Moseflower

"Move! Move it!"

"Up the plane…"

"You! Get your ass up that floor, will you…"

"Bind them up tight!"

Sweaty bodies glistened in the dim green light of the cavern as large, heavy bundles of shimmering pink moseflower were rolled up unstable wooden planks. They writhed and vibrated under stomping bare feet, threatening to fall apart and bring hundreds of men plunging into the deep, dark abyss below.

Groans and grunts filled the cavern; gruesome sounds emanating from the dry throats of hundreds of men winding strong thorny ropes round large bales of moseflower and tossing them to men who caught the bales, then continued rolling them up the steep planks.

The air was dry and bitter with the toxic smell of magic flower petals, which promised bottles and bottles of mose powder, a shiny powder essential for the practice of any form of authentic magic.

"What are you looking at?"

A stout man toppled down one of the planks, along with a bundle of moseflowers and was lucky to land on a jutting slab of stone overlooking the gorge. Three bundles of moseflowers tumbled on into the abyss and one hung perilously close to the edge of the slab.

Fretshe scrambled to his feet and dusted his britches.

One of the workers paused where he stood on the plank and steadied his bale with his feet. "Lucky you."

Fretshe smiled nervously. He also knew he had been lucky. A few inches further and he'd be dead and forgotten in the deepest gorge in Geshreden.

"Get back up there!" A watch guard howled, approaching him. He held a whip in his hand.

Fretshe flinched, sending the only bale of moseflower that had survived the fall, off the stone slab and tumbling into the darkness below. Fretshe watched the bundle as it disappeared out of sight with a dreadful look on his face. Moseflower was invaluable and he would not get away with what he just did so easily.

He yelled as he felt the harsh blow of the whip. Once, twice, thrice, and then he collapsed on the floor. The guards of Geshreden had the cruellest whips. He closed his eyes tightly shut and groaned. He could feel the thorns that had detached from the whip in his flesh. Rea would be mad when he got home, but, then, there was nothing his wife could do. Any form of protest was an abomination. And the punishment for committing an abomination was death by stretching.

He remained on the cold, hard floor, his face beginning to wet with tears. The live thorns were eating deeper and deeper into his flesh. The guard observed him for a while, and then walked away after yelling an impatient 'get up'.

Fretshe staggered to his feet, straightened up, and staggered back to the ladder. This was not the first time he had been beaten.

He could withstand the pain of the thorns of three whips.