by Ari Marmell
They lapsed then into exhausted silence, punctuated occasionally by Losalis’s exclamations. It was odd, Seilloah noted in the back of her mind. This was a man who could take a sword in battle without so much as a complaint, yet he couldn’t stop muttering and flinching as she sewed that same wound shut. If she lived to be a thousand, the witch decided crossly, she would never understand people. Especially warriors. Especially men. Can’t live with them, can’t eat all of them.
Only when Seilloah tied off the sutures and slumped back with a fatigued sigh did Davro nervously clear his throat. Warily, the others looked his way.
“Umm.” He cleared his throat again. “There’s something you should know. I … that is, before I killed Valescienn—”
Seilloah sat up sharply, and Losalis’s eyes widened. Then, as one, they both cheered.
“Davro, that’s fantastic!” the general told the ogre, wide-grinned and chortling. “If I were the one paying you, I’d give you a bonus.”
“Thanks,” Davro said drily.
“We’ve got to tell Corvis as soon as he gets back,” Seilloah added. “It’ll be some of the best news he’s heard in months!”
The ogre’s face went flat. “That’s what I was getting to.” Seilloah and Losalis fell silent. Davro shook his head. “I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t consider not telling you this,” he admitted. “But whatever else I may be, I’m no oathbreaker, and I swore to help him to the best of my ability.” He paused.
“Corvis has been captured.”
The only sound in the tent was the occasional spark from the burning candle. Slowly, as though terrified he’d miss something, the general leaned forward. “How do you know?”
Davro repeated to them, verbatim, the conversation he’d held with Valescienn while they were circling, and he shook his head when Losalis suggested the scarred warrior might have been lying.
“I don’t think so. I admit it’s been a while, but I knew the man, fought beside him. It wasn’t his kind of bluff.”
“Then why wouldn’t they use him as a hostage to force our surrender?” Seilloah asked softly.
“I don’t think Audriss is the one who’s got him,” Davro explained, “precisely because Valescienn didn’t do just that. I think it’s the regent, Seilloah. Duke Lorum, Rheah Vhoune. Them.”
“Sodomy and damnation!” It was, to the best of her knowledge, the first time Seilloah had heard Losalis curse. He was up from his chair, pacing the small tent. “What do we do now? We’ve neither the time nor the manpower to go hunting for him.” He spun violently toward Seilloah. “What about magic?”
The witch shook her head sadly. “I don’t know where he is. And even if I knew or could guess, distance might well prevent me from accomplishing anything. There are very specific boundaries on the kind of magics I can invoke, Losalis.”
“Then we’re royally buggered, aren’t we?”
Seilloah frowned. “Maybe not. I think I’m getting an idea.” She looked up at them. “It’s absolutely the most harebrained, asinine thing any one of us has ever thought of, but I don’t think we’ve got much choice.
“Losalis, pass me that parchment and ink from the table, please? Thank you. Gentlemen, I’m going to explain this to you. Kindly try not to scream too loudly.”
Chapter Twenty-two
The sword whistled as it arced, high and across, a wild and overeager swing. Corvis ducked beneath it, lashed out with the hilt of Sunder and felt it impact nice and heavy against the fellow’s gut. The mercenary’s hauberk took the brunt of the blow, but still the breath burst from his lungs in a painful grunt. He didn’t double over so much as simply bow ever so slightly, but it would do. Corvis twisted back the other way, raising his right hand as though delivering a vicious uppercut, and Sunder’s blade cleaved clear through the man’s jaw. A rush of warmth that Corvis didn’t really want to think about washed over his fist and forearm.
/Oh, I’ve missed this!/ Khanda cackled shrilly even as Corvis whirled, readying himself for the next attack.
For a moment, it failed to materialize, as the survivors regrouped to reconsider their prey. Corvis straightened, ignoring the tearing ache in his shoulder and wishing briefly that he’d had his armor to turn the blow aside. It wasn’t slowing him yet, but it was only a matter of time before the wound grew too bad to ignore; already he could smell little over the scent of his own blood. He had to wrap this up.
They stood in the midst of a muddy street, in a tiny town whose name Corvis couldn’t even recall at that moment. There were five of them now, whittled down from the original seven, all clad in mail and leathers, all armed, and all with at least some reasonable knowledge of what they were doing. Corvis didn’t know if they’d somehow tracked him down, or had simply found themselves lucky enough to stumble onto the biggest bounty in Imphallion’s history, but either way was bad for him. Other than these—and Tyannon, who stood to the side with a peculiar expression and seemed uncertain whom she ought to be rooting for—the streets were empty, doors locked and shutters slammed as the townsfolk fled the sudden eruption of bloodshed in their midst.
/If you’re through playing,/ Khanda reminded him, /now might be a good time to burn the lot of them down./
Corvis, for once, agreed with his mouthy accoutrement. Sunder clenched tightly in a gore-splattered grip, he raised his other hand, fingers splayed, felt the warmth begin to grow in the amulet against his chest….
And with a speed that Corvis could only marvel at, one of his foes—the man, in fact, who carried the broadsword stained with the Terror’s own blood—lunged across the road and swept up Tyannon in a fearsome grip. The girl uttered a quick squeak, then grew wide-eyed and deathly silent at the press of steel beneath her breast.
/Perfect! We can get all of them at once!/
But Corvis clamped down on his will, snuffing the spell he’d been ready to throw, ignoring the demon’s indignant squawk.
“She means nothing to me,” he growled coldly, locking his gaze with the mercenary’s own.
“Then attack us and see what happens, Rebaine.”
Each stared at the other, while the remaining thugs shuffled their feet and spread out, ready either to lunge in attack or dive away from whatever monstrous spell the Terror of the East might unleash.
Instead, Corvis frowned and allowed Sunder to tumble to the earth from a slackened fist.
/Are you completely insane?!/
“Possibly,” Corvis muttered. Then, more loudly, “All right. Let her go and I’ll come quietly.”
“I don’t think so. I think it’d be better if aauggch—!”
Corvis never did find out what would be better, since it was then that Tyannon grabbed the man’s crotch and squeezed like she was juicing an orange. It wasn’t really all that painful, given the fellow’s protective padding, but it was sufficient to loosen his grip. Tyannon bent forward and straightened, slamming the back of her head into his face. Even as formerly solid bits of anatomy crunched flat, she allowed herself to fall from his grip and scramble away, trying to ignore the warm blood, mucus, and occasional tooth that now matted her hair.
Between one bloody cough and the next, the mercenary saw Corvis hook a foot beneath Sunder’s shaft, saw the demon-forged axe take to the air and land solidly back in the Terror’s waiting fist. And then the amulet around the warlord’s neck flashed, and the mercenary’s world was washed away beneath a wave of crackling fire.
Two of them managed to dive aside in time to avoid Khanda’s burning wrath. Sunder split one of them efficiently down the center, but the other was long gone, leaving both his weapons and his footprints in the muddy road.
Blood dripping from his axe and a truly peculiar expression marring his face, Corvis stepped over to Tyannon, who crouched against the side of the nearest house. “We’re going to have to move on,” Corvis said. “I don’t think the fellow’s likely to come back, but if he does, it’ll be with reinforcements.”
“I figured as much,” she told h
im dully. Mechanically, he reached out a hand to help her up. Equally mechanically, she accepted.
“We, uh, probably have time to get washed up first,” he offered, glancing with strange distaste at the smear her hair had left along the wall.
“I’d appreciate that.”
/Oh, just kill me./
For a few moments they walked in silence toward the inn in which they’d been staying, unseen by the villagers who still refused to open their windows, the only sounds the squelch of their feet in the mud. Until, finally, “Tyannon? Why in all the gods’ names did you help me?”
“You weren’t the one with a sword to my ribs, Rebaine.”
“Well, no, but … Once I’d dropped Sunder—”
/Like a complete moron,/ Khanda interjected. Again, shockingly, Corvis ignored him.
“—you probably weren’t in any further danger.”
Tyannon drew stiffly to a halt and stared ahead at the waiting inn, refusing to look at the man beside her. “Why did you drop Sunder?”
/An excellent question./
“Because I made you a promise, Tyannon. I said no harm would come to you.”
/Not such an excellent answer./
“Maybe you had no reason to believe that promise when I made it,” Corvis continued, “but I meant it all the same.”
“That,” she said, her voice flat as parchment, “is why I helped you.” Still refusing to so much as turn and look at him, Tyannon marched ahead and vanished through the inn’s front door.
THE DARKNESS HURT.
No. No, that wasn’t quite right, was it? Wasn’t the dark his sanctuary, his salve? For when it was dark, he remained blessedly alone. When he was alone, the pain throbbed, oozed through him, permeated flesh and bone, but at least it didn’t grow any worse. It was when the dark fled before the burning touch of torches and lanterns, when the voices echoed through the chamber, when he wasn’t alone … that was the true source of his constant agony, the beginning and ending of his world.
The dark should have been his comfort. But it was not, for it was there, in the blind silence, that he was left to imagine what new horrors would be birthed in the light.
So he suffered for more days than he cared to count. More days than he could count, for he’d been permitted to see no light but the flame since they’d brought him here, never felt the touch of the sun on his skin in this chamber of the deepest hell. Through it all, he saw no other people save the leering Baron Jassion of Braetlyn and the muscle-bound, empty-eyed cronies assisting him in his “work”—and, far too rarely, the healers who would mutter a few words, apply a few poultices and herbs, ease his wounds just enough to ensure that the prisoner wouldn’t succumb before his next “session.”
When they’d dragged him down here, nearly naked, broken, and bloody, he’d already suffered perhaps two or three cracked ribs, bone bruises and at least one fracture in his left arm, a near break in his left leg, and uncountable contusions. And he’d thought—with a foolishness he’d have laughed at now if laughter hadn’t made him cough up blood—that he’d been in pain.
The beating he’d taken in Rheah’s room was the heights of ecstasy compared to what he’d endured since.
His face, swollen and purple from the constant beatings, resembled a malformed eggplant. It was easier, now, after so many fists had landed, to count unbroken ribs. His limbs were nothing but deadweight dangling from his battered body, sluggish, weak, reluctant to obey his commands. Black skin flaked from where they’d applied reddened pokers—and, in one case, the flaming end of a torch—and other patches of skin were scraped or sliced away, exposing a gaping maw of raw, bleeding flesh to the open air. Wounds festered, caked in the dirt and dust and rat excrement that made up the carpeting of his new home. The sweat and dried blood of endless days encrusted his face and his body.
Though others often lent a hand, Lord Braetlyn performed most of the work himself, delivering blows to crush flesh and crack bone. He took no small amount of perverse pleasure from the suffering he inflicted on the “great” Corvis Rebaine, a fact he announced loudly and often. It was he, Jassion bragged, who had struck the warlord down in Rheah Vhoune’s office. It was he who had stripped the Terror of his possessions and locked them away with his own hands. It was he who had inflicted more damage on Corvis Rebaine than the man had suffered his whole life through.
It was a cliché that Corvis had never more than half believed but now knew to be manifest truth: There was, indeed, a point at which death was not a threat to be avoided, but a comfortable end to suffering, a final draught of cool water to quench an agonizing thirst.
But he did not wish for death, though all of life seemed nothing but pain. He did not want it, would not ask for it, would fight against it with all of what little strength remained within. Even though, at times, he could scarcely remember why he fought at all.
When he could, when he remembered there was a world beyond this tiny pocket of malicious night, he saw their faces dancing about him, heard the laughter of children at play in the fields or the soft whispers of his wife breathing passionately in his ears. To surrender now, however tempting, would not merely cost him himself—it would cost him them.
And even when he could not remember, when the pain of the here and now was all he knew, he would not yield. Gods damn them all, he was Corvis Rebaine! The Terror of the East, the scourge of Imphallion, and he’d willingly be damned to an eternity far worse than this before he’d let himself succumb to scum like Jassion of Braetlyn!
There were questions, of course.
“Why have you come back?”
“Are you the power behind the Serpent?”
“How strong is your army?”
“What is your plan?”
“What the hell have you done with my sister?”
He’d answered truthfully enough—some of the time, anyway—but the young baron didn’t much care for his answers. The notion that Corvis could have emerged out of seclusion to stop Audriss was so diametrically opposed to everything Jassion believed that the words scarcely even registered. He’d already been judged: Everyone already knew he was indeed the man behind Audriss, and all his captors required now was that he admit it.
He’d declined to reveal the strength of his army, and his refusal had earned him many a bruise or a burn, but it was as nothing compared with the baron’s reaction when Corvis answered his final question.
He could have lied. He could have told Jassion what he expected to hear, that Tyannon was long dead. He could have told Jassion that he’d let her go after a few weeks of captivity, that something else must have happened to her.
But even now, even when Tyannon would have begged him to say whatever he must to save himself, the idea of lying about her was a repudiation of everything he’d worked for. If he denied his family now, he might as well have stayed at home and let Audriss march unopposed.
So he’d told Jassion the truth, and the baron exploded. His frothing lips no longer spat anything resembling a sentient language—primal animal sounds echoed through the room, crashing against the stone walls. Corvis didn’t doubt that his life would have ended then and there had not one of the baron’s own men dragged his liege off the bloody pulp. There were others who wanted the opportunity to “speak” with Corvis Rebaine. And so, raving and spitting, Jassion was dragged away until he’d calmed down.
But from that point forward, Jassion stopped caring about his answers. He asked questions in a dull monotone, a formality, and reached for a gauntlet or a club or a knife even before he’d finished speaking. It was an excuse, now, and a challenge: How much agony could one man take before his body gave out?
The rag-wrapped figure lying splayed across the filth-encrusted stone flinched at the scrape of footsteps in the hall, at the flicker of torchlight under the door. Peeling himself painfully off the floor, he backed into the cell’s farthest corner.
His eyes—his left eye, actually, as his right was swollen shut-twitched as the lock turned ove
r. There were voices outside, Jassion’s among them. But the other proved a mystery. It struck a dim and distant chord in Corvis’s memory, but he’d not heard it recently enough to place.
“… wasting your time,” Jassion was saying angrily. “He hasn’t spoken a word of truth since we got him down here! You questioning him personally is absolutely—”
“Essential,” the other interrupted. “Strange things are happening, Lord Jassion, and I’m hearing unusual reports. Especially regarding the fall of Pelapheron. If—” The intractable lock finally clicked open, and Corvis could not help but flinch from the light.
Jassion, clad in his accustomed black armor without regard for the dungeon’s chill, entered first. The man who followed was handsome, his face emphasized rather than hidden by a well-trimmed blond beard. His outfit was largely white, embellished with navy blue. Corvis may have failed to identify him by voice, but he certainly knew the man by description.
The newcomer’s gaze met that of the filthy, bloodied tatterdemalion who stood as straight as his injuries would allow. Then, his voice the very embodiment of courtesy, he nodded. “Lord Rebaine.”
Though his neck ached at the effort, Corvis returned it. “Your Grace.”
Lorum smiled slightly. “You know me?”
“I know of you.” The prisoner coughed, a tearing hack that moistened the fist he’d raised to his mouth with a thin layer of blood. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t bow, and for my informal attire.”
Jassion, fists clenched tight, grew livid that Corvis had strength and spirit enough for sarcasm. He stepped forward, arms raised, but Lorum’s extended hand halted him.
“When I require your assistance, Jassion, you’ll be the first to know.”
Face twisted and eyes burning, Jassion reluctantly stepped back.
Lorum strode fully into the room and stood beside the caged Terror. Grimacing in disgust, he looked over the shredded, filthy rags and open wounds.