He snapped his right foot up sharply, smashing his heel into the guard's lower spine. A wet crack! The man's scream achieved a satisfyingly high note, and he fell, arms and legs thrashing convulsively.
"No one spits on me," he warned in a cold, deadly voice. Ready to fight, no matter his bonds, he met their startled gazes steadfastly. "No one."
For a moment, they stared back, as if impressed. Then, of course, they beat him again, and quite thoroughly. But this time, no one laughed, and no one dared to spit on him.
When they were through, they dragged him to his feet again. Though he could barely stand on his own, the Mouser did his best to remain erect. Naked, bruised, and bleeding, he managed yet to look defiant.
Nearby, the corporal lay whimpering on the ground, his legs absolutely still, his arms twitching, eyes filled with pain and fear. A small circle of his fellows clustered around him, shaking their heads. A few knelt beside him, murmuring words of comfort.
The Mouser felt a twinge of guilt as he gazed at the fallen man and watched another guard quietly, secretively slide a knife from a belt sheath. Still murmuring assurances, he laid one hand across the corporal's eyes, then cleanly slid the blade deep into his comrade's windpipe and sliced sideways.
A moment of convulsion, a gurgling gasp, and the corporal's suffering ended. The rest of the soldiers turned accusing glares upon the Mouser. He knew by those looks that his suffering had just begun.
The soldier with the knife wiped his blade and sheathed it. The others looked to him for orders now, though he wore no officer's insignia. Someone gathered the Mouser's belongings. Someone else picked up the end of the rope around his neck. At a word from the new leader, they marched the Mouser to the north side of the tower and toward the iron fence.
A pair of ladders straddled the iron structure. A pike at his back urged him up. Awkwardly he climbed the narrow rungs, unable to steady himself with his bound hands. At the top, he nearly fell. With the point of another pike to encourage him, he caught his balance and descended.
"We'd hang you on this fence if it was up to me," the new leader said grimly. "Hissif wasn't too bright, but he was a good man, and deserved a better death."
With a mouth full of coppery-tasting blood, the Mouser studied the thin scar that ran from the man's chin to his right ear. "It's my experience," he muttered, "that people usually die exactly as they deserve."
The guard's voice remained impassive, but his eyes betrayed anger. "Shortly, we'll broaden your experience."
Naked and leashed, the Mouser simmered inside as the soldiers marched him through the streets of Lankhmar, up the wharves past the sailing ships and fishing boats. The wind sang in the ships' rigging; the wharves creaked and groaned. Otherwise, an eerie quiet haunted the streets.
One by one, the stars faded away. Darkness retreated, giving way to a creepy shade of twilight. A burning red crescent marked the slow return of Nehwon's sun. On the rooftops, in windows, from the doorways of homes and shops, Lankhmar's citizens watched the brightening sky with nervous, pale-faced relief.
As they crossed the plaza where the Street of the Gods met the wharves, the Mouser tried to slow the pace. Turning his head to catch a glimpse down the broad avenue, he witnessed carnage. Bodies lay sprawled in the road. Cobblestones gleamed darkly with blood. Soldiers, many bleeding themselves, worked to pile the corpses and tend the wounded.
A sharp jerk on the leash rope caused the Mouser to look forward again, and a rough push from a guard propelled him onward.
Every muscle and bone aching, the Mouser's thoughts turned to Fafhrd. What was that violet light that had swallowed his partner? Was Fafhrd dead? Captured by Malygris? If the guards had noticed Fafhrd at all, they seemed strangely disinterested. Perhaps they thought the Mouser had violated the tower alone.
He glanced at his shoulders, still mottled from the kisses of the leeches, and in his mind he heard again Fafhrd's final falling shriek. What had compelled Fafhrd to lose his grip on the rope?
"Damn the misbegotten creature that brought us back to this city," he muttered to himself. "Damn Sheelba. Damn his stinking swamp, his unlikely hut, and his eyeless face." He lifted his head and swept his gaze around. Directly ahead, the wall of the North Barracks rose, and off to the right of it, on a graceful hill, stood the Overlord's Rainbow Palace.
"Damn all of you," the Mouser swore under his breath, yielding to increasing bitterness. "You've cost me the truest friend in all the world."
The North Barracks gates stood open. Straight into the sprawling compound, his guards marched him. In the yard, arranged in three neat rows, lay a score of corpses, soldiers killed in the melee before the temples. Now, his captors added one more to the nearest row as they placed their corporal's body on the grass.
Shortly after that, they flung the Mouser into a windowless cell and slammed the door. A heavy metal bolt slid home on the other side, and the little bit of torchlight that slipped under the jamb vanished as his guards left him. In utter blackness, he lay on his side on a bare stone floor. For a long while, he remained there, without hope, awash in his pain and grieving for Fafhrd.
Then slowly, he sat up, wincing at the effort. Licking caked blood from his lips, he wriggled his bound hands beneath his hips, under his legs, and over his feet. Bringing the rope to his teeth, he chewed and pulled until the knots loosened enough to let him slip free. He cast the coils disgustedly at the door.
Thoughts of Fafhrd stole into his mind again, and he grew morose. Dead, or in the clutches of Malygris—or worse, Fafhrd caught by whatever remnant god once resided in that evil tower whose defenses the Mouser, himself, had so foolishly triggered. Curse him for a fool for ever laying eyes on that huge, ruby jewel. Fafhrd had paid the price for the Mouser's greed.
Cross-legged, he sat on the floor, hands in his lap, head hung, blaming and shaming himself until a new possibility entered his mind. "Sheelba," he muttered to himself, grasping at a small hope. Could Sheelba have saved Fafhrd from his fall? That mysterious wizard had transported them across the world with his arcane art. Could he not have transported Fafhrd to safety?
Clearly, some magical hand had reached out to snatch the Northerner from midair.
The Mouser's shoulders slumped again. Surely, that was a false hope. Sheelba dwelled in the marshes beyond the city's walls and was sick near to death, in need of errand boys to go where his magicks could not. What would he think of his errand boys now, the Mouser wondered bitterly.
Reaching behind, he fingered the leather thong that bound his black hair away from his face. At least he still had one weapon. Crawling on hands and knees, he searched the floor until he found the coil of rope that had bound his wrists. Undoing the knots, he tested its strength, nodding grimly. It would make an adequate garrotte, and now his weapons were two.
Sitting again, listening alertly for any sound beyond the door, he conserved his energy and shut from his mind all awareness of pain from the beatings the guards had given him. He might yet, with luck and daring, break out of this prison. Then nothing would keep him from learning Fafhrd's fate.
Before much time had passed, he heard a sound in the corridor, and a key grated in the lock of his cell door. Moving swiftly, he rose and concealed himself in the gloom next to the door, gripping the two ends of the rope. The door swung outward, and lamplight spilled across the threshold, but no guard stepped inside.
"Prisoner, show yourself," a deep voice called from the corridor.
Some guard's natural caution had undone him. Silently cursing, the Mouser dropped the rope and, blinking, stepped into the light. Four soldiers stood in the narrow passage with short swords drawn. The tallest guard gestured to two of the others. "Take him," he said.