by Samuel Fort
Chapter 46 - Fiela Denied
Moros spun and yelled, “All you hiding in your rooms! Hear me! Lilitu is fallen. I am the master of Steepleguard now. If you will serve me, come to the Great Hall and kneel before me. If you would die for the whore, remain where you are. We shall attend to you shortly.”
In a muted voice he said to Sibelius, “Wait fifteen minutes and then shoot anyone who has accepted my invitation. The scoundrels who surrender now will serve any master and are useless to me.”
“It shall be done, Lord,” replied the bearded man. He walked toward his lieutenants to relay the command.
“Maqtu!” he yelled at a man near one of the great fireplaces.
“Yes, Lord?”
“That chair there!” Moros pointed at a large and fancifully carved teak chair with a red velvet seat in one corner of the room. “Bring it here, to this platform.”
“Your throne,” observed Lilian hoarsely.
“No, my dear. Yours. For a short time, anyway. In fact, I have even brought you a crown.”
He snapped his fingers and one of the Maqtu stepped forward, a cardboard shoebox in his hands. Moros flipped off the top and withdrew a cheap plastic tiara, the kind a child would wear for Halloween. Affixed to the front were large plastic letters that formed the word “WHORE”.
“This,” he said, “is what little girls who fancy themselves princesses are supposed to wear. You probably already have one?”
In the deepest recesses of her mind, Lilian screamed.
Moros smirked. “This will be the one you wear tonight when you entertain my men.” He stepped forward and slapped Lilian with such force that she nearly blacked out. Her world went hazy.
“A taste of things to come,” he said.
The woman tried to respond but when she opened her mouth, blood poured out. She could feel one of her back teeth wiggling when she moved her jaw.
“Alas, work before pleasure,” said Moros, turning away.
Lilian, blood dripping from her lips, managed, “Puppies to torture?”
The Peth stopped, sighed and turned back toward her. “No, Lilitu, I have people to torture.”
“You’re a freak Moros. You always were.”
Looking amused, the Peth lord said, “That’s rather hypocritical of you, Lilitu. You torture freely.”
“To achieve my ends. Not for pleasure.”
Moros sneered at her. “Really? Is that what you tell yourself? But look, this is pointless. I must find your dear sister, Fiela. She and I are going to have a…conversation.”
“Too late,” Lilian said with a sickly grin.
The Peth’s eyes narrowed and he took a step toward her. “What do you mean?”
“Your vanity has been your undoing, Moros. You’ve given her too much time.”
“Too much time for what, whore? Escape?”
“Fiela would never flee from a fight. You know that.”
He did, actually. “What, then? Time for what?”
Lilian’s laugh was a wet, sickly gurgle. “Time to bleed out.”
Moros became very still. “What do you mean?”
“You can’t have it all, Moros!” Lilian laughed, globs of blood flying from her mouth and splattering the man’s face. “The thing you want most? My sister? I, Lilitu of Sargon, deny it!”
The Peth glowered at the Maqtu holding Lilian and at the others who stood in a circle around them. “What is she saying?”
“They killed her,” she whispered loudly, nodding in the direction of Sibelius, who was just returning from briefing his lieutenants.
Moros marched toward the man. “Where is Fiela?” he yelled.
Sibelius didn’t waiver. “Dead.”
The Peth lord’s eyes went wide. “Dead? How? I ordered you to capture her alive! She is mine!”
“The lights were out,” Lilian said, taking on the man’s voice. Moros looked back at her as she continued, “That’s what we’ll tell him. It was unavoidable. We couldn’t even see her. She might turn Lord Moros against us. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder!”
Moros looked back at Sibelius and saw the truth in the man’s face. Without hesitation the Peth lord pulled his pistol from its holster and shot the man in the forehead. The rebel fell to the ground in a heap.
“WHERE IS SHE?!” Moros screamed, spinning in a circle. When there were no replies, he shot two other Maqtu who were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. As they, too, dropped, other Maqtu rushed to the side of the stage where Fiela had been stowed away.
“Here, Lord!” the one nearest the girl yelled, removing the tablecloth that covered her and backing away quickly.
Moros strode to the corner of the platform but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the whiteness of Fiela’s face. “Where are the doctors?” he said to the nearest men.
Behind him someone said meekly, “I’m a doctor, Lord.”
Moros twisted and saw that one of the surrendered guests had a shaky hand in the air. A man in a tuxedo, perhaps thirty years old, with greased blond hair.
“Get over here!”
The man nodded nervously and was lifted to his feet by two Maqtu before he’d had an opportunity to stand on his own. They shoved him forward. “Go!”
As the guest stumbled over the collected bodies, Moros yelled, “Find the medical supplies! Bring them here!” and a dozen troops disbursed at a sprint into the various corridors.
A shot rang out from a balcony above. Everyone in the room cringed and looked up. Everyone except Moros, who was staring at the hole in the wooden platform that had suddenly appeared an inch from Fiela’s upturned face.
“There!” shouted one of the Maqtu, pointed upwards.
Three stories above, Lord Shadernum, the Old Bear, pointed a revolver and fired again, this time striking the doctor who was trying to make his way toward Fiela. The man’s head exploded.
“You’ll not take her alive!” yelled King Sargon’s former guard.
“Take me!” screamed Lilian. “Old Bear, kill me!”
But the former guard could not. A spray of bullets from the men below tore his body to pieces and he fell to the balcony’s floor.
Moros knelt over Fiela’s body, trembling. Was he to be denied this, the one thing promised him? The only thing he had ever really wanted? She couldn’t die, could she? Not now! Not ever! She’s the Edimmu! The underworld won’t have her!
For the briefest of moments the corners of the girl’s mouth appeared to twitch upwards in a smile, as if to mock him one last time.
“Bitch!” He screamed, pounding a fist into the floor.
Lilian laughed hysterically.
“Guards,” Moros screamed, rising, “seize the whore and tie her face down to her throne! Strip her!”
He fumbled with the large metal buckle of his belt, so furious that he could hardly control his hands. “Whore, I will thrash you until the skin rolls off your back! I will pull out your fingernails and blind you with my own thumbs. You beg for death now? You cannot imagine how sweet a gift it will be! What I would have done to Fiela I will do ten-fold to you.”
Lilian finally stopped laughing. It was done. She had enjoyed her final victory. She didn’t resist when the men came to drag her to the makeshift throne. She could see Moros walking toward her, his long studded belt in one hand, his face as red as a cinder. Still on her knees, she felt her hands being tied to the arms of the chair. Then she felt the men’s fingers on her dress, and the tug, and it was gone.
Moros moved behind her, lashing the air with his belt experimentally. One of the surrendered guests, a beautiful woman named Persipia, began to cry.
“Behold your queen,” he shouted back at the woman, and raised his belt high into the air.