign lands in such humiliating ways. Were they paying for something?

"Goddamnit. I told him to stay calm, but he was always a fearing coward..." said quietly the blond prisoner, looking at the destroyed body of his former companion.

"Don't stop!" yelled one of the guards, the crossbowmen reloading and aiming their charged bolts at the tied and weakened Sunians. The dead of that panicking and scrawny loyalist demonstrated to them that maybe the gallows were a better death.

They advanced. Three men operated the gallows 15 meters ahead, while another two cut the nooses from the bodies that had hung long enough to be dead. They were pilling them above a wide piece of cloth.

Were they going to burn them? And what were they being executed for? They simply arrived and took them prisoners to a far land, only to execute them in such ways. What motivations could they have?

If they wanted them dead, why not just kill them on spot? Nothing made sense to William, and everything made him feel powerless and frustrated. Would it have been better to die fighting with his deceased platoon back in Sunia?

Crows cawed and raised to the skies, their jet-black bodies contrasting with the white clouds above. A deep, vibrating voice sang at the top of the hill on the same side: a bulky man of tanned skin and slanted eyes, wearing a black tunic and long hair tied in a braid was throat-singing, not putting his eyes off the prisoners.

"Look at that," said the green-eyed prisoner as they advanced. "sounds like my granny singing me a lullaby. She was a smoker for 42 years straight."

"Must be some death or ritual song," said the blond. "and they prepared it for us. Good grief."

"Stop there," ordered one of the guards.

They did so at about 10 meters from the gallows. Two men carrying black spears with fang-blades came from it and halted before the line of prisoners.

One of them took a step ahead and started examining them as if he was looking for a spot in their already filthy complexion. He stopped still in front of William, and spoke with are resentful and angry voice. Like the rest, he had a strong accent.

"...You. Yes, you. You were back there in our ambush, you western pig! you killed my brothers!"

"...What?" William frowned and took a step back.

He remembered. Seven days ago, when those pirates ambushed and captured them, William managed to set himself above a hill covered by thick undergrowth after most of his platoon fell. He managed to kill three of those raiders and injure another two before finally being captured.

And If he had learned something about whoever those men were while being their prisoner, it was that they were aggressive and violent. And for his already dead luck, he had murdered the siblings of that angry one before him.

He gulped his own saliva. Maybe something worse than those gallows awaited him.

"Yes! It was you! I'm gonna kill you!" he raised his spear and pointed the blade at him.

"Wait!" intervened another pirate. "The boss' orders were to hang them and—"

"Waah…" the spearman didn't care and thrust.

William felt the sawed, curved piece of bone ripping through his stomach and bowels, mangling them before transversing his back. The pirate growled and pushed harder, the rise making gravity maul his interiors even more.

"Y-you bastards…" cursed the bearded prisoner, the rest of the guards pointing their weapons at the prisoners as a warning to not try anything nasty.

The worst burning pain took place. William's eyes twitched, and a silent scream was the only thing his mouth could release. He tried to grab the spear, but it was useless. His blood staining it wetted his hands, which no longer had any strength.

"W-wait! What did you do!? Monsters!" exclaimed the rest of the prisoners, begging mumbles and curses, dispersed from the scene, but there was nothing they could do.

A crossbowman approached and aimed his heavy weapon at William. "Now die, pig."

The machine shot its charged round, and the thick bolt screamed before it went through William's trembling and cold chest, making him flinch and punching him back.

The angered guard let him down and pulled his spear out from his body, leaving him down to die on the black soil in a puddle of his own blood. He mildly raised his mask and spat on him before turning around.

"You see? They are gonna fucking kill us!" growled the bearded man.

He and the others tried to approach their agonizing fellow, but the armed sailors forced them to keep their line and continue to the gallows, leaving William alone to die off there.

The throat-singing man didn't stop his melody. He began to play a three-chord song with an instrument that looked like a lute, accompanying his singing.

William's heart did its best to bomb his few remaining blood. The pain had turned into a numb, tickling sensation that spread to his freezing and heavy body. His twitchy eyes stared aimlessly at the grey sky above as his mouth bubbled blood.

It was the brightest thing he had ever seen, although his dying mind couldn't generate any concrete thoughts at that moment. More crows cawed with the noise of the tide and the death melody, and his body finally succumbed to the embrace of death.

Everything went black.