‘Someone? Yes, someone’s for it, all right. And now I’ll have a mess to clean up next door. You’ve been so good for so long, Aziel, doing your wailing every day like your father loves. Too late now! Without pause. Those are the rules.’
Something seemed to have occurred to the girl, Aziel, and she forgot all about Case. ‘No. Oh no, please, don’t! Don’t let them, nanny!’
The woman’s smile was sympathetic but her eyes were cold, and sucking up the girl’s distress, every bit of it. ‘Don’t let them?’ she cried. ‘Well! What am I supposed to do? Pick up a sword and start cutting off heads? You were the one who could have stopped them. Think about that, when you hear it all. It’s been too long since you did, I’d say.’
The nanny began to close the door. Case didn’t know if he should stay or go, but the closing door was, for all he knew, his last chance to slip out. He did so just as the nanny paused to take another hungry look in at Aziel’s distress. ‘So sorry for yourself!’ the woman said. ‘Spare a thought for me. When they’re done, I’ll be in there with mop and bucket, not you.’ She shut the door and turned a key in the lock, then held her ear to the door, that hungry look still on her face.
Case stood behind her in a wide, curved hallway. Staff in robes of bland grey, male and female, walked past in a slow shuffling gait. They didn’t look twice as two burly guards dragged a naked man, bound and gagged, down the hallway towards Aziel’s room.
‘He’s a big one,’ said the nanny, turning away from Aziel’s door. ‘Going to be a bleeder, isn’t he?’
The guards didn’t respond to her at all. They carried the man into the room next to Aziel’s. There was a large stone bench in there; that was all Case saw before the door slammed shut.
‘They’re about to begin!’ the nanny called through Aziel’s keyhole.
Aziel’s voice could be heard, screaming out her window: ‘Father, don’t! Stop them! Don’t do it! Don’t!’
‘You did it,’ the nanny called through the door. ‘Your wailing, girl. You know how he loves it. You’ve been so good for so long, and your voice is so lovely.’
Case didn’t quite know what was going on here, but he knew that right then he wanted to put his foot to that woman’s rear end more than he’d ever wanted a drink in his life, and only his utter bewilderment stopped him.
When the prisoner dragged into the room next door began screaming, Case thought at last he understood what was happening. He knew that for the rest of his days he’d never understand why, not even if someone told him. Some things, he guessed, you simply couldn’t know, and it would ever afterwards throw his mind sideways to think back on it and try to comprehend it.
He ran from Aziel’s door to get the sound of the slowly dying man out of his ears, and that poor girl’s wailing as she heard it happen, and the woman telling her through the door to listen close, because she’d done it all herself. By the time he was out of reach of those awful sounds, the whole thing seemed too strange to be real, even in another world, and he seriously began to doubt he’d witnessed anything of the kind at all.
14
Finally, blessedly, the cavern narrowed and there were no more creatures either side of the path. To be safe they kept on their hands and knees for some distance beyond. Kiown stood and Sharfy slipped to the ground, wiping off sweat. ‘What took so fucking long?’ he demanded.
Kiown and Eric rubbed their tortured knees. ‘Perhaps I enjoyed the pleasure of your body pressed against mine?’ Kiown snarled back. ‘Your weight on my ribs? Do you know how many there were? I was expecting four or five! There was a whole horde.’ Kiown was pale and shaken. ‘If I’d known there were that many, I would’ve chanced the traps.’
‘We seemed safe enough,’ said Eric.
‘Oh no we were not! Try to appreciate our luck. They sometimes work as a pack, but more than a few in one place and it’s time to scrap for turf. As newcomers, we would’ve been prime targets.’ Kiown paced anxiously, the cone of red hair flopping side to side. ‘I can only guess they had other natural enemies nearby, recent contact, so were teamed up. Why here? Any more riddles today and I will be quite full.’
Sharfy said, ‘Here’s one, then. Hope it makes your filthy guts bust open. There was a cavern, not far from the door. Newly tunnelled. No lightstones in it. Smelled rotten. Worse than rotten. Something in there. Not devils, but something.’
Kiown shrugged. ‘There’s a saying: “Consider the source.” Of information.’
Sharfy didn’t pick up on the insult; he looked troubled. ‘Something’s wrong down here. Shouldn’t be one pit devil, not this far north. They’re here for a reason.’ Sharfy lapsed into thoughtful silence.
Eric wondered if he should say it. ‘I could hear the devils talk, you know. They must have their own language too. Did you know that?’
Kiown looked at him, startled. ‘What were they saying?’
‘Nothing that made much sense. Only what you might expect animals to say.’
‘You are a most intriguing little trinket,’ said Kiown. ‘Believe him yet, Sharfy? Or is he still a liar?’
Sharfy muttered to himself and walked off ahead. They followed him. Eric said, ‘Is he as good a swordsman as he says he is?’
Kiown laughed. ‘Nooo! Not a soul who ever wielded blade possibly could be. Still, you’d have him with you in a fight. Knows some tricks, throws a good knife.’ Kiown considered. ‘And it is true you can trust him. He just doesn’t look like it. Me, on the other hand? Who knows. And it’s time we plunged onwards.’
The draught suddenly picked up. They became aware of a distant rumbling sound, becoming more defined as they neared it. Then light poured through their tunnel, which opened out to the side of a vast paved road, with a huge cavernous roof overhead and sheer walls. Big slabs of lightstone in the walls and roof made it better lit than the ways they’d come through, helped by brands and braziers of orange fire along the roadside.
At walking pace down below passed truck-sized metal containers on wheels, stretching in both directions as far as sight, filled to the brim with grain, livestock and mined ore. Men in grey robes rode small platforms jutting from the vehicles’ sides. A cart passed, full of shaggy cattle-sized animals, some of which stood on two legs. The sight of the alien beasts made Eric forget, momentarily, his tiredness. Another world, he marvelled. And yet there passed other carts with familiar sights: horses, cows, and poultry in cages.
‘These are going to the castle,’ said Kiown for Eric’s benefit. ‘See? That’s the ramp up, where the road starts to rise. All this came from farms down south. The castle takes it, counts it, then sends it back to Aligned cities. Or not, if they deem people need to be starved. A citizen in Aligned cities is advised to behave himself, and not do silly things like organise resistance, because dinner is nice. In any case food often rots before it gets to places further away.’
Stationed by the roadside were soldiers in metal breastplates with swords at their sides. The two directly beneath them sat playing a game with round pieces on a striped board. Sharfy’s eyes gleamed. ‘We used to raid these carts. Can’t, now. Those guards, down there? Because of us.’ He sounded like a proud father. ‘Kiown, look! Dirt cart from the mines! Ah, those were the days. Used to make a fortune, raiding dirt carts.’
‘We can still raid them,’ said Kiown. ‘You just need a little help.’ With that, he dashed back up the tunnel, leaving Sharfy confused behind him. A minute or two later, Kiown’s squealing voice reached them: ‘Yoooo hoooooo! Pit devils! I have a surprise for youuuuuuuu! HEY! HEYYYYY!’