Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

“Aye.” Moonglum was surprised she had guessed so easily. “There was nothing else Xiombarg would accept and time was pressing.”

They all seemed stunned by the next sound.

Even when Stormbringer was drawn and he was engaged upon his joyful work of destruction, Elric had never been heard to laugh in that particular way before.

TIM LEBBON was born in London and lived in Devon until the age of eight. His first short story was published in 1994 in the indie magazine Psychotrope , and his first novel, Mesmer , appeared three years later, in 1997. Since then he has published over thirty books, including 2009’s The Island and The Map of Moments (with Christopher Golden). His dark fantasy novel, Dusk , which came out in 2007, won the August Derleth Award from the British Fantasy Society, and his novelization of the film 30 Days of Night was a New York Times bestseller. His new novel, Echo City Falls , is due out in 2010. A full-time writer since 2006, he now lives in Goytre, Monmouthshire, with his wife and two children.

Jan Ray Marcellan wished they could just nail the bastard to the Wall. She hated venturing beyond Marcellan Canton and into Course, where the people were rougher, less educated, poorer, harsher, and more likely to aim abuse at a Hanharan priestess. It was outside the norm, and even the complement of thirty Scarlet Blades could not make her feel completely safe. She thought the air smelled different out here, though of course that was a foolish notion. It was simply her discomfort getting the better of her.

But Dal Bamore had to be transported to Gaol Ten prior to his trial, even though his death sentence was a foregone conclusion. And she had chosen to accompany him.

She parted the curtains on the front of her carriage, looking between the driver’s feet and the bobbing heads of the four tusked swine hauling it, and saw Dal Bamore staked naked on his rack. Six Scarlet Blades pulled the rack, Bamore’s heels dragging across the cobbles and leaving bloody streaks, and now that they were outside the wall, the crowds were throwing rotten fruit and stones. The Blades raised their hoods and hunkered down, though few missiles struck them. Marcellan soldiers were greatly feared. Fruit exploded across the condemned man’s body, stones struck with meaty or sharp impacts, and he barely moved his head.

Jan Ray smiled thinly. With everything they had done to Bamore to extract his confession, she’d be surprised if he opened his eyes even when they drove in the first nail. She dropped the curtains back into place and settled into her cushions, sucked on her slash pipe, and sighed.

A scream came from outside, and the thud of something hitting the ground. She froze, fingers touching the curtains again but not quite opening them.

The crowd, blood-hungry, frenzied, Blades on edge, and that’s Bamore out there, Bamore , one of the most dangerous—

The curtain was tugged aside and Jave’s face appeared. Her most trusted Blade captain. And he had fresh blood splashed across his cape.

“Wreckers. Stay here.”

As Jave disappeared and more screams rose up, Jan Ray lay back and wished they’d finished Bamore down in the Dungeons.

She only ever visits the deep dungeons if it’s something important. And right from the very beginning, she’s suspected that they have never tortured anyone as important as Dal Bamore.

He has already been in his cell for three days by the time she goes down to question him. The chief torturer has been instructed to loosen his tongue, but not to risk his life. Anything he says must be taken down—there is a scribe beside the prisoner every moment of the day and night—but he must remain lucid and conscious for whenever the Marcellans decide to question him themselves.

Jan Ray is always eager for this sort of duty. It gets her away from the daily grind of running the city as part of the Council, and the way she spends most of her waking time as a Hanharan priestess is dictated by generations of tradition and protocol. She understands its importance, but sometimes it becomes tiresome.

Down here in the Dungeons, she can be herself, just for a while.

There are no screams as she approaches. No sighs or grunts, no pleas for mercy. She is almost concerned, but when she reaches the door and the Scarlet Blade on guard opens it for her, those concerns evaporate immediately.

Bamore is hanging upside down from the ceiling. He is streaked with blood and feces. Beneath him, there is a large bowl collecting all the fluids that leak from him. She can tell that it has already been emptied over him more than once. A thin gray man sits on a chair some distance away, an open book propped on his knees, a pen in his hand. The pages appear completely blank.

“Trivner,” she says, and the fat man in the corner hauls himself upright. Rolls of flab sway beneath his loose robe.

“Priestess!” he says, bowing low. “An honor to see you down here with us lowlifes.” She can hear the smile in his voice, but forgives him that. He’s their head torturer, and it takes someone of particular skills and tendencies to perform the job competently. He has been employed down here for longer than she has been a priestess, over forty years. Some say he has never seen the sky.

“So tell me what he has to say.”

“Nothing, Priestess,” Trivner says.

Jan Ray raises her eyebrows in surprise. Bamore seems to be looking at her, but she cannot be sure. The light is poor down here, his eyes swollen almost shut.

“Nothing?” she asks, glancing at the thin scribe. He shakes his head.

“I started with air shards,” Trivner says, and she knows what is coming. Many times she has heard his delighted recitation of the tortures he has performed. It’s like listening to a poet’s expression of love for the one thing in life he can never let go. “Into his knees and elbows, then both shins. The first I slipped only into the flesh, but the last selection I pushed through his bones. They’ll never come out. Any movement is agony.”

“Delightful,” Jan Ray says. “Hurry with this, Trivner. And then perhaps I can get some answers from him where you’ve failed.”

The torturer blusters for a moment, but then breathes deeply, calming himself. Remember who you’re talking to, Jan Ray thinks. His voice becomes more businesslike.

“After the air shards, some more basic forms of persuasion. Fingernails extracted. Cuts filled with powdered swine-horn. Fire ants into every body opening.” Trivner’s confidence seems to falter, and the lilt drops from his voice. “No one ever gets past the fire ants.”

“But still nothing,” Jan Ray muses. Bamore turns slightly on the rope and it creaks, wet from his blood. He coughs and vomits something black.

“Leave me with him, both of you.” Trivner goes to protest but she holds up one hand, eyes closed. He knows better than to argue with a priestess.

“I’ll wait right outside,” Trivner says, as if that will be a comfort.

“By Hanharan’s will, he will tell me what I need to know,” Jan Ray says. But as the fat torturer and the thin scribe leave the stinking chamber, she feels a slight shiver of something she does not quite understand.

Soon, she will know it as fear.

Stay here, Jave had told her. Like talking to a child. He had been her most trusted captain for some years, and they had developed a rapport that bordered on friendship, though any hint of closeness between priestess and soldier was vehemently discouraged. But still she felt a tingle of anger at his brusqueness.

“He’s concerned, you fool,” she murmured, and the sounds from outside grew more startling. Shouted orders and screams of pain; panicked cries from the people who had been lining the street; the whip of arrows and impacts of cruel metal tips on stone, wood, and flesh. They’ve come for him. She shivered and leaned forward, pulling the curtain aside.