by Welcome Cole
“I’ve half a mind to ship you back myself and cut our losses!” Mal shouted down at him, “Time is gold, or so it’s said.”
“You ain’t got half the army you need to try it! Curse my blood if I can’t take you and that gorgeous brother of yours together, with hands tied to feet to even the odds!”
“Well, I dare say I’m not nearly man enough to come down and find out,” Mal called back. It wasn’t a lie.
“You’re a sensible man, Cap’n!” the driver yelled over his shoulder as his cart rolled deeper into the compound proper, “The Handsome Boy may’ve gotten the beauty, but you run circles around him in brains!”
Minutes later, Mal was back down in the commons and making his way through the crowd as we worked the route deeper into the compound. He walked along a cobblestone street toward a massively tall, square building that rose five stories high. It tapered toward the top like a windmill without blades. Each of the top three levels had deep decks running around the full perimeter. Wide gangplanks secured by an intricate scaffolding of chains and ropes jutted straight out from the middle of each level like the dead branches of a nightmarish tree held aloft by cobwebs.
This was Lucifeus’s Dancing Tower, reverently referred to by the crew as Fark’s Tree. It was a theater of death with ample seating. Luce could hang thirty-six unfortunates at a time from these gallows, forty-eight in a pinch. Mal knew this to be true because his brother had once put it to the test. His brother believed in discipline. More to the point, his brother was particularly fond of hangings.
When he was within fifty feet of the building, Mal realized why so many complaints had been coming in from the men in the family sector of the garrison this past week. The air was thick with a putrid, sickly-sweet odor that was so heavy, he more tasted than smelled it. From beneath his shading hand, he looked up at four bodies silhouetted against a bright blue break in the trees far above him. They swayed lazily in the breeze on the northern gangplanks at the top level, nearly seventy feet above him.
“Hellsteeth! How bloody long is he going to let them rot up there? It’s been a week already!”
Still cursing, he marched up to the building and pushed his way through a fortified oak door impressively burdened with a heavy iron latch. The sharp smell of hot oil nearly knocked the wind out of him as he passed into the darkness beyond. Fighting his breath, he descended a wide oaken stairway a dozen steps into the gloom.
This room was set well into the earth. Essentially a dungeon without a castle, it had no windows and was always as black as a grave. Even the roaring fire and several large ship lanterns couldn’t fully rent the darkness. Despite his intimate familiarity with this room, he had to feel his way blindly forward as his eyes grudgingly adapted to the sudden drowning of sunlight.
For anyone entering here unwillingly, this room was an eighty by eighty square foot pit of hopelessness with only one way out. Ten tight, narrow cells lined the back wall behind the bared teeth of well-maintained iron bars. Directly across the wide room from the cells sat a massive fieldstone fireplace filled with a generous fire and a bulky cauldron of simmering oil. Covering every inch of exposed stone wall surrounding that fireplace hung the desperate tools of persuasion, all well maintained and glimmering under a recent coat of oil.
A long, heavy wooden table hunkered directly before the fire. Mal was surprised to see Lucifeus already there. His brother sat between the table and the fireplace in a large, armed wooden chair, with his polished boots propped up on the table and the hearth crackling at his back. He sucked casually on a long, thin clay pipe and buffed his fingernails with a chamois.
Across the table from him, parked side-by-side with their faces to the fire, sat three luckless Vaemysh warriors. They sat with forearms laid out on the table before them, shackles binding their wrists and forearms flat against the scarred planks. The dancing fire sent their faces flickering in and out of shadows, lending them an appearance like their presence in this world might be tentative and unstable. It was an accurate prediction.
As Mal moved into position before the fireplace, he passed a behemoth of a man standing just behind Lucifeus. He leaned casually to the side, bare shoulder against stone hearth, mammoth arms crossed over a mountainous chest. He was clean-shaven, with a perfectly bald skull wrapped neatly in a bright lavender headscarf. Below the face, however, he was as hairy as a bear, with a thick, gnarled mat of black fur covering his bare arms and shoulders, and erupting from his loose leather vest.
“What say, Hoot?” Mal said as he stepped up to warm his hands before the blazing fire, “Your missus pinch that kid off yet?”
The hangman’s blush was apparent even in the shadows. “Not yet, Cap’n,” he said sheepishly, “Esoria, she says another week more’n likely. She’d be usually right, ye know. Least, so’s I hear it said.”
Mal patted him affectionately on the chest. “You be sure to let me know the minute the brat’s bawling, savvy? I’ll make sure you have everything you need.”
“Aye, sir. Cap’n Luce, he already told me the same.” The big man’s blush deepened. “Ye both of ye knows I appreciate it, ain’t that right? That comes from me missus, too.”
“We’re glad to help, Hoot. You’ve been loyal to this crew since the day we set shore.”
Mal turned around to face the table with its bounty of prisoners. He leaned into his fists on the thick, blemished planks and studied the three savages. The heat of the fire felt most welcome against his back. The chill in this room always seemed inescapable, and he knew it was more than simply because it was ten feet underground.
Before beginning his assessment, he looked over at the richly polished boots propped so nonchalantly on the tabletop beside him. He followed them back to his brother who was still buffing his nails. Lucifeus squinted at him through a tapestry of pipe smoke, a wry smile beaming wraithlike through the fumes.
“What the hell has you so amused?” Mal asked him.
Lucifeus shrugged his excessively groomed eyebrows. “Just excited for the show to begin, I expect.”
“Curse you, Luce! When are you planning to cut those cursed corpses down? They’re stinking up the family district.”
“Why, the very moment their sentence is served up, dear brother. The very moment, indeed.”
Mal’s aggravation swelled up full bore. “Their sentences? They’re dead, for Calina’s sake! What’s left to serve?”
“They owe me flesh for picking my pockets,” Lucifeus said as he worked his nails, “By my calculations, they’ll be paid full up in a week’s time week, soonest.”
Mal resisted the urge to kick his brother’s chair out from under him. Instead he fueled up his glare. “I sometimes wonder just who the hell your mother was.”
Lucifeus slipped the pipe from his mouth and blew a few smoke rings his way.
Time to abandon the whole affair, Mal decided. It was a useless argument and one he didn’t have the reserves for anyway. Not today. Not right now. He finished it with, “We’ll discuss it further this afternoon, Luce.”
“I expect we will,” his brother said as he pulled his feet back to the earth and dropped his chair forward, “In the meantime, what do you make of this?” He waved his pipe stem toward the prisoners. “Sink me to the Nine, has winter descended upon us early this year, Brother?”
Mal turned his attention to the miserable looking warriors sitting in bondage across the table. They were nearly identical in appearance. Each wore his or her long, pale hair bound back formally, though certainly with less discipline than prior to their capture. They sported bare, muscular arms covered in arcane tattoos, and wore fitted, sleeveless ringmail armor. Brown flax undergarments erupted from beneath the mail to jut out over the shoulders, tufting to a point like quarter-length short sleeves.
This was a sight he never thought he’d live to see: three Vaemysh warriors in full battle regalia sitting in the brig of Fark’s Freehold. These were the Nolands, for gods’ sakes. Their presence here was absolute taboo
, an imperative driven by the collective word and blades of the Allied Nations. Their appearance in the Neutral Outerlands was grounds for the Allies to immediately declare war on them, a war that would almost certainly mean the destruction of their reservations and the decimation of their race. As he considered the violation, he wondered just what the hell was happening to the world when the day-to-day facts a man depended on proved wormy?
He glanced back over his shoulder at the jailer. “Looks like a pretty staunch bunch here, Hoot. Think you can persuade these savages to speech?”
The dark behemoth released a high-pitched laugh that sounded almost girlish in its delight. “Aye, Cap’n. I reckon if we start melting these snowmen with some nice warm oil, they’ll be talking real good, they will.”
Mal turned his attention back to the warriors as Hoot continued tittering behind him.
The Vaemyn on his far left stared past him at the pot bubbling on the fireplace beyond the table. This savage looked as nervous as a drunk hiding from a pressgang. Mal knew he was visualizing the foul scenes that were to surely follow, and the horror of it had him utterly paralyzed. Unfortunately, that meant he probably didn’t actually have any information to coerce. The savages would never entrust vital information to one with so thin a backbone.
The one in the middle was a Vaemyd. Worse, she was an elite tracker, the toughest kind of warrior. Trackers in general typically served as scouts, but the elites were more akin to mercenaries. She was sweating like a pig despite the chill of the room, and he understood that she carried as much terror as the first. The difference was that she’d never yield to it. Trackers weren’t inclined to roll over at the site of a hot poker or a match held to their eyes.
The Vaemyn on the far right corner, directly across from Lucifeus, wore the badge of the wolf. He was their leader, their kadeer. Surprisingly, Mal sensed absolutely no fear in this one. In fact, he didn’t sense any emotion at all. The savage sat staring straight ahead through Lucifeus and into points unknown as if he were simply meditating or enjoying some kind of trance. It didn’t seem natural. Not down here.
“We don’t see many savages up this way,” Mal said as he turned back to the fire. He removed a straw from a battered tin cup resting on the gnarled wood mantle. “Not in uniform anyway,” he continued as he lit the straw in the fire, “We do get our share of renegades, of course. Seems every fool with a cross side wants to crew up with the Freehold.”
He returned to the table, reached up and lit another one of the dusty old ship’s lamps dangling over it. As he turned up the flame, he knew the light would reveal the loveless faces of a dozen skulls stacked on a second mantle higher up the stone hearth behind him, some of which still wore a bit of their mummified skin. The frightened savage on the right nearly fell out of his chair at the sight. It always worked. At least with the weak ones.
“I do believe Vaemysh warriors are forbidden to enter the Nolands,” he said as he studied the Vaemyd in the middle. She returned his glare with interest paid. He admired that.
“Mm hm,” Lucifeus said through his pipe, “I do believe that is an accurate summation of the laws, dear brother.”
“Isn’t that right, Hoot?” Mal said, looking back at the jailer, “Aren’t they banned by the treaty, or could I be mistaken?”
Hoot rolled a fat lip out and stared up at the low, beamed ceiling. He appeared to be playing along, though Mal knew he was actually thinking about it. The brains of an astronomer weren’t among the traits required for a hangman. He was a big, dumb freebooter who’d do anything he was told, and more brains than that was over-qualification for the job.
Finally, Hoot shook his ox’s head and said, “Nay, Cap’n, I believe that’s the gods’ pure truth, it is. Ain’t supposed to be no savages wearing uniforms in these here parts.”
“Well, then it’s unanimous.” Mal turned back to the prisoners. “These savages are in clear violation of the treaties governing the Neutral Outerlands. I don’t believe the Allies would appreciate that. In fact, I’m confident they’d give us their blessing to exact the due punishment in whatever manner we see fit.”
Lucifeus slipped the pipe from his mouth. “Well, that was a short, sweet trial,” he said, throwing Mal a wink, “Exactly as I like it. The prisoners are guilty as charged. You may proceed with the interrogation, my dear brother.”
Mal glanced around for a chair. As if reading his mind, Hoot was there, sliding one in behind him. He dropped down next to Lucifeus.
Once settled, he leaned into the table and casually folded his hands on the graffiti-carved wood. “You look weary, my pale friend,” he said, smiling at the Kadeer.
The Vaemyn stirred as if waking from a nap. He gradually brought his eyes over to meet Mal’s. The savage looked at him as indifferently as if sitting across the bar from a friend while sharing a mug of bumbo. He seemed positively bored.
Mal didn’t know what to make of that. They’d interrogated plenty of elite savages over the years, but he’d never met one that wasn’t defiant as hell and angry as a hornet. “You don’t seem overly worried about the shoal you’ve steered yourself into here, Kad’r.”
The man simply continued staring back at him. He didn’t show the faintest sign of intimidation. There might even have been the hint of a smile. Mal could see it was going to be a pleasure burning the story out of this one.
“What’s your name, Kad’r?”
Again, he received only that unflinching, soulless stare.
Mal was getting quickly around to pissed. “You’re going to become much more engaged before we’re finished here, Kad’r. There may be pieces of you on every wall in this brig when we finally get there, but by my oath, we will get there.”
The Kadeer’s affect didn’t change.
Mal looked over at the Vaemyd sitting in the middle, just right of the Kadeer. She watched him closely, and there was nothing akin to love or adoration in her eyes. The arrogance of her defiance immediately fanned his irritation.
“Something you want to say to me, girl?” he said sharply, “You looking for a couple shakes of my attention? Go ahead, then. Speak it!”
She didn’t respond and she didn’t look away.
“Pray you’re not so mute as your Kad’r here when your time comes. What’s your name?”
There was a moment’s pause, and then she said through a tight jaw, “Grelia’tau. Rank of Saaro. Council's Ninth Tracker Elite Infiltrate.” Her Parhronii standard was perfect, without even the hint of an accent. In many ways, the savages were better educated than most Parhronii.
“Grelia’tau,” Mal repeated. Despite his irritation, he had to admit to being impressed that she had the barnacles to engage him. Especially given her circumstances. “And what are you doing in these forbidden parts all decked out in uniform, Saaro Grelia’tau?”
Her eyes held his for just an instant before drifting down to her hands. “Grelia’tau,” she said again, “Saaro. Council's Ninth Tracker Elite Infiltrate.”
Mal’s stomach twisted with another burn of anger. “I’d advise serious caution before taunting me, Saaro. Should you have the misfortune to know me better, you’ll quickly learn I’m not a patient man.”
She didn’t take her eyes from her hands. “Grelia’tau,” she repeated, though with noticeably less confidence now, “Saaro. Council's Ninth Tracker Elite Infiltrate.”
Mal suddenly understood. This was a stall tactic. She was attempting to draw him away from the clearly perplexed Kadeer. He knew he could eventually pull whatever information he desired from her, given enough time and resources, but he was confident it would be little more than a waste of time. He doubted she had anything near the gold the Kadeer was likely to offer. He could deal with her and her arrogance later.
No, the Kadeer was clearly his treasure chest. And so, he turned back to the man. As he did, he noticed a small amulet dangling from his left oteuryn, one of the tiny opalescent horns curling up from behind his ears. The sharp tips terminated just before his earlob
es.
“What’s that on his horn?” Mal asked Lucifeus.
Lucifeus stopped working his nails and looked up. Then he dropped his feet from the table and leaned forward. He looked at it for a moment, then reached across the table and jerked it from the oteuryn. The Vaemyn didn’t react in the least. Mal found this more disconcerting than the foggy stare. Their horns were usually so sensitive that a well-calculated slap with a knife blade could incapacitate them as effectively as a kick to the balls would him.
Lucifeus held the amulet up between them so that it caught the firelight. It was a black, slightly translucent gem, maybe an inch long, carved into a skullish face. It had two sparkling yellow stones embedded for eyes. “Sink me, I do believe it’s Prae’s sign,” he whispered.
“Prae’s sign? That’s impossible.”
“Is that right?” Lucifeus tossed the token onto the table. It rattled to a stop between the Kadeer’s bound wrists. “Well, there it is. You’ve seen his standards flying. You explain it, Master Astronomer.”
Mal watched the Kadeer uselessly fingering the worn wood for the amulet, which was well out of reach of his shackled hands. Luce was right. There was no mistaking that image. It was as vulgar as any pirate banners he’d seen.
“You’re wearing Prae’s badge, Kad’r?” he said to the savage, “Explain this to me.”
No response.
“Trust me when I tell you that keeping silent will prove a grave error in judgment. So help me gods, if you don’t start talking to me, I’ll keep you just barely alive for a month before we hang you.”
The Vaemyn said nothing. He only continued scratching his fingers at the wood, still trying to reach the amulet. Mal wasn’t even sure he’d heard the question.
Growing impatient, he slammed the table again, yelling, “Answer us, damn you!”
Hoot marched around behind the savage and gave him a brutal slap across the skull.
The weak warrior on the other end of the table nearly jumped out of his skin. He began to whimper. Even the elite tracker in the middle flinched.
