The Elemental Jewels (Book 1) by Jeffrey Quyle Page A

of yellow pants.  Within minutes, they were all reattached to the shackles, and stood out like a bowl full of lemons as they waited in the back of the courtroom.  The judge left his chair without ceremony, and the guards took them away.
    There were cries and shouts and wails from the prisoners as they were led away.
    “I have to see my wife,” one man cried.
    “I didn’t do anything wrong,” another tried to claim.
    “My business will be ruined; my family can’t survive,” a third said, just before a guard uncoiled a whip and began lashing it viciously at the protesters. There were more cries, until the lash fell more widely.
    They left through a doorway and came to a courtyard, in an incongruously extravagant portion of the palace grounds, with beautiful towers, and walls with windows and balconies looking down upon the arrival of the prisoners.  They found another squad of forlorn prisoners in the same yellow clothing waiting for them there, with more guards surrounding them.
    “All hail the glory of the Tyrant,” one of the officers present shouted, and the guards all looked up at a high balcony, where a man in luxurious robes was accompanied by a pair of young women.,  The guards saluted, and the man waved back diffidently.
    A large pair of gates opened in one wall. 
    “Now start running, you dogs.  Start running towards your destiny, and your chance to contribute to the greater prosperity of Verdant,” the officer shouted the command.  Some of the guards starting jogging, and the prisoners did too, awkwardly as some tried to run, some tried to walk, and some didn’t try to move at all, though the chain bound them all together.
    Grange took a step forward, then jerked to a stop and tumbled forward when the man behind him stood still.
    “Get up, you lazy criminal,” the guard with the whip shouted, and Grange felt the painful sting of the leather rip through his yellow shirt, leaving a welt on his back.
    He scrambled up, then nearly fell again as the man in front of him tried to start to run.  Grange threw his hands down in front of him, bounced his palms off the pavement, and regained his balance precariously, though he scrapped the skin off a patch of his hand.
    The group began to lumber along, as it passed through the gate, and they gained an awkward pace when they found themselves out in the city, under the observation of the residents.  There were jeers and hoots from both sides, while the guards kept screaming obscenities and urging them forward along the road.
    Grange looked over at Garrel, who was connected to a separate chain, one that ran parallel to his own.  Garrel was like Grange, young and in relatively good physical condition.  The two of them were comfortably running along at the slow pace of the group.
    “What are we going to do?” Grange asked Garrel in a low voice.
    The whip immediately cracked in the air near his face, making him swerve dramatically, and nearly loose his balance.
    “No talking among the filthy prisoners,” a guard shouted.
    “Now pick up the pace.  We’ve got a long way to go,” another guard said, as he ran alongside the foremost prisoner in the front of the file of prisoners.
    The awkward pace tried to go faster, and slowly the men gained a rhythmic stride that satisfied even the sadistic officer in charge of moving the men to where ever they were going.  The whip ceased its use, and the only sounds were the heavy breathing of the men, the rattling noises from their chains, and the scuffling of their feet on the road, as they passed out of the city.  They left the paved streets inside the city walls behind, and began to traverse the dusty country highway beyond the city.  It was a heavily traveled road that carried much traffic, leaving the surface of the way rutted and pitted in many spots as it followed the path of the Great River, which flowed from the east to the west in the broad, fertile mountain valley that was the home of the nation named