Just them Alvina's stomach growled making her blush in embarrassment.
The boy chuckled and passed the dirty wet food to her.
"Here," he said.
Alvina smiled at him and then she took the food. She haven't realized how hungry she was until she ate the food.
"Thank you," Alvina said smiling at him.
"No problem at all." the boy replied.
But soon both of them frowned when they heard a woman begging to one of the patrolling soldiers.
"Please give us some food to pass the dawn." the woman begged.
It was the cage where elderly people were held captive. Usually, they would receive a lesser amount of food than the people present in other cages. But they haven't been given any food straight for the past three days. Those people were old and sick. now they were hungry too. It would be soon that they will die. This was the only reason those people were not given food. Those old people were useless to their captors and they didn't want to waste their foods on them.
Alvina and the boy watched as the patrolling soldier slammed the blunt end of the spear on the woman's chest making her spit blood. The rest of the old prisoners looked so tired and hollow that none of them was able to stand up and support the woman.
The next day Alvina and the rest of the prisoners were made to stand in their place in a row. They were taken to someplace unknown to them. They were made to stand facing the main gate of the ruined palace. the gate was partly broken.
At least fifteen soldiers came marching towards the gate. Each one of them was carrying a sack that has a foul smell to it.
They gave the sac to the first person standing on the row.
"Pass the contents," he ordered to the first person.
The man put his hand inside the sack and grabbed something from it. Everybody was curious to know what was inside it. From the horrible smell coming out from those sacks, Alvina could guess there that there will not be anything inside it.
The man raised the 'content' to his eye level to see it clearly and shrieked in horror.
"Ahhhh."
It was the decapitated heads of the previous prisoners. Those that had already died.
The man shrieked in horror and out of reflex through the decapitated head.
Unfortunately for him the head rolled and landed in front of the feet of Commander. He was the head of all the soldiers present in that castle.
Unknown to the upcoming danger, the man kept sitting on the ground, placing his head between his legs and shivering.
The commander's eyes burned like a fire. he slowly walked towards the man and pulled him from the ground. He then took out a short knife from his belt and stabbed him in his guts.
It happened so suddenly that none of them got any time to react. Neither was the man ready to die so suddenly.
When the man felt pain in his stomach, he looked down to see a stab wound in his guts and he was bleeding. He clutched his stomach to stop the bleeding and gasped for the air.
The man's head was down and he was looking at his bleeding wound when a silver blade glinted in the sun and the man's head rolled to the ground.
"Now who will come first to pass these heads?" The commander called out in a rough voice.
The man standing in the front went towards the sack and picked it up from the ground. Seeing him, the rest of the people followed too.
He took the decapitated heads from the sacks and passed it to the rest of the people standing there. Everybody was feeling nauseous holding those heads.
It was a pile of bone and flesh as well as home of fleas and maggots. Everybody cringed inwards holding those heads, including Alvina but no one dared to drop them on the floor.
Some of the people having weak hearts, fainted and some even puked, and in return, they were lashed from the whips, making their backs sore and bloody.
"Now hang those heads on the gate." the Commander ordered.
One by one people started climbing the ladders and they hang the heads on the gate with the help of ropes.
They were just given a ladder, a rope, and a decapitated head.
It was difficult to tie the head from the gate so those prisoners have to shove the ropes down the throat of the heads and then tie the both loose ends of the rope to the gate.
With difficulty, Alvina opened the mouth of the 'head'. Several fleas swarmed from it, and they flew towards her.
Alvina panicked. She was about to drop the 'head' when that familiar boy caught it and placed it back on her hands.
"Einar." he introduced herself.
"Alvin..." Alvina abruptly stopped herself from telling him her real name.
"Nice to meet you, Alvin," Elinar said.
He then took the 'head from Alvina and put the ropes inside its mouth. He then guided the end of the rope towards its throat and then out in the open.
"Here you go." He said giving the head back to Alvina.
"Thank you so much," Alvina said genuinely.
She was really thankful for his help. She didn't know whether she would be able to do the task completely without puking or fainting or not.