Chapter 7- Leaving Egypt
The horses drank quickly from the pool as they all stopped for rest. The baby had cried briefly but Nadir had managed to quiet him, leaving Erik to reflect in his own time. Every time the child made a peep he scowled and turned away but Nadir still continued to care for the baby as if it were his own.
Erik stood and patted his horse before securing it's carriage and the boy in the back. When he pulled himself up onto its back Nadir shot him a knowing look.
'I'm going to turn back,'
Erik stared at him.
'You haven't far to go now,' he said, jumping onto the brown mare's saddle. 'You'll be fine.'
'I think you should reconsider my offer, Daroga,' Erik stated simply.
'It's generous but no,' he said. 'My home is here now.'
'Okay,' Erik said with a shrug. 'Your decision. It's one made of poor judgement... but still, it is your decision.'
'The only reason you feel like you want me with you is to care for Joshua,' Nadir said as he nudged his horse past Erik's.
Erik frowned at him.
'Do you think that?' He asked.
'I know it,' Nadir said. 'I know how you are... I don't claim to understand why you do things or what actually goes on in your mind but I do know that you prefer your own company to mine... and I also know you don't think you want Joshua.'
'I know I don't want the child,'
'But you don't deny that you don't want my company,'
Erik lifted an eyebrow and Nadir simply shook his head.
'Good luck, Erik,' he said as he dug his heels into the sides of his mare. 'Write to me and tell me what fatherhood feels like.'
With that he was gone leaving Erik to continue his journey north with a child he didn't want.
He fell to his knees and spat the blood out onto the floor in front of him, tasting it's metallic flavour oozing in his mouth. He looked up at his assailant in the darkness of cellar but could barely see his outline.
'Stop...' he croaked but the attacker continued relentlessly. He kicked his victim in the ribs and sent him spinning across the cold hard floor.
Pain coursed through his body.
'Please...' he murmured, defenceless... injured... bleeding.
Another shot from a fist to his right temple, the agony ripped through his muscles.
There was only one man beating him but it felt like a hundred. He had no way of getting up, no way of protecting himself from the onslaught.
He just took it.
He must accept death.
God would heal him.
By the time the next set of punches rained down onto his tired torso it wasn't death he feared, it was death he longed for.
