Robert Salvatore - The Spine of the World

Jharkheld motioned for the riders to hold steady, and he walked over to the man, a knife in one hand and a whip in the other. He showed the gleaming blade to the groaning Tee-a-nicknick, rolling it over and over before the man's eyes. "I can end the agony," the magistrate promised. "Confess your guilt, and I will kill you swiftly."

The tattooed half-qullan grunted and looked away. On Jharkheld's wave, the riders stepped their horses out a bit more.

The man's pelvis shattered, and how he howled at last! How the crowd yelled in appreciation as the skin started to rip!

"Confess!" Jharkheld yelled.

"I stick him!" Tee-a-nicknick cried. Before the crowd could even groan its disappointment Jharkheld yelled, "Too late!" and cracked his whip.

The horses jumped away, tearing Tee-a-nicknick's legs from his torso. Then the two horses bound to the man's wrists had him out straight, his face twisted in the horror of searing agony and impending death for just an instant before quartering that portion as well.

Some gasped, some vomited, and most cheered wildly.

*****

"Justice," Robillard said to the growling, disgusted Deudermont. "Such displays make murder an unpopular profession."

Deudermont snorted. "It merely feeds the basest of human emotions," he argued.

"I don't disagree," Robillard replied. "I don't make the laws, but unlike your barbarian friend, I abide by them. Are we any more sympathetic to pirates we catch out on the high seas?"

"We do as we must," Deudermont argued. "We do not torture them to sate our twisted hunger."

"But we take satisfaction in sinking them," Robillard countered. "We don't cry for their deaths, and often, when we are in pursuit of a companion privateer, we do not stop to pull them from the sharks. Even when we do take them as prisoners, we subsequently drop them at the nearest port, often Luskan, for justice such as this."

Deudermont had run out of arguments, so he just stared ahead. Still, to the civilized and cultured captain's thinking, this display in no way resembled justice.

*****

Jharkheld went back to work on Morik and Wulfgar before the many attendants had even cleared the blood and grime from the square in front of the platform.

"You see how long it took him to admit the truth?" the magistrate said to Morik. "Too late, and so he suffered to the end. Will you be as much a fool?"

Morik, whose limbs were beginning to pull past the breaking point, started to reply, started to confess, but Jharkheld put a finger over the man's lips. "Now is not the time," he explained.

Morik started to speak again, so Jharkheld had him tightly gagged, a dirty rag stuffed into his mouth, another tied about his head to secure it.

The magistrate moved around the back of the rack and produced a small wooden box, the rat box it was called. The crowd howled its pleasure. Recognizing the horrible instrument, Morik's eyes popped wide and he struggled futilely against the unyielding bonds. He hated rats, had been terrified of them all of his life.

His worst nightmare was coming true.

Jharkheld came to the front of the platform again and held the box high, turning it slowly so that the crowd could see its ingenious design. The front was a metal mesh cage, the other three walls and the ceiling solid wood. The bottom was wooden as well, but it had a sliding panel that left an exit hole. A rat would be pushed into the box, then the box would be put on Morik's bared belly and the bottom door removed. Then the box would be lit on fire.

The rat would escape through the only means possible-through Morik.

A gloved man came out holding the rat and quickly got the boxed creature in place atop Morik's bared belly. He didn't light it then, but rather, let the animal walk about, its feet tapping on flesh, every now and then nipping. Morik struggled futilely.

Jharkheld went to Wulfgar. Given the level of excitement and enjoyment running through the mob, the magistrate wondered how he would top it all, wondered what he might do to this stoic behemoth that would bring more spectacle than the previous two executions.

"Like what we're doing to your friend Morik?" the magistrate asked.

Wulfgar, who had seen the bowels of Errtu's domain, who had been chewed by creatures that would terrify an army of rats, did not reply.

*****

"They hold you in the highest regard," Robillard remarked to Deudermont. "Rarely has Luskan seen so extravagant a multiple execution."

The words echoed in Captain Deudermont's mind, particularly the first sentence. To think that his standing in Luskan had brought this about. No, it had provided sadistic Jharkheld with an excuse for such treatment of fellow human beings, even guilty ones. Deudermont remained unconvinced that either Wulfgar or Morik had been involved. The realization that this was all done in his honor disgusted Deudermont profoundly.

"Mister Micanty!" he ordered, quickly scribbling a note he handed to the man.

"No!" Robillard insisted, understanding what Deudermont had in mind and knowing how greatly such an action would cost Sea Sprite , both with the authorities and the mob. "He deserves death!"

"Who are you to judge?" Deudermont asked.

"Not I!" the wizard protested. "Them," he explained, sweeping his arm out to the crowd.

Deudermont scoffed at the absurd notion.

"Captain, we'll be forced to leave Luskan, and we'll not be welcomed back soon," Robillard pointed out.

"They will forget as soon as the next prisoners are paraded out for their enjoyment, likely on the morrow's dawn." He gave a wry, humorless smile. "Besides, you don't like Luskan anyway."

Robillard groaned, sighed, and threw up his hands in defeat as Deudermont, too civilized a man, gave the note to Micanty and bade him to rush it to the magistrate.

*****

"Light the box!" Jharkheld called from the stage after the guards had brought Wulfgar around so that the barbarian could witness Morik's horror.

Wulfgar could not distance himself from the sight of setting the rat cage on fire. The frightened creature scurried about, and then began to burrow.

The scene of such pain inflicted on a friend entered into Wulfgar's private domain, clawed through his wall of denial, even as the rat bit through Morik's skin. The barbarian loosed a growl so threatening, so preternaturally feral, that it turned the eyes of those near him from the spectacle of Morik's horror. Huge muscles bunched and flexed, and Wulfgar snapped his torso out to the side, launching the man holding him there away. The barbarian lashed out with one leg, swinging the iron ball and chain so that it wrapped the legs of the other man holding him. A sharp tug sent the guard to the ground.

Wulfgar pulled and pulled as others slammed against him, as clubs battered him, as Jharkheld, angered by the distraction, yelled for Morik's gag to be removed. Somehow, incredibly, powerful Wulfgar pulled his arms free and lurched for the rack.

Guard after guard slammed into him. He threw them aside as if they were children, but so many rushed the barbarian that he couldn't beat a path to Morik, who was screaming in agony now.

"Get it off me!" cried Morik.

Suddenly Wulfgar was facedown. Jharkheld got close enough to snap his whip across the man's back with a loud crack!

"Admit your guilt!" the frenzied magistrate demanded as he beat Wulfgar viciously.

Wulfgar growled and struggled. Another guard tumbled away, and another got his nose splattered all over his face by a heavy slug.

" Get it off me !" Morik cried again.

The crowd loved it. Jharkheld felt certain he'd reached a new level of showmanship.

"Stop!" came a cry from the audience that managed to penetrate the general howls and hoots. "Enough!"

The excitement died away fast as the crowd turned and recognized the speaker as Captain Deudermont of Sea Sprite . Deudermont looked haggard and leaned heavily on a cane.