by Mark Tufo
“How do you know what I have and have not said?”
“Talboton also has a wealth of information, and for a while, I made myself a citizen of that fair community. It was fascinating reading about you through the eyes of your friend, BT. He loved, adored, revered, and more importantly, feared you. Ultimately, that is why he left you.”
“You lie!” I stood.
“For what purpose?” He seemed amused he had managed to get me to react in such a way. “Sit, sit, I have the guards under a charm, but even that will not work if you start screaming.”
I sat, though now I was figuring out how I could bury my axe in his smug countenance.
“He was watching the world pass you on by, and he could not stand what it was going to do to you. In the end, you pushed him away. Not with words, but with your actions; you grew cold when there was no more war to fight…except against an enemy you had no hope of defeating.”
“Time.” I let my head sag.
“Is it merely more legend or is it true you walked the other side?”
“What do you want from me? Is this your attempt at recruitment?”
“It would be better for all involved if you did willingly come to my side.”
“Your side? Not Lunos’?”
“He is but a means to an end.”
“Does he know that?”
“I would imagine on some level he does. He will try to kill me when we are close to achieving our separate goals. The attempt may have already happened if you hadn’t shown back up. I’d never seen him more upset.”
“My wife used to say I had that effect on people.”
“Ah yes, Saint Tracy.”
“Careful where you tread Green Man.”
“Green Man? Would you like to know my real name?”
“Sure, I’ve got nothing more pressing going on at the moment.”
“Ganlin.”
I sat for a sec; the name struck me oddly but I could not pinpoint why. Then like someone had pulled up the shades during a bright sunshiny day, I said, “Well, well, don’t you think mighty highly of yourself!” I could not help it. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but the coincidence seems entirely too…well, coincidental.”
“Whatever are you talking about?” He seemed taken aback.
“You pompous ass! Grabbed a couple of famous wizard names didn’t you? Gandalf and Merlin and mashed them together. You do realize that both of them were white wizards, working with Man in harmony to defeat an aberration in nature.”
“I would argue that Man is the aberration.”
I was hoping to ruffle his feathers a wee bit.
“You are one, dipshit. Just because you know a few card tricks and can fool a Lycan into believing your shit don’t stink, doesn’t mean you aren’t human.”
I was flung hard from my chair, my back striking the thick tent pole. I heard a loud crack—it was either my spine or that spire.
“Did that look like a parlor trick?” He was standing.
“Wrong. I picked the eight of clubs.” I tried to laugh but my ribs were killing me.
He raised his hand, I felt bands of steel made entirely from air wrap around me and hoist me up. I was hovering at the top of the tent, some fifteen feet high. He opened his fist and I plummeted down. I did my best to brace the fall but every bit of air I had in my lungs was forcibly expelled. My ribs screamed in protest as I coughed and wheezed trying to get in air.
“The great and mighty Michael Talbot—groveling at my feet!” Ganlin shouted. “I could crush you like the diseased vermin that you are!”
My mouth and beard were coated in blood. I grimaced, showing him my red teeth. “Do it then and stop being a bitch,” I wheezed out.
His fist began to close; I felt those steel bands wrap around me again, but instead of lifting me up they began to compress. My ribs, which were already barely holding together under protest, began to bend. I heard multiple cracks. I would have screamed out loud if it had been physically possible. As it was, the screech inside my head was blindingly loud. He was crushing me like a redneck does a can of cheap beer. An empty can, I might add. Rednecks don’t waste beer, we have that in common. Just when I figured he was going to drive bone shards into my lungs and heart, it stopped. I didn’t move for countless minutes, mostly because I couldn’t. My heartbeats were laborious and tortured as my oxygen-starved body desperately sought the life-giving gas. The veins on my neck were throbbing as they sent dangerous carbon monoxide infused blood to my brain.
I’d never imagined I would go out with such a whimper and to a guy that looked like he was well into his retirement years and could play a pretty decent, albeit skinny and deformed, Santa Claus.
“That…that was unfortunate.” Ganlin had turned his back to me and was working on something at the table. “I had hoped to show you a higher purpose and perhaps bring you aboard. I do not believe I have furthered that cause.”
You think? I could not say it but I sure thought it. It was ten minutes later that I got something resembling a full breath in. I had, at least, three broken ribs and definitely some internal bleeding. I’d basically been run over by a Chevy, and not one of those little fuel economy cars, but a full blown dually truck.
He brought over a small mug. He gently lifted my head and forced the bitter liquid down. I did not resist because, frankly, I couldn’t, and he really didn’t need to make me ingest something to finish me off anyway. I felt immediately better as the drink spread a warmth throughout my entire body; I could even feel it in my fingertips and toes.
“This will ease the pain while your body takes care of the damage.” He was back to the kindly grandfather tone.
Just my luck, my enemy had to exhibit savage, bipolar mood swings in tempo with a hummingbird’s wing flaps.
“I think it would be best if I just killed you, Michael. You are too filled with what you believe to be right. And even if you were not, Azile is, and it is her I care about, not you. You are the means to my ends, I am afraid. The casualty in my war. Merely a stepping stone for me. How does that make you feel, to be on the receiving end of your analogy? Poetic justice, perhaps.”
Anger began to cloud my judgment and more of it was directed at myself than Ganlin. It would be one thing if I had charged headlong into a trap, as I was wont to do. No, the real problem was that I had, reluctantly, reset his snare so that it would be all ready to go when Azile stepped in it. There was hope; I wasn’t dead yet and she wasn’t caught. The clock was ticking, though. It had taken no small measure of time before I was able to sit up. The pain was immense, but the stab of defeat, of lying on the ground at the feet of my enemy, was worse. In my long career of warfare, I do not believe I had ever been so thoroughly and completely bested.
“What do you want her for?” I asked when I thought I could speak without my words being coated in bile or blood. Still ended up coughing them out like the victim of severe smoke inhalation.
“It is difficult for you to realize that the world does not revolve around you, isn’t it? That your actions alone will not decide the fate of this war? That you are not the strongest hero of this age?”
I guess he was trying to drag down my morale, I actually got a kick out of it. The laughing sound that issued forth from me would have been better served coming out of the tailpipe of a ‘76 VW van, but he understood well enough that his words had the opposite effect of what he was shooting for.
“You cannot possibly find something humorous in this situation!” He was near to shouting.
“Fuck yeah, I can. Who the hell are you to tell me what I find funny or not. And unlike you, I do not suffer from delusions of grandeur. At best, I’m like fourth or fifth in the power rankings. There are those of this age that are much better suited to become great heroes. Hell, I died and they still did alright. That should tell you something.”
“None of that matters. Once word of your capture reaches your Red Witch, she will come running.”
“And then what? She will tear throug
h your parlor tricks like smoke rings.” He arched an eyebrow at me. His parlor tricks had nearly cost me my life.
“Yes, she is indeed powerful. Perhaps she is stronger than myself; that has yet to be determined. But she has weaknesses. Weaknesses which I will exploit to their fullest.”
I knew he meant me. There was more than a good chance Azile would give herself over willingly to keep me from harm. I could only hope she would put the welfare of the babies over me. I have never known a woman that would believe having me as the unsupervised guardian of the young and impressionable could be a good thing in any way, and that is exactly what I would be if something happened to her. I begged internally that Azile would not attempt a rescue, though I knew she would. I knew I would if the roles were reversed. Fuck the odds. Who pays attention to those anyway? Only the living and the damned, I suppose.
“You should rest now. Tomorrow…how do I put this? It’s going to be painful, first and foremost. Maybe embarrassing, certainly difficult. I am going to break you, Michael Talbot. In the end, I might let you survive, just to watch you go back into the world a shadow of what you once were.”
I wanted to tell him I’d already pulled a Humpty but I was feeling inexplicably tired.
“Drugged?” I asked when he began to blur and multiply.
“Undoubtedly.” He smiled again; it was so sincere and seemingly stocked full of concern.
I was so far down in the depths of what he’d given me I could not even call upon those that sometimes visited me in my fugue states.
Chapter 16
MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 15
*
WHEN I AWOKE, there were long moments of confusion. My neck was bent backward and I was staring at the ground. My body felt like I’d gone through a corn thresher. Not that I’d ever done that, but I now had a good idea of what it was like. The three broken ribs felt like they were afire. I strained my neck to look up. I was tied to a pole, much like a pig about to be roasted. I’d lost feeling in my ankles from the tight binding of the ropes that secured them in place. My shoulders throbbed from the strain of holding up my upper body. Werewolves were all around me, taunting, yelling, generally screaming their approval of my capture. I was, at least, clothed again.
“It would have been better for you had you stayed dead, Michael.” It was Lunos.
“Water,” I begged. My mouth was parched. I’d smoked skunk weed that had not left such a dry and sticky feeling.
Lunos nodded to one of the werewolves. I turned my head just as the stream of urine splashed across my chest, neck, and face. I spit it out as fast as I could. The laughing reached a crescendo as the throng watched.
“He’s going to double cross you,” I said as I glared at Lunos. “And I’m going to laugh over your corpse.”
“No alliance is ever made without that being assumed. He does not do what he does because of his love for our cause, as I do not act for his benefit. For now, we share a mutual path; at some point we will diverge, and it is at those crossroads we will conclude our business. It is no concern of yours though, Old One, I have seen your path and it is indeed a short journey.”
I struggled against my bonds—if anything I only succeeded in making them tighter.
“Bring him to the field.”
I had been on a spit until two werewolves grabbed the ends of the pole and hoisted me up. I struggled to get free, I knew this was to be the great reveal. Word of this would spread to Azile like a wildfire in a drought. I was bounced around like a baby in the back seat of a station wagon barreling down a dirt road, prior to baby car seats becoming law. I thought at some point the rope was just going to saw through my ankles and that both of my shoulders would dislocate. Another spit had been set up, or just moved. Each end of the pole was deposited unceremoniously in the crux of a stick tripod. The jolting sent a current of pain from my shoulders to the base of my spine. I let out an involuntary gasp.
Lunos came up next to me. “It would be for the best if you were to scream out.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I told him.
“I was hoping this wouldn’t be easy.” He seemed pretty pleased that I wasn’t cooperating.
Ganlin was standing next to the Lycan leader; he did not look my way at all. He seemed to be in the midst of an incantation. I was about to find out what it was for.
“Citizens of Denarth and Talboton!” Lunos was talking at a normal level, yet his voice was amplified to the point I could almost see them pushing the air away with their sheer power.
“I am really getting to dislike magic,” I muttered.
“Your champion, Michael Talbot, has been captured!”
I turned my head to take note of all the people that lined the wall, looking over at me in my completely helpless state. I wanted them to come and rescue me and I wanted them to stay as far away as possible. It would only be a matter of minutes before birds were dispatched with this message. I could only hope that the distance prevented confirmation of my identity.
“Tell them who you are.” Lunos looked at me.
I said nothing, knowing full well my voice was on speaker.
“I have never heard you say nothing!” He grabbed a pawful of hair and wrenched my head back and forth. If he had wanted to, he could have popped it off like the top of a dandelion. I grunted, that’s for sure, but I couldn’t imagine a positive identification of the gruntee could be made.
“Stand him up!” Lunos shouted.
I had a surge of hope thinking I would slide right off the pole. I could not feel my hands or feet but if I was free from my anchor—I could potentially do some damage. Better to die fighting and within sight of the Denarthian gates. That would halt Azile’s arrival. Yeah, that sounded false even as I said it. She would come faster if only to seek retribution. Instead of sliding like a melted s’more, I stayed put. I was attached to metal rings I had not known were there. The pole was planted like a flag. Lunos dragged a claw across my back, shredding my shirt as he did so. With one deft movement, he ripped the material away from me. My back was exposed to Denarth. I heard the crack of the whip long before I saw it. It was safe to say I was nervous. In my life, I’d been beaten to bloody pulps from fist, fang, and paw. I’d been stabbed and shot by all manner of steel and lead. For fuck’s sake, I’d been married. I am intimate with pain, as only one who has lived as many years as I have can be.
But that fucking whip brought it to a whole new level. The sheer amount of power the wielder of that torture device had over me was staggering. A babe in the woods was less vulnerable than I was at that moment. A puff of dirt shot up just a few inches from my feet. The thunderous clap of its report was next as it sliced through the air. The first strike was of an intensity that fired off every neuron in my brain, scrambling them in an electric blue of agony. The next overlapped the first; my skin peeled back like an overripe banana. I could think of nothing else, only the pain.
“Scream, Old One! Scream for your life!” Lunos goaded. Another crack of the whip, I gritted my teeth and clamped my mouth shut. Tears flowed from my eyes; each hit sent me spiraling down deeper into the miserable abyss. I sagged under the impacts, flaps of newly exposed dermis waved in the burgeoning breeze. Blood collected along the waistband of my pants before running down my legs, where it coated the heavy rope and dripped to the ground, pooling around me. I imagined the white of my spine being shown to the world as my muscles were torn asunder. I forgot who I was, the pain was so great. I was literally being stripped of everything, both internally and externally.
“Tell them who you are!” Lunos screamed into my ear.
My eyes rolled up into the back of my head as I mercifully passed out.
Chapter 17
DENARTH
*
“IS IT TRULY him?” Lana was leaning far over the parapet attempting to get a better look.
“It…is,” Mathieu said haltingly.
“How can you be so sure?” she asked.
“Who else could survive forty-five lashes?”
Mathieu’s head sagged as he watched the werewolves dancing around their captive, many relieving themselves on his bloody, ragged back.
“We have to rescue him,” Bailey said.
“That is without a doubt,” Mathieu said, “but I do not know how we will accomplish that. We must presume that they will expect that type of response and will be ready for it. Those of us that do go out will surely perish. Of that, I am not concerned, yet it will further weaken what little position we still hold here.”
“This is a trap, Mathieu. You cannot forfeit your life in a vain effort to save his. He would not want that,” Lana begged.
“He would never leave any of us out there,” Mathieu entreated, his muscles were rippling as he fought control of his werewolf side.
“There is an unsettling aspect here, even more so than what is happening,” Bailey said.
“Is not his back being stripped of meat not unsettling enough?” Mathieu asked, water threatening to fall from his eyes.
“Our time here is measured in days…possibly we have a week and a half, but certainly no longer than that. They will know this as well, those that defected would have told them everything they needed to know. Why would they need to force our hand?”
“Perhaps they are low on provisions themselves,” Lana offered.
“Having an army out in the field is never an easy prospect, but the weather has been temperate and they do not appear to be suffering or malnourished in any way. They have most likely dined well on the inhabitants of this city that had decided to seek asylum elsewhere.”
“I do not understand, Bailey,” Lana said. “If not to force us into a rescue attempt, then what?”
“Who loses the most from Michael’s capture?” Bailey asked.
“Azile,” Mathieu answered. “This is a ploy to expose Azile. She will do all in her power to save him.”
“Now the question becomes, do we tell her of this development?” Bailey asked.
“You cannot be serious, Bailey,” Lana exclaimed. “How can we not? If she finds out we withheld this information she will tear these walls down. It is her protection alone that keeps that mage from entering.”
