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"I'm here, Silky," Velvelig said quietly. "You don't look too good."
"Well, I don't feel so good, either," Silkash got out, and Velvelig's eyes burned at the Healer's feeble attempt at humor.
"Tobis?" Velvelig asked after a moment, and Silkash shook his head.
"Don't know, Sir." The bruised, bloodied face twisted. "That son-of-a-bitch was still working on him when they dragged me out."
"Whoreson!" somebody snarled behind Velvelig, but the regiment-captain only patted Silkash gently on the shoulder.
"All right, Silky. Take it easy. We'll take care of you."
"I know, Sir," Silkash whispered, and his eye slid shut.
Velvelig held up one hand, and one of the other prisoners handed him the scrap of blanket they'd soaked in their water bucket. The regiment-captain began cleaning his Healer's face, and his touch was as gentle as any woman's, while black murder seethed in his heart.
Hadrign Thalmayr's sadism had a certain brutal cu
Perhaps it had begun as some sort of punishment, vengeance for the "torment" he believed the Healers had deliberately inflicted upon him. If that was how it had started, though, it had gone far beyond that by now. Vengeance might have offered him the pretext, but the truth was that he enjoyed what he was doing.
He was pacing himself, rationing himself ... giving his victims time to recover between sessions. Yet Silkash and—especially—Makree were growing steadily weaker, and no one seemed to care. Certainly no one was offering them the magical healing which had saved Velvelig's own life. However spectacular their healing powers might be, the Arcanan healers were obviously content to watch their Sharonian counterparts being slowly and brutally beaten to death without raising a finger to repair the damage.
"I don't think Tobis can take much more, Sir." Silkash's voice was a little stronger, which only made the despair in it that much clearer. "It's worse for him. It blasts his Talent open. Makes him Feel how much the son-of-a-bitch enjoys what he's doing to him."
"I know, Silky. I—"
Velvelig broke off, and his belly muscles tightened in anticipation as the outside door opened once more. But it wasn't the guards dragging Tobis Makree back into the brig, after all.
Velvelig straightened, and the fury in his heart redoubled as he recognized the wiry redhead. Thalmayr was bad enough, yet at least he appeared to genuinely believe his captors had deliberately tortured him when he was in their power. The Arcanan standing outside their cell now, looking in that them, had no such excuse, and Velvelig knew that if he would only come within arm's reach of the bars ... .
He wasn't that stupid, unfortunately. He only stood there, glaring at the prisoners, his face tight with hatred as he drank up the extent of Silkash's injuries. Then he turned around, as wordlessly as he'd come, and stalked back out.
Namir Velvelig watched him go, then knelt slowly back down beside his Healer and started wiping blood off his face once more.
Therman Ulthar closed the door very carefully behind him, then stood on the walkway outside the brig.
His left hand dropped to the hilt of the short sword sheathed at his hip, and his knuckles whitened with the force of his grip.
He refused to let himself look at the administration block. He couldn't, because he knew what was happening in there right this moment. He didn't have to hear the blows, listen to the gasping screams, to know what Hadrign Thalmayr was doing, and if he let himself think about it, let himself feel, then—
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
You're an officer in the Union Army, godsdamn it, he told himself despairingly. You can't just stand here, whatever Iftar said! If you don't take a stand for something, then what the fuck use are you?
There was a sickness spreading through the garrison of the captured Sharonian fort, radiating from the man who'd been placed in command, and Ulthar was afraid. Afraid of where it would end, who might find himself added to the list of Hadrign Thalmayr's "enemies." Someone had to do something, yet Ulthar was only one man, and a man Thalmayr obviously dustrusted as much as he loathed him.
You don't even have a platoon anymore, Therman, he thought, and it was true. He had exactly five men, the other Andaran Scout wounded POWs who'd been left behind here with him and Thalmayr, under his
"command." Thalmayr had been careful not to assign him to anything which might have required more men, and Ulthar knew exactly why that was.
He also knew all five of them would have followed him into any open confrontation with Thalmayr ... for all the good it would have done.
I can't take them with me, he told himself yet again. I don't have that right. But, gods, I've got to do something!
At least the Healers Five Hundred Vaynair had left behind were refusing to go along with Thalmayr. No doubt the other prisoners didn't understand, but if Thalmayr had had his way, the Healers would have repaired the damages he inflicted on a daily basis ... so that he could inflict fresh damages on a daily basis. But they'd refused. They couldn't stop him from torturing his prisoners, but they could refuse to become his accomplices by helping him do it.
Ulthar snarled in frustration. How pathetic was it when the best he could find to say was that the Healers wouldn't heal someone?
Something snapped down inside him at that thought. The iron self-control he'd forced himself to exert slipped, and he spun on his heel and started stalking across the parade ground towards the office block, unsnapping the retaining strap across his short sword as he went.
"Fifty Ulthar?"
The voice reached him even through the red haze of his fury, and he paused, looking over his shoulder.
He didn't really know the man who'd called out to him. He'd seen him around the fort, but he wasn't an Andaran Scout, and Ulthar had been too focused on what Thalmayr was up to to pay him much attention.
"Yes?" Ulthar's one-word response came out sounding strangled and strange, even to his own ears, and the other man grimaced.
"I think we need to talk, Fifty Ulthar," Commander of Fifty Jaralt Sarma said.
Commander of Two Thousand Mayrkos Harshu sat in his tent at the foot of the precipitous cliffs and pushed the last few bites of his supper around the bowl with a spoon. A glass of wine sat largely untasted at his elbow, and his expression was unusually grim.
The sentry outside the tent called out a challenge to someone, and Harshu raised his head, looking towards the entrance. A moment later, the sentry lifted the flap and looked in at him.
"Thousand Toralk is here, Sir. He says you're expecting him."
"I am, Sword. Send him in, please."
"Sir!"
The noncom snapped a salute and disappeared. A moment later, the flap rose again, and Klayrman Toralk came through it.
"You wanted to see me, Sir?"
"Yes, please. Have a seat."
Harshu gestured at the camp chair floating on the far side of the table, and Toralk settled himself onto it.
The thousand never looked away from Harshu as he sat, and Harshu smiled sourly.
"I've just received some ... interesting dispatches, Klayrman."
"Sir?" Toralk's eyebrows rose as Harshu paused.
"One set is from Carthos," the two thousand said. "That's the good news, such as it is. He's detached Hundred Helika's strike. We should see Helika in about three more days. The only bad news from him is that I'd asked him how much transport he needed to move his prisoners to the rear. If I were the Sharonians and I had the capability, I'd try pushing down the secondary chain before I tried to fight my way down these cliffs. I don't think they do have the capability, but if it turns out they do, there's no way we can reinforce Carthos enough to hold against a serious attack. The best we can do is to keep the approaches picketed and make sure they don't manage to get past him and sneak up on us undetected from the rear. So I thought to myself we should send his POWs back to Five Hundred Klian so he could move quickly, without any encumbrances. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about that."
"What do you mean, Sir?" Toralk asked, his expression unhappy, when Harshu paused once more.
"I mean he doesn't have any prisoners. Not one. Apparently—" Harshu met Toralk's eyes levelly across the table "—every single Sharonian died fighting rather than surrender."
Klayrman's Toralk's belly muscles tightened. It wasn't really a surprise, of course. And a part of him couldn't help feeling a sudden surge of fury directed not at the distant Thousand Carthos but at Two Thousand Harshu. It was just a bit late for Harshu to be feeling upset with anyone over violations of the Kerellian Accords after he'd sown the seeds for everything Carthos had done by what he'd allowed Neshok to do!
Something of the thousand's emotions must have shown in his face, because Harshu's jaw tightened. But then the two thousand inhaled deeply and made himself nod.
"You're right, Klayrman. It is my fault. And if I'd listened to you in the begi
He shook his head, then leaned back in his chair with a smile that was even more sour than before.
"Of course, there's always that second set of dispatches to help distract me from the Carthos situation."
"Second set, Sir?" Toralk asked cautiously.
"Oh, yes. The set from Two Thousand mul Gurthak."
"From Two Thousand mul Gurthak?"
Surprise startled the repetition out of Toralk. Mul Gurthak had been oddly silent ever since the Expeditionary Force began its advance. In fact, as far as Toralk was aware, he hadn't sent Harshu a single message in all that time.
"Indeed," Harshu told him. "It would appear that Two Thousand mul Gurthak is most distressed over the way in which I have misinterpreted his desires and grossly exceeded his intentions."
Toralk's eyes went wide. He couldn't help it. He'd read most of the official instructions and memoranda mul Gurthak had sent forward to Mahritha before Harshu launched his attack.
"But, Sir, that's rid—" he began.