The Warlords of Nin (17 page)

Toli spent his last moments of life praying for Quentin, who could not pray for himself.

He was roused with a sharp kick to his back. The blow rolled him over, and Toli looked up into the hate-filled face of a giant who held a battle axe with a blade as wide as a man's waist.

The giant, whose face was seamed with crisscrossing scars, pointed at the captives and growled. The guards seized them and dragged them out into the meadow where the army had camped, pushing through the mass of thronging soldiers who formed a solid wall around some object that held their attention.

Toli and Quentin were pushed through the assembled host and thrown down at the edge of a wide ring formed by the shields of the soldiers. In the center of the ring stood two horses, one facing east and the other west. Between the horses lay a tangle of ropes and two heavy yokelike objects. At the farther side of the ring stood the warlord's black steed, tossing his head and jerking the arm of the soldier holding his bridle.

As Toli watched, a ripple coursed through the ranks at the edge of the ring, and a wide avenue opened, through which came a man wearing a breastplate of bronze and a helmet of bronze that had two great plumes like wings affixed to its crest. A cloak was clasped at one shoulder, beneath which protruded the thin blade of his cruelly curved sword. Toli had no doubt that he was seeing the warlord.

The warlord approached his courser and paused momentarily while two of his men dashed forward and flung themselves at his feet. One lay prostrate, and the other crouched next to him on his hands and knees. The warlord proceeded to climb into his saddle upon the bodies of his men. He then raised his hand in signal.

Toli swallowed hard, inwardly shuddering. He cast one last look at Quentin, unconscious on the ground beside him. “Stay asleep, Kenta,” he whispered to himself, “and fear nothing. I will go before you.”

But it was not to be. Two soldiers came forward at the warlord's signal; one carried a gourd full of water. They rolled Quentin over on his back none too gently; a moan escaped his lips. Toli struggled against his bonds and was struck on the head by a guard.

The soldier with the gourd knelt over Quentin and placed the vessel against his nose and poured.

“You will drown him!” shouted Toli, receiving another blow on the head for his trouble. He lunged at the soldier and was kicked in the ribs.

Quentin coughed violently and choked. Water spouted from his mouth and nostrils, and he awoke sputtering. His eyelids flickered, and he turned cloudy eyes upon Toli, who now knelt over him. “My friend . . . ,” Quentin gasped, “I am sorry.”

Quentin seemed to know what was about to happen.

Both prisoners were jerked to their feet; Quentin was made to stand supported between two scowling soldiers, one of whom grasped a handful of hair in order to keep the captive's head erect.

The warlord gave a second signal, and there was a sudden scuffle behind the two captives. A third prisoner was flung forward into the ring. He was a soldier, bound hand and foot as Quentin and Toli were. “One of the sentries of last night,” whispered Toli. He guessed the warlord would make him the first victim.

The man's face was gray; he trembled all over. Sweat soaked his hair and ran down his face—a hideous mass of purple welts, for the man had already received a sound beating. The luckless trooper was quickly wrenched to his feet by two other guards, who then stripped him naked, cutting away his clothing with their knives. The soldiers looking on laughed.

The unfortunate was marched to the center of the ring, where the giant with the broadaxe waited between the two horses. He was pushed to the ground, where he writhed in anguish as his arms and legs were securely tied to the heavy wooden yokes. Then, upon a signal, the two horses, harnessed to the yokes, were led slowly away in opposite directions.

The ropes pulled taut. The giant stepped into place over his prey. The victim was lifted off the ground to hang in agony while his body stretched by slow degrees. The horses leaned into the harness, and the man screamed terribly. The awful popping sound of joints and ligaments giving way seemed to fill the ring. As the victim screamed his last, the giant, quick as lightning, spun the broadaxe in a flashing circle about his head and with one hand brought the blade down with a mighty stroke.

The jolt of the blow almost felled the horses, who stumbled to their knees as the ropes suddenly went slack. The poor wretch was hewn neatly in half as the host wildly clamored their approval, rattling their weapons and cheering.

Toli glanced fearfully at Quentin, who stared emptily at the horrible spectacle; though Quentin's eyes were open, Toli could not tell if they saw what had been played out before them. His look was vague and far away.

The warlord ordered the corpse to be removed from the yokes and then led his steed across the ring to where Toli and Quentin waited. Toli gritted his teeth and stared stubbornly ahead. The warlord glared down at his prisoners for a moment. He spoke something in an unintelligible tongue. Toli raised his eyes, snapping with defiance, and for a brief instant their gazes met. The warlord grasped his reins and struck down at Toli and slashed him across the face—once, twice, three times.

Blood spurted from a gash over his eye and ran down his face. The warlord barked at him and shot a quick glance at Quentin, who still seemed not to know what was happening around him. Then the warrior chief swung his mount around and trotted back to the center of the ring.

He looked slowly around the entire circle of faces in his army and then spat out a short speech to them which, from the somber mood that suddenly fell upon the host, Toli guessed to be on the order of an official reprimand. When he finished, the warlord nodded, and the soldiers began readjusting the yokes and harnesses. Toli believed the moment to be his last. He closed his eyes and sent aloft a prayer for strength and dignity in his moment of trial.

Across the ring a blast of a horn sounded. Toli opened his eyes to the far hills and trees, intent that his last memory should not be of his executioner or the grotesque corpse lying in two pieces beside the wicked blade. He felt a twinge of regret that he would not be able to comfort his master in his last moment, nor even say his leave as a man would, but he doubted whether Quentin would know or understand anyway.

The soldiers on either side of him tightened their grasp, and suddenly he was being dragged forward. His heart raced madly in his chest, and his vision suddenly became remarkably acute. He saw every blade of grass under his feet, and every leaf on every branch of nearby trees stood out in breathtaking clarity.

Time seemed to swell, expanding to immeasurable dimensions. He moved step by step, wonderfully aware of each moment as it slid by; he held it, savored it. Now he was raising his foot, taking a step—how long it took—now the other foot swung up. There were twenty more steps to go
before reaching the axe-man, and each step seemed to last forever.

He was conscious of the air as it filled his lungs: the taste of it, the tingling freshness as it rushed in. He felt the sun on his neck and thought that if he tried he could count each single ray as it touched him. How strange, he thought, that every nerve and fiber of his being should be so fully alive this close to death.

Then he was struck with a horrible thought. In this heightened state, he would be able to see the executioner's blade as it glittered in the air in its lazy arc. He would be able to feel each tiny fiber of muscle strength and pull; he would feel his bones wrenched leisurely from their sockets; he would hear his own spine snap.

He would see in that most hideous of moments—stretched out far, far beyond its normal length—the cruel blade bite deep into his flesh, cleaving bone from muscle. And he would see himself severed in half and feel the awful rush of his organs spilling out.

He would know his death in its most terrifying aspect. He would die not instantly, as it would seem to those who looked on. He would die with torturous slowness. Gradually. Bit by excruciating bit.

18

Y
ou look better this morning than you have in weeks, Sire.” Durwin had seen the king from across the garden and had watched him for some moments before approaching. Eskevar sat quietly on a small stone bench amid a riotous splash of color from flowers of every shade and description. Every variety of flowering plant and shrub from the farthest ends of the realm and beyond had a place in the Dragon King's garden.

A shadow vanished from the king's brow as he looked up and saw his physician coming toward him. “Thanks to the ministrations of my good hermit, I think I will yet trouble this world with my existence.”

Durwin cocked a wary eye at Eskevar. “How strangely you put it, Sire. I would have thought that today of all days, you would rejoice in your improved health and put gloomy thoughts far behind you.”

“Then little you know me, sir. I may not make merry when my—when men of my bidding are still abroad.”

“It is Midsummer!” said Durwin. His gaiety was a little forced; he, too, felt uneasy about Quentin and Toli and the others being so long away. “I would not wonder if they were enjoying the hospitality of one of the happy villages by the sea.”

Eskevar shook his head gravely. “You contrive to cheer me, but your words fall far short of the mark, Durwin—though I thank you for the attempt. I know too well that something is wrong in Mensandor. Something is very wrong.”

Durwin stepped closer to his monarch and laid a hand on his shoulder. The king looked up into the hermit's eyes and smiled wanly. “Sire, I, too, feel a dread creeping over the land. Sometimes my heart flutters unexpectedly, or a chill falls upon me as I sit in my chamber before the fire, and I know something is loose in the land that does not love peace. Too soon, I fear, we will face a most loathsome enemy.

“But I also know that we stand in the light of the god's pleasure, and no darkness can extinguish it.”

“I wish I had faith enough to believe in your god. I have seen too much of religion to believe.” Eskevar sighed and rose slowly to his feet. Durwin reached out a hand and steadied him.

The two old friends walked the garden paths side by side in silence for a long time; Durwin kept his hand under the king's arm.

“I do not think I could survive another campaign, another war,” said Eskevar after they had walked the entire length and breadth of the garden.

“You are tired, Sire. That is all. You have been very ill. Take your time, and do not let such thoughts trouble you. When you have regained your strength, you will feel differently, I assure you.”

“Perhaps.” The king grew silent again.

The sun shone down in a friendly way, and all the garden seemed to shout with the exuberance of life. A fountain splashed in a shady nook near a wall covered with white morning glories. A delicate song floated on the perfumed air as the men strolled slowly by. They stopped to listen.

“How sweetly your daughter sings, Sire.”

“She cannot do else.” The king laughed gently, and the light seemed to rise in his eyes. “She is a woman, and she is in love.”

Seeing how his patient brightened at the thought of his daughter, Durwin turned aside and directed their steps toward the fountain and the young woman dressed all in white samite, glistening like a living ray of light.

“My lady sings most beautifully,” said Durwin when they had drawn close. Bria, her hands busily plaiting a garland of ivy into which morning glories were woven, raised her head and smiled.

“I would have thought my lords too preoccupied for a maiden's vain utterings,” Bria laughed. Music filled the air, and shadows raced away. Eskevar seemed suddenly to become young again, remembering perhaps another whose laughter enchanted him. “Come, Father. And Durwin, too. Sit beside me, and tell me what you two have been talking about this morning.”

“We will sit with you, but it is you who must tell us what occupies your thoughts,” said Durwin.

They sat on stone benches near the fountain; Eskevar settled next to his lovely daughter and did not take his eyes from her. Bria began to relate the trivial commonplaces of her day, and her excitement at the approach of the evening's Midsummer celebration. There was no hint in her voice of anything but the most joyful anticipation of delight.

How very like her mother, Durwin thought. How wise and good. Her heart must have been filled with thoughts of Quentin and consumed with longing for his presence in this happy time; yet she did not let on that she felt anything but the most perfect contentment and happiness. She was doing it for her father, he knew.

After a little while, Durwin slipped away and left his patient for the moment in the hands of an even more skilled physician, one whose very presence was a healing balm.

Arriving at the road, Esme had faced a hard decision. To the north lay Askelon and her goal; to the south, danger and the likelihood of being captured again. But she guessed that any help she might bring must come out of the south, too. That was the way her protectors, Quentin and Toli, had been heading when they encountered her. That was the way their friends were expected to return.