The cold iron chain wrapped around Mallas’s throat feels almost too tight for breath.
It is only your own fear, Mallas tells himself. It is only terror that closes your throat; the chain does not choke you. The warrior who bound and now leads him had checked the slack of it before locking the heavy links in place, with far more care than any condemned prisoner deserves. And Mallas must be condemned, as surely as the sun that he will never see again must rise.
He is an alpha. He was a warlord. He was condemned the moment he was thrown down in his last battle, and now the clinking of cold iron will be his dirge as he is led through the night to his death. The grim soldiers who pass do not spare him even a glance—why would they? The air is heavy with the tension of war, and Mallas is only a defeated enemy of no particular renown. Only a dead man. Already forgotten.
Let his death come before his courage wholly fails.
