The crowd laughed and was encouraged to throw even more horrid things at Jaunty and Winn. Soon they were covered with rancid horrid smelling goo.
The wagon turned again, and Winn could tell they were on one of the grand roads of Jabari City. The buildings on the side of the road were businesses now and the people that came out of them were dressed in the Menegar version of suits. These buildings were several stories high and had spires on top of them. The greenspace between the road had become wider, and there were large reflecting pools and statues of Menegar warriors killing every race Winn could imagine. Winn could see what must have been the palace from a distance, but they turned on to another road before he could study it closely. They rode for a couple of miles with the buildings turning into shops and food markets and then they came to a top of a hill. Winn could see a river down below in a deep valley. The hill descended slowly until it ended in a cliff face. There was a promontory that jutted out and in the middle of it was a low dome. The road led to a tunnel that went under the dome. On top of the dome was a statue depicting a Menegar grabbing at the bars of a cell screaming in pain as a guard whipped him.
“That is Purgatory Prison. No one has ever escaped. You will likely die there. It’s more than you deserve scum,” one of the soldiers said to them.
They rode into the tunnel when they reached the dome. There were sconces with torches lit all along the tunnel. Still it took Winn and Jaunty a bit to get used to the darkness. They came to a stop in front of a huge door that was imbedded into the side of the tunnel. Ten prison guards stood watch over the door.
“That is the only way in and out of that forsaken place,” said the same soldier who spoke to them before. “Out of the wagon.”
Winn and Jaunty crawled out of the wagon after the cell door was opened for them. Once they were standing the door of the prison started to open. It was six span high and six span wide. It was also six span thick and was made of pure steel. It took eight Menegar to push it open from the inside.
Once it was open a Menegar came out and walked over to them.
“I am Quszal Cavad and I am the warden of this prison. I always like to welcome my new guests, but I am especially happy to welcome you two today. You will know great pain and suffering as my personal guests here. I am going to make sure that you experience the full extent of misery this prison can provide. If you are not in excruciating pain and in tears every night you go to sleep and every morning when you wake up, I will consider it a personal failure. Now to give you the official welcome and to let you get a taste for what you are in for, here is Yagid, the head guardsman of Purgatory Prison. Yagid, do the honors.”
The biggest Menegar that Winn had ever seen walked out of the prison gate. He carried a huge club. Before anyone could blink Yagid swung the club at Jaunty and Yagid hit him in the head, and Jaunty went down and was out. Winn started to get in a stance to face Yagid but six Menegar grabbed him and held him in place. Yagid swung his club again and Winn felt helpless as it traveled toward him and struck him. Winn was out cold as well.
Some water splashed on Winn’s face. He woke up and he remembered. A sea voyage where he and Jaunty were keelhauled yet remained unharmed. Being fed rancid food on the ship that made Jaunty and him vomit violently. Being thrown in a dungeon and knocked unconscious. Now he found himself stripped and chained to the wall. feeling so weak that he felt like he couldn’t walk.
The sun rose, and he could see it through the window, but it wasn’t enough to keep him awake. They must have wanted him to wake up badly because they threw another bucket of water in his face. Then a very ugly and putrid smelling Menegar came right up to him.
“You speak our language?” The Menegar asked.
Winn thought about lying and saying no, but he figured they had heard about his ability, so he nodded his head.
“Translate to your friend,” the Menegar said, grabbing Winn’s chin and forcing him to look into his eyes.
Jaunty was chained to the wall opposite of him. There was another Menegar, a female, by him. She had what looked like torture implements on a table beside her.
“Filth, you are going to answer my questions, or you will lose parts of your body.”
“Jaunty, they are going to ask you questions and if you don’t answer they will torture you,” Winn said. “Answer them if you can. We don’t know many secrets, so you should be OK.”
“Filth, how many troops from Aviel are marching to Skal?” The Menegar said.
Winn translated and shook his head yes.
“Ten thousand,” Jaunty said.
Winn translated verbatim.
“How many troops remain in Aviel.”
Winn translated again.
“Eat a cock,” said Jaunty
“I don’t know, 50,000 or so,” said Winn.
The female Menegar shook her head no and the other Menegar slapped Winn while she took a vicious looking tool and pried Jaunty’s fingernail off.
Jaunty shouted and writhed in pain.
“I ask again filth, how many troops?”
“He doesn’t know,” Winn said.
The female Menegar pried off Jaunty’s big toenail. Jaunty screamed again.
“How many troops?” The male Menegar shouted.
“No!” said Winn.
The female Menegar cut off Jaunty’s little toe. Jaunty howled.
“The next cut is his wrist, then his forearm, then his cock, then his neck. We don’t care about him; we will dispose of him today. You are the prize, not to be touched, because you are being saved for something special. So, I ask again, how many troops?”
Winn was torn, he didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t going to sit and watch his friend be mutilated, but he wasn’t a traitor either. The real answer was about 30,000 not counting the 10,000 sent to Skal.
Winn translated to Jaunty the question and the progression of torture that they described to him.
“Winn, I would rather die than tell these beasts anything,” said Jaunty. “Say what you want.”
“Ok, 22,356,” said Winn.
Surprisingly the Menegars accepted that answer.
“Where is the hidden fortress in Skal, Aggenburg?” The male Menegar asked.
“I can tell you right now that we both don’t know that,” said Winn.
Another of Jaunty’s toes was cut off, he screamed. At least they lied about his wrist being next.
“We don’t fucking know! We are not Skal!”
The female picked up a short-curved knife. She put the knife against Jaunty’s chest and cut around his left nipple. Jaunty screamed. She picked up her prying tool and clamped on to his nipple and pulled with all her strength until it came out. Jaunty passed out from the pain.
Winn screamed. He found a deep reserve of strength. He flew toward the Menegar and broke the chains that bound him. He round kicked the Menegar and broke his horn and cracked his skull with his powerful adrenaline-fueled kick. The Menegar slumped down on the ground then Winn punched him in the nose driving it into his brain pan, killing the Menegar. He turned on the female, picked up the prying tool, and stabbed her in the eye. She slumped over dead. The door to the cell flew open and eight Menegar with swords rushed into the room.
Winn didn’t stop, he used the chains still attached to his wrists as whips, and he threw the chains at the swords of the first two Menegar guards. The chains wrapped around their swords. He yanked his arms backwards and the swords that the two guards held flew out of their hands. Winn grabbed them by the hilts as they flew toward him. Now he was armed. He dispatched the first two guards by decapitating them. The next two rushed him swinging their swords, but Winn could tell they were no warriors, and he easily avoided their blows. He stabbed one in the neck and the other in the chest. Two more guards approached but more cautiously than the last two. Winn didn’t hesitate, and he swung at both. One of the guards blocked the blow but the other wasn’t so lucky and Winn sliced him from his chest to his navel. The other guard swung a blow at Wi
nn’s head, so he ducked, then Winn retaliated with an overhanded blow that dropped the guard. The last two guards ran out of the room, presumably to get more help. Winn took that opportunity to start hacking at Jaunty’s chains. Winn wished he had Breaker because the swords he had were not doing the job. He was nicking and cracking the blades with every blow on the chains. He was concentrating on breaking Jaunty free so intently that he didn’t notice the flood of guards that ran into the room until they tackled him onto the ground. They beat him until he dropped the swords.
The guards picked him up and locked him into some more chains. Then two more guards came in laden in more chains and they attached them to Winn and to another ring embedded in the wall.
Most of the guards left the cell but four remained, and the remaining four kept their swords unsheathed and pointed at Winn, even though he was bound with four chains on each limb. Another female entered the room and started bandaging Jaunty’s wounds. She soaked the bandages in a black ichor colored liquid she had in a pot before applying the bandages. When she applied the first one, Jaunty whimpered in his shock induced sleep. By the time she applied the fourth bandage he had woken up and was screaming in pain.
“Weak human,” said the female Menegar. “Children take their medicine with much less crying than you.”
“Let me cut your nipple and toes off and let’s see how you feel, foul beast,” Winn said.
A guard went to slap Winn, but the female held up her hand to stop him.
“You are the real baby here,” the female said. “You deserve death for killing Pella and Brekku. Yet the King has ordered that you be untouched. You are the weaker one, but the word is the King has special plans for you, plans worse than torture.”
“What is your name, healer?” Winn asked. “If that is what you are, either that or another kind of torturer.”
“I will give you my name human, though you are too small to hear it. I am Axida, and yes, I am a healer. You are the one they call Kide, the vaunted human warrior. You aren’t so vaunted now, are you?”
“Axida, please take care of my friend and don’t let his wounds get infected. It is filthy in here, there is rat feces mixed in the straw. Can you get someone to put fresh straw in here and change the waste bucket.”
Axida laughed. “I don’t care if you both die. You are my enemy. I treat your friend because I am ordered to. Menegar medicine is strong, it is unlikely he will get an infection.” Then she pulled back the bandage she put on his nipple and exposed it. She spit in the wound and put the bandage back. “If he does though, it is no skin off my back. The medicine for infection makes you vomit and shit for days. I would like your friend to experience that. Grel!”
“Yes, honored healer,” said the guard named Grel.
“Take a shit in here, right in the middle of the room. I want our guests to smell the lovely aroma of Menegar waste and I want to make sure conditions are just right to give an infection a good chance.”
“Yes, honored one.” Grel said. He proceeded to defecate an impressive pile of feces right in the middle of the room.”
Winn nearly gagged at the smell. “He certainly isn’t shy, is he?”
“What is shy, I don’t know this word,” Axida said.
“Never mind,” Winn said. “Just finish with Jaunty and get the hell out. I will kill you along with thousands of your people. I will slay more Menegars than anyone in history.”
You will be dead before the next full moon,” growled Axida. “You are a pathetic piece of human excrement. I can barely tell the difference between you and Grel’s shit. You have it wrong, if I ever get the chance to treat you, I will kill you myself. If the guards were not here, you would be dead already. You killed my mate in LaVore, and for that I hate you more than any other creature on Arath.”
Axida stood abruptly and marched out of the room and the four guards followed her out, slamming the cell door behind them. Winn could see in the fading light from the small slit of a window near the ceiling that Axida did bandage all Jaunty’s wounds, and he hoped that Menegar spit wasn’t a cesspool of infection waiting to happen. The stench from Grel’s shit was overpowering, and Winn found it hard to breathe. He tried to fly again to break his bonds, but this time the extra chains proved too strong to break. He decided to try again in the morning after a good night’s sleep. The problem was that Winn couldn’t sleep, even when it got dark. There were screams in the night, rats scurrying and squeaking constantly, and the stench would not go away. Jaunty kept whimpering in the night and Winn was worried sick about what they would do to him next, because he knew the torturing was just getting started. He wondered why they were not torturing him and what they had planned for him. Winn did not know the workings of the Menegar mind, so he didn’t know what their ultimate revenge would be. He feared for Jaunty more than himself. He felt like they thought Jaunty was expendable, and when they finished with him, they would kill him.
The night passed very slowly for Winn. His limbs were numb from being stretched so tautly and at painful angles. When the sun finally rose, a guard entered the room with a bowl and spoon like utensil and came up to Winn.
“Open your mouth and eat,” the guard said.
Winn thought of resisting and he knew that whatever was in that bowl was disgusting, but he needed strength. He opened his mouth and let the guard shove a spoonful of the food in his mouth. The food had the consistency of sludge, and Winn realized there were live bugs wriggling in his mouth and he involuntarily spit the bug filled porridge out. The guard slapped him and growled menacingly. He put the bowl down on a table, grabbed Winn’s throat, and forced Winn to eat a spoonful. Winn had no choice but to swallow. The guard shoved ten more spoonfuls down Winn then mercifully he stopped. He went over to Jaunty and repeated the process. Jaunty didn’t wake up but he did swallow the food. The guard left with his bowl and spoon after he finished with Jaunty. Winn was having a very hard time not vomiting up the breakfast. After a while his stomach settled down.
The cell door opened and in walked another female wearing a black smock followed by two guards. She carried a large bag which she put on the table. She opened the bag and from what Winn could see the bag was full of torturing implements. They were different from the ones from yesterday. There was not a prying tool, instead there were several different shaped metal rods with grips on one end and hundreds of needles on the other. After the female laid out all her tools, she turned and addressed Winn.
“You are the translator, yes?” She asked.
“Yes,” Winn replied.
“Pella was a brutish and clumsy fool, but she did not deserve death. Today I will make your friend suffer for her death, whether you answer my questions or not. Watch and suffer as I make your friend feel pain he has never known. Then I will ask my questions, and you will answer freely and truthfully. I am Reva, and you will never forget my name after today.”
“I will add you to the kill list,” Winn said. “Don’t harm him or you will die.”
Reva laughed. She turned and walked back to the table. She picked up a curved rod with what Winn thought were a thousand needles half a hand long affixed on the end. Then she swung the rod from under Jaunty’s legs and the impact point was at the bottom of his rear end. When the rod struck, Jaunty screamed so loudly it hurt Winn’s ears. Reva let go of the rod, but the needles were impaled in Jaunty.
“The needles are sticking in him from his scrotum to his anus,” said Reva. A very sensitive part of his body. He may never sit down properly again.”
Blood was dripping from Jaunty’s body. He stopped screaming and started hyperventilating. His eyes were bulging, and Winn could tell his heart was racing. Winn struggled in futility against his chains. Jaunty’s eyes started to close and he began to pass out from the pain.
“We can’t have you passing out,” said Reva. “Why would you want to miss all the fun.” She yanked the rod out from his body, causing Jaunty to scream again. “You shit on my tool, its hell washing shit out of this th
ing.” She put the curved rod back on the table and picked up a needle that was two hands long. “Which eye does your friend not want to see out of. Let’s see, I can’t tell which eye is dominant. Won’t you tell me Delver Kide?”
“Reva, please, I will answer whatever questions I know the answer to, please don’t blind him.”
“The right eye is the obvious answer, but he looks like a lefty to me, so I will go with the left eye.”
Reva grabbed Jaunty’s face and held his eyelids open and took the long needle and slowly inserted it into Jaunty’s eye. Jaunty screamed again and struggled against her, but her grip was strong and sure.
“If I push to far, the needle will enter the brain and he will die. I think this is a good time for my first question. Where is the weakest part of Alexandra’s walls?”
Winn knew this was easy to determine and was a test to see if he would cooperate.
“The North gate is the weakest part of Alexandra’s defenses,” said Winn. “The walls are all solid and are uniform in length and height. The gates are the weakest and the north gate is the weakest of the gates.”
“Very good,” said Reva. She slid the needle out of Jaunty’s eye. “Too bad your friend had to lose sight in his left eye for that answer. Keep answering like that and he won’t lose total sight. Who is the general that was sent to Skal with your army? What are his tendencies in battle?”
Winn thought that they knew this answer already as well. General Rackam was who Winn thought they sent to command the troops that were marching on Skal. It was well known that he rarely used flanking moves and liked to march and ride head on into the enemy and overwhelm them with numbers at a fixed point. Still Winn hated to give that information.
“It is General Rackam, and he tends to rely on flanking maneuvers.”
Reva looked at Winn a moment, then turned and walked to Jaunty, picked up a straight rod with needles half a hand long on the end of it, and slammed it into Jaunty’s chest. Jaunty let out a yelp and passed out. He still had blood dripping out of his nether regions, a clear liquid draining from the hole in his eye, and now a rod of needles impaled in his chest.
Trials of a Champion Page 4