Robert Salvatore - The Spine of the World

"What poison?" the wizard demanded of Morik.

Morik shrugged as if he did not understand.

"The bag," said Robillard. "You held a bag."

"I have no-" Morik started to say, but he lost the words as the guard beside him slammed him hard in the belly yet again.

"Retrace his steps," Robillard instructed the other guards "He carried a small satchel. I want it found."

"What of him?" one of the guards asked, motioning to the mound of flesh that was Wulfgar. "Surely he can't breath under that."

"Cut his face free, then," Robillard hissed. "He should not die as easily as that."

"Captain!" Waillan Micanty cried upon seeing Deudermont.

He ran to kneel beside his fallen captain. Robillard put a comforting hand on the man's shoulder, turning a violent glare on Morik.

"I am innocent," the little thief declared, but even as he did a cry came from the alley. A moment later a guardsman ran out with the satchel in hand.

Robillard pulled open the bag, first lifting the stone from it and sensing immediately what it might be. He had lived through the Time of Troubles after all, and he knew all about dead magic regions and how stones from such places might dispel any magic near them. If his guess was right, it would explain how Morik and Wulfgar had so easily penetrated the wards he'd placed on the captain.

Next Robillard lifted a cat's claw from the bag. He led Morik's gaze and the stares of all the others from that curious item to Deudermont's neck, then produced another, similar claw, the one he had pulled from the captain's wound.

"Indeed," Robillard said dryly, eyebrows raised.

"I hate wizards," Morik muttered under his breath.

A sputter from Wulfgar turned them all around. The big man was coughing out pieces of the sticky substance. He started roaring in rage almost immediately and began tugging with such ferocity that all the Cutlass shook from the thrashing.

Robillard noted then that Arumn Gardpeck and several others had exited the place and stood staring incredulously at the scene before them. The tavernkeeper walked over to consider Wulfgar, then shook his head.

"What have ye done?" he asked.

"No good, as usual," remarked Josi Puddles.

Robillard walked over to them. "You know this man?" he asked Arumn, jerking his head toward Wulfgar.

"He's worked for me since he came to Luskan last spring," Arumn explained. «Until-» the tavernkeeper hesitated and stared at the big man yet again, shaking his head.

"Until?" Robillard prompted.

"Until he got too angry with all the world," Josi Puddles was happy to put in.

"You will be summoned to speak against him before the magistrates," Robillard explained. "Both of you."

Arumn nodded dutifully, but Josi's head bobbed eagerly. Perhaps too eagerly, Robillard observed, but he had to privately admit his gratitude to the little wretch.

A host of priests came running soon after, their numbers and haste alone a testament to the great reputation of the pirate-hunting Captain Deudermont. In mere minutes, the stricken man was born away on a litter.

On a nearby rooftop, Creeps Sharky smiled as he handed the empty bottle to Tee-a-nicknick.

*****

Luskan's gaol consisted of a series of caves beside the harbor, winding and muddy, with hard and jagged stone walls. Perpetually stoked fires kept the place brutally hot and steamy. Thick veils of moisture erupted wherever the hot air collided with the cold, encroaching waters of the Sword Coast. There were a few cells, reserved for political prisoners mostly, threats to the ruling families and merchants who might grow stronger if they were made martyrs. Most of the prisoners, though, didn't last long enough to be afforded cells, soon to be victims of the macabre and brutally efficient Prisoner's Carnival.

This revolving group's cell consisted of a pair of shackles set high enough on the wall to keep them on the tips of their toes, dangling agonizingly by their arms. Compounding that torture were the mindless gaolers, huge and ugly thugs, half-ogres mostly, walking slowly and methodically through the complex with glowing pokers in their hands.

"This is all a huge mistake, you understand," Morik complained to the most recent gaoler to move in his and Wulfgar's direction.

The huge brute gave a slow chuckle that sounded like stones grating together and casually jabbed the orange end of a poker at Morik's belly. The nimble thief leaped sidelong, pulling hard with his chained arm but still taking a painful burn on the side. The ogre gaoler just kept on walking, approaching Wulfgar, and chuckling slowly.

"And what've yerself?" the brute said, moving his smelly breath close to the barbarian. "Yerself as well, eh? Ne'er did nothin' deservin' such imprisonin'?"

Wulfgar, his face blank, stared straight ahead. He barely winced when the powerful brute slugged him in the gut or when that awful poker slapped against his armpit, sending wispy smoke from his skin.

"Strong one," the brute said and chuckled again. "More fun's all." He brought the poker up level with Wulfgar's face and began moving it slowly in toward the big man's eye.

"Oh, but ye'll howl," he said.

"But we have not yet been tried!" Morik complained.

"Ye're thinkin' that matters?" the gaoler replied, pausing long enough only to turn a toothy grin on Morik. "Ye're all guilty for the fun of it, if not the truth."

That struck Wulfgar as a profound statement. Such was justice. He looked at the gaoler as if acknowledging the ugly creature for the first time, seeing simple wisdom there, a viewpoint come from observation. From the mouths of idiots, he thought.

The poker moved in, but Wulfgar set the gaoler with such a calm and devastating stare, a look borne of the barbarian's supreme confidence that this man-that all these foolish mortal men-could do nothing to him to rival the agonies he had suffered at the clawed hands of the demon Errtu.

The gaoler apparently got that message, or a similar one, for he hesitated, even backed the poker up so he could more clearly view Wulfgar's set expression.

"Ye think ye can hold it?" the brutal torturer asked Wulfgar. "Ye think ye can keep yer face all stuck like that when I pokes yer eye?" And on he came again.

Wulfgar gave a growl that came from somewhere very, very deep within, a feral, primal sound that stole the words from Morik's mouth as the little thief was about to protest. A growl that came from his torment in the pits of the Abyss.

The barbarian swelled his chest mightily, gathered his strength, and drove one shoulder forward with such ferocity and speed that the shackle anchor exploded from the wall, sending the stunned gaoler skittering back.

"Oh, but I'll kill ye for that!" the half-ogre cried, and he came ahead brandishing the poker like a club.

Wulfgar was ready for him. The barbarian coiled about, almost turning to face the wall, then swung his free arm wide, the chain and block of metal and stone fixed to its other end swishing across to clip the glowing poker and tear it from the gaoler's hand. Again the brute skittered back, and this time Wulfgar turned back on the wall fully, running his legs right up it so that he had his feet planted firmly, one on either side of the remaining shackle.

"Knock all the walls down!" Morik cheered.

The gaoler turned and ran.

Another growl came from Wulfgar, and he pulled with all his strength, every muscle in his powerful body straining. This anchor was more secure than the last, the stone wall more solid about it, but so great was Wulfgar's pull that a link in the heavy chain began to separate.

"Pull on!" Morik cried.

Wulfgar did, and he was sailing out from the wall, spinning into a back somersault. He tumbled down, unhurt, but then it hit him, a wave of anguish more powerful than any torture the sadistic gaoler might bring. In his mind he was no longer in the dungeon of Luskan but back in the Abyss, and though no shackles now held him he knew there could be no escape, no victory over his too-powerful captors. How many times had Errtu played this trick on him, making him think he was free only to snare him and drag him back to the stench and filth, only to beat him, then heal him, and beat him some more?