by Greg Curtis
It should have hurt. He knew that. But the pain was receding, as was everything else, and instead of crying out as the whip tore more strips off his back, he just hung in his chains and let it pass. He’d been doing that a lot of late.
His inquisitor didn’t seem to like it though. And whenever he started fading, he found new and ingenious ways to wake him up. Pulling his fingernails out with forceps had been the last such method, and he had to admit it had worked, for a time. So had the branding with the red hot poker before that, and he remembered crying out at the time. He had cried out too when they had used those burning brands on the soft parts of his feet. But the pain went away. It always did. No doubt he would have a new torture for him shortly.
And more salt water of course. It wasn’t just to hurt him that they threw buckets of brine over him after each session. It was because the salt slowed the demons of disease in their work. And they wanted him to live as long he could. Because they wanted him to suffer as much as he could.
Still, after however many days or weeks he’d spent in this foul place though, he knew it would hurt less than before. Every day was the same. The pain a little less than the day before, the reaper a little nearer.
He hadn’t been so meek at the start. Then he’d been angry. Laughing at his tormentor, screaming with rage as he was beaten and whipped again and again. It was an outrage. It was a crime. And it would not go unpunished. He had threatened Y’aris’ grey cloaked inquisitors with everything from the loss of their jobs to imprisonment and beheading. It hadn’t helped. He had laughed at them, his rage and anger somehow letting him ignore the pain. That hadn’t helped either. They just continued their work, obeying their orders, their masked faces revealing nothing.
Then after a few days maybe, he’d switched to pleading, telling them again and again that he knew nothing, figuring that he needed to do something to stop the pain. And by then it was continuous. His back was on fire, his front too. He bled from every part of his body. He stank too. They had whipped all of him and the wounds had festered. But it hadn’t helped, and he had soon turned back to the rage.
Since then his moods had wavered. Between anger and fear. Between threatening and begging. And sometimes mocking. But he told them nothing and never did the beatings stop. It was as if it was some sort of game for them. Beat him and beat him and beat him until he said something, reacted in some way, and then when he’d recovered sufficiently start again.
In his darker moments he wondered if they even cared what he said. Often they didn’t even bother asking him questions any more. And when they did they didn’t seem to care about the answers. Maybe they already knew the truth. Maybe they always had. Maybe this was all merely some sick game.
“Where are the supply lines? Where are your soldiers, human?” The inquisitor almost sneered as he added the last, but that was nothing new to Iros. Nor was the fact that he had no particular intention of answering him. For two reasons.
The first was that he actually had no idea, so couldn’t tell the inquisitor anything. He didn’t have any soldiers. All the beatings and burnings, the flaying alive, couldn’t change that simple fact. And the second was that after so long being whipped and beaten and tortured, he simply didn’t care any more. He had finally reached that place where things were starting to seem almost pleasant again.
The touch of the whip no longer stung as it once had. The inquisitor’s words were becoming less harsh and somehow more musical once again. And even the chill of the wind whistling through the rocks wasn’t bothering him any longer. Instead he was listening to the strange music that seemed to float in the gentle breeze, seeing coloured lights as the fairies danced all around, just out of reach, and generally thinking foolish thoughts, daydreams.
A part of him knew that that was probably a bad sign. That the pain and the blood loss were seriously damaging him. That the demons of fever and corruption attacking his flesh, had started winning some sort of victory, but as he hung in his chains he didn’t really care any longer. It would have been better though if he couldn’t have smelled the odour of blood and piss, and unwashed bodies. For some reason that still bothered him.
He could live with the smell of mould on the stone walls. It no longer troubled him when the water from the trees above this primitive mountain of stones that had become a prison ran down the walls. In fact when it reached him as he lay on the cold stones, he drank it. The cries of the other prisoners as they suffered as he did, no longer disturbed him. But the smell of his own blood and piss still lingered in his senses.
“Filthy utra!” The inquisitor let his whip sing once more as he unleashed his anger on his flesh, and while he flinched a little under its bite, Iros didn’t completely know why. It was as though his body was reacting, but his soul had moved somewhere beyond. After so many days and nights, he welcomed that. He welcomed the darkness beyond it. And soon he knew, there would be only darkness. Soft, comforting, welcoming darkness.
So as the whip bit and tore at him, ripping off ever more strips of his flesh, and the inquisitor kept up his endless barrage of questions and insults, Iros laughed at him, amused by his inability to hurt him any longer. He called him names. All while he waited calmly for the darkness to come.
Soon even his flesh stopped flinching.
Chapter Twenty Six.
Whitefern.
Commander Tyrus stared at the city before him, wondering briefly how the elves could have imagined they could have defended the city. And why they hadn’t at least tried. They might have failed, but to just abandon their people? That was unconscionable. He didn’t understand that. But then he didn’t understand much of the war.
Elves were supposed to be decent people. Civilised and with a deep love of family and law. But these last few months they had proven themselves anything but decent. Anything but civilised or law abiding. And as for a love of family, there were no soldiers even guarding the city. How little love did they have for their own flesh and blood that they would leave them defenceless? They hadn’t even tried evacuating them.
Still it had made for an easy campaign so far. A hundred dragoons, ten thousand cavalry split into two arms, had set about clearing the southern lands, riding east and west through them, sweeping the smaller enemy forces aside. Once the main strike force had been destroyed, it seemed that what remained had been mostly small armies of maybe a thousand or two black clad elves, and they had been no match for five thousand heavily armed cavalry charging them. But they had fought to the end, even when the battle was clearly lost. They had never surrendered.
There was no reason in that. But maybe it was for the best. After seeing what they had done to the southern lands, the endless burnt out towns and villages, the blackened lands and the bodies, so many bodies, so many women and children, no one had been in the mood to take prisoners. So every small army they had come across, had been slaughtered to a man.
Then, while the smaller forces had cleaned out the southern lands, he had led their main force straight into the heart of Elaris. And it had been a surprisingly easy march so far. A dozen towns had fallen to his forces, each in under a day. But it wasn’t simply because his forces were overwhelming. The towns were undefended. In each and every one they’d encountered, the only resistance was from the city guards. A few hundred armed men and women at most. Some attacked, some surrendered, some fled, but in all cases they fell almost instantly.
After that it was a simple routine. One they knew almost by heart. Accept the surrender. Disarm anyone still carrying so much as a knife. Send them packing. Burn the town to the ground. And move on. It was far too easy. And all the time he’d kept asking himself one obvious question, where was the army?
In all their battles, if they could even be called that, they hadn’t faced a single soldier. Not a man dressed in pitch covered chain. They had to be out there somewhere. He knew that. No military leader could be so stupid as to send his entire army away to fight leaving his towns completely undefended. That was idiocy.
And yet it seemed that that was exactly what the elves had done.
He knew that as he stared at Whitefern just across the other side of the glade. It was here that he’d thought they would face the first real resistance. It was here that he’d imagined they’d face the black chain wearing soldiers. But no.
What he could see, all he could see defending the city, were maybe fifteen hundred men at arms, none of them soldiers. City guards in their grey, civilians with longbows and not a shred of armour, even women and children, all hiding behind hastily erected barricades that wouldn’t survive the first onslaught. Hay bales and wagons, they wouldn’t stop the opening salvo of cannon fire.
It made no sense. This was a city of sixty thousand. Surely it couldn’t have been simply abandoned. Left for them to take and do with as they wanted. No one could do that. No ruler could simply abandon his people like that. Especially not when the city stood squarely between them and Leafshade itself.
Or could it be an ambush? Could the elven army be even now sneaking up behind them? Or could they be lying in wait somewhere ahead? The scouts said no. They’d been circling the city for a full day, waiting for them to form up. More were watching their backs, making certain. And none had reported any enemy movement. Not a sign of it.
Standing there, staring in confusion at the unready defenders and knowing that this could only be a massacre, Tyrus came to a decision. Silene would punish him harshly for harming innocents. King Herrick would be scathing if he failed to follow the codes of war. And one of the most important of them was to allow for an enemy to surrender.
“Bring me my horse and a flag of white.” He didn’t look around to see who jumped to obey him. He didn’t need to. And within a minute a soldier had brought him his mare and a flag just as ordered. They couldn’t even bring him breakfast that quickly.
“Altos, -” He turned to his second, “- You know the plan. If they attack under the flag of truce, destroy them.”
Then, without another word being said, he mounted up and had his horse make the half league journey to the enemy forces at a gentle trot.
He was nervous as he rode across the battlefield. He told himself that it was only natural. The elves had broken nearly every other code during their war. What was one more? But still he had one hundred and fifty dragoons behind him, forty thousand men at arms, eight hundred cannon and even a warspell. To attack him would be suicide. It would be madness such as even the moon maiden couldn’t cause.
Still as the distance closed between him and them, his mouth was unusually dry, his hands sweaty, and he could feel his heart beating away far too quickly in his chest.
It beat a little more easily a few moments later when he saw a figure in white step out from behind a wagon, and walk towards him as he approached. Not a soldier, but still he hoped, someone who could speak for the city. Maybe even someone of importance. Someone related to their precious High Lord. When the man had blue hair and ears that poked out flat to the ground, he knew that had to signify some sort of kinship. And his robes, white with expensive looking trim, they surely spoke of a high place in the city.
Soon he was sitting there in his saddle, not ten paces from the middle aged elf, and wondering if he could really be about to do what he was. If the elves would actually agree to it. Still it didn’t matter. The codes were specific, and he had things to say.
“I am Tyrus Alden Foria the Fourth, Commander of King Herrick’s army that you see behind me, and I am here to negotiate your surrender. Who are you and who do you speak for?” Despite his worries, his voice was somehow strong and clear, just as it should be, and he was sure that many of those in the front lines heard him just as clearly as the man facing him.
“I am Chria of House Vora, Protector of Whitefern, and I speak for the city.” House Vora! Tyrus’ heart jumped a little at the name. He was kin to the high lord. That had to be a good thing. And his title, protector, from what little Tyrus knew of such things, that made him a civilian and head of the council that ruled the city. He, surely more than anyone else, had the authority to speak for Whitefern.
“Then Chria of House Vora, I will grant you this. Until the sun shines directly overhead, any and all of your people who choose to, may throw down their weapons and leave the city freely. They will not be harmed. On this in accord with the codes, you have my word. Once the sun has passed its highest point however, this truce will expire, and my army will attack. Any still in Whitefern at that time will be regarded as enemy soldiers, and will be captured or killed. The city will be destroyed.”
It was that last that seemed to affect the protector. Until then he had been white faced with fear, but determined to show nothing. But when he mentioned destroying the city, the man’s face fell. Almost as if he was speaking of killing his family. Quickly though, he gathered himself together.
“I thank you for your offer Commander, and for your respect for the codes. And I say to my friends that they should consider your offer carefully.” He raised his voice a little as he said the last, letting his words be heard by all.
“We cannot stand against your army. To stay would be to die. And so I say to all of my friends that if they cannot fight, they should leave and take their families with them. It is the Mother’s will always to spare her children.” But he did not look happy as he said it, and Tyrus suspected that even if everyone else fled he would stay.
One of the men behind the make shift barricades was the first to move, standing up, throwing down his longbow on to the grass, and walking away, back into the heart of the city. It was a wise move. He wasn’t a guard, just a frightened citizen, and he didn’t want to die.
After him, many others started doing the same. Tossing away their weapons and walking back into the city, hopefully to gather up their families and leave.
Quickly the trickle became a flood as little by little the city was emptied out. Even from where he was sitting Tyrus could see the street filling with people fleeing their barricaded homes. Horses were saddled, wagons loaded up, and people started gathering together their possessions and leaving the city.
Tyrus watched the exodus in silence. He didn’t know what to say, or if there was even anything to say. Chria of House Vora was silent as well, and as the sun rose higher in the sky the silence stretched.
An hour passed like that, and then most of a second as the sun kept climbing, and nothing was said. But little by little the city was being emptied out in front of him. Wagons that had been loaded, with families and possessions were creaking their slow journey away from them. Horses were being ridden out of the city. And many more who were without either were choosing to simply grab what they had, tie it up into bundles, and carry it out on their backs as they began their long march south.
Closer to him the guards were also vanishing. One by one they were throwing their longbows aside and walking away from the battle. Fifteen hundred had become less than five hundred in only a couple of hours, and those that remained were looking around nervously at their dwindling comrades in arms, feeling vulnerable. They would not stay for much longer.
“Where is your army?” By the time the second hour had passed, and his rider had just left him to advise Altos that the flag of truce was still holding, Tyrus had had enough of the silence, and the question just slipped out.
“You killed them.” The elf stared at him as though he’d asked something particularly foolish. And he knew even then that he was probably going to ask something even more stupid in a heartbeat. But still he had to.
“When? Twenty thousand or more fell as they marched on West Hold. But that was weeks ago. Maybe twenty thousand more have been killed in the attacks on our other southern lands. But that can’t be your entire army.” Could it? Could their leader really have been that incompetent? To commit every soldier he had to a war in a foreign land and leave no one to protect their homes?
“Our watchmen have not crossed the border. They have only defended us as your army invaded Elaris.” Tyrus stared at the elf, wond
ering if he could actually be serious. Or if he could actually somehow expect him to believe him. But the man looked resolute in his impossible story. Actually he looked angry. As if his words were true and Tyrus was the one in the wrong.
“That’s not so.”
“That is so. I have received pigeons every day from Leafshade advising of the war, and of your army’s blood soaked march as you’ve slaughtered our watchmen. I am sorrowed that my kinsman imprisoned your envoy and burnt the mission. He is young and grieving, though it is no true excuse. But your response in invading Elaris has been far too terrible.”
“Our response to …?” Tyrus didn’t quite know what to say for a moment. “Dozens of our border towns have been destroyed, the people brutally murdered. Men, women and even children. All five of our southern lands have been attacked, and the dead number in the tens of thousands maybe the hundreds of thousands. And you truly imagine that our king would send us into your realm because of an envoy?”
“Besides, since we have crossed into Elaris, we have not seen a single watchman. Not a one. The towns have fallen before us almost without battle as you do. So I ask you again elf, where is your army?”
