by Duncan Lay
“Go and rut yourself,” Kemal told him furiously.
Fallon hefted the hammer and swung it down, crushing Kemal’s two smallest toes.
The Prince screamed and writhed on the chair, his eyes bulging and the tendons on his neck and arms standing out. A thin line of bloody spittle dribbled from his lips, landing in his lap. His chest heaved as if he had run for miles and it looked like he had bitten into his already cut lip.
“Are you ready to talk now?” Fallon asked him.
He locked eyes with Kemal and was astonished to see no give there. The Prince’s eyes were full of pain but all that was behind there was anger.
“I will give you nothing!” he spat.
Fallon swung the hammer up and crushed the other three toes.
Kemal shrieked with pain, eyes screwed shut, breathing in short, hard gasps. Fallon glanced down to see the ruin of the man’s toes. They were a mixture of blood and flesh, the skin torn away and pieces of bone poking through.
“Ready to talk now?” Fallon repeated.
Kemal’s eyes snapped open and Fallon saw the fury and the agony in there.
“I will never talk to you, bastard! Nothing will stop me peeling the skin from your body. The rest of you, I shall let you live if you deliver both Fallon and me to my ship right now!”
Fallon tapped Brendan on the shoulder. “Get his other boot off,” he said.
Kemal tried to fight but, tied to his chair and in the face of Brendan’s huge strength, he stood no chance. “Do what you want to me. I will give you nothing!” he raged.
“Let’s see if you still talk like that when we break every finger you have and cut off your prick one inch at a time,” Fallon said coldly.
“My answer will still be the same.” Kemal spat a mixture of blood onto Fallon’s boots.
“And I will keep hurting you until it changes!” Fallon swung the hammer up again. Kemal glared at him, nothing but anger and hatred in his gaze. Not even a scrap of fear.
Fallon let the hammer drop and stepped away.
“Maybe we can use Sister Rosaleen, the way she got into the mind of Swane’s servant that time?” Gallagher suggested.
Fallon shook his head. “That’s only half the battle. We don’t just need what’s in his head. We have to break him, so he does whatever we want and gives our families back.” Besides, he added silently, I want the pleasure of making him pay for what he did to us. “We will need Rosaleen to prove he is telling the truth later, but we need something else first. Get Padraig.”
They waited while the old wizard was fetched from below, watching the Prince battle the agony of his crushed toes. Fallon felt nothing.
“Aroaril, what are you doing?” Padraig gasped. “Have you gone mad?”
“I am mad,” Fallon agreed. “And sick to death of every bastard tricking me and using me.”
“What do you want? I will not use magic to hurt this man,” Padraig warned.
“Even though he took Bridgit? Even though he threatened to make her screams last an eternity?”
“Even so.” Padraig drew himself up. “I will not sink to that.”
Fallon grabbed his shoulder. “Well, I will. But luckily we need you to do something different,” he said. “He wants to use our families against us. Well, let us use his family against him. Let’s see if he is so brave if his wife and children are here, hot irons close to their eyes.”
Kemal’s head snapped up and his voice took on a ragged edge. “I invite you to try,” he said. “You will never get close to them. They will kill you.”
“Fallon, we are going to steal his wife and children?” Padraig asked in horror.
“This is the only way!” Fallon told them. “We won’t hurt them unless he makes us. It is all down to him.” Yet even as he said that, he knew it was a lie. He would break this man and nothing was going to stop him. “I know what to do. They will be watching the land. We shall come from the sea. And this is how we shall do it—”
“Taking women and children from their beds? Fallon, are you truly sure of this?” Gallagher asked.
Fallon looked around at his friends. “They took our families that way. And with his wife and any children in our hands, he will do what we say.” He glared around at them and, one by one, they all nodded.
“Let’s do this,” Devlin said.
“Aye. I am in,” Brendan agreed.
They looked back at Kemal, who sneered at them. “You will be begging for mercy soon enough. Mercy that will not come if you go near my ships!” he cried.
“Let’s do it,” Gallagher said.
CHAPTER 19
Feray looked out over the darkened bay and shivered. It was not a cold night but there was a definite chill in the air, a reminder that this was not home. The window for sailing was closing. Soon the winter storms would begin and trap them there.
There had been no message from either the Gaelish nor Abbas’s agents during that long day. The worried spymaster had his men scouring the city, but there was no word and no clue what had happened to her husband.
“Perhaps we should ask King Aidan for help, highness,” he had suggested. “I have thrown a golden net over the city. Most of these Gaelish would sell their own mothers for a silver piece and I have offered them gold. If they cannot find him for us, then we need to search elsewhere.”
Feray had held on to her temper only with the greatest of difficulty. The thought of asking the Gaelish for help made her skin crawl. The only compensation was the thought that whatever price they wanted for Kemal’s return, he would avenge.
“We have to give it until noon tomorrow,” she said finally. “If you have been unable to find him by then, I shall see King Aidan personally. I want you there to write down exactly the price they demand for his return, so we know what to punish them with in the spring.”
She let the frightened Abbas go and keep his agents searching through the night while she walked around the deck. Their sons were asleep in the cabin and she would have to join them soon, even though she knew she could not relax, not with Kemal lost somewhere in the city.
It was strange, she had never thought she could feel so much for her husband of a political marriage. Her family had once ruled a huge land to the south of Kotterman. Hundreds of summers ago they had their own empire but then had come the Kotterman army and they had been swallowed up into the greater empire. But her people still respected her family and the Kottermanis were shrewd enough to allow them to always be visible in the ruling of their old lands, even if they lacked true power. Her marriage to the Crown Prince had been both to cement the ties and stamp out the first flickering of a rebellion among her people.
She had expected to be a political pawn only but soon found that Kemal was not like that. Two of his brothers would have been but he was different. First she liked him, then she loved him and now she could not imagine life without him.
“Where are you, my love?” she asked aloud.
She glanced over to the docks, where companies of angry men stood, swords drawn and arrows in hand. Anyone who tried to come near the ships was going to get a very unfriendly greeting. The guards were in an ugly mood, after more than a score had been killed and another dozen terribly wounded. The two doctors they had brought with them had been working all day to try and save at least some of them.
Satisfied that nothing needed her attention, she stepped down into the ship and their quiet cabin, which took up the whole stern of the ship. The boys would be asleep but she had to see them, kiss their brows and gather some strength from them. Perhaps a cup of herbal tisane might allow her to close her eyes for a turn or two of the hourglass.
Wearily she pushed open the cabin door – and then her eyes snapped fully open as she realized there were two men standing there. One of them the traitor Fallon, who had lured her husband into a trap!
She opened her mouth to shout for the guards but he held his finger to his lips and pointed to where the other man stood, a vicious-looking knife held above her sleeping sons.
“What do you want?” she asked, her voice a croak.
*
Fallon smiled wolfishly as he saw Kemal’s wife shut the door behind her and sag back against it, her eyes betraying her terror for her children.
So far it had been easy enough. Thanks to Gallagher, they had stolen a small boat and paddled carefully across the water from the docks to where the Kottermani ships were moored. Approaching from the darkness, the guards on the docks had not been able to see them, for their eyes were dazzled by the light of dozens of torches and lanterns. Gallagher brought them in under the stern of Kemal’s ship and held them there while Padraig went to work. Thanks to him, they were able to throw a rope upwards that fastened itself to the window and, again thanks to him, Fallon and Gallagher had climbed up it with little more difficulty than going up a set of stairs. Without the magic, it would have been too difficult to even dream of attempting.
Once inside, it was just a case of waiting for the Prince’s wife to come back in. Finding the two sleeping children there had been a bonus.
“Your husband sends his greetings. He has sent us to get you,” Fallon said gently. “We were betrayed and attacked this morning but your husband and I escaped. He is in hiding.” He had no idea if she would believe these lies but it was worth a try. If she thought they were being taken for torture, she might just shout for help and take her chances.
“Then why the knife near my children? Why threaten them?” she demanded, her voice low.
“We cannot risk being heard. Come with us and all will become clear,” he said.
“Why did you not bring my husband with you instead?” she challenged.
Fallon did not like the way her voice was getting louder. They needed to be away from here unseen.
“He is in the boat below. Come and see,” he said, stepping away from the window and signaling for Gallagher to put away his fearsome knife.
Kemal’s wife looked suspicious but he held out his hands, palm out, and she edged across to the window, leaning out to see the boat below. Instantly he struck her on the temple, pitching her unconscious to the padded seat along the rear wall of the cabin.
“Aroaril! Fallon! Hitting a woman?” Gallagher gasped.
“That is the least I will do,” Fallon said. “Come, help me get them down.”
*
Kemal tried to block out the pain from his crushed toes. He did not even want to look at them, for they made him feel weak. The throbbing agony was making him feel sick but he would have sooner given up his birthright than let those bastards know how he was hurting. He almost welcomed the pain from his crushed lips and bruised face, for it distracted him from his foot. He balanced on his heel, not wanting to put any pressure on what was left of his toes, and every movement sent a fresh surge of agony through him.
He clung to one thought, that he would escape and get his revenge. They would not defeat him. Whatever happened, he would never bow to this peasant. As long as he held true to that, they could not truly hurt him. Pain would pass. Injuries would heal. And he would have proved he was stronger than them.
The door banged open and he looked up swiftly, squinting through his bruised eyes to see Fallon stride in. The man walked over and squatted down right in front, his face calm.
“You have my wife. You have my friends’ wives and children. I tried to give you the chance to help us, to admit your mistake and give them back. But you refused to talk. So I have decided to give you a taste of what we have been going through. We now have your wife and children,” he said, his voice low and reasonable.
“You are lying!” Kemal sneered. “They are too well protected. If you think I am going to fall for that, then you are an even bigger fool—”
He felt his voice trail away as two of the Gaelish, the giant and the short one, dragged Feray and his sons Asil and Orhan into the room. His heart seemed to stop, then leap up into his throat and, instantly, the pain in his foot and face was nothing to worry about. Not compared to seeing his family in the brutal hands of these Gaelish. His careful control, which he had tried to maintain even in the face of torture and humiliation, dissolved in an instant.
“Let them go! They had nothing to do with this! I swear, if you harm them, I will make you suffer in ways you have never imagined!” he screamed at them, tearing at his bonds with all his strength, heedless of the surges of agony this flared in his foot.
Then Fallon leaned in and slapped his face, nothing hard, more of a tap, something you might give to a child who was lost in a screaming tantrum. It silenced him, as well. “Now you know how we feel. Now you know what we have been going through since you took our families from us,” the man said. “You know what I am prepared to do. Don’t make me hurt them. Tell us what you know.”
Kemal looked over at his family, seeing their terror and feeling it strike deeper than the hammer blows that had smashed his toes. But he was the Crown Prince, the heir to the Elephant Throne. This man was a peasant and, besides, his friends and accomplices were visibly unhappy at using a woman and children. They would not go through with this. It was all a bluff. He just had to hold his nerve and Fallon would give up. Victory would be his and then he could make promises, win their freedom – and take a terrible revenge. He just had to hold strong.
He looked at Fallon and shook his head.
“Do you think this is a game?” Fallon snarled at him, then whirled and strode over the room, where he grabbed Feray by the arm and dragged her over, forcing her down to her knees so she was staring right into Kemal’s eyes, the pair of them close enough to touch if their arms had not been bound.
“No. Let her go,” Kemal ordered, trying to put all the power and authority he had into his voice. “You do not want to do this. Once you harm her, you have crossed the line. There is no way back from there.” He locked eyes with Fallon. Everyone else melted away, even Feray and the boys. It was now a test of wills between them. And his will would prove the greater.
*
Fallon saw the iron in Kemal’s eyes but the man’s words were soft as wool. Crossed a line? He had killed Prince Cavan! He was so far over the line, he could no longer see it. Only one thing mattered: getting Bridgit and the other families back. Even if he were as good as destroyed himself, at least his friends and his son would have some chance of rebuilding lives they could bear to live, of healing from the terror of the past moons. This arrogant bastard was all that stood in the way of that, and nothing was going to stop Fallon now. The prick was bluffing. That might work with his wife there, who looked like she would back him up. But not his sons.
Fallon dragged the wife away, then he grabbed the younger of the two boys and hauled him over, putting him right in front of Kemal’s face. He locked eyes with the Prince, seeing the man not even look at his obviously terrified boy, instead keeping up his defiant stare.
The Prince said something to his son in Kottermani, probably some sort of encouragement, so Fallon backhanded Kemal, rocking his head away, and then drew his knife and held it in front of the boy’s eyes, letting him see the edge, roughened from all the sharpening. The boy’s eyes grew wider than ever and his breath was coming in short, urgent gasps.
“What if I take his eyes?” Fallon asked conversationally, putting the tip of the knife right in front of the boy’s nose, making it seem massive.
The young boy, who was surely not more than six summers, was shaking like a leaf in a winter breeze and then his bladder let go with fear, urine puddling around his feet and some of it washing towards Kemal’s wrecked foot, making the Prince move his injured toes away with a hiss of pain.
“Or what if I take his fingers? Has he learned to feed himself yet?” Fallon asked harshly. He grabbed the back of the boy’s head and made him look down at his father’s broken toes. “Or maybe I’ll smash his feet, like yours?”
He reached down and began to tug on the boy’s damp boot, making the child scream with fear, his terror muffled by the gag.
Behind him Fallon could hear th
e mother going crazy, but she could do nothing against Brendan’s huge strength. She was shrieking something in Kottermani and Kemal said something back, his voice cracking a little.
Yet he refused to give, still meeting Fallon’s eyes.
“Don’t make me do this.” Fallon glared at him.
“You won’t do it. You can’t!” Kemal spat back, eyes burning with hatred.
Fallon snarled at him and showed him the knife. He bent and sliced it lightly across Kemal’s lower leg, drawing a thin stripe of blood and pooling it on the blade.
“This is your doing, not mine,” he hissed, then placed the blade on the boy’s cheek.
The lad shrieked at the touch and Fallon turned the blade, not cutting the skin but allowing some of Kemal’s blood, which was already on the blade, to ooze down.
He looked into Kemal’s eyes as he did so, saw the defiance begin to crack. The boy was sobbing helplessly now, his brother and mother screaming.
“I will peel him and you will watch. I will skin him and wear him like a cloak!” Fallon spat.
His eyes were locked to Kemal’s and, although the man was trying to hold strong, Fallon could see it was breaking apart. He took all his own anger and guilt and agony and fear and let them show through in his eyes.
“You know I will do it,” he whispered.
For a moment more Kemal held him, then his eyes snapped shut and a tear trickled down his face. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice a broken murmur.
CHAPTER 20
“Here, have a drink.” Fallon poured a cup of water for Kemal. “You have a lot of talking to do.”
“Where is my family?” Kemal demanded. “How are they?”
“They are safe. My wife’s father, Padraig, is with them now. He is a wizard and is no doubt showing them small magic tricks and telling them jokes, which, if they could understand them, would horrify them,” Fallon said briskly.
“I need to see them.”
Fallon shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. They stay somewhere safe. You talk, or they come back and start screaming.”
