"Hurry up, you lazy bastard! Stop slacking!"
"Crack!"
"Ah..."
Amid the overseer's curses and the crack of his whip, Malken turned his head to look. He was bare to the waist, and a whip mark across his back was still seeping blood.
It was old Duka, his neighbor. He was a sturdy man, but beneath the leather whip wielded by the mail-clad soldier, he seemed as frail and fragile as a leaf in the autumn wind.
Old Duka went down after just two lashes. One had struck his head and burst his eyeball, leaving the burly man rolling on the ground in agony.
Seeing this, the whip-wielding overseer said something to a nearby soldier. The soldier raised his spear and thrust it into old Duka, killing him before the eyes of the many laborers nearby.
Malken couldn't hear their conversation, but he could guess the gist... This one's useless. Kill him.
Malken stared numbly for a moment at his neighbor lying on the ground, his limbs still twitching, then lowered his head and resumed swinging his hoe, digging into the hard earth.
Malken and the other farm laborers were digging holes.
Malken had been captured the day before yesterday. A terrifying band of mounted soldiers in white robes had attacked his village. They moved so swiftly and ruthlessly that everyone had been trapped inside before they could react.
Perhaps some had escaped, perhaps none had. Malken didn't know. All he knew was that the village's elderly and children had been killed, more than half the women had been taken away, and all the men had been captured.
Every household's stockpiled and hidden grain had been seized. No matter how well they hid it, it was useless. The white-robed men who attacked the village had tortured the men horribly. If they