Chapter 50: Execute him
A tall bell tower stands in Frostcrest. By custom, it chimes eight times a day at three-hour intervals, marking the time for the town’s inhabitants. The clear, melodious tolls travel far, heard even in the open wilderness beyond the city walls.
Today, however, was different.
At four in the afternoon, a time it should have been silent, the bell began to clang. It rang not once, but thirteen times.
All across the domain, the people of Frostcrest stopped their work, their eyes turning toward Snowmantle Citadel. They knew the sound. It was the lord’s summons. Thirteen tolls meant a public execution.
The public square, normally quiet on a weekday, was now thronging with people.
Two lines of knights stood in solemn ranks, forming a cordon around the perimeter. Behind them, in the center of the square, a high wooden platform had been hastily erected. Upon it stood a sturdy gallows, a knotted noose swaying gently in the breeze.
A commotion arose as the condemned man was hauled up onto the platform, dragged between two knights like a sack of dead weight. He was battered and bruised, his face swollen, and dark stains of blood were seeping through his white knight’s tunic. The atmosphere in the square grew heavier, thick with solemnity and dread.
"Jerry... Jason... we’ve shared drinks together..." the man rasped.
"No one can save you, Great Knight Ray," one of the knights replied, his voice as cold as iron.
The two men stood impassively beneath the gallows, their hands clamped firmly on Ray’s shoulders, pinning the once-powerful knight who had already been broken by their lord.
Alistair strode onto the platform, his expression grim. He came to a stop beside Ray, his piercing gaze sweeping over every citizen below. The low hum of the crowd died away, and the square fell so silent you could hear a pin drop.
In the week since he had taken power, their new lord had scarcely shown his face in public. Aside from the knighting ceremony, this was the first time he had summoned them all. Even so, he already commanded a high reputation, not just for his powerful army and deep connections, but primarily because he had abolished the tithe.
Such an act was nearly unthinkable in the Pyrian Empire. For a lord to abolish the tithe was to cut his own income in half. How would he eat? How would he pay for his army?
Yet, Alistair had done it. This, combined with his reserved, unsmiling demeanor on the rare occasions he was seen riding through the city—so unlike the sanctimonious posturing of other lords—had forged a unique image in the public mind: a lord who was stern and mysterious, yet powerful and kind-hearted.
"I have summoned you today to announce several matters, and to hang one man."
Alistair’s voice was clear and hard. "This is Great Knight Ray, of my personal retinue."
A ripple of shock went through the crowd. People exchanged stunned, disbelieving glances. They looked from the broken man on the platform to the ice-cold expression of their lord. Stunned whispers erupted.
"Gods above, I can’t believe it..."
"The lord is hanging a knight?"
"A Great Knight, no less."
"What could he have done? Did he sleep with the lord’s wife?"
"Silence!" a knight beside Alistair roared. The square immediately fell quiet again.
"Why is he being hanged?" Alistair continued, his voice cutting through the silence.
"First: for disobeying orders and stealing the death stipends of fallen soldiers."
"Second: for using his strength as a knight to prey upon the weak."
"Third: for inciting ruffians and disturbing the peace of this domain."
"For these crimes, even as a Great Knight, he will hang!"
Alistair’s cold gaze swept over every person in the square, lingering on his own knights and soldiers.
"You are here today to witness this execution so that you will know this: In Frostfell, the dignity of a soldier is inviolable. Their honor is not to be insulted."
"They died for Frostfell. They died for the living. They died to protect every single one of you, myself included."
"Whether they were militia, guardsmen, or knights, in death, there is no difference in their station."
"Those who guard the flame for the many must not be left to perish in the darkness." Alistair’s voice deepened, taking on a dangerous edge.
"And if any man chooses to become that snowstorm, I, Alistair Goldenlion, will be the blazing sun that burns him to nothing."
His gaze was like the winter wind, and no one dared to meet the eyes of their lord in his fury.
After a moment of heavy silence, Alistair’s solemn command echoed from the platform.
"Execute him."
As the words fell, the knights on standby moved without hesitation. They threw the noose over Ray’s head, tightened it, and kicked the wooden plank from beneath his feet.
Gravity took hold. Ray’s body dropped from the high platform, his feet dangling in the air. The rope went taut, pulling him up short. His feet hung less than two feet from the platform floor, placing his dying struggle at direct eye-level with the citizens standing on the stone steps of the square.
The Pyrian Empire employed many forms of execution, but none were quite like hanging. While not bloody, it forced every witness to see the horror of death in its rawest form.
Normally, the drop would snap the victim’s spine, granting a quick end. But a Great Knight’s body was far stronger than a common man’s. His neck would not break. He would be, in the truest sense of the word, strangled to death.
And so, the people of Frostcrest were forced to watch. They watched the prisoner’s face turn from flushed red to a deathly purple as he slowly suffocated. They watched his eyes bulge from their sockets. They watched as he lost control of his bladder and bowels, his body twitching as the last vestiges of life were drawn from him by death itself.
There were no agonizing screams, no way for him to struggle. But in that silent, horrifying stillness, the impact was all the more profound.
This was a warning from their lord.
Soon, the body hanging from the gallows was still.
The lord on the platform spoke again.
"Beginning today, I will purge all ruffians and thugs from Frostcrest. I am forming a new Militia Guard. This order will be carried by my knights to the other towns under my domain and enacted simultaneously."
"After six o’clock this evening, those who are interested may report to the Citadel’s military administration office to enlist. A militiaman will earn a stipend of five silver coins a month. But let me be perfectly clear." Alistair paused, his voice dropping to a lethal calm.
"If any of you dare to abuse your newfound authority, to bully a single civilian, I will personally acquaint you with every one of the two hundred and seven forms of torture detailed in the laws of the Pyrian Empire."
With that, Alistair turned and strode from the platform, flanked by his two knights.
He left behind a clean-up detail to handle the body, and a populace frozen in stunned, deathly silence.