Shatterwing: Dragon Wine 1

by Donna Maree Hanson

  The Inspector undid his shirt and, removing it, folded it over the back of a chair. Bare-chested, he watched Brill with an emotionless gaze. Then he walked to a small table shrouded in shadows. When he returned, he held a whip with sharp bits of glass sewn into its seven tails. Immediately, Brill could picture how it would flay his skin. Sweat itched along his spine.

  Taking his time, the Inspector walked out of Brill’s line of vision, stepping so quietly that Brill had no way of anticipating the strike he was sure would come. When it did, it took him by surprise. He bit his tongue and tasted blood as the pain reverberated down to his fingers and toes in waves. Another strike and Brill pissed himself as the lash cut his flesh. Yet the Inspector had asked him nothing. One more stroke fell and Brill fainted.

  The next thing he knew the Inspector had him by the hair and he was blinking away a fresh splashing of water. “I want you awake for the cleansing of your wounds.” He nodded to his guard. “Pour on the wine.”

  The sting and rush as Ange poured dragon wine over Brill’s back paralyzed him, froze his lungs. His eyes stared straight ahead until his body convulsed with rigid spasms. The pain pushed him out of his mind into something almost akin to euphoria. The Inspector still held him by the hair and studied his face. “Yes, pure dragon wine’s potency will aid me. As well as cleaning the wounds, a portion is taken up by the blood. It has an interesting effect.”

  The wine etched a fiery path into Brill’s brain. Then, in the aftermath, a voice called to him, a voice from the past. Brill followed the memory, threw himself after it to escape from the present.

  “Father?”

  An old familiar face smiled at him, concern creasing the corners of his blue eyes as he ran his fingers through his graying beard. “Brilliant?” His father reached to clasp his hand as a much younger Brill lay in his bed.

  “Father?” Brill opened his eyes. He hurt everywhere. He had fallen from the great tree the day before. His father smiled at him, relief as well as tears in his eyes.

  “I am so happy to hear you speak, son. I thought you were taken from me. And now to see you awake gives me hope.”

  “Hope?”

  “Yes—a man needs hope. Hope that there is a harvest, hope that the sun will rise tomorrow, hope that his children will live on after him. I have only one son.” His father reached out again and ruffled Brill’s hair.

  Brill’s body shuddered as pain racked his body. He clung to his father’s hand.

  “Don’t leave me, Father. It hurts.”

  The memory shredded, bits tearing away as the Inspector’s voice penetrated, not allowing Brill to hide any longer. As if from a distance, he heard himself answering. Again and again answers emerged from his unwilling lips.

  Agony. There was so much pain and the Inspector wanted to know everything, from details about the current government in Sartell, to the whereabouts of every rebel group in this part of the Stoli continent. He wanted to know what the condition of Sartell was after the meteor had hit the docklands two months before, and whether anyone in the government besides the Port Sergeant had died. He wanted to know if there had been any collateral damage or rumors of other government installations being hit. As Brill had spent very little time in Sartell himself, he could only relay what he had heard. Duvall was a rural zone quite some distance south of the capital, and not much news filtered through there. Even though it was technically a breakaway principality, Duvall was left alone these days. There wasn’t much there anymore since government troops had eliminated his father’s Highland Confederacy, killing or capturing its adherents. All that was left was the old homestead and the family retainers.

  Brill didn’t understand what any of that had to do with his own rebel band or how he and his friends had been betrayed. He had to relive the loss of Henley, his closest comrade, taken at the same time as he had been. The questions wore on and on. Slivers of pain etched into his brain and expanded, building in intensity until he could think no more.

  Later, when awareness returned, the Inspector was standing over him. “Come, boy, you know where the Infra-pact has its headquarters.”

  The pain had possession of him. “I … never … any of them …” Brill could hardly recognize his own voice. The Infra-pact were a nasty bunch of rebels who didn’t work well with others. He’d stayed clear of them as best he could, and had always been relieved when he arrived somewhere to find they had cleared out a few days before.

  “But you did … The interrogator’s notes say you confessed that you encountered them. Surely you know where they are situated.”

  “Give ’im to me. I’ll make ’im tell ya,” Ange grunted from behind him.

  Though Brill’s vision was hazy, he could see the Inspector theatrically considering Ange’s suggestion, with his head cocked at an angle and a finger supporting his cheek. Brill wondered what more they could do to him. “Please, Inspector,” Ange begged. “I’ll work ’im ’ard.”

  “Yes, very well. But do not be gentle. I want him to scream the location out. He is young and doesn’t understand that the weak are prey, and those who defend prey are even weaker for they seek to destroy the natural order.” He yawned loudly, stretching his arms over his head. “I’m tired of this, for today at least.”

  *

  Brill did scream the location out, over and over again. Ange laughed while he raped and brutalized him. The Inspector looked on and cleaned his nails. Shame coursed through Brill, leaving him feeling so hollow he thought he would die of it. He had told the Inspector everything he knew, even facts he hadn’t known he knew.

  When Brill, the last of his strength gone, hung flaccid, suspended in the ropes, the Inspector stood up and brushed off his pants. “Thank you, young Brill. Your information is most useful to me. We are so cut off here. I’ll let you know if I need more.” He approached Brill with a small cup. “Here, drink this. It’s a special fortified brew made from dragon wine and will help with your healing. Can’t have you slacking off in the vineyard or the guards will have to discipline you. We’re in for a big harvest this year.” His smile was thin-lipped as he held the cup under Brill’s nose. The scent of it made Brill’s head feel light. Anything was a welcome respite from the ache in his body and the humiliation in his mind. He drank down the liquor and the room around him blurred.

  *

  Sweat glistened on Brill’s naked chest as he lay in the dirt in Salinda’s rude camp. His clothes were in a pile beside him but he was too injured to dress himself. The liquor had numbed his pain, enough for him to crawl to Salinda’s water urn and wash the blood and grime from his body. The sun’s rays felt soothing on the welts on his back until the sweat dripped into them; then he was seized by agony. Each breath scoured his dry throat, still raw from screaming. Pain snaked down his spine and across his abdomen. He drank deeply and sank to his knees. Raw emotion seethed within. He had been so easily humiliated and dehumanized … so easily conquered.

  A sob rose up. He tried to stop it, but the memories came with it and assaulted him anew. The pain re-lived was nothing to the memory of the abandoned way he had told the Inspector everything he knew. Huddling in the shadow of Salinda’s hut, he cried until sleep and tears merged.

  The sun had set by the time Salinda returned. Brill dared not move a muscle because during sleep his battered body had stiffened. His gaze tracked her as she trod warily into camp. She frowned as she neared, then when she realized it was him her eyes widened and her cry of alarm startled him.

  “Brill?” she breathed next to his ear. Her gaze raked over his body and then she moved to the hut to rummage among her pots and jars. He could see she trembled. Did she fear for him? Did she care what happened to him?

  “Let me put this on your injuries. Some of the worst ones have healed over, yet I don’t understand how. You’ve been gone only a day.”

  Brill could barely speak. He whimpered, though, when she spread her unguents on his wounds. Not because they hurt, but because her tenderness moved him. Here was a w
oman who had suffered once, perhaps as he had, yet she had the kindness to care for him when she barely knew him.

  Salinda spoke to him gently, quizzing him about what had happened. Brill focused on the questions he’d been asked, not on what had been done to him. She nursed him through the night, plying him with her ration of watered-down dragon wine and ground vine leaves. After assessing his injuries further, she made up an ointment. Some she spread on the damaged skin on his limbs, the rest she placed where Ange had violated him, much to his embarrassment. At first it stung, and then the mixture produced a soothing sensation, allowing him to close his eyes and drift off to sleep. Images of torture filled his mind until he replaced them with pleasant memories from the past. Of a time when joy as well as hope filled his heart. Before they had come and taken it all away.

  When he awoke at mid-morning the following day, Salinda had already departed for the vines. The humidity made sweat bead on his skin and the air felt too thick to breathe. He crawled on all fours to relieve himself in Salinda’s carefully placed privy. His inner pain nearly overwhelmed him, and fear stalked him. Every rustle of vine leaf, every chink of chain and every distant cry of a dragon hatchling made him flinch. He knew he had to fight this or he would die here, forgotten and useless.

  Dozing again in the afternoon heat, Brill woke to a thick-coated tongue and a powerful thirst. Insects hovered, but didn’t bite, probably repelled by something Salinda had included in her concoctions. Part of him wanted to die, let his life end, but another part of him seethed with anger at what had been done to him. He felt the urge to fight for himself, to win back his self-respect and to continue his efforts to bring his father’s vision to people everywhere.

  From the earliest age he had wanted to rid the world of tyranny, and considered it lucky that he had been born into a position of power so that he could succor those in need, build a better Margra. Yet that dream was now as broken as Ruel moon. But not forgotten.

  When he woke again Belle moon was rising, dimming the light of Shatterwing, and the sound of splashing water roused him. Salinda was preparing food quietly under a magnificent sky. Why hadn’t he noticed the heavens before? Did he see its beauty now because he had thought he’d never live to see it again? He sat up, suppressing a groan, and found to his surprise that he felt much better. He reached for his breaches and pulled them on.

  “You seem quite healed,” Salinda commented as she handed him some thin, green broth. The tell-tale leaves swished darkly within the bowl. Salinda urged him closer to the firelight, where she inspected his back and arms. “These large gashes have faded already. You will not bear scars. He must have put pure dragon wine on your wounds.”

  “He did,” Brill croaked, before swallowing a mouthful of broth. “Hurt like a funeral pyre.”

  “Surely it did. But how did he know to use it? Was it accidental, intended to inflict pain, or does he understand the true nature of dragon wine?”

  “True nature? What?”

  Salida’s eyes widened. “I can explain—”

  “—Don’t care. I don’t want to hear it,” Brill said, and drank off the last of the broth. He’d had enough of her quaint ravings, enough about burying people in the ground and her blasphemy about Magol. “I’m hungry. Is there food?”

  Salinda shook her head in puzzlement. “Yes. Are you sure you can eat?”

  “I’ll not let it defeat me. I’ll eat. We must be up early and working before sunrise. I don’t want them to come back and catch me by surprise.”

  Salinda looked ready to argue, her eyes glittering and her hands clenched. Instead, she sighed loudly and said, “I’ll be glad of the help. Tomorrow is the last chance I have to go to the cistern. It would be difficult alone. The disease in the vines has spread far more than I would have liked. If I don’t treat it tomorrow I will lose about half of my share of the harvest.”

  Handing him some more stuffed vine leaves and a heel of stale bread, she watched him carefully as he began to eat. He fought the nausea that threatened to destroy his appetite. It was necessary to eat, to heal. After the last bite, he lay on his less injured side and stared at Shatterwing. Belle moon had dropped behind the Fire Ranges, allowing the fragments of the broken moon to glitter like amethysts once again. Overcome with fatigue, Brill barely remembered covering himself with a blanket or falling asleep.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Nils of Barr

  Deep within Margra, in the subterranean city of Barrahiem, awareness came slowly to Nils of Barr. After countless years, the mechanism had freed him from his prison of sleep. He breathed slowly and shallowly at first and, when his breaths deepened, his warm skin reacted to the cool air. Rapid thoughts seared across his mind and then came the memories—imprisonment, sleep and now freedom. Cautiously, he opened his eyes and saw the glowing lid of the sarcophagus ajar above him. How strange to know he had been asleep for one hundred years and yet felt as if he had only said goodbye to his kin yesterday. Was this part of the punishment? The bittersweet knowledge that he would never see them again, and the torture of knowing the memories will remain fresh?

  Nils listened for those everyday sounds of the world around him and heard nothing. His heart beat a loud thump-thump in his chest and he strained harder to hear—something—anything. After a moment of disorientation and blurry vision, he lifted his right hand to the side of the sarcophagus, shoving the lid up with his left, and struggled free of it.

  The light in the sarcophagus faded. It took a while for his eyes to adjust to the dimness of the chamber beyond. As the angles sharpened, he saw that the room was much the same as it had been when he had entered it, except for a subtle difference. He could not pinpoint what it was. Those who had accompanied him were absent. Of course, they would be—they were dead, joined once again with the source of all living things. How long had he slept? he wondered. Was it the full one hundred years? Surely, someone would remember him after such a short time and welcome him back to his kin.

  Leaning against the sarcophagus helped him gain strength. Once sufficiently steady, he took a few hesitant steps and then the room shifted around him as dizziness hit. Falling to his knees, weakness rolled over him in waves. Someone should have been here to assist him, to help with the transition from sleeping prisoner to welcomed kin. Why was it so quiet?

  Calling out served no purpose. His voice died as it left his throat. None of the other Hiem came to investigate. He supposed the room was too isolated for him to be audible to a casual passer-by. After all, criminals were meant to be out of sight and out of mind.

  Hobbling to the door of the small, dark room, he opened it and looked out into the corridor. He blinked a few times, unbelieving of what he saw. When he’d gone to sleep the floors and walls had gleamed. Now grime coated everything and the lights were dim. He tried to reconcile what he had seen yesterday—no, it was a hundred years ago—with what he was seeing now.

  As he entered the corridor, dust rolled along the skirting of the walls, bouncing faintly as his full-length tunic stirred the air. The scent of the place was strange—stale, musty, unused. A headache grew behind his brow as he strained to detect any trace of another of the Hiem. Barrahiem had few prisoners like him. The Hiem were few in number, and Nils could not imagine them allowing anyone to be abandoned and forgotten, no matter what their crime had been. More importantly, the Hiem were not breakers of rules or disregarders of duty, and it was the duty of his nearest kin to collect him.

  Fatigue weighed him down as he climbed the stairs. The light was coldly blue and faint, not the bright light he remembered. He paused, noticing that every second lamp was dead. Stooping to examine one of the broken ones he found that it had gone untended and was now a blackened orb. Straightening, he sucked in a breath. The sight of that neglect sent a sliver of fear down his spine, sent a thousand speculations running through his head. He continued along the corridor.

  Only at the Hall of Elders would he find answers. He quickened his pace. The stairway terminated in a wid
e landing. Out to the right, the corridor led to the balconies that spanned the city’s buildings in a wide arc. They overlooked the lesser city of N’Barek across the cavern and the deep underground lake. To the left, the corridor led to another set of stairs joining the main thoroughfare, which was the most direct route to the Hall of Elders. Looking down, he noted there were no signs of recent traffic in the layer of grime at his feet. The same dust lay everywhere, lifting up and rolling away when it was disturbed by his passage. Here and there coarse gray ash accumulated in piles.

  Shivering in spite of his resolve, he headed left and once again drew himself up the staircase. This one was dark; all the lamps were out. He turned to look behind him and thought he saw shadows move.

  Gaining the main thoroughfare with his heartbeat thudding in his ears, his mouth dropped open. There was no one there either. As he leaned against a marble pillar for support, he noted the dullness of the walls, the faint marring of the murals and the swirls carved into the cornices and ceilings. It was as if no one had lived here for an unspeakable age.

  His strength returned gradually and with each step he grew steadier, except that his heart would not relax its heavy beat and his breathing was harsh and ragged. Then he stood on the threshold of the Hall of Elders. A loud “No!” exploded from him before he could stop himself.

  The Hall of Elders was empty and the light even dimmer there than elsewhere. The phosphorescent growth, shuwai, which emitted a light of its own, hung in long tendrils and draped almost to the floor in the far corner. An unsightly mess, it was evidence of a neglect his people would never have tolerated. The sacred lamp stood tall in the center, but it was unlit. Nils shivered with trepidation. The sacred lamp always cast illumination over the hall and the tales portrayed in the murals. Always. He called again, shouted, yelled, and tried to ignore how his voice echoed repeatedly.

  Gripped by a nameless fear, he ran back down the main thoroughfare, a wide corridor that had once held twenty Hiem abreast, and charged down the stairs. He ran until he came to the central tier of the city’s wide balconies, where once his people had walked and talked to each other. Panting with fatigue and leg muscles twitching, he looked around him. His gaze flew to the roof of the cavern encapsulating the city and out across to the other side, to the empty balconies and walkways. The deep lake that separated Barrahiem from the lesser city of N’Barek was still and dark. There were no beacons on the lake and no signs of life from N’Barek. Seized now by panic, Nils ran along the balcony and up the street, going from house to house.