Traveling the roads should have been a sublime experience. Everywhere around me nature bloomed. Forest trees waved in the soft autumn breeze as my feet crunched over leaves. As forests became plains and then valleys my eyes feasted on natural wonders I would have never seen in pictures. The endless green grass, the boundless blue sky. Tall, towering stone mountains reaching up to touch the heavens.

But it was among my worst memories. My feet had long given up on walking, and I had to be lugged along like firewood by Galahad's guards. Silvana tailed the squire like a shadow, always engaged in some pleasant conversation or another. Pain bit at my body, but it was the torture of the mind which I remember most clearly.

Alice's screams were always there. Begging me, haunting me. After the first few days she had grown too hoarse to scream. I almost never saw her, and when I did Galahad's men threw her back into whichever cage he had fashioned for her that night. She was always struggling, always fighting, but it did her no good.

I remember a night when she screamed louder than any other. I only had to see the satisfied looks on the guard's faces to know what happened. She was right there, never more than a few hundred feet away. Yet I could do nothing to help, nothing! Even as a boy, even as a child I had never felt so useless in my life.

In what sleep I did get I saw her face. She was naked, battered and bruised. Calling for me to save her while five men joined her on the tent floor. I would struggle against my bonds, and wake up screaming. It did not take long for me to scream myself hoarse, and by then I was already gagged.

Even worse was the fact that I knew exactly how to escape. The most secure prisons and terrorist compounds were nothing to me. How could two sleepy guards and a few tattered ropes hold me? But it was not the ropes nor the guards that prevented my escape. It was the countless injuries inside and out of my body. The exhaustion, broken bones, and lack of meals.

In an act of what could only be described as malice the soldiers dined in front of me while I was made to live off their scraps. When I could no longer muster the strength to eat food was crammed down my mouth. Then there was the beatings. I had received more than a few for killing the men's comrades. I suspect they would have killed me if given the chance.

Silvana was there, always watching. A smile on her face as she walked arm in arm with Galahad, and at night she would retire to her tent to sleep through Alice's screams. The next day she would wake, with no signs of worry or shame on her face. If there was anything worse than Silvana's difference or Alice's screams, it was the empty silence left behind when she could no longer find the strength to shout.

I saw her again a few days later. Alice did not look alive. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyes sunken and red from tears. Her hair was a matted mess caked in filth and dust never cleaned. Under the torn dress I could see hints of scrapes, bruises, and lovemarks coated in semen. If you asked me to imagine a ghoul, I would picture her. She was not starving, but her appearance spoke of a pain far worse than hunger.

Yet that was not the worst part. Where before Alice had struggled and fought with a straight back and burning eyes she now slumped with defeat and resignation. I had seen those eyes of her too many times. Captured soldiers the terrorists had broken after countless weeks of ceaseless torture. Men who had nothing left to live for, who would wish for death because they could not stand life. She was just like them, broken.

Later men would say that I had a heart of iron and a soul of steel. It was moments like these that gave me the strength for the man I would need to become. It was in the days without hope and light that I learned pain and suffering like I had never before. Whenever I would think of giving up, think of surrendering, I would remember these days, and I would go on.

I could not fight back, so I was content with remaining unbroken. I would match the soldier's sneers with an unwavering stare. They blackened my eyes and busted my jaw, but I would stare anyways. No matter how many times they beat or starved me I refused to give up. Denying them the satisfaction was the most I could do, so I did it.

When Silvana finally decided to speak with me, I knew I had a chance. I longed to jump up and strangle her, but my limbs were broken. So broken that I could not move. She had to raise my head so I could speak.

"Hello." I croaked. It was a wonder my teeth haven't fallen out. With all the beatings I received every day I would have expected several gone. It hurt just to say the words, and whenever I tried to speak my jaw would sag like an unhinged window.

"I see the days have not been kind to you." She observed. "What would you give to get out?"

"If you think I will trust you enough to make a deal, you are sorely mistaken. You're just as bad as your godfather."

"Brave words for a man without arms and legs."

In hindsight, I should have attempted to negotiate a way out and built up my strength. But the words came out of my mouth before I could stop myself. "Better than having no morals." I shot back.

"No morals, you say? Quite the accusation coming from a murderer and a thief."

"I was defending Alice. You supported them, you helped her kidnappers!"

She did not even seem shook. "She does not know what is good for her."

"What's good for her? Are you blind and deaf? Do you not hear her screams at night, see the horrors that she is going through? You caused it, all of it, and that is your defense? She doesn't know what's good for her? If I could wish her fate for anyone, it would be you!" I broke down into coughts.

Silvana turned away and did not come back.