Joel Shepherd - Tracato

It was a simple room, unbefitting of nobility, perhaps, but then few of the feudalists of central Tracato were actually noble. A simple, wood-planked floor, some basic furnishings before the windows, and all now covered in the most appalling carnage. Bodies had been hacked, limbs removed, entrails strewn like depraved festival decorations. Rhillian had seen many such sights upon the battlefield, but somehow, the horror of this was far, far worse. This had been someone’s home. Blood upon a simple tabletop, and gore dripping down the front of a small bookshelf, was somehow indecent in a way that even a thousand dead and wounded soldiers upon green or ploughed fields had never quite managed.

She stepped over a woman’s body and saw a younger girl, a teenager, face down in her own blood and eyes wide, frozen in horror. Then the smaller child, a little boy, head partly severed from his…

Rhillian nearly retched. Nearly broke down and cried. She had steeled herself to do these terrible things, and see these terrible sights, because if she did not, this fate would one day befall the people and children of Saalshen. Someone had to, and the vel’ennar had determined that that someone should be her. But she had rarely despised humanity more, at any moment, than she did right then.

Then she saw the Lady Tathilde Renine. The face was contorted, a grotesque shape of mouth and protruding tongue, from the rope that strangled about her neck. The rope was tied over an exposed ceiling beam, the lady’s dress slashed and dripping blood, where men had cut her as she hung, and struggled, and kicked. Her once-beautiful eyes now beheld a dull finality.

Aisha saw the hanging body too, as she came in behind, and let out a small, sad sigh. “Oh no,” she said. “Now there’ll be trouble.”

Sasha knew something was wrong the moment the cell door squealed open. She shielded her eyes against the lantern’s glare, spying shapes that were not those of the regular Justiciary gaolers, but men with rough clothes and no armour. She tried to stand but could not raise beyond a crouch thanks to the manacles that bound her wrists, and then chained in turn to an iron ring at her feet. The man advancing on her was big, with bare arms and a nasty manner. This was going to hurt.

The first punch struck her in the side as she tensed, falling to her knees and covering, hoping to ride out the worst of it. Kicks thudded in as she covered her head with her arms, blindingly painful, but not so completely strange to a svaalverd warrior who had spent most of her youth being beaten with Kessligh’s practice stanch, and falling off horses. She hissed and exhaled hard as she needed to; hard breathing always helped her svaalverd exercises, and it helped to deal with the pain.

Finally, as she ached in a fire of new bruises, a key was taken to her chains, and the chain released. Perhaps she was to be set free, she thought, as the men dragged her stumbling from the cell. Perhaps something had happened, perhaps politics had demanded her release, or Kessligh had held a blade to someone’s neck-possibly Rhillian’s. Perhaps this punishment was only the final, spiteful gift of those determined to get their shots in while they could.

She did not recognise the corridor down which they pulled her. It was not a part of the main row into which she had penetrated to try to save Alythia. She stumbled down some steps and into a larger dungeon, lit with flame. The air was warm here, and fire burned in an ironmonger’s furnace at the far wall. Chains hung from the ceiling, and upon wooden tables were arrayed rows of grisly implements. Bloodstains spattered the floor, and there was a smell to the air that was not quite foulness, but far from pleasant.

It was fear, Sasha decided, as they dragged her to the hanging chains. It was her own fear. Her eyes would not leave the row of implements on the tabletop, however hard she tried to drag them away. Her heart was hammering. She had long ago confronted the prospect of disfiguring wounds in battle. Such a thing would happen quickly, before she could think on it. This would be slow. She wanted to cry, to scream and beg, and the Lenay warrior in her soul hated herself for it.

The chain between her wrist manacles was linked over a hook, two blows to her midriff ceasing her attempt to struggle. That hook was pulled high with the rattle of a winch, and soon she was nearly dangling, booted toes barely touching the ground. The big man took a sharp knife off the table and stood before her examining it as a farmer might examine his blade before slaughtering a sheep. Sasha tried to kick him, but her ankle chains had been secured to a floor ring, and she only succeeded in thrashing.

The man was bald, with a large belly and thick arms. Another man was handsome, with shoulder-length dark hair and a goatee. His eyes examined her with flat curiosity, and his accent, when he spoke, was that of an educated man.

“Who ordered you to rescue Lady Renine?” he asked her. “Was it Kessligh Cronenverdt?”

Sasha swallowed hard, for a moment not trusting herself to speak. A Lenay warrior did not show fear. “It was my decision,” she said. “Kessligh was not consulted.”

The handsome man nodded to the big one, who inserted the blade into Sasha’s collar, and sliced the shirt neck to hem. He then walked around, and did the same behind, and tore the rest away. The light, serrin undershirt protected her modesty for a moment, but the big man cut that too, and left her topless. Perhaps they thought to humiliate her. Sasha had far worse concerns than that.

The big man then put the blade on the table, and punched her in the stomach. He was powerful, and the blow rocked her back in a jangle of chains, yet it was a relief. She was still too important for them to start cutting. Kessligh would kill them, and by far worse means than they might do to her. Kessligh led the majority of Tracato Nasi-Keth. Things were not that desperate yet.

Several blows later, and she half swung by her aching arms, struggling to breathe, reflecting that just because they weren’t about to start cutting bits off, it didn’t mean this was going to be anything other than hell. With her arms up, she had no way of defending herself. She just tensed hard, and hoped that her countless hours of training had built enough muscle to absorb the worst of it without permanent damage.

The handsome man asked her more questions. He wanted her to admit that she was a pawn of the feudalists, and that Kessligh, by association, was also a pawn. Probably, it occurred to her, Kessligh was not being helpful to the Civid Sein. He was caught between two groups of fanatics, each unwilling to admit the possibility of a third side. Holding the Nasi-Keth together, in the face of such one-eyed stupidity, would not be easy.

Soon her arms and shoulders began to hurt almost worse than her bruises. Her wrist manacles were agony, the chafing metal surely splitting the skin. Her boots were removed and her pants cut away, leaving her in only the thigh-length woollen underwear that she’d always favoured, good for both svaalverd and horsemanship. Strangely, they did not strip her completely naked. It seemed another line they were not prepared to cross. She wondered what was going on above ground that would make it so, and when that line would disappear. She answered the handsome man’s questions truthfully, in part because no other answer would help her, and also because it was not what he wanted to hear. She did not scream or yell in fury, or make threats. She knew, as surely the men did, that if she survived, and were given an opportunity in the future, she would kill them, their comrades, and possibly their families, no matter how they screamed and begged. She would be patient, and wait. If these men knew her intent, though, it was unlikely they would let her live.