Engaging Evil (Warriors of Vhast Book 2)

by Cary J Lenehan

  “Shut up or you will be gagged again.” I don’t want that. The man turned to the mages. “So, what do we do with him? I would suggest letting the ladies that he named kill him. They can take their time if you want. Otherwise we should either let them lash him until they are sick of it, or just slit his throat. At home a person like him would be soundly whipped and then, while he was still alive, tied to a post and smeared with a thick layer of pitch and set alight. It serves as a good example to others…a shining light if you want. You are our rulers though. It is your decision.”

  “Nooo,” screamed Conrad. Without really looking at what he did, Basil casually back-handed him again across the mouth to shut him up. Conrad hung there sobbing…broken. I had been hoping to work my way free somehow…that they would want to find out more from me… anything. He felt another wave of uncontrollable sobbing and tried to stop.

  “He can wait for a while,” said Rani. “He cannot do anything now. Let us see what these other two can tell us first.”

  Conrad watched Basil go over to the two men. I can let myself hang limp in the frame…use it to help hold myself up against the spasms and weakness I am feeling in my legs. I shouldn’t feel relief that he is leaving me like this, but I do, even if I hate myself for it

  “What are you going to tell us to add to our tale,” the man in black said. “We are eager to hear. You…” he just casually kicked Cuthbert in a kidney…he ignores his screams and spasms…“can start by telling Bryony why you had her taken and letting her see what a worm you are.” He turns. He is harder even than Rani. I am so screwed. “Stefan, bring Bryony closer so that she can see.” Stefan is obviously the solid man who is still holding Bryony tight. She is clutching his shirt and sobbing on his shoulder. Stefan is making soothing sounds and stroking her hair as if she is a small child or a startled horse. Dried blood covers part of his face and still trickles from his arm where he has taken a wound somehow. He just ignores that and holds her tight as he brings her close. A short woman in white also there is trying to get clear so as to get Stefan to sip on something. It must be a healing draught. The quicker it is taken the less scarring there will be.

  Cuthbert started to speak. I want to tell him to be silent, but what does it matter? We are all dead. He felt contempt for Cuthbert as he snivelled: “I loved her and she rejected me. I was getting wealthy.” Was he always like that?

  Basil broke in, “You mean from working for Conrad?”

  “Yes, I was working for him. It was good work and I was getting rich. I would have been an important man eventually. I am even handsome and yet she rejected me for that peasant with only years behind a plough to look forward to.”

  Basil kicked him in the ribs. From the sound of it, something just broke. The man screamed and kept screaming for some time. Maybe he won’t mention me again…please Morrigan…let him just talk about his own sins.

  When Cuthbert stopped making a noise Basil said, “Be polite to her husband that was. She loved him, not you. A real man would have accepted that.”

  Cuthbert grimaced and swallowed. “I told Conrad of her beauty and he said that he would have her taken and brought up here for me as a reward. Her father had to die anyway. He was one who stood in the way of war between the Swamp and Haven.” Cuthbert saw the people looking on. From his face he is trying to work out whether to tell the truth or lie. He has decided. He has always been bad at cards. “My reward would be to come up here this winter and to use her any way I wanted. He said I could do anything I wanted to her. I loved her. I just wanted her to love me. If she didn’t, I was going to kill her so she could love no-one else.” Shit. I know that I said it, but he wasn’t supposed to be so possessive about the bitch. In the long run she is just another hole to screw. Now there are eyes looking at me again. I can feel the hate in them…be quiet…look innocent.

  Basil nodded. “Do you have anything you can say that is actually useful?”

  “No, please let me go, I did it out of love. You must understand…I love her.”

  I can see the absolute contempt on Basil’s face. At least he had a blank look towards me…professional. Basil’s look towards Cuthbert shows that the man on the ground is far beneath that. It was like he was looking at a chopped up dying gut worm. Basil looked over his shoulder, saying, “Bryony, is there anything else you want to hear from this thing?”

  Bryony shook her head. “No,” came weakly out.

  With relief Conrad watched Basil turn to Gwillam. At least Gwillam won’t say anything stupid. He looked back at Cuthbert briefly, “At least this one showed some fight. Stupidly, but he tried.” He said to Gwillam, “At home you would be put in the arena for one hundred fights. You wouldn’t live through a sentence that long, but you would at least entertain people in your dying. It would take a couple of years. Here your life will be much shorter. How well you talk will determine how long you live. If we don’t like what we hear when I talk to you, then the Presbytera Bianca will take over. She broke a Khitan called Koyonlu…oh, you know that name do you?...anyway she, little girl that she is, defeated him in battle and then tortured him until he talked and told her all about this place. Then, when we got here, she broke your boss Dharmal and we found out all about these so-called Masters. Now it will be your turn to be broken. I have to admit that I look forward to watching on and learning much more from her. I do this for a living and yet I manage to learn something about the job each time that I see her at work.”

  Gwillam’s eyes have grown wider and wider and they are flicking from Basil to the little woman, dressed in a white dress who looks like she is celebrating…she is even holding the hand of a priest.

  She smiled. “Hello,” she said sweetly in a sexy, husky voice, “please tell him that you will not talk so that I can go and change. I hate to disappoint these ladies.” She waved a hand towards the mass of former slaves.

  Gwillam looked from her to the faces of the watching former slaves. I can see the taut wildness in them…Gwillam is seeing it as well…I can see that…it is as if they were some of the animal women of the Wild Hunt going to rend him with their teeth…Gwillam can see his fate in their eyes…damn…he is going to break as well.

  He did. He begins to talk in a frantic babble to try and avoid the attention of the women he sees before him. He is telling everything he knows. Unfortunately for him he does not know much except for one thing that brought another woman to stop him. She is a big woman with braided hair like those of the north. She has teeth like a cat and she strikes quicker than a cobra…her hand is on Gwillam’s throat so fast and so hard that her nails are digging in. One broke the skin and blood begins to trickle over her hand…he is screaming in terror…I don’t blame him.

  “Repeat what you just said,” she ordered. Gwillam is telling again how he had come to this village more than a few times before and one time had gone further to take a message to Wolfneck and to meet a man there. “Describe him.” Her face is suddenly more animal…more a feral snarl of a beast about to rend.

  I can see Gwillam looking at the teeth and the tongue licking the lips around them. He is trying to swallow but she has his throat too tight. Who is this woman? What is she? Gwillam starts describing the man he met and how he had to take the package further to the north. Gwillam didn’t know where to, but the man seemed to know. I remember that package and the description of the half-man. They hadn’t asked me about that. I know where it was going to. I still have something left.

  “Was his name Svein?” asked the woman. Gwillam is just staring at her pointed teeth only a hand from his face as he tries to shrink into the dirt under him.

  “Yes, that was his name, yes.” He stopped and looked again at the woman above him. He obviously thought of something that might help him as suddenly he blurted out, “You must be the one he was boasting of having snared. He was going to marry you and have you and then he was going to have you sent down here to be tamed to the way he wanted.”

  “I knew it.” She is glaring at the Darkr
each man. She spoke again to Gwillam, “This is my husband, Basil, who is asking you the questions. He is so glad to hear from you about my betrothed.” She spoke to Basil in Darkspeech. They don’t know that I can understand them. I have had dealings that way. That is another thing I have. “Apart from…well apart from…you know…you haven’t given me a wedding present. After this is over, can we go back to Wolfneck and you can get me Svein’s balls to dangle in front of him. I want him to still be alive when you take them.”

  “Yes, my love, I think that would be suitable if you are happy with something I would like to do anyway,” he replied in the same tongue. So casual they are about it. I know that I am going to die. What little I have will not keep me alive for long, but somehow I am glad that I am not Svein.

  He turned his attention back to what was before him.

  Basil is squatting down to address Gwillam from near his level. Who would have thought that he would break like that? “Do you have anything to add? Do you have any apologies to any of the girls here? Would you like to confess your sins to God and ask forgiveness? Would you like to plead and cry?” The man went silent.

  Basil straightened and addressed Rani, and the golden-eyed woman, the one from Darkreach. “My ladies, I think we have all that we are likely to get from these two. If I may be so bold. I would suggest giving Bryony her knife back and letting her kill Cuthbert, and find out which girl here has the biggest grievance against Gwillam and then let her do the same.”

  “That would be me.” A girl…who is she? A Brotherhood slave bitch…Verily something…she is pushing her way forward. “You know how he has all of those knives. He likes to use them on people and, because I didn’t react the same as some of the others and because I am…I have no hair below, he used me and hurt me every time he was here. What is more, I claim his blades…all of them. They are part of my blood money.” I remember her now. I have only had her once. She is not normal, even when you fucked her body her face was always a mask. It was as if she was challenging you to try and make it change. It put me off my stride.

  Basil is looking at the brown bitch. Rani is indecisive. I cannot believe it. She thinks this is harsh. I would have taken far longer myself, but I am grateful for a quick release. I am not going to say anything. The man in black seems to be impatient at her indecision. He turned to the other woman. “Princess, you know this is merciful for them. They should take a lot longer than this to die, but we do not have the facilities to keep them.”

  I am right. She is one of Hrothnog’s get. She nods…my death is about to be announced. “You are right. Have that one,” she points at me, “whipped to death by anyone who wants to do so. Make sure they share the use of the whip. If he has run out of people to whip him and is still alive, cut off his manhood and let him bleed out the rest of his life.” Conrad began to wail. I know I am broken. Damn I was hoping to die quickly with a cut throat. Oh shit. I am not as brave as I had hoped to be. Now my bladder has let go and I hurt already. I wish I had known what my fate was going to be when I chose my direction. Perhaps if I can get my mouth to work properly I can trade what I still know for a quick death. “The other two, make them watch and then let it be as Basil suggests.” I need to form sentences but my throat and tongue are still not fully under my control. What can I say? Why is my will having no effect? I was drained so much that I am that weak? Obviously.

  One of the Khitan cunts…Kãhina…I remember taking her…it was good at the time but now I regret everything…she has won the race to get a lash with many thongs on it from the room upstairs…oh Morrigan…my body is screaming in pain and fear…and she has not struck yet.

  The pain of that first blow made the rest of his aches disappear and he felt his voice rising into a shriek of sheer agony and despair. His thoughts of bargaining fled.

  Chapter XXXI

  Theodora

  I have given the judgement, so it is up to me to sit and watch it carried out. Their deaths will not be as much fun here as they would be in the Arena in Ardlark. Here it is harsh and immediate and brutal…not at all entertaining. I can almost feel pity for the men and what I can see in their eyes around them.

  Verily has fetched Gwillam’s blades and has taken station beside him, working the harnesses for the blades off his body. Now she is stripping naked in front of him and putting the harnesses and blades on her own body before squatting down to wait. Her beauty is displayed in front of him as a reminder of why he is about to die horribly. She sits on her heels and has her knees splayed apart near his head. Her groin is only a cubit from the man’s face and I can see that he keeps staring at it, licking his lips nervously and swallowing, attracted to the sight, even though it means his death. Throughout Verily is keeping her usual composed demeanour, ignoring the man’s gaze fixed on her womanhood.

  Bryony is still crying as she takes the knife that she is offered…she is shaking…and sits down to wait with Stefan’s arms around her as he continues to try and calm her. He says he doesn’t love her, but he obviously cares for her.

  Kãhina has won the race…she has never used a whip before but blood is flinging off Conrad’s back and his legs as his screams and pleas rise. Each woman is giving five lashes and then handing on to the next before going back to the end of the queue. He will die soon and horribly.

  Bryony killed Cuthbert by simply cutting off his manhood and putting it on the ground in front of his eyes. She then wrapped Stefan’s arms around her while she watched him bleed to death as he cried and thrashed and howled with pain in front of her. As she was cutting he tried blaming others, he tried pleading, he tried claiming bonds of love and affection, but finally he died crying and cursing Bryony, Conrad, his gods and everyone and everything else. He died quickly and badly.

  Eventually Verily has stopped just sitting. She is leaning down. Even listening hard I can only catch snippets. Don’t understand a word of it but she must be saying what she is going to do…he has turned white and the pleading in his voice is easy to hear. You don’t need the language that the two are talking in. He may as well have been talking to a rock. Not a flicker of expression is crossing the girl’s face. Not a smile, a snarl, a sneer or a look of compassion. She is putting a knife into his rear end, doing it almost gently with the aid of a stick. She is taking care that she does not cut too much until she wants it to. A small, barely human, smile flickers across her face as she seems to savour his screams.

  Now the blade is fully inside him and she pulls out the rod…my God…she is flaying him alive. Her face has a parody of a smile, but her eyes are blank. If he moves he hurts himself even more on the blade that is lodged deep inside him…blood is running out of his rear. She is not very good at skinning. He died, screaming continuously almost right until the end, after less than half an hour. Now her face changes…while she was working she was smiling, but it was more like the static rictus of a corpse than a real smile…her eyes as they watched what they did were as empty as the windows of a vacant house. Now he is dead all expression has left her face…her eyes still show nothing. How much pain is inside the girl? Would she ever recover…could she ever recover…if she did…what would she feel about what she had just done? Theodora was glad when she was able to verify that all three were dead and the bodies could be disposed of.

  ~~~

  Theodora noted that Ayesha went up to Lakshmi at dinner. She was sitting at the side with Harald, and they were talking quietly. Curiously she moved over to hear what was said, trying not to be too obvious with her attention. She missed the start, but heard, “…what you did. You will be joining Bianca and Verily for my extra lessons now. You should have told me that you already had some experience and I would have had you working with them from the start.” It appears that it is not just my lover who is re-evaluating the girl.

  Tonight’s meal is a quiet one. No-one feels much like entertaining. Stefan and Bryony are not here. I sent Valeria up with a tray of mostly cold food to leave outside their door in case they get hungry later. S
he has reported knocking softly on the door and receiving no reply…at least she had the sense to leave the food there, just in case.

  ~~~

  Stefan

  Someone is knocking, but I am sitting up with Bryony lying in my arms on the bed. I cannot let her go…I rock her and try to calm her as she sobs and softly cries her dead husband’s name, and then her father’s, and back. They stayed that way for most of the night until she fell asleep from exhaustion. Stefan slowly and gently disentangled her and laid her fully clothed on the bed, covering her up before fetching the tray and having something to eat. It has warm food still on it, so it must have been replaced at least once without me hearing it. He left the tray with half the food on a stool and then crept under the cover to take Bryony in his arms again and fall asleep.

  Stefan awoke to see her sitting in her chemise on the side of the bed eating the rest of the food, now assuredly cold. He watched her for a while before she realised that he was awake. She turned around and kissed him on his healing cuts. “Thank you for what you have done,” she said, “now I need you to make love to me…slowly and softly. I am alive and they are not. I am empty…so empty. I want to feel the little death and have it wash over me to make me feel real again…to remind me that there is something to live for.”

  He gently began to comply, feeling her skin smooth but chill beneath his hands and tongue. Soon she began to sob softly, but would not let him stop when he went to just hold her. Eventually the salt tears he was kissing away stopped, her skin and body warmed and her cries changed.

  ~~~

  Rani

  “It is time we are married. Your priests have said we can. Our village has had a lot to deal with and it needs us. We have new traditions to establish. Lakshmi made me think. Here many traditions are being broken. Caste is just one of them. I will have to talk to the Father. I don’t know if I will follow your religion yet, but I will talk with him.” Theo-dear is rolling over to kiss me…passionately…so passionately…so…oh Krishna preserve me.