Escana (37 page)

He watched as the torn canvas
sheet came down to obscure his delightful view of the desert, it
would seem that the guards didn't want anyone else dying of heat
stroke before the journey reached its conclusion. A touching concern
that they had severely lacked in the earlier hours of their venture.
He surveyed the floor, having little else to look at, it had been a
long time since fresh corpses outnumbered the occupants but there it
was for all to see, the guards had been negligent in cleaning the
cage floor of late. He knew this was a temporary arrangement, if they
didn't reach their destination soon there wouldn't be much left but
corpses.

Hern had deigned to lighten the
load of a number of them and was clothed in the garments of several
dead men. He chose not to hoard the little warmth they provided and
sported three layers, enough to keep him from catching a chill from
the night. He had seen that mistake made right before his eyes, a
greedy fool swaddled in cloth like a babe who couldn't move quickly
enough to defend himself from a swift attack.

The tedium of the night drew to a
close in his usual spot in the cage, he fell asleep to a well-worn
thought in situate: how much longer could he survive these
conditions?

He awoke to the familiar sound of
the cage wheels grinding to a halt, it would appear they had stopped
again. He waited patiently for the sound of the guards dismounting
and locating their shovels. They dared not employ the slaves for the
task, lest some mad fool start a free for all in an attempt to win
control of the cart hauling the cage.

His thin brows furrowed, they
should have started digging by now. His mind ran through all the
possibilities, had they finally arrived? Had the guards suffered a
mishap and been forced to stop? Was this some half-way point they had
reached to gather supplies from? With the sheet still covering the
cage it was impossible to determine what had happened.

It was then he noticed that there
was a shadow on the sheet, and not one caused by a guard coming to
remove the dead – it was much larger than that. Carefully
creeping closer to examine it, he realised that it was a shadow cast
from some large cliff face or structure. Whilst it was feasible that
they had stopped beside a cliff, he felt it was altogether more
likely that they had reached their destination.

The shuffling of boots and the
number of silhouettes dotted around the canvas confirmed his
suspicions.

Silent, alert and concerned, most
of the residents of the cage were reflecting Hern's own feelings. At
least they now would know what they were getting from the desert
journey. Their moods mirroring his spoke of another fact previously
unknown to Hern, most of these men didn't know where they were and
what was about to happen.

The canvas was lifted in no great
haste to reveal a series of armed men staring grimly into the cage,
their eyes meeting the occupants as if in some kind of challenge.

If the men had expected Hern to
scowl back at them like the rest they would have been disappointed,
he only had eyes for the structure beyond. It would appear that he
had indeed been sent to the indomitable Fort Greyhawk.

The wooden palisade may have
served to hide the ground level of the structure, otherwise it seemed
entirely redundant. There appeared to be three levels, each carved of
weathered arenite and sporting holes for windows. Altogether it
seemed an archaic but practical build of curved construction to
reduce erosion from the buffeting storms.

His brief surveillance of the
surrounding architecture was interrupted by a vocal tub of a man
yelling at them from the cage door.

'Alright you fuckers, I know that
each and every one of you is clinging to this here cage for dear
life, so I'm not expecting any resistance. Understood?'

He heard the sound of several
crossbows being tightened up, he doubted that this was an act.

'You will each leave the cage and
proceed into the fort beyond. Make any trouble for my lads and we'll
fill you full of bolts.'

Hern was expecting a longer
speech, something more derogatory and wild. Perhaps a combination of
the heat and having to do this every time new meat was brought for
the slaughter was sapping the man's strength. The ability to shoot
any of them dead at will should be more than adequate to keep this
lot in thrall even if they were well enough to resist.

The guards impatiently shuffled
them into line, clearly not comfortable out in the open desert. Hern
was beginning to piece together why that may be.

Doubtless he was going to be told
this later, the true prison was not Greyhawk but the desert that
surrounded it. Any man planning an exit would find themselves more
than welcome to a vast sandy death trap that was impossible to
traverse alone. In fact their only means of escape was now lumbering
away down the desert path. It seemed their delightful locale was to
be shared by their drivers and the Urkata. A fresh team had been
hooked up to their former abode and they dragged it away quite
happily with the others.

Hern was actually surprised at
his lucidity after the lengthy journey in captivity. There were few
around him that weren't wilting in the heat as they struggled out of
the cage. Perhaps it was impulsive defiance on his part but he chose
to walk out of the cage steadily, as if exiting a carriage after a
pleasant romp through the garden state.

The round little swearing man
chose not to react to this beyond deepening his scowl, there would
probably be a battery of tests in the nearby future to fully
ascertain how much of his stance was bravado.

They were boxed in by soldiers
now as they ushered them roughly towards the fort entrance at an
entirely unnecessary speed. Several of the men stumbled and fell in
their states of exhaustion, only to be trampled upon by the officers
at the rear and left in the desert to die. Apparently Greyhawk had no
quota to fill in terms of man power.

The burning in his legs coincided
with the pain lancing up his back at each stride, not that he would
show any weakness. Much like his journey it was decidedly
uncomfortable and required remedying upon the first opportunity.

They didn't enter the front of
the fort, instead the soldiers marched to a side entrance, the smells
from which sent pangs of hunger grumbling through him. If Hern were a
praying man he would have sent one up for a meal to chew over, he
doubted he would simply be handed such fare.

The room they were forcefully
ushered into consisted of a single long stone table and another
entrance to the side, presumably leading to the cooking area. That
was all Hern's senses took in before they were overpowered by what
the table had been encumbered with.

It was a feast fit for a king,
meats of all shapes and sizes, large rolls of cheese, innumerable
spiced delicacies and a number of dishes that Hern had never seen
before. He felt an almost overpowering urge well up around him as the
group of slaves collectively gazed in ravenous wonder at the food in
front of them. He was jolted back to himself by the sound of
crossbows being tightened and the solitary figure rising in the midst
of it all.

'You, my friends, are the
survivors,' the man said, still chewing on a leg of fowl. 'You have
traversed the desert imprisoned with some of the fiercest and most
dangerous criminals of our time and somehow you conspired to cling to
your lives.' He set the leg down upon the table absent-mindedly, as
if unaware of their starvation. 'For your mastery of whatever tactic
you used to resist those long hours, I salute you.' He swept his hand
out in the gesture that Hern had been waiting for. 'This feast is
yours.'

Several men dashed forward and
started cramming their faces with the food, to a beaming smile from
the figure.

'I see that some of you are much
too eager to sample the delights I have prepared for you.' His voice
grew cold. 'I do not recall saying that you may start eating.'

The bolts were released with a
twang into their chests and they shared a brief look of surprise and
dismay before gurgling to the floor in a pool of blood.

'Now that I truly have your
attention, you may begin to eat.'

The next few men that shouldered
their way forward came more hesitantly and respectfully to the
once-again beaming man as he ushered them to join him at the table.

They sampled the food with
caution this time, several of them broke out into smiles. It was good
then.

'Do any of you know me?' the man
asked to those eating, his voice turning cold. They shook their heads
nervously in between bites.

'Yet you're stupid enough to
accept a meal like this without wondering at my intentions?'

They stopped now, clearly worried
and confused at what he meant.

Each man fell to the ground,
their mouths frothing with a slightly more muted gurgle than the
previous victims.

'They may have been good
fighters,' the man mused thoughtfully. 'Ordinarily I'd accept them
with open arms if I thought they'd do well.' He shook his head sadly.
'They didn't have what I was looking for.'

He looked each of the remaining
men in the eye now, one by one as he spoke. 'You see this calculated
façade is in place to locate a certain individual. I am
Corporal Dyson to you and I have been tasked with finding the diamond
in the dust, the champion that will lead us to victory over those
pompous asses in Levanin.' He curled his lip at them in hatred now,
completely transformed. 'I am not a learned man, I am not a big wig
scholar from upon high. I will chew you up, spit you out and chew you
some more just to fuck with what's left of you. Just to let you know
that you're mine to do as I please. You'll all be dead soon enough,
that's why you're here in the first place. A long, slow, painful
execution that will only be halted by two things.'

He held up his fingers and glared
at them with a mixture of wrath and something profoundly dangerous.
'You either go down to Levanin and become champion, or you try your
shot at getting rid of me and running this place.'

There was utter silence now.

'I see some of you have heard
about how long I've been doing this. This fucking place is all I have
left now.' He stared at each of them now in turn. 'Do you plan to try
and pry the only thing left from me? Cross me and you're dead.'

Hern always found it surprising
how the masculine bravado melts away in the face of certain death,
none of the men grumbled or complained or even challenged Dyson. What
Dyson wasn't accounting for was the dangerous streak in Hern.

The broad grin had been plastered
on the Corporal's face once more as he continued to speak. 'Through
the door are a number of my lads, they'll give gruel to the hungry
and meek, it may taste like poison but it isn't. They'll also break
the face of anyone they don't like the look of, any questions?'

When nobody seemed eager to query
his hearty tone, he motioned to the guards to escort them into the
next room to the right. Now it was time for Hern to act.

He stepped forward with care,
enough to gain the attention of Dyson but not enough to warrant a
bolt in the throat.

'Yeah, you with the pretty boy
face hair.'

Hern couldn't suppress the
slightest of smiles at that. His thin goatee was usually well-oiled
and lacked the thick layer of growth it currently sported, that Dyson
thought this was pretty spoke volumes.

'Either speak or die, just don't
waste any more of my fucking time.'

Indeed. Time to get to the point.

'Are you going to finish that
fowl leg?' he asked.

The silence that followed was
nerve-racking. Had he misjudged the man?

His face crooked into a smile,
Hern could feel the positive assessment behind it, the wheels turning
behind the eyes. There was a real mind at work here, constantly
weighing up what he saw before him, constantly shifting.

'Why? Do you want it?' He picked
the leg up and offered it to Hern.

Hern smiled back at the
challenge, he knew precisely what would happen if he accepted.

'It would be rude of me to eat
from my host's plate when he has so graciously provided me with my
own.' He gestured at the room he presumed the gruel was kept in.
'Besides, my colleagues here may misinterpret your kindness as
preference and take issue with it.'

He held Dyson's gaze and watched
his mind spin into motion, he hoped the conclusion wasn't fatal.

Slowly the man smiled, putting
the leg back upon the table. It was a real smile, not of warmth but
curiosity, Hern had interested him.

'Go and get your gruel.'

Hern walked to the room, assured
that he had caught the Corporal's attention.

D
yson stalked
his way back to the command post, refusing to betray how pleased he
was by today's developments. Yalem shadowed him as always, an
ever-present form that he had felt naked without in his dealings with
the Praetor.

'What is your assessment of the
recruits then? I don't see any that looks like he could take out a
big lizard.'