Andrew Offutt - The Sign of the Moonbow

Too, in that grim sprawling chamber beneath the earth, there were moans.

Cormac looked about him, at the human alluvia thrown up by the changing tide of fortune that had swept Riora Feachtnachis from her throne.

Some of the sounds and misery emanated from within closed cells into whose darkness he could not see-though fleetingly he bethought him how better if Dithorba had transported them into one of them. Instead, they were in the wood-columned, stone-columned, sprawling main chamber of the dungeon. That barn-large chamber was peopled.

There stood a well-built man rising threescore years, with a dark spot just below his ribs that was either a burn or a bruise; a huge splotch of yellow and purple flowered ugly on his right upper arm, the mark of a violent blow of another day; from his nipple stood a sliver of wood blackened at the end by burning and atremble with his uneasy breathing; his so-pale beard was shortened and darkened on one side, singed; his arms were drawn back around a column and secured to the same chain of iron that ringed. his naked midsection and the column, which was a mortared pile of square-cut stones whose edges cut into the prisoner’s arms. A few feet to his right a young woman lay huddled-insofar as was possible for her, with her bare left leg lifted high and chained to a great nail standing darkly from a column to the ceiling; her weight was balanced on naked buttock, which was both befilthed and marked by a whip.

Elatha the Whip, Dithorba said , Cormac thought with his teeth pressed tight; the lord of this demesne of dim ugliness was sinisterly called “the Whip,” torturemaster. Closeby another woman, and her in her middle years, stood slumped against the stone wall against which she was held, partway erect, by chains fastened to large-headed iron pegs driven into the wall-or morelike thrust ere they had cooled into drilled holes, so that the pegs sealed themselves there; the tatters of clothing that hung on her made this prisoner a more piteous sight than had she been naked. To her had been done that which was unspeakable, and Cormac’s jaw quivered with the grinding of his teeth. Staring in helpless fascination upon the loathesome demonstrations of the work of Elatha the Whip Cormac turned…

Standing against another wall, shackled there so that she was agonizingly spreadeagled, stood a moaning maiden who was young and shapely; though she wore a sort of breechclout of filthy once-white, Cormac saw that it was neither tied nor bound by brooch but that wooden slivers pinned the mocking scrap of cloth to her hips; one lovely apple-firm breast was fire-blackened and a terrible bruise marked her swollen cheek. Near her a young man was chained, with slivers of wood thrusting from beneath his toenails and whip-stripes dark and ugly across his muscular stomach. But a few feet from them was a sort of machine, a device for constant torment. It was of simple construction, for nothing complicated was necessary to the creation of human misery.

Up into the bottom of a long table constructed of strips of wood had been driven scores of slim iron nails, so that a tiny portion of the tip-end of each protruded upward; on that toothily ugly table of torture lay a naked man, and him not young. Stiff and straight he was bound there, and he had been beaten severely across bare and flaccid buttocks. Beside that sombre table of anguish stood another Danan, and him unbound.

This was the largest man Cormac had seen among the Danans, powerfully built with muscle-knotted arms and legs and chest; even his height was a thumb’s length greater than that of most of these people of Danu. On one burly thigh a dagger was sheathed. At his left hip hung a short slim sword. He wore only a leathern covering for his loins; something like walrus hide it was, while great thick leather bracers encased each thick wrist. His ankles and feet were encased in buskins of leather that was dark with sweat and smoke-and bearing darker splotches that mac Art knew were from the flying spatters of the blood of others. Scarless and of a sternly hostile mien, this man held a whip longer than Cormac’s body.

The big man was staring at Cormac and Dithorba. “Elatha!” Dithorba said, in an emotional whispering burst.

Elatha the Whip but stared at the two who had appeared in his demesne within the rock of under-earth. His whip trailed from his hand like a menacing black serpent ready to leap with cold determination to bring pain and scars.

“Bastard,” Cormac snarled, “sired by a pusdemon and whelped of a fly-swarming sow!” And his sword came sliding up from its sheath.

Elatha said nothing. His lips twitched; perhaps that was a tiny passionless smile. His arm shifted; his long whip trembled along the stone floor behind it. He snapped it back then and, striding two paces forward as he brought it whistling forward, the torturemaster sent his leathern serpent of torment rushing at Cormac mac Art.

The Gael seemed only to twitch, fading rapidly aside while instinctively, jerking up his shield to save his face from an incredibly aimed lash. With a great drumming sound the whip struck his buckler, and its tip came snapping over to send a slash of fire into his forearm.

Pain was a shock; so too was realization of the Danan’s skill and the vicious deadliness of his whip. Blood dripped where its tip had bit, for that long whip ended in a knot about a V-shaped plug of iron.

“Get ye back, Dithorba! He’ll slash out your eyes! “

Dithorba back-paced; Elatha the Whip said nothing but only smiled. A seemingly gentle twitch of his wrist sent his whip scurrying snakelike across the floor to him. Cormac started forward. The whip snapped back, again came racing forward. With the same leftward sidestep and the same swift jerking up of his buckler Cormac again saved his face-and again his forearm was opened to let his blood fall to increase the number of dark spots that covered the floor of the hell-chamber. He bit his lip against groaning out his pain.

Blood of the gods! He durst not rush this demon of a whipmaster; the devil had absolute control over his serpentine weapon and knew precisely how to protect himself against sword-charge by the taller man; either Cormac remained at bay or charged into maiming lashes, or backed-to be followed and cut open-or used brain as he seldom had to in what he saw as simple one-to-one encounters.

Already Elatha’s lash was snaking back to him in response to a flick of his thick wrist. Cormac pondered, poised and trembling like a hound with the nervousness of the hunt on him. From their slitted sockets his sword-grey eyes glittered as he stared at the Danan whipmaster.

The two were some ten feet apart. Cormac knew he dared make no rushing Wulfhereish charge, despite his inclination to do; he’d be cut open or worse ere he reached Elatha. The torturer would but have to retreat a bit then, to place the same distance between them… having gained greater advantage by the infliction of a wound. Silently he stood, daring, mocking; come to me , his grim little smile taunted, try it!

Cormac held his ground, his eyes flicking this way and that. His brain pondered, worked, propounded ridiculous hopes and suggestions. He was helpless to attack; he must hold on the defensive, though he was hardly accustomed to it.

Again Elatha attacked. Swiftly he backed a pace, again strode lunging forward with his sweeping lash, so that the force and strength of his wrestler’s body backed and drove the long whip.

Twice had Cormac dodged leftward; to the right he moved this time, and in a cat-like pounce. The jingle of mail was followed by the great loud cracking sound of a whip’s snapping empty air. Elatha’s eyes had swerved to follow the Gael with his pale glance, but he’d been unable to change the direction of his powerful whip-stroke.