Almost Brothers
     
      The rope sawed into Finn's wrists as he struggled to escape the heavy wooden chair, still stained with the blood and urine from the last child Nagel had captured. The leathery-skinned brute sat on a stool, grinning at the young boy as he sharpened a long rusty razor.
      Nagel locked his gray eyes on Finn's wiry twelve-year old frame, then lubricated the crumbling whetstone with blood-tinged spittle. Finn realized that hitting Nagel in the mouth with the rock had not been the right thing to do, but he wasn't going to be captured without a fight.
     Finn shifted on the sticky chair, and a splinter poked into the naked flesh on his bum, beaten red and raw by Nagel's calloused hands. The much-too-thin boy glanced at the fireplace. His filthy clothing smoldered there, permeating the shack with a swampy odor mixed with burning hair.
      Despite his hands being securely lashed behind him, Finn arched his back, fighting to escape the fate all the other orphaned refugee children had fallen victim to. Even his best friend Owen had received the "special treatment: at the hands of the Bloody Barber.
      Nagel's fierce gaze met Finn's terrified green eyes. "Listen, you rat hunting turd, if you don't stop squirming the first thing I'll do is shave off that little mushroom cap between your legs."
      Knees clenched together, Finn tried in vain to hide his nakedness. He wished he had one of the dried animal skins or furs hanging on the dingy walls to cover himself. If only he could slip his hands free he could escape out the side window of the trapper's shack. In desperation he thought, Perhaps the Barber will listen to reason? Finn searched for the right words, summoning his beggar's voice, "Please, sir. If you let me go I'll . . ."
      "You'll what?!" Nagel furrowed his brow. "Steal more food? Damn Tarnite orphans like you are all the same."
      "I swear I didn't eat it! I catch my own food. I swear it on the twelve saints of the Celestrum."
      "Eleven saints, stupid boy. You're not in Tarn. Everyone here knows Vivianne is a witch, not a saint." Nagel shook his bald head. "And don't expect me to believe that you be surviving on them skinny rats your ratter dogs kill in the barns."
      "We do. The food I . . . found, was for . . . "
      Nagel pointed the razor at Finn's crotch.
      Trembling uncontrollably, Finn felt blood oozing from where the ropes sliced into his skin. He stopped struggling as pain and cold fear washed over him.
      "And don't you go pissing on my chair either. The last one of you orphans to piss themselves was sorry she did."
      Finn guessed he was talking about Lynn, and saw what remained of her long blond hair in the corner of the fireplace. The sticky stain on the chair had to be from her.
      The Bloody Barber stopped sharpening the folding razor knife and gave Finn a wicked grin, showing all three of his front teeth.
      Finn's eyes opened wide as the hulking man lumbered toward him. He almost had a hand free when cold iron pressed against Finn's dirt-smudged cheek. Nagel grabbed Finn's unkempt sandy brown hair and stepped behind him.
     
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