Chapter 20. Daggers of Ankala

Shawn didn't stop running despite the flood of tears streaming down his face. He was silent on the outside, but on the inside his emotions were raging. His grandfather was dead, and the only other person to show him kindness wanted nothing to do with him. He moved past the shriveled-up corpses, just wanting to leave this place.

His whole world seemed to crumble as loneliness resided where warmth once sat.

Shawn had picked a direction and ran out of town. He ran and ran until he reached one of the towns a couple of miles away. However, he came to his senses upon smelling the smoke from the burning houses and fields. It was a relatively small town that focused on agriculture, his grandpa had never let him leave their vicinity, but he did mention this place in passing.

Shawn was quickly sobering up, but fear gripped him as he saw a group of individuals still looting the place. They were of various shapes and sizes, but they all had a tattoo of a dagger on their forehead. Shawn tried to hide but one of the thugs caught sight of him. They were in the middle of the agricultural town, a fair distance away, but they sensed him immediately.

"Oi, I see someone. Looks like a straggler survived." Immediately some of the men ran over. Shawn knew he wouldn't be able to outrun them based off of how fast they were approaching his location. Thinking fast, Shawn ran behind a tree and put his storage bag in his underwear. He then put a little dirt on his face and body before running out a few meters as the men caught up.

"Stop right there boy, move and we kill you." Shawn stopped and let tears flow as he cried while the men laughed. Shawn quickly started to observe details of the people around him. It was three men, all in the body tempering realm. Each man had a grey dagger on his forehead; no man carried anything other than a dagger and sack on their being. Two of them were stocky while the other was lean. Shawn imagined that these men were akin to the adult version of street urchins.

"Would've loved to gut this kid, the tears running down his face are delicious." One of the stocky men commented, a look of bloodlust clear in his eyes. Shawn was no longer shivering to fool them; he was terrified of the look in his eyes. Inside, Shawn wanted to be fearless, to fight back! Yet here he was again at the mercy of others. Maybe it was the safety and accommodations he had gotten used to these last few months that dulled his sense of reality. The small bit of pride he had because he was getting stronger and stronger, was destroyed by the current situation.

"I know, we have to follow the third law, but what should we do with em? The fucker looks poor, and we can't kill 'em." Shawn quickly caught on to the thug's causal mention of a law. He knew they weren't talking about common law but law regarding their organization.

The last thug revealed an expression of comprehension and said, "Let's sell him. Blonde hair, green eyes, those traits ain't exactly common. He could go to a brothel for a good price."

The other two were pleased by the idea. One of the thugs walked up to the shivering Shawn as he punched him in the gut hard enough that breakfast went flying out the boy's mouth.

"Easy fool, if he goes to a brothel, we need him in one piece."

Shawn had tears in his eyes while snot and vomit flowed from his mouth. His head was spinning as he looked at the thug who stood over him menacingly. "Thank our God Ankala that you live another day." For some reason, that sentence sounded familiar to Shawn. One more punch accompanied by pain, quickly sent him to darkness.