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That pain is chiefly what I remember of my trial It hazes ainst hteous voices as they detailed es Rape Murder Necrophilia Desecration of a graveyard My outrage and horror at being accused of such things had been eroded by the utter hopelessness of ainst me Threads of rumor, hearsay from a dead man’s lips, suspicions and circuether into a rope of evidence, stout enough to hang me

I think I knohy Spink never addressed any questions directly to me Lieutenant Spinrek, my friend since our Cavalla Acade et it over with That had angered him Perhaps that hy he didn’t ask me to testify on my own behalf He didn’t trust es He feared I’d take the easy way out

I would have

I didn’t fear the hangibbet It would be a quick end to a life corrupted by a foreign ic Walk up the steps, put ht of ht off No dangle and strangle for led and spoiled to repair

Whatever I ht have said in s had been done, ugly, evil things, and the citizens of Gettys were deterh place to live, a settlement half military outpost and half penal colony on the easterndoers to rape and murder But the crimes I was accused of went beyond the spectru darker, too dark even for Gettys to tolerate Someone had to wear the villain’s black cape and pay the toll for such transgressions, and who better than the solitary fat s with the Specks?

So I was convicted The cavalla officers who sat in judg, and I accepted that I had shaiment At that moment, my execution seemed the simplest escape from a life that had become the antithesis of every dream I’d ever had I’d die and be done with disappoint my sentence was almost a relief

But the o so easily

Killing h for my accusers Evil would be punished with as cruel and vicious a vengeance as they could iine Darkness would be balanced with darkness When the second half of my sentence was pronounced, horror froze allows to make that final drop, I’d receive one thousand lashes

I will always recall that stunned moment The sentence went beyond execution, beyond punishment, to total destruction As it stripped the flesh fronity as well No rit his teeth and keep silent through a thousand lashes They would o tothem and myself

I’d been born to be a soldier As the second son of a nobleod to be a soldier Despite all that had befallen ic that had infected and poisoned ’s Cavalla Acade of me and the scorn ofas a soldier This hat it had earned me I would scream and weep and plead for mercy before folk who saw me only as aand flesh, exposing the sagging layers of fat that had been their first excuse to hate ar on le helplessly froed my remains They knew it and so did I

Even my corrupted and ic had sought to take ainst theht in ic of the Speck folk offered ic tore down the walls of my prison, I took the opportunity I escaped