R. Salvatore: The Bear

Even as Olym began to almost savagely ride him, Yeslnik recalled that the chasm between him and his wife had widened after Yeslnik's embarrassment on the road in Pryd a year before. His coach had been assailed by powries, and only the Highwayman's intervention had saved the day. Of course, the rogue had then humiliated Yeslnik and stolen from him!

Olym had turned from Yeslnik then and toward the knave! Yeslnik had been blaming the Highwayman for his conjugal troubles, but now, finally, pinned beneath his nearly frantic wife, he understood the truth. Power and danger drove this woman's hungry loins. She wanted-nay, demanded-a man who would crush the skull of an enemy under his boot with hardly a thought, a man who carried a sword more often than not bloodied with his enemy's entrails.

Lady Olym wanted a king, not a peasant! And this wild creature riding him to levels of pleasure and passion he had never thought possible deserved nothing less.

He was Yeslnik, King of Honce, and woe to those fools who did not drop to bended knee before him! He was Yeslnik the Terrible. Look upon him and be afraid.

Every time the people of Palmaristown believed they had rid themselves of the scourge that had crawled from the Masur Delaval in that awful night now called The Dark of Long Murder, another group of powrie dwarves reared its ugly head. And no matter the odds, those dwarves fought with their typical fury. The ratio Prince Milwellis had seen in the barn held pretty closely with each incident: Nearly forty powries had been killed or captured by the end of the second day, but the Palmaristown garrison had also lost more than two hundred warriors.

Back in his castle, which had mostly survived the fires, Laird Panlamaris took every report of powrie incidents with a heavy and resigned grunt, followed immediately by a slam of his large fist upon the armrest of his oaken throne. He waved away the newest crier who had come in to relate that a single powrie had killed eleven people in the market district before they had tied him down.

Panlamaris sank back wearily in his seat and muttered curses at Dame Gwydre under his breath, not wanting the guards in the room, their morale already low, to hear him.

His son, though, was not nearly as diplomatic. "Why are you not more outraged, Father?" Prince Milwellis rushed forward to stand before the throne. "How can you hear of these murders and not scream and thrash?"

Panlamaris's old eyes narrowed at his impetuous son. "To what end? We have shallow graves filled with hundreds of Palmaristown bodies. There will be more, many more, before this is settled."

"Eleven more now," Milwellis spat.

"You hold your sarcastic tongue," Panlamaris growled. He let his glower sweep the room, stealing any widening grins before they could begin. "I will not be mocked by anyone, least of all my son."

Milwellis looked about to argue, but he bit it back and bowed low in deference.

Panlamaris eyed him with amusement now. "You think me not outraged enough, my son?"

Milwellis could contain himself no longer, beating his chest with one fist. "I would go to Market Square and choke the powrie dead with my own hands," he replied through clenched teeth.

"A rather easy death for a powrie, then." Panlamaris gave a hateful little chuckle. "Perhaps I am more angry than you."

Milwellis and all the others in the room looked at the old laird curiously.

"How many powries have we in our dungeons now?" Panlamaris asked.

"Twenty-seven, my laird," one of the guards answered. "Twenty-eight if this latest survives the mob at Market Square."

"The rat'll live," another said. "Hard to kill the damned things."

"Prepare twenty-eight stakes," Panlamaris announced. "Tall stakes."

Prince Milwellis was about to learn much from his father in ways he had never expected. I've spent many a day killing these little rat-dogs," Panlamaris explained later as the stakes were prepared to his specifications in the city square. "Not too sharp," was the order, for a sharp stake would cause such overwhelming trauma as to reduce the duration of the suffering.

"Never thought we'd have to fight them again," said Harcourt, hands on his old hips as he watched the construction. Panlamaris's trusted general had been in the east serving as advisor to Milwellis. "Never wanted to."

"We'll chase them off like we did on Durbury's Rock," Panlamaris promised. He turned to Milwellis, who, though listening, stood staring past the two old warriors toward the spectacle in the square before him. The first powrie prisoner had been dragged from the dungeon and stripped of his ratty clothing. Bound hands and ankles to four horses, the dwarf was naked and laid out spread-eagled in the square.

"Bah, what're ye doin'? O, ye dogs!" cried the powrie. His howls became indecipherable screams as a soldier pushed a stake slowly into the dwarf's rectum. The volume of his screams increased, surprising Milwellis, who hadn't thought it possible to so agonize a dwarf, as the intrusive pole tore through the creature's bowels and gut. Even the most bloodthirsty of the gathered throng on the square gulped and looked away.

The torturer kept going, though, and the screams became gurgles as the stake reached to the dwarf's throat. The horses pulled as instructed, and the bloody tip of the stake came right out the dwarf's mouth surrounded by bloody bubbles.

More soldiers cut the ropes and carried the dwarf to the docks where supports had been built. They hoisted the powrie up to hang high atop the stake some ten feet from the ground.

"How long?" asked Milwellis, very conscious that he was sweating.

Panlamaris shrugged. "Hours at the least. Seen some live for nearly a week."

Back in the square the next dwarf was dragged from the dungeon, the process repeated.

By the fourth powrie, the mob's squeamishness was gone, replaced by shouted reminders of the horrors the dwarves had inflicted upon Palmaristown. As the sun settled in the west that day, twenty-eight powries rode high on stakes by Palmaristown's south and west gates and along her docks.

… Scarecrows warning their kin away. King Yeslnik!" Captain Juront yelled in a tone that gave Yeslnik great pause. He knew they were nearing Palmaristown, finally, and was not surprised to hear Juront calling him, but the man's tone bespoke great uneasiness and concern. With a glance at his wife, Yeslnik rushed from his cabin, Olym scrambling close behind.

The young king climbed to the deck, the devastation of Palmaristown obvious immediately, with some areas of the city still shrouded in smoke. The sight initially brought relief to Yeslnik, who had feared that Juront's frantic tone was inspired by powries attacking Grand Dame Olym. He moved to the captain, who stood staring out to starboard and the Palmaristown docks, his first mate beside him, equally intent-so much so that neither man seemed to be drawing breath.

When he finally got into a position where he could follow Juront's gaze, Yeslnik, too, sucked in his breath with shock at the sight of dozens of powries on spikes in the harbor.

"Oike! What is that?" Queen Olym exclaimed as she came up beside the three men.

"Powries, milady," Juront managed to gasp.

"Ugly little things. Are they dead?" Even as Olym spoke, the flagship gliding in toward her waiting berth, one of the powries flicked his arm out to the side.

"Soon, milady," Juront promised.

"What is this?" Yeslnik asked.

"The vengeance of Laird Panlamaris, my king," Juront answered. "He is a fierce man of many battles. A man not known for mercy."

King Yeslnik tried to steady himself. He glanced at Olym, fearing the sight too raw for her delicate sensibilities.

But she was smiling, her eyes twinkling. "Fierce," she whispered with obvious admiration and intrigue. "He is a man to be feared."