The Temple of Heart and Bone (23 page)

Troseth staggered from the room,
his hands pulling at the black length of his hair. It was impossible, he
thought, not possible at all. She had been meant for him, made for him.
Providence had decided it. He had worked for it, earned it, deserved it. She
was his! She
belonged
to him!

He returned to his old barracks
and his former quarters. At first, his men were excited to see him. His haunted
eyes, however, brought worry and concern. Their new commander was out for the
night, and the men herded Troseth into his former bedroom.

“Drink,” he demanded in a voice
that brooked no opposition. The men blinked and stared as if they had heard the
wall, itself, talk. “‘Drink,’ I said, damn you all!” The men scattered reaching
into hiding places under mattresses and in old boots. Alcohol was forbidden in
the barracks, though Troseth had always known about it. They brought him
several bottles and he drained one in a single attempt. The men continued to stare
in disbelief. The bottle he had swallowed wasn’t wine or ale, but potent
spirits. He looked around for other bottles, but the men quickly hid them
behind their backs.

They stared at him in amazement,
wondering what would happen to their former commander. He caught the look in
their eyes, each staring at him as if he had swallowed a bottle of poison.
Concern tried to establish itself in his mind, but it failed. The world spun
around him and his men seemed to undulate like smoke from a funeral pyre. He tried
to stand and felt the world swim away beneath him. A terrible sickness rose in
his stomach and he fought to control it. Pain doubled him over and he fell to
his hands and knees.

The men watched their former
leader, the man who had covered their names in victory and glory, fall before
them. Their eyes showed that he had not simply fallen to the ground, but fallen
from their graces as well. They backed away as if they were observing a man
possessed of something evil. Someone brought him water, but Troseth was too far
gone to see or accept it. He staggered to his feet, only to vomit on himself
and the closest of his former men.

“Married,” he slurred through the
fog in his brain and the liquid in his mouth. “Married,” he tried to say again.
He wanted to explain to his loyal men, these men that he loved this day beyond
all other days, how he had been betrayed. He had been betrayed by their master,
by a woman, by their Maker. He reached for his weapon and attempted to draw it.
His hand slipped from the hilt several times, and he dropped it on the floor
when he finally got it out.

“Mound,” he screamed, trying to
get his men to mount up and ride, yet slurring his words. “Kill, attash!” His
eyes lit with insanity, red blood filling the whites of his eyes. He tried to
urge them to attack the ducal palace, to drown his betrayal in blood. No matter
how he tried, he couldn’t get the idea across. He stumbled into the courtyard
and grabbed the reins of the nearest horse. He slumped on the animal’s back and
vomited down its neck. The men turned their backs on him and returned to their
barracks.

He remembered trying to attack
the palace himself; at least he thought he did. The next thing he remembered
was waking in a ditch outside of town, no horse in sight. As far as he could
tell, he had awakened at least two days later. He had been beaten, he was
certain, and he had no money or weapons left on his person. A foul taste filled
his mouth and a shattering pain pierced his skull. He felt as if his body would
turn itself inside out, and the sooner the better. If he’d have had a weapon,
he was certain he would have killed himself on the spot. He hadn’t, however. He
had only pain, and sickness, and the realization that he had lost his heart’s
desire, destroyed his name and his glory, all in one single night.

She was gone, the Duke had said.
The hope of his life, the love he had hidden and nurtured had disappeared, been
taken by another man. How did that happen? How could he, Troseth, lose on such
a scale? Some other man was sharing her love, her… body while he soaked in his
own vomit in a ditch. He had never even stood before King Olventross to accept
his patent and title. Everything was lost, everything. His feeling of loss was
so great that he vomited once more into the grass. He fell to his hands and
knees, crying, the top of his head resting in a warm pool of his own expulsion.

Nothing, he thought to himself.
Nothing remained for him. He looked about the ditch, hoping he had simply
dropped his weapons nearby. He wanted to die. He had to die! What else, what
else could he ever do?

He couldn’t find his weapons,
though he had only been searching on his hands and knees. He stopped often to
be sick and to try and soothe the pain in his head and body. He passed out a
few times, waking finally in the cool chill of night. He hadn’t seen anyone
earlier, and he hoped that no one had seen him. He moved away from the road,
still feeling violently ill. Hunger woke in his stomach, but the thought of
food sent him into throes of dry heaving.

Eventually, he found the dagger
that had been a gift from his master. Master, he thought, and spat. He took the
dagger and snapped the Ythel family crest from his breastplate. He picked up
the emblem and threw it far into the woods alongside the road. The effort of
the throw turned his vision dark, and he blacked-out once more in the grass. He
passed the night in sickening hunger, rocking back and forth, crying and
pulling at the hair on his head.

Troseth
thought back over his past as he watched the undead marching east. He, too, had
marched east after his betrayal. He had left his life behind, carrying only his
armor, Ythel’s dagger, and his pain into the lands of the enemy.

He fought alcohol poisoning for
days before his body flushed the toxins from his system. He waylaid a messenger
traveling to Æostemark, robbing him of purse, weapons and horse. The ease with
which he’d struck the man down surprised him. He considered, briefly, a life of
banditry on the highway, but the thought soon lost its appeal. As a bandit,
he’d be able to make a living, probably a good one, but he’d never have the
opportunity to chastise his betrayers, not on the scale that he desired.

His life had been a simple matter
of service and reward. He had given his instructors, and his Duke, exemplary
service, and he was accustomed to being well rewarded. Eventually, he thought,
his service had outstripped their rewards. When Ythel knew he could no longer
repay such service, he had simply pushed Troseth out of sight. On the eastern
frontier, Troseth would be the Crown’s problem; perhaps he might even be
killed. What a fool he’d been, to believe that his transfer had been some sort
of reward.

He had been transferred to remove
an inconvenience, an obstacle. The Duke had probably been offered some familial
alliance in exchange for the hand—and virtue—of his daughter. The damned old
man had sold his daughter as if she were a common whore! Troseth, instead of
being loyal to his true love, had been bought off himself! But Ythel had
deceived him. Troseth had believed he was being moved to a needed command, a
place to find social elevation and glory. He had believed the old man was
preparing him for the exalted position of son-in-law. What a fool he had truly
been.

This could not stand, he had
decided. Dying by his own hand in a ditch would simply cement the plans the old
Duke had made. Troseth would never give Ythel the satisfaction. Banditry might
hurt the family’s finances, but the old man would never dare to set his foot on
the road without a massive escort. He had no idea where his love had been
taken, so there would be no way to rescue her on his own. He needed power—power
and opportunity.

 He had fought the armies of
Sel Avrand, and he knew that they were a formidable force. If he could manage
to enlist himself in their service, it was just possible that he might find all
that he sought. He could rise through their ranks as he had in the Kingdom of
Marynd. He could build a force, loyal to himself, and work to repay the kindness
of his former men and master. It would be difficult, he knew. More than simple
terrain to cross, there were years of animosity to overcome.

Sel Avrand and Marynd had been
separate for centuries. Each, at one time or another, had made an attempt to
overwhelm or eliminate the other. What had started as a common people forged by
an ancient empire had shattered into warring factions and bitter enemies.
Leaders on both sides heard stories of Empire and dreamed of reuniting the land
under their own banner. War and death passed between the divided nations as
swiftly as water flashing under a bridge. The border between the East and West
was a battle-ground, a bloody frontline that was watched and guarded closely.

Troseth had spent nearly a year
patrolling that very border. He knew places to slip by the Maryndian patrols.
He knew their behavior, knew their routines. He approached the western side of
the border at night and with great caution. The sky was clear and black,
glittering with stars and a sliver of crescent moon. He had hoped for some
overcast or even rain. He had found neither, but determined to cross anyway.

He slipped across the western
side of the border somewhere around midnight. He moved as quickly and quietly
as he could. He passed easily out of the West, never stopping to look back. He
had to keep moving, had to get away from the border before he was seen. If an
Eastern patrol picked him up, he would undoubtedly be accused of spying.

The interrogation methods of the time
were brutally direct, even in the civilized West. What he’d heard of
interrogations in Sel Avrand came close to making his hair stand on end. He’d
known strong warriors who had been captured in battle and ransomed back some
months later. They had been good men, proud men when they’d been caught. They
returned as broken figures, crying for their mothers and sobbing throughout the
night, every night.

He was captured before he’d gone
a mile. The patrol that snared him had been watching him even on the Marynd
side of the border. They had waited until he was deep enough that his screams
would bring no aid. Like arrows shot out of ambush, they descended on him in
the darkness of night. He was cracked across the head with a wooden club and
knocked, unconscious, to the ground.

He woke later in a dark stone
cell. The smell of acrid sweat and stale urine rose through his nostrils to
catch in his throat. The darkness was so complete that he had to feel with his
fingers to be certain his eyelids were actually open. He tried to stand, but
the world spun out from underneath him, just as it had when he’d taken his
first drink. Pain, again, shot through his head, though this time, he could
tell, it was generated externally. He felt the split in the skin covering his
skull and the swelling infection around it.

He’d been captured. He was
certain he wasn’t in the hands of a Maryndian unit. Someone would have been
watching, waiting for him to stir. Nothing could be watching him in this utter blackness,
though he wasn’t sure he was alone. He decided to assess the situation as best
he could, hoping for some chance to escape.

He tried to stand again and
managed to remain upright. He walked straight in the direction he was facing,
running himself face-first into a cold stone wall. He followed the wall with
his hand until something caught at his foot. He was chained by the ankle. He
reached down and picked up the chain. He followed that to the wall, testing the
cuff and each link along the way. Finally, he found the point where the chain
had been driven into the wall. It was deep and solid. He tugged and pulled but
nothing moved. He walked the range that his chain allowed, reaching for
anything in the darkness. He searched the floor for something that might be of
use. In the end, all he found was a corpse chained to the wall.

The interrogations began the next
day. He told himself he would not break under their torments, wouldn’t cry out
in pain. He would show them strength and resolve, would prove what an asset he
could be. He’d been wounded in battle. He had experienced pain in his life.
Nothing, he told himself, could be worse than the pain of losing the woman he
loved.

He was wrong.

He inhaled in shock as the first
hot needle slithered mercilessly under the nail of his right forefinger. His
hand, clamped to a rest, accepted four more needles into its fingers. Each was
heated by a flaming torch that cast looming shadows on the shrouded face of his
tormentor. He bit down on his tongue to keep from crying out. He watched the
torturer plying his trade, trying to occupy his mind with anything but the
searing pain. The hooded figure worked as methodically as a carpenter. He did
not exaggerate his work to enhance Troseth’s agony. He inserted the heated needles
with practiced precision. After he finished with Troseth’s right hand, he began
to work on the left.

No one asked any questions, no
one watched the work of the tormentor. Troseth, his teeth clenched and sweat
rolling in streams down his body, wondered if anyone would ever come to listen
to him. He gasped twice before all five needles were placed in his left hand.
He tried to control his breathing, tried to think of battles long past, of
wounds received and given. He fought with the fear that rose as his shoes were
removed and his ankles strapped into place.

The tormentor left the room after
baring Troseth’s feet. His fingers seared in agony, torches still heating the
wires that extended from his hands. He smelled the stench of burning flesh,
knowing it was his own. His feet twitched in anticipation.

Why had the tormentor left? Would
he bring someone to interrogate the prisoner? Would someone come to listen to
his offer? Were they merely trying to frighten him, trying to make his mind
enhance the pain it anticipated? Would they do the same to his feet as they had
done to his hands?

The door opened. The tormentor
returned. Without saying a word, he began to insert heated needles under the
nails of Troseth’s right foot. After each insertion, he grasped the needle in a
pair of tongs, twisted it, and pushed it in slightly deeper. He had waited
until Troseth accepted the process as he had in his hands, adding the twist as
a new dimension. Troseth gasped a few more times, but held back his voice with
a soldier’s resolve. After completing the second round of insertions, the
torturer left the room again.

Troseth struggled to accept the
pain coursing through his body. The damage, he thought to himself, was minimal,
far from life-threatening. He had endured worse. He could endure worse. They
had to talk to him sometime. Someone had to come to find out what he had been
doing, what mission he might have been on, at least who he might have been.
They
had
to come, he thought to himself. They had to come. If they
weren’t going to come, he questioned himself, why hadn’t they just killed him?

After what he guessed was an
hour, the door opened once more. A shrouded man brought in a small cart
containing a large bowl. A foul odor entered with the bowl, an odor composed of
rotting food, decaying flesh, and raw, green alcohol. What appeared to be a
small hand-bellows leaned up against the bowl. The smell began to catch at
Troseth’s throat, causing him to gag.

A second man approached Troseth
and took firm hold of his neck and jaw. His fingers were hard and bit deeply
into Troseth’s flesh. The first figure took the bellows and inserted it into
the bowl. He spread the handles wide, drawing some of the contents into the
wood and leather device. Troseth’s mouth was forced open as the tip of the
bellows was forced back into this throat. With a great force, the wretched
contents were ejected into his mouth and down his throat. Troseth gagged and
choked, vomiting up as much as he could. The procedure was repeated several
times until, weak from the repeated dosings, Troseth could only drool as his
head nodded limply on his neck.

One of the men took hold of the
needles in his right hand, all five at once, and ripped them from under his
fingers. The pain forced Troseth to open his eyes, but he couldn’t have
screamed. He was too weak, too sick to his stomach. The other needles were
similarly removed. Troseth felt light-headed, nauseous, as he had when he’d
drank down the bottle of spirits in one draught. Just the hint of that memory
caused him to dry heave. One of the figures regarded him momentarily, as if to
make sure he was still conscious.

They removed the loincloth that
had covered Troseth’s private regions. As queasy as he felt, his mind struggled
to remain alert. His chair was pushed forward until it rested on its high back
and two arms. Troseth had managed to wrench his hands out of the way just in
time to avoid having them crushed by his own weight. He heard one of the men
leave the room and reenter moments later. He was certain he had seen the tip of
a red-hot poker pass only inches from his eyes. Hard hands pushed the cheeks of
his legs apart and he felt a searing heat approaching his naked flesh. It was
the last sensation he remembered.

He woke some time later. Days,
hours, he was never sure. He felt sick to his stomach. His fingers and toes
hurt. He caught a familiar odor that caused him to vomit. His hands were not
bound. His leg was again chained to the wall. He felt an urgent need to move
his bowels. The pain of the passing excrement brought tears to his eyes.
Moments later he passed out.

He spent days enduring the shame
and agony. He became instinctively frightened of relieving himself. The rotten
swill they had forced down his throat, however, had made him more ill than he’d
ever been in his life. He had seen soldiers die from dysentery, and he was
certain that would be his fate, as well. His captors had added a special
condition to the disease, and he hated them all the more for it.

Days passed, he was certain of
it. The pain continued, even on the single day that he managed to keep his
bowels from moving. The following day he became more ill, passing out often in
his darkened cell. He began to envy the corpse that was still chained to the
wall. He truly regretted the fact that he had not killed himself the morning he
woke in the ditch.

Some uncounted days after his
arrival, he heard a voice in the hall outside of his cell. It was a deep voice,
a commanding voice. It demanded to see the prisoner. Troseth wished fervently
for his own death. He heard two sharp detonations outside of his door. He felt
a deep tremor in his lungs as the sound passed through his body. The door of
his cell shook and his chain rattled.

Slowly, the door opened, and
light flooded into the room. The light stabbed deeply into Troseth’s eyes. He
trembled with weakness and backed away from the brightness. The door opened
further and someone stepped into the room.