As the sun beat down on him, Garinor decided he was not going to be sold into slavery. His life recently had been fraught with danger and narrow escapes. Surely he could manage this. His feet and hands were still bound, but he didn’t care. He could do this.
A platform was nearby where he would be positioned to face the crowd. There was nothing particularly dreadful about that platform except what it represented. He refused to be part of this fiasco.
He managed to lift one foot slightly higher than the other. With a well-placed hop he crashed it down onto the foot of the man who guided him toward the platform. A loud yelp echoed into the air and Garinor took his chance.
He twisted his body left and right as he bounced along, trying to gain as much speed as he could. It wasn’t easy with his hands tied together. Some approached him, but he balled his hands into fists and swung them angrily, scoring a lucky hit and escaping.
Garinor wasn’t concentrating on his surroundings, but he heard a sound that disheartened him greatly. It was the voice of the wheezy little man, laughing into the air, and crying out in obvious mirth, “Look at that ‘un! Full ‘o spunk, he is. Nuttin’ less than a gold for ‘im! Might’n need some trainin’ first, though.”
The crowd burst into laughter, but Garinor pressed onward. He needed to keep going, but his calves were on fire from the hopping about. He approached the gathering and lashed out at every one of them, hoping to score some hits and to clear them out of the way. It was only when he crushed a noblewoman’s nose that things went really bad for him. The woman’s husband, infuriated by the attack, kicked Garinor in the back and sent him sprawling, where his jaw cracked against the ground and shattered. Unsatisfied with that, the man landed fist after fist until Garinor stopped moving altogether.
The nobleman’s only regret was that not only did he have to pay for healer services for his wife’s nose, but he also had to pay for an otherwise healthy slave and his immediate burial.