by Scott Toney
Interrogation
Carn sat in a wooden chair below deck in the captain’s quarters, his arms bound behind him by a thick rope. A gull sang in the distance. He clenched his calloused hands and flexed the rocklike muscles in his back. The circle tattoo in the center of his forehead burned as he sensed the feelings of the men around him.
One knight garbed in crimson armor leaned against a desk. Another held the blade of a dagger to Carn’s throat.
“Tell us why we shouldn’t kill you.” The man in the crimson armor gave him a hard look, not the look of a man who was pleased to be interrogating him, but instead the look of one who was doing what had to be done.
The man dug his dagger into his neck, not drawing blood, just scratching at his rough hide. Carn arrogantly grinned. “I’d kill me. Ye will try.”
“I’d watch my words if I were you.” The knight stood, his hand going to his sword’s hilt. He drew it slowly from its scabbard. “Do you know anything that could convince us to spare your life? We already know that you’ve been sent to pillage Cush and Assyria.”
Carn cracked muscles up his spine. He could break out of these ropes, kill his captors and be out the window and into the river before help arrived. He thought about his options. “I know nothing. I am here to get paid. I am here to get fed and to survive. Ye wouldn’t understand the world I’m from.”
“I wouldn’t try to understand the mind of a mercenary.” The knight placed the tip of his sword against Carn’s chest. His chest lifted and fell steadily beneath the cold steel. “Do you have nothing to say, no way to plead for your life?” the knight asked.
He could escape, but where would he go? His group had been scattered and killed. Carn grinned deviously.
“Fine,” the knight said as he dug his sword slightly into Carn’s chest, causing blood to trickle down the man’s skin. “If you will be no help to us then I will kill you myself.” The knight’s sword dug deeper into his body and the other man’s dagger held firmly to his neck.
Suddenly Carn flexed his arms, ripping loose of his rope restraints and sending the knight behind him flying across the room and thudding to the floor. Carn swung his fist around, forcing the sword’s tip from his body and grabbing the red armored knight by the neck with his massive hand. The ring on his forehead burned with heat. “Now who will die? Ye should have killed me and thrown me overboard.” He thrust the knight against the desk. The man choked in his grasp, gagging for breath.
“I’ll tell ye how this will go!” Carn pressed down hard on the man as he spoke, letting him feel the power he possessed. “I’ll join and fight with ye, wherever ye go, and in return I’ll be paid well and fed better. These are my terms. And in return I’ll let ye and ye man live. Is it a deal?”
The knight choked and squirmed helplessly as his fellow knight lay unconscious on the floor behind them. His face began to turn red and Carn clutched his neck tighter.
“What answer ye?” Carn grinned, letting go of the knight’s neck and then hefting the sword up from the ground.
The man breathed staggeringly. “I… yes…”
“That’s what I thought.” Carn held the sword firm in his grasp.
The knight backed away from him, behind the desk, then grabbed a dagger from its drawer. “But… we must know… that we can trust you. The men… will not take well to this.”
“I am a mercenary.” Carn smiled. “Pay me the highest and I will be more loyal to ye than ye finest man. Besides, there are things between me and my people that ye cannot know. There have been… certain wrongs, I guess you would say. I have scores to settle. And with ye I will have plenty of opportunities to do what needs to be done. Here, as a show of faith.” The massive man laid the sword down on the desk between them, and then held his hand out to shake the knight’s. “To friendship,” he said as the boat rocked and creaked beneath them.
The crimson armored man took his hand and shook it, holding it for a moment and looking into Carn’s eyes. “To justice for the people of Cush and Assyria, and to trust in whatever mercenary honor lies within your soul.”
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