“How go the defences?”
“Got as much of the wall up as we can without the sawmill. Crossbowmen are spread around the interior wall with every damned bolt we have at hand. I have three squads, armed with the new swords and barely trained but ready to run in to cover any breach that might be made.”
“Good. The food?”
“All the supplies are in the warehouse where the workers will be setting up their homes for the near future. We’ve reinforced that as much as we possibly can and it’s our main fallback point should the village fall.”
He waved towards the docks across the road that ran northwest past the village. The docks were as secure as anywhere else and the only way to access them was by the sea of through the village. If we needed to, then that was where we would make our last stand.
“We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”
“Aye, lass.”
“Any word from the island?” Gregg asked, lowering his voice and glancing around to ensure we were not overheard. “What about the parasite?”
“Parasite’s dead.” That should have been said with a great deal more enthusiasm but I couldn’t muster any for it meant that Genpact had done something terrible. “The island is still silent.”
“Crap.”
That was one way of putting it.
“Go wash up,” I told him, reaching over to pat his arm. “Get some rest too.”
“Yeah, probably a good idea.”
He was about to leave and I reached out once more to stop him, a momentary glimmer of humour appearing that I couldn’t shake.
“Be warned, Cass is looking to speak with you now you’re back.”
He closed his one remaining eye and hung his head before spinning on his heel and heading to the house. His last words as he left, were barely audible but had me bursting into laughter at the defeat in his voice as he simply said, “Oh crap!”
Chapter 22
“He fears me,” I said, musingly, not even really aware that I had spoken aloud until Samuel answered me.
“As well he should, My Lord Death.”
I looked at him askance as I considered reminding him once again that I did not wish to hear that title anymore. He avoided my gaze, eyes flicking to the rows of black-clad men and women who stood silently in a semi-circle before me.
In the centre of that semi-circle, the young raider hung between two stout trees, arms and legs spread painfully wide, with enough force that he had been lifted several inches from the ground, and appeared not unlike a fly caught in the web of a spider.
Which, I considered with some amusement, would have me playing the part of the spider.
“The problem,” I said, “is that he does not fear me enough.”
“That does seem hard to believe.”
Naked but for his own blood, he whimpered whenever I looked his way, but still, he would not give up the location of the other raiders. It was vexing, to be sure.
For several long minutes, I just stood and stared at that young man. There was something people found unnerving about being naked in front of others, or so I had found. Stripping them first of their clothing, had them feeling vulnerable.
There was the urge to cover their genitals, an ingrained need that tended to be instilled upon people from when they were very young. Their clothing then, was like a shield, protecting them. Remove that shield, they were exposed not just physically, but mentally too.
I had to consider the man before me as not just one person, but many. Layer upon layer of personality, emotion, ingrained beliefs and the view of himself. I would need to strip them away, until there was nothing left but the core, exposed and utterly vulnerable.
That would take time, however, and if there was one thing I was sure of, it was that time was not on my side. Too many things were happening at once. Genpact's betrayal, the island going silent on us, a seeming lack of response from anyone we had reached out to, and then there were the raiders.
If I was right, and I was confident that I was, the deluded ex-follower of mine was building an army, an alliance of raider groups that would be brought against us with all the fire and fury they could muster.
We needed to be ready, especially since I had little doubt there would be no retreat from the small village in the north of Wales where we had set up a home.
“I am not a man who takes particular pleasure in torture,” I said, keeping my voice low and soft as I took a step towards the bound prisoner. “No, the pleasure, I find, lies in the final stroke of the blade, the severing of a life.”
His eyes, already wide with terror, filled with tears as he tried in vain to struggle against his bonds. This did little but set the ropes to vibrating, so taut were they. Behind him, two of my minions stepped into view, carrying a heavy burden between them that they set out on the ground behind the bound man.
“Still, while I take no great pleasure in the task, I have studied it extensively.” I tilted my head, watching him intently, my gaze fixed to his. “The most common form of torture is through physical violence. A beating at the hands of one or more of your captors. A little too basic for my tastes.”
“Burning is always useful. Whether that be heated steel or boiling oil that sluices across your naked body, the skin sloughing off in its wake, it can be an effective form of torture and one that leaves lasting physical damage that will take a long time to heal.”
I flashed him a smile as those two minions moved into his field of vision and began building a fire.
“One of the many forms of torture that you are no doubt familiar with is rape.” I took a moment to let his fear build as I looked him up and down. “Certainly not to my taste.”
“Electrical shocks can be most effective but that would require an easier access to a source of electricity than I currently have, so you will likely be spared that. Asphyxiation, however, is deeply unpleasant.”
“You have the most basic form, which would be dunking your head in a bucket of water or placing a plastic bag over your head. Simple, yet effective. The military always seemed to enjoy placing a towel on the face and pouring water down on it. This gives the most unpleasant sensation of drowning without the actual drowning.”
I paused, as though contemplating.
“Again, not to my particular taste. A little dull and if I am going to have to spend my time tormenting you, it at least has to be interesting.” I tapped on my chin, thinking through the various means of torture that I had both experienced and read about. “During the second world war, the German’s had a fondness for human experimentation.”
The bound man was shaking his head as though trying to escape the sound of my voice. My smile widened.
“While that would be the most fun, it is time-consuming and without the correct equipment, you would likely just die.” Another pause, for effect. “Still, that does lead to another interesting form. Allowing a wound to become infected, gangrenous even. Though I suspect that you would succumb to the infection too quickly to be of use.”
“Why you doing this, man?”
One of the minions stepped forward and swiped him briskly across the back with a supple tree branch. Long and thin with the end shredded, it left little mark but stung intensely. The man yowled and I waited a moment before continuing as though he had not even spoken.
“An interesting one would be cutting you. It may be my fondness for the blade as a weapon of choice, but a razor blade, cutting you repeatedly, once every five minutes, would be entertaining. We could start with the gaps between your fingers and toes, moving up your limbs, a simple and small cut at a time.”
A shiver ran through me at the thought of all the blood that would spill across his skin and it took me a moment to gather myself together.
“Needles, would be another. Inserted into your flesh, placed in a manner that was both aesthetically pleasing and quite debilitating, you would scream until your throat grew hoarse, with no easy death for some time.”
“Please, I’ll tell you what-�
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He yelped again at another swipe from the supple switch.
“My personal favourite,” I said, ignoring his tears. “Would be to cut you. Shallow cuts, all across your body. You wouldn’t die, though it would sting, especially when you were smothered in honey.”
His eyes betrayed his confusion and I almost laughed.
“When this particular form of torture was first used, they would take their victim and place them inside of a hollowed-out tree. The bound person, unable to move, would be force-fed milk and honey.”
“I know what you are thinking,” I said, waggling a finger before his nose. “That doesn’t sound too bad. Of course, it was likely quite pleasant at first, until the milk and honey diet inevitably led to diarrhoea.”
“Unable to move, they would remain, covered in their own waste as more milk and honey was smeared over their exposed skin. Insects, attracted to the muck and rot along with the sweetness, would descend upon that person and begin to feast, the open wounds on his body filling with maggots and small, burrowing insects.”
A stream of piss ran down the man’s leg as he lost control of his bladder and I smiled, almost conspiratorially before patting his shoulder.
“That’s the spirit, eager to begin, are we?”
“Please, God! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
I narrowed my eyes as I looked at him, head tilting once more as my brow furrowed in confusion. I waved away the minion with the switch, choosing to allow the question.
“Of course you will,” I said, voice soft. “That was never in doubt.”
“Then why-“ his squeal of pain filled the glade and I waved the minion away once more.
“Because I can.” A moment’s pause as I contemplated the audience to my little performance. “Because I am death itself and the only way you die, will be as and when I allow it. You will answer every question and you will scream as those insects begin to feast, but you will not die until I allow it. Which I shall only do when I am sure you have told me the truth.”
A slight glance to my left and the minion waiting there stepped forward. He lifted the razor blade in his gloved hands and presented it to me as though an offering to his god, which is likely what he considered it to be.
Fool.
The prisoner squealed at the first slash across his chest and my eyes glittered as the first blood began to spill. I could barely contain my excitement as I began to paint his skin with razor-thin cuts, creating patterns that were pleasing to my eye.
I reached out, fingertips brushing his blooded skin, another shiver taking me and I forced myself to step back lest I swipe that blade across his throat.
He wept with the pain and the terror both, and I raised a hand. Two more minions stepped forward, carrying a pot with them. While milk was in short supply, we had ample honey, and as one held the prisoner’s mouth open, the other forced spoonfuls of the sticky honey down his throat.
“Is this necessary?” Samuel asked, voice low so his words carried to my ears alone.
“Many would think not.”
“Then why?”
“Because when we are done here, word will spread and with it fear. Those who hear the tales that will no doubt grow with each telling, will hear of our approach and know fear unlike any other. They will surrender to us rather than face what will happen should they fight.”
“You know this for sure?”
I shrugged then and watched the prisoner squirm in the iron-hard grip of my minions, choking and spluttering as the honey was forced down his throat. I swatted at a fly and grinned, knowing the prisoner would soon find them to be a plague.
“After the capture of Bram in 1210, the Albigensian Crusaders took one hundred of the captured soldiers and gouged out their eyes, cut off their noses and upper lips, and had them led by a one-eyed man to Cabaret. This was done, purely to terrorize Cabaret into surrender.”
A particularly fascinating tale that I had read and re-read many times as a child, my mind conjuring visions of cruelty and death that excited me in a way nothing else could.
“The Mongols made a habit of slaughtering the entire populations of cities before burning them to the ground. While the great emperor of China, Qin Shihuang, buried alive over three hundred scholars in order to discourage opposition.”
“During the sack of Jerusalem, some forty to seventy thousand people were butchered. The French murdered some twenty thousand of the nobility, political opponents and alleged traitors. The Americans dropped the first atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
I glanced at my friend, to see if he had gotten the point and then to make sure, I spoke it for him.
“Fear is an effective way of winning. If your enemy sees that you will decimate their number for defying you, they will know to surrender when you give them the choice.”
“Or they will fight all the harder knowing what will happen.”
“True.” A good point, to be fair. “But people who hear of this, will also hear that any who choose to surrender will be treated well.”
Until I killed them for their crimes.
“Perhaps, My Lord.”
“Word will be spread on purpose. Some will survive and carry word to any who will listen and when I arrive at their door, they will throw it open and bow their heads because they will know that to do so is to survive.”
“As you say.”
He seemed troubled, though whether it was from the torture that was just beginning or the worry that it would just make more enemies, I couldn’t say, and to be honest, I didn’t care. The world was full of monsters preying on the weak, and the innocent.
They would learn, all of them, that I was the monster that should be feared. It was a role I would take on gladly for it would help ensure the safety of my family.
After all, who would dare risk harming them and feeling my wrath?
Chapter 23
Fire blossomed against the palisade wall as a man’s pained screams filled the night air. Swarms of insects had been covering him for two days and his compatriots had finally sent their response.
“Get that bloody fire out!” Isaac screamed, pointing to where the flames licked the timber.
Another improvised Molotov-Cocktail hit the palisade and a woman screamed, quarrel striking her arm as she ran towards the flames, bucket of water in hand. More arrows fell into the open area before the wall and fresh screams filled the air.
“Where are they?” someone called.
“There, I see them! By the-“
His cry cut off and I caught a glimpse of the arrow that had pierced his neck before he fell into the grass. I pushed myself back against the side of the low, stone, cottage and gripped my sword in a hand that refused to stop sweating.
“For fucks sakes,” Isaac screamed. “Shoot back you prats!”
A few of the crossbowmen rushed to obey his orders and two died in quick succession, arrows peppering their bodies. Whoever was attacking was a great deal more competent than we’d expected.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the attack was over and there was silence but for the cries of the wounded. Isaac, sword in hand, dashed across to the wall and lifted himself enough that he could peer over it.
It was a tense few minutes as he stared out into the trees, trying to find some sign of the enemy that might be still hiding there. Finally, though, he shook his head and called the order to stand down.
“What was that?” Gregg asked, as Isaac’s people ran to quench the fires while white sashed men and women moved swiftly amongst the wounded.
“Just letting us know they’re there,” I muttered, looking back at the house and the wooded area beyond, where Ryan was.
“Aye,” he agreed, noting my look. “Guess they found the camp.”
“You never said what he did there.”
“I won’t either,” he muttered. “Just, suffice to say, I can understand why they’re upset.”
A shiver ran down my spine and for a moment
I was glad that he wouldn’t tell me. There were some things that I didn’t need to know after all.
“Tell you something,” Gregg said, joining me beside the wall. “He’s been heading down a dark path for a while but he’s positively scaring me right now.”
I knew what he meant. The man I had grown to love was harder to find some days and the killer much closer to the surface than he had used to be. Despite his inclinations, he had never been casually cruel or enjoyed tormenting and causing pain to others.
There was an anger, a roaring maelstrom of rage, that he seemed to be barely able to keep a lid on and bottling it all up was just increasing the pressure. The small acts of cruelty he visited upon the bodies of the dead, the torture of the living, those were an attempt to release some of that anger for a purpose that made sense to him.
But it wouldn’t work. His anger would spill out uncontrollably and all it needed was the right trigger. I wasn’t sure that I could stand to see what would happen when it did, but it might well mean the end of the man I loved, leaving only a killer who was beyond redemption.
When that happened, I had no idea what I would do, or if I would even still love him. Some things I could not stomach and it was only the fact that he seemed to take no real pleasure in the torture that was leaving me with a shred of hope.
“God, I’m tired,” I said, settling my head back against the cool stone wall.
I should be out there, helping to tend to the wounded and shoring up the defences, but I couldn’t seem to raise the energy to do so. There was a weariness in me beyond anything that I had ever before experienced.
It was all too much. The years of struggle, the loss and death all around me, and the endless war to try and bring peace to a land that seemed to defy everything I attempted to do. Betrayal by those I had hoped could be counted as allies and the lack of word from the island was all too much.
Gregg, face showing his concern, leant against the wall beside me. He chose his words with care.
“Charlie seems to think she can have a drone ready to go tomorrow.”
Killing The Dead | Book 23 | Come The End Page 14