The Warleader gestured to the figure as it continued its endless round fettered to the wooden arm of the mill, strangely unconcerned despite the troop of foreign cavalry crowded around. ‘The work of the Thaumaturgs,’ the Warleader said. ‘Know you of their … creations?’
The unease coiling in Jatal’s stomach tightened. He had in fact grown up hearing the stories brought back by the generations of his forebears’ raids into these lands. Tales of humans bred or distorted by the Thaumaturgs to serve certain … needs. Most of his brethren, he knew, laughed at such accounts, dismissing them as mere bedtime stories meant to scare children. Jatal, however, had read written narratives penned by travellers from disparate regions and times, all of which mentioned such research — and universally condemned the practice and its products.
The sight of the broad back of the unfortunate as he continued his eternal labouring circle raised a fluttering unease within Jatal. Vague recollections of some of the descriptions he’d read returned as half-glimpsed horrors — many too dreadful to believe. Meanwhile, the human dray animal paced on, his head hanging, his long hair filthy and crawling with vermin — just like any neglected mule or ox. Jatal swallowed his disquiet, murmuring, ‘I have read first-hand accounts …’
The Warlord grunted his satisfaction and waved Scarza forward. ‘Bring him to us.’
The half-Thelomen or Trell sized the man up — fully as massive as he — and his hand went to his shortsword.
‘Unnecessary, good Scarza, I assure you. You’ll find the fellow fully as gentle as any cow or sheep.’
The giant cocked a sceptical eye to the Warleader then shrugged his compliance. He stepped on to the beaten circular track to stand in the way of the fellow as he came around on yet another pass. The wooden arm swung around and struck him in the stomach, bouncing, then paused as the chattel stopped his pacing. The constant background grumbling of the mortar stones stilled.
‘You’ll come with me now,’ Scarza said gently. ‘No one intends you any harm.’
The man didn’t answer. Nor did he even raise his head. He was filthy, unwashed, his simple rag loinwrap rotting off him. Scarza looked to the Warleader for guidance.
‘Untie him.’
Scarza unwrapped the leather straps that secured the man’s hands to the wooden arm. It occurred to Jatal that those straps and that arm, no more than a tree branch, were in no way adequate to imprison such a brute. The lieutenant led him by those straps to the Warleader.
‘Lift his head,’ the Warleader said.
Even the half-breed betrayed a hesitation born of unease, yet he obeyed, using his hand to push the man’s chin up.
Jatal winced and the bodyguards cursed their surprise and disgust. The poor fellow’s eyes were no more than empty pits where the ends of tendons and muscles writhed.
‘Open his mouth,’ the Warleader ordered in a strange sort of calm detachment, as if he were examining some curious insect or piece of artwork and not a man at all. Scarza’s great expanse of chest lifted as he took a steadying breath, but he did comply. He squeezed the man’s cheeks, forcing his jaws apart.
Jatal glimpsed within the emptiness of the cavity of his mouth then quickly averted his gaze. The poor unfortunate’s tongue also had been carved away.
‘Now lift his hair from his forehead, Scarza. Push it back.’
‘That is quite enough,’ Jatal breathed shakily.
The Warleader somehow trapped Jatal’s averted gaze. His stare was strangely compelling, his dark eyes almost hidden within the tight folds of his tanned features, his mouth bracketed by severe lines. For a moment, the image of a mask occurred to Jatal. He fancied that the flesh of the Warleader’s face was itself a mask and that what lay beneath was not human. ‘That is certainly not enough, young prince. This is only the beginning. Turn and look upon the handiwork of the Thaumaturgs. This is what they would intend for you.’ He nodded curtly to Scarza, who thrust back the slave’s hair.
Beginning near the temples lay twin pearly scars. Each traced lines up the sides of the man’s forehead to disappear up amid his hairline. Jatal squinted his puzzlement. ‘What is this?’
‘You have heard, no doubt,’ said the Warleader, ‘of those who have endured head wounds that have left them behaving oddly? Forgetful? Even mindless?’
His gaze still on the disfigured face of the slave, Jatal nodded. ‘Yes. I have read treatises from chirurgeons and mediciners speculating upon the head as the seat of some aspects of personality.’
‘Just so, my prince. This man still has a sort of intelligence — he can stand, probably eat what is given him. And no doubt follow simple orders. But his essence, his identity as an individual capable of initiative and self-awareness, has been taken from him. Our Thaumaturgs view flesh as you view clay or wood — to be shaped as required. And what we see here is a mild example of the true depths of their … research.’
Something more than disgust churned acid in Jatal’s stomach. He knew these things intellectually of course … but to be confronted with the reality — in the flesh, as they say — made him feel threatened on a level far more intimate than any mundane enemy. It felt as if what these Thaumaturgs practised somehow endangered his own distinctiveness, his claim to uniqueness as a human being. It made him shiver to his core. And we are riding into this asylum?
He pulled his gaze away with a shudder.
‘What should we do with him?’ the Warleader asked, again his neutral tone suggesting that what they discussed was no more than the fate of a sack of grain or a hog.
Jatal wanted to draw his sword and hack the perverted thing to pieces. He forced himself to take a calming breath. This unfortunate, abhorrent though he might be, was in fact the victim. Destroying him would solve nothing. It was the inhuman authors of his suffering who ought to be eliminated: these Thaumaturgs — but that was not their mission. Jatal shifted his attention to the Warleader to find the man studying him with a steady gaze, as if he were the true subject of all this. ‘Killing him would be pointless. But we cannot let him be seen.’ Jatal paused, searching for the right words. ‘It would cause … unease … within the ranks.’
The Warleader nodded curtly. ‘I concur. He should be disposed of — even though such things will become ever more common as we advance. Regardless, better to delay such discoveries for as long as possible.’ He waved to Scarza. ‘Get rid of it.’
The giant rubbed his wide jaws. ‘Perchance we could simply let him go …’
‘He’d merely sit down somewhere and starve to death. No, it is a mercy.’
Still the lieutenant hesitated, frowning. He tapped a thumb to one curving canine. ‘ ’Tis no fault of his own …’
The Warleader’s voice hardened: ‘Then perhaps we should track down his father who sold him into it!’ And in a single blur he drew the heavy bastard sword at his side, swung it up, and brought it cleaving down atop the creature’s head, chopping the skull clear down past its ears.
Jatal and the surrounding bodyguards flinched in their saddles. The huge carcass twitched, still standing though quite dead. The severed tendons of the eye pits squirmed, the mouth fell open, and as the body tottered to its side, the blade grated its path clear of the skull.
‘Now get rid of it, Lieutenant,’ the Warleader announced into the silence, his voice low. ‘If you would be so good.’
Scarza wiped away the spattering of fresh droplets that dotted his chest, then saluted. ‘Aye, Warleader.’ He grasped an ankle and dragged the body off.