Chapter 16:

Urien desperately looked for a way to help his friends, but couldn't find any.  He couldn't even find a weapon.  Braith had access to the barracks and the weapons kept there,since he was a jilly boy to a sergeant of the guard, but Urin didn't.  

Without Braith, Urien wouldn't even be able to carry out Dylan's original plan, to smuggle in weapons and armbands for the God's soldiers -- as Dylan called all the boys who had given their cocks to the God. 

Urien didn't even have access to armbands.  They, too, were kept in the barracks.  He might be able to steal one or two from other slaves, but that was all.

The boys they'd left behind in the stockade only had two knives.  What could they do with two knives?  What chance did they have without Dylan.  He was their leader.  Having once been the prince, he knew how to lead men.  Besides, if the God was on their side, it was only because of Dylan -- and Dylan would be set on a pole at dawn. 

Urien wished he could slip Dylan a knife, not so he could escape -- that was impossible -- but so he could cut his own throat and that of Braith and Pedr.  That would be a far better death than impalement.  Only to become a golem shell would be worse than that.

Urien had seem men -- grown men -- die on a pole.  They had screamed until they no longer had a voice to scream, but still they did not die, living for days, suffering excruciating pain.. 

The only thing worse he could imagine was to become a golem shell.  At least that wouldn't happen to them -- to any of them.  None of them any longer had the cock and balls needed to make a golem.

For a moment -- listening to Dylan -- Urien had thought they might have a chance to escape, even to possiblly defeat the wizard and the Dark Lord.  He had never cared for the God.  He had belonged to the nobles, not to a slave like him. 

Had anyone else but followers of the Dark Lord overthrown Gwaid and the nobles, he would have joined them. 

He had been born a slave, treated little better than an animal.  He had no love for the nobles.  He'd had no love even for Prince Emrys.  He'd watched that day when Emrys had cut Glendower.

Urien could understand why Glendower hated Dylan, who had once been Emrys.  The prince had cut him just because he preferred to fuck a boy that had no cock, than one that did.  

He had cut him with no more compunction than a man would have cutting a dog.  They cut dogs to improve behavior and prevent breeding, and they cut slaves for the same reason. 

That a slave was a man, meant nothing to them.  They treated them like dogs. 

Intellectually, Urien knew that Dylan had been the prince.  Why else would Glendower hate him so?  But the boy he knew as Dylan wasn't the prince.  He had changed more than just his appearance. 

He had become a different person, one that Urien had come to love.  Dylan had cut him as Emrys had cut Glendower, but he had cut him for love, dedicating him to the God, saving him from Nysrogh. 

However he died now, Urien felt he was safe from Nysrogh -- if the God lived.  But, without Dylan, would the God live?  For the God to escape the Dark Lord, one hundred forty-four thousand had to sacrifice their cocks and balls to the God. 

Who, other than Dylan could deliver that message?  When one listened to Dylan, he could believe it might be the truth, but they wouldn't believe Urien. 

They wouldn't believe any of the others.  They might have believed Pedr.  He spoke with the same conviction as Dylan, but none of the others could.  Without Dylan, Urien wasn't even certain he believed it any longer.

He had given up his genitals to save himself from becoming a golem shell.  That alone was worth his sacrifice. 

He would have lost them in another year anyway, had he remained a palace slave.  But would a man give up his cock willingly on the chance that the God would be freed and return to the world of man? 

Would he sacrifice the genitals of his sons, because a father could make that choice for his sons, and those sons would count toward the tally needed?

Anyway, without Dylan, it was finished.  The God would never be freed.  Nysrogh would rule a world of Golems and Golem shells.  What people -- what kingdom could stand against such power?

Urien lay on the ground in the slave enclave, surrounded by other naked slaves, none with a cock or balls.  He never expected to leave, expecting to finish his life feeding golem shells -- if he didn't kill himself first. 

He heard the snores of  other boys, other slaves.  Some of them sobbed, whether in their sleep, or in their attempts to fall asleep, despairing as he did now. 

He didn't cry, but neither did he sleep.  He couldn't, thinking about the fate that waited Dylan, Braith, and Pedr.

* * *

Urien wasn't the only one who despaired.  Dylan did, too.  He had trusted in the God, but either he had deserted them, or he was too weak to help. 

Whichever it was, no longer mattered.  On the morrow, he would die.  So would Braith and Pedr.  The manner of death -- that it was a horrible way to die -- wasn't significant. 

If he died, Nysrogh would win.  He knew that.  Who else could deliver the God's message?

"Father," he said, praying to the God.  "If you hear me, come to my aid.  At least save Braith.  He was your daughter, Megan.  You favored her with magic, such as you have few others.  Save her at least.  She had no cock or balls to sacrifice to you, but she is your servant.  She has always been.  I know you turned your face from her when her mother repudiated her, but she has never turned her face from you.  If you can, save her from this death."

He didn't sleep that night.  Neither, he saw, did Pedr.  Braith slept, but not well; he tossed and turned all night. 

Dylan spent the night praying, never feeling the slightest indication that the God had heard. 

Had the dream he had after he'd sacrificed his cock been no more than that -- just  the dream of a foolish boy?  Was the God dead or chained for eternity?

There's an old saying that it's the darkest before the dawn.  Of course, that's not true. 
It was becoming light in the east, just faintly, but definitely a precursor of the coming dawn. 

If that saying applied, it was to the darkness he felt in his soul.  Glendower would be coming for them any moment.  In less than an hour, the three of them would sit on sharpened poles.

* * *

With the coming of morning slaves began stirring.  They worked from dawn until dark.  Urien knew it would be the last dawn his friends would see -- would see without a pole stuck up their holes at least. 

He prayed it would be their last, that they wouldn't suffer for days. 

He'd see them.  The poles were set just outside the slave enclave.  He had passed them coming there the night before.  Some sat on them still, slaves executed for one offense or another. 

He'd heard some slaves speak of the upcoming execution, saying that they would all watch the three set upon the poles.  It would serve as a warning to the other slaves.

* * *

Braith stirred -- then awoke.  "I had a dream," he said.