He hadn’t even seen them coming. It was dark, near on midnight, if he had to guess, as he trekked back from a local tavern to the inn. His head was down, always down, as he walked, his gaze trained intently on his boots. The hood of his cloak had fallen off his head, and perhaps that’s how they found him in the first place.
Their voices rattled him to his core. They sneered and snarled as they encircled him, snapping at him like wolves ready to pounce on their prey. He was fear-stricken, unable to move as the memories of their boots colliding with his head, his chest, his legs flooded his mind, causing his heart and lungs to seize in his chest. He couldn’t breathe.
One by one they took their turns, drunken fists crashing into him from every angle, striking him in the familiar way only his former captors would know. He was free, he was a free man, and yet he couldn’t fight back; by his estimation, there were at least five of them, to his one.
A decisive blow to the head sent him crumpling to the ground, though he was still conscious as their feet struck his chest and back, kicking wildly as if they’d had no new prisoners to torment his his release. It didn’t take him much longer to pass out, and once they realized he was no longer responsive, slowly, the blows tapered off.
One of his former captors spat on him as he turned to leave. “Say hello to your brother for us,” he sneered, stumbling off in the darkness with his friends, headed back to the castle.
He didn’t know how long he’d passed out for, but when he awoke, it was still dark. Dried blood stained his face, his clothes, the ground beneath him. His head pounded in pain, and his chest and back ached everywhere. For a moment, he thought he was still in a cell beneath the castle, so when he saw a pair of boots appear before his eyes, he cowered in fear, expecting another beating. It took him a few moments to remember that he was, in fact, laying in the streets of Albion.
He opened one eye and peered up at the person to whom the boots belonged and, upon deciding it wasn’t a guard, he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Water,” he rasped, his voice hardly audible, “Have you any water?”