Servant of a Dark God (20 page)

In most fortresses, prisoners held for ransom were kept in the tops of towers. To escape they would have to make their way through all the defenses below. Besides, it was more comfortable living at ground level, and the lower rooms would be taken by those with authority. But Sleth were a different matter. They could descend heights and break timber floors that other men could not. Experience had shown that they needed to be held behind tons of rock. The cleansing room, the only place in all of the New Lands capable of holding Sleth, was built in the cellar of that tower.

Argoth led Hogan across the courtyard to the tower. They passed a group of soldiers drawing water from the well. A number of yards farther they arrived at the first gate of the sea tower and stopped. The gate was a low wall a dozen paces from the door of the tower. Half a dozen guards stood along the wall with two more mastiffs in their midst.

“Hold,” one of them said.

“Captain Argoth, here on at the warlord’s request. We’ve come to question the woman.”

“Aye,” said the man, then he walked back to the tower door and knocked. The door of the tower was set deeply between two wings much like a fortress gate, but in a smaller dimension. There were dark arrow loops in those wings that would allow archers to cover the door with crossfire.

Moments later, a small block of wood set behind bars opened at eye level revealing lamplight within. Part of a face filled the opening.

“Your visitors have arrived,” the man said.

The face disappeared and the block closed. A moment later the crossbar on the other side scraped, then the door opened. A giant of a man with a bushy beard held the door with one hand and a lamp with the other. His name was Droz. Many straps hung from his armsman’s apron—for not only was he experienced, but he was also a dreadman of immense ferocity. Argoth had seen him chop men in two. Both his right and left forearms were covered with warrior tattoos.

“Ah, Captain,” Droz said. “We’ve been waiting for you.” He motioned for Argoth and Hogan to enter.

Argoth led Hogan through the opening in the wall and to the door. When they entered the dimly lit room, Droz shut the door behind them and swung down the crossbar.

The room was windowless, wide, and bare, with only a plain hearth burning to one side. There were no wooden tables or benches. Not a chair or cupboard. Nothing a Sleth might use as a weapon. The only seats or shelves were those carved in the stone. It was purposely large enough for half a dozen men to wield spears and bows freely. A few guards slept on the floor. Three stood behind Droz holding their weapons. One stood at the far end of the room next to an iron lever set in the wall.

The giant motioned at Hogan with his lamp. “I expect you want irons for him?”

“No,” said Argoth. “He’s working with me.”

“But he’s not working with me,” said Droz, “now, is he?”

“Actually, Droz,” said Argoth, “he is.”

Droz stood a head taller than either Argoth or Hogan. He folded his massive arms across his chest and looked down at them. The three men behind Droz shifted ever so slightly into a stance that would allow them to quickly spring into action.

“Search him,” said Arogth. “In fact, if you’re worried about it, order him to strip. Send him to the cleansing room naked.”

“Now, now,” said Droz. “We’re not in the business of sending pretty men to the witch. This isn’t a brothel, Captain.”

The other men smiled, but they did not laugh.

“Well, there’s your problem,” said Argoth. “Not all prisoners can be cracked directly. Sometimes you’ve got to build a little trust. And Zun Hogan here will do that. So perform your search. It’s late and I want some answers.”

“You’re not going to get any,” said Droz.

“Is that so?”

“We’ve been pressing her. Quiet as a fish, she is. Oh, she’ll struggle and cry out as loudly as the next one, but she won’t talk.”

Argoth truly hoped that, if nothing else, Purity had been able to keep their names hidden. “We’ll see if different methods produce different results.”

Droz motioned for one of the other men to search Hogan. “How many of us do you need?”

“It will be just me and the bowmaster this time.”

Hogan took a wide stance. Then the guard began to pat him down.

Droz grunted. “Just the two of you? Are you sure that’s safe?”

“She wears a king’s collar, doesn’t she? So she’s nothing more than a woman. And an injured one at that.”

Droz nodded. He pointed at Hogan. “He’s her lover then?”

“She had one love,” said Hogan. “And he wasn’t a man even you would want to cuckold.”

Then the guard checking Hogan stood back, looked to Droz, and nodded.

Droz considered Hogan. “So, Zu, why are you here?” He used a polite title, but not the one deserved by a bowmaster.

“I’m a friend,” said Hogan.

Droz looked at Argoth then, and what was going on in that mind Argoth couldn’t tell. Droz was a cunning man. And a man with such a mind just might suspect everything here was not as it seemed.

A beat passed, then Droz said, “Before you go down, you should know: Anything happens, anything at all, and Pony there”—he pointed to a man standing by the doorway to the back chamber—“will pull that lever. That will bring down two portcullises that five dreadmen together cannot lift. One will seal off the cleansing room. But, just in case someone makes it out of the cleansing room and to the stairs, the second will seal that back chamber. Should you be caught behind them with the witch, do not expect us to even think about saving you. You’re on your own.”

“I wouldn’t worry about her getting out,” said Argoth. “I’d be worried about her kind getting in.”

“Nothing’s getting in here,” said Droz.

“Of course not,” said Argoth, hoping he might provoke Droz into revealing more of the defenses. “Who would dare?”

“We’ve got archers in the wings of the entrance,” said Droz. “Men on the wall above. Nobody is getting in.”

“And have you set a crossfire up in here?”

“You don’t need to worry, Captain,” said Droz. “We’re tight as a drum.”

Argoth nodded. They’d planned for everything but a traitor in their midst.

Droz led them to the back of the chamber and through an arched opening. Argoth glanced up as they walked through the short passage. The heavy portcullis hung there. It would not be made solid. No, they’d want holes in it so they might shoot arrows at whoever was caught behind it.

Another lever was set into the wall of this chamber. Argoth supposed it would release only the lower portcullis. There was a stench in this rear chamber. “What is that?” asked Argoth.

“Bones,” said Droz. “The man has the noxious flatulence of the Dark One himself. I think the designers of this tower wanted to suffocate their prisoners. There’s no second window and, therefore, no cross breeze. So what do we do? The best I could come up with was to order the man to release his poisonous vapors back here. They still waft out to torment us, but at least their potency has diminished by a degree.”

Argoth wrinkled his nose. “I tell you what: forget the crossfire. Just put Bones at the door.”

“I’d put him out,” said Droz, “if the man wasn’t such a good swordsman.” He motioned at the numerous squares on the floor with handles in them. “Mind the covers.”

“Murder holes?” asked Hogan.

“Exactly.”

Droz lit and handed both Argoth and Hogan an oil lamp, then held his aloft to reveal the stairs.

“Here’s another thing,” Droz said. “They spent a fortune making this small fortress; you’d think they’d make it safe for the guards. But no, the fifth stair will try to kill you. Just mind its slope as you go by.”

They descended the stairs. Argoth stepped over the fifth one. The stairs followed the curve of the tower wall to what looked like an empty cellar that lay directly below Bones’s stink chamber. This chamber too had murder holes in the floor.

It also had an iron grate door set into the floor on one side. Droz lifted the bar on the door and took them down another staircase. This stair opened onto a flat area about ten feet deep. At the end there was yet another grated door. Two massive iron bars held it shut.

Droz unbarred the door and opened it outwards toward himself.

There was a whistling somewhere above. Argoth suspected it was a window. He glanced back up the stairs and saw nothing but darkness. There was an odor on the air. Old urine and excrement and something else he could not identify. So it wasn’t as tight as Droz wanted them to believe.

The light of their three lamps was only strong enough for Argoth to see the grated doors of the first few cells.

“The woman’s down at the end,” said Droz. “I’ll wait here.”

“Actually,” said Argoth, “I think we’ll accomplish more alone.”

“I don’t like it,” said Droz.

“If you want to rouse the warlord to discuss our methods with him, go ahead. Or maybe we can wait until he wakes. Of course, she doesn’t have many hours left in her. If she dies tonight . . .”

Droz grunted. “You like to push it, don’t you?”

“No, Droz. We just need some answers.”

“Fine,” said Droz, “But that means I lock you in.”

“Thank you,” said Argoth. “We’ll ring the bell when we’re ready.” Argoth dropped his voice to barely a whisper. “I expect you’ll want to watch. But, please, don’t uncover one of the murder holes directly above her cell. If she is Sleth, she’ll know you’re there. In fact, I’d recommend against opening any of them. Your stink will come through, and she’ll not say a word.”

Droz looked at him, and Argoth couldn’t tell if it was suspicion or curiosity behind those eyes. But then he nodded, locked the grated door behind himself as he left, and retreated back up the stairs.

Hogan stepped forward toward Purity, but Argoth restrained him, and motioned at the murder holes in the ceiling. They waited for the time it would have taken Droz to walk back up the stairs, but they heard no murder hole being uncovered. Nevertheless, Argoth walked about the room, holding his lamp so he could inspect every one. When he was sure nobody was listening, he motioned Hogan to Purity’s cell.

Purity lay in a blanket at the bars of her cell on a bed of straw. Underneath the blanket she was naked except for her bandages. Her head had been shaven. The silver king’s collar ringed her neck. Hogan knelt close to the bars and held his lamp up. Her wounds from the arrows were stitched in tidy rows. Even so, the wounds were red, angry, and corrupting. She would not last long in this room, but she might survive long enough to do the Grove damage.

“Purity,” said Hogan.

She spoke, but did not sit up. “I hope you brought wolfsbane roots,” she said. “If I’m to be poisoned, let it be quick. Not an insufficient dose of hemlock and honey or some two-day mushroom.”

“Calm yourself,” said Hogan. “It hasn’t come to that yet. First, we need to know what has happened.”

She coughed and her breath rattled in her lungs. “I’m sure the Fir-Noy gave you the full report,” she said.

“I don’t care about the battle,” said Hogan. “I want to know about the stork and your child. And what happened to the harvest master’s family afterwards.”

“I thought maybe someone else in the Grove decided to take justice in their own hands,” said Argoth, “but it wasn’t anyone in the Grove. Nobody I know could have drained the bodies like that. Not even a Divine can do that. I inspected the bodies, and they were dry. Completely wrung out.”

Argoth referred to the Fire in the bodies of the family. Death was the separation of Fire, soul, and body. Some said the soul took the Fire with it. Others claimed the Fire poured forth like smoke or steam. However it separated from the body, there was always some that remained and leached away only very slowly. Fire could be found in bones a hundred years old, yet the bodies of Barg’s family had been empty husks.

Argoth continued, “There were the markings of an immense draw of Fire, a blackening of the skin. It looked almost as if some monstrous hand had grasped hold of each victim’s face.”

Purity was silent for a long moment. And then, “I know nothing of what happened to the harvest master’s family.”

Hogan squatted down next to the cell. He reached in and gently stroked Purity’s shaved head. “Whatever you’re hiding, you need to let us know so we know how to set it right.”

Purity looked at them then. Large cuts and bruises covered her face. Her left eye was almost swollen shut. Her lip was split.

“Give me the poison,” she said. “You cannot free me. I have broken our trust. I am willing to abide by the covenant; cut me down and preserve the rest.”

Not a tear fell. And how could she weep? She was broken. Argoth’s heart ached for her.

Hogan continued to softly stroke her hair. “We decide if the covenant is broken. Besides, not all is lost. Your children yet live.”

Argoth had not known that.

Purity looked at Hogan, and now the tears began to well in her damaged eyes. “I have done horrible things.”

They waited for her to continue.

Purity was a handsome woman, but her grief had shattered her. And now her face twisted with what she was about to tell. “In the early autumn of last year the children brought in a young stork with an injured wing. It could not join the others in their flight south, so we decided to nurse it back to health. Sugar and Legs made a pen for it next to the chicken coop and brought it frogs and fish to eat. They loved the excitement of that long, dangerous beak.

“It was a smart bird, and a temptation came to me, a forbidden and foolish thing. I wanted to reach out and touch its soul, to see what the mind of this great bird might be like. I’d done it before with other animals and knew how to be careful. Every few generations someone in my family manifests this gift. I’d been taught by my great-grandmother. But I had never done this while pregnant. I was only a few weeks from delivering Cotton.”

Argoth suspected he knew where the story would end. This poor woman . . . and yet, that’s why the codes were so strict.

Purity continued, “Something in me slipped. I felt it leave. I knew it was soul and broke the connection. I was horrified, but nothing happened. I lay awake at nights worrying what might happen to me. I inspected myself and the bird every day. But there was nothing. Nothing. Then Cotton was born. He was jaundiced, but that’s common enough and the yellowing quickly faded in the sun. All seemed right. And I thought I had perhaps imagined the slipping.