Author's note:
Disclaimer: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age: Inquisition and all related characters and trademarks are property of EA/Bioware. Rated M for language, violence, suggestive, and explicit themes.
I want to thank William, capitained, Badger2430 and Theodur for taking the time to review the last chapter, as well as all others out there reading and, hopefully, enjoying my story!
I also want to address an issue, which has been brought up by one of last chapter's gracious reviewers: William. My usage of single quotes over double quotes. I've been at odds with myself about this for quite some time. The sole reason behind me using single quotes to begin with is that my favourite author uses them as well. We all want to be near to the thing we worship, you could say. But, as already mentioned, this has turned into something of an internal argument. And I have to agree with the point made by William (I believe there were also others who mentioned this previously—sorry for not mentioning you by name here).
So, from now on, I'll use double quotes. Older chapters will be updated gradually, as well. Maybe even with a few minor changes to adapt them to my current level and grasp of prose. Because, my God, some of my earlier writing is abysmal. But that's progress.
Nothing game-changing or turning the plot, or parts of the plot, upside down. Simply some small alterations to allow for a smoother reading experience. So, not to worry, none of you will have to re-read all the chapters. But you're certainly welcome to.
Somewhere (probably on my tumblr and in the author's note preceding newly released chapters) I'll mark the progress of these updates to older chapters.
Thank you all for your support!
Without further ado, enjoy the twenty third chapter of a book written in an age full of heroes.
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In An Age Full Of Heroes Chapter
XXIII
The Iron Bell
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The clamour of iron hooves striking the earth drowned his sense of hearing. Men and women cried their imitated defiance of fear, baring their weapons like exposed teeth.
From canter to full tilt gallop, charging the last one hundred and fifty paces between them and the overwhelming numbers of Amaranthine cavalry, who encompassed Franderel's field of view, spread out like a yawning maw, ready to swallow them whole. Breath heavy with exertion, his grey panted beneath him, black nostrils flaring.
Arrows whistled between the nearing lines of cavalry. Men were unsaddled, riddled with shafts. Horses screamed and reared in pain, throwing off their riders. The unlucky ones were trampled to bloody ruin by their comrades right behind them. Individual faces could be made out, hate written into their features. Then proximity, a flash of terror in round eyes.
Impact.
Jarring and brutal.
Lances broke, shields splintered. Men skewered, horses impaled. Shrieks everywhere. Madness. The cacophony of iron music. The tearing of flesh, the letting of blood, souring the air and earth. Swords flashed in the sunlight, their glint momentarily blinding.
Franderel guided his horse around, hacked with his long-sword. Sheared through leather and muscle. The Amaranthine cavalryman arched his back as if in orgasmic throes, his shoulder split, spurting blood onto Franderel's thighs, then toppled off his mound, wailing.
Tingling sense of alarm. Franderel stabbed down to the left. Struck a horseless Amaranthine square in the jaw, back out the neck. The jaw came loose in thick clumps of blood and gore when Franderel yanked out his weapon.
Amaranthine cavalry rode circles around them. Some loosened arrows into their midst, uncaring whom their projectiles found. Slain men littered the ground. Horses, half-dead, kicked their last, unsaddled indiscriminately, broke bones with powerful hoof strikes.
Sudden flare in his side. An arrow jutted out, shaft lodged between his ribs, force blunted by felt covers and leather. Franderel wheezed a heavy breath, knowing it was a dying breath, even if the arrow hadn't pierced deep enough.
Spurring his grey, Franderel thundered toward a knot of plate-covered knights. At the last moment, Franderel launched himself out of the saddle and tackled the Amaranthine knight who veered around to meet him. The arrow in his side snapped. The ground rushed up. Collision knocked the breath out of his blood-filled lungs. The Amaranthine knight's head slammed into a stone. His helm dented in, squashed the backside of his head with a splash.
Franderel hawked up blood. Swung his sword in a wide arc, without aim. A horse screamed. He advanced on the figure that staggered up like a drunk. Sword raised high, Franderel opened the woman from sternum to—
Smooth neck of a horse in his periphery. Swatted him aside. Bones broke. Organs bruised. Something came loose, spittle and blood flew, teeth cracked.
Franderel blinked.
The blue sky above was still cloudless.
The stink of piss and shit pungent in his nostrils.
A triumphant cheer went up.
Then he slipped away into the dark defiles.
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Cauthrien watched South Reach cavalry spill out of the forest, forming up behind the pale-haired figure of Araris Cousland.
"He's too impatient," said Iskara at her side. "Showed his hand too early."
Cauthrien wasn't convinced. From the gathered reports, it had been clear to her for weeks, that the rebellion would outnumber her men. But between knowing and seeing gaped a chasm so wide, Cauthrien only arrived at this insight now.
"They're ill-outfitted, their mounts half-famished. Have our lancers meet them, King's Blade."
Cauthrien found herself nodding. "Make it so."
Messengers hurried away, horns brayed.
Just then, the rebels began to sing something unknown to Cauthrien. None heartier and louder than the midsection of militiamen.
Her heart fluttered.
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The armies closed.
Arrows darkened the air between them. Descended and felled men in droves on both sides. Screams travelled, made up every sound on the Iachus Plains. Hollow and remote to Anethayín's pointed ears. Broken only by the whine of yet another volley of arrows.
To Anethayín, there appeared to be a spring in the step of the men crowding the Plains, as if overjoyed to finally spill each other's blood and drown the soil.
But her current focus resided with row upon row of South Reach cavalry, who'd just appeared at the tip of the curved forest, to the north. Just a few hundred armspans from her outlook atop the flagstone watchtower. There seemed to be no end to them. From in between larches and redwood they trickled out and formed up behind Araris and his Mortal Swords.
Their slow canter took them towards the disciplined formations of Gwaren lancers. Against the unified daffodil yellow and plate-armoured regalia of the Gwaren lancers, the rebel cavalry looked like hastily patched-up rabble. Anethayín identified the hammering of her heart as pounding worry. How can they prevail? Worry for one man among thousands. Please! Elgar'nan, Mythal, Falon'Din, Andruil! Fen'Harel! All of you! Please, let him survive!
The rebel host took up a hymn. It took a few moments for them to achieve concert. Sorting through the clutter of her confusion, Anethayín discerned what the men of the rebellion sang. A short hymn she had played many a time in camp. The sudden understanding baffled her. A numbing tingle poked her chest, crawled in goose-pimples up her neck.
This!
She had wrought this!
Anethayín watched as the leftmost regimen of South Reach and Highever bowmen adjusted their aim and rained arrows upon the heavy lancer cavalry advancing on Araris. The Gwaren cavalry stuttered, dozens of horses died, but the formation was kept up through rigid force of will, it seemed. Many projectiles ricocheted off iron helmets and chain mail, the distance too long and the bows too weak to penetrate plate.
The space between the hoisted wyvern and the white-winged laurel wreath shrunk. Canter turned into gallop as the men urged their horses into a wild charge. Movement among the Mortal Swords, leading the charge with Araris as their spear-tip, made Anethayín squint her eyes.
Bolts, loosened from contractible crossbows filled the remaining stretch between the two forces. Punched through mail and armour. A single deadly volley at point-blank range. The Gwaren charge became pure disarray, faltered at the last moment. Then the rebel cavalry crashed into them with fury in their throats.
Never had Anethayín heard a combination of sounds so simple and complex at the same time. Wails of men and horses which bespoke the simplicity of death. The awful din of iron which bespoke the struggle to remain alive.
Like claws hooked into the furred flank of a raging beast the fierce mêlée turned into a maelstrom of motion, obscured by rising curtains of stirred up dirt.
Then detonations shook the ground, vibrated through the flagstone watchtower. Anethayín braced on the crenellations. Bits of hundreds of men and women sailed high and far in the air. The qunari—tearing bloody junks out of the Men of the Laurel with what remained of their dread munitions.
Contact between the armies.
The bell had rung the hour of iron.
Chaos and death reigned everywhere.
Anethayín felt the sting of salt in her eyes.
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The downpour of torn-off limbs, ripped open and charred bits of flesh continued unabated. Clanked against his shoulder and battlecap like hail, made him flinch. Without trying to provide release for his winded lungs, Gallagher bellowed at stunned men along the hopelessly chewed-up line. Entire squads, entire sections . . . Gone! Their shock kept them paralysed in dismay and naked horror.
Too late.
The horned beasts ploughed into their midst, strange broad-swords hacking and grilled shields battering. The line of indentured soldiers, Western Hills knights, and militiamen disintegrated into confusion. The qunari butchered them like stupefied cattle. Blood rose like mist.
Gallagher blocked an incoming slash with the heft of his war-hammer, lashed out and caved in the chest of a qunari. The war-hammer's head came loose with a wet sucking noise, covered in soggy remains of meat, slippery with blood.
The pretence of discipline and straight lines was tossed aside and stamped out like glowing embers at the approach of a patrol in enemy territory. Everything became mayhem and the distinct roar of battle.
His massive war-hammer zipped from side to side, snuffed out life after life, crushed it underneath its weight and the momentum that drove it. Not long after, his arms aching, the qunari gave way to regular men—Amaranthine infantry. They gaped at him, wide-eyed and with a translucent trepidation that sent a pang of satisfaction through the old arl. They hesitated to close the gap and wade into mêlée.
Gallagher decided not to humour their lapse of courage. Lunged into their midst with a swing of his hammer. Shields broke and men were thrown back with girlish shrieks.
He shouted and felt the rush of men at his back and flanks, drove into the Amaranthine infantry like a terrible winter blizzard.
Faint surprise, as he saw wild-eyed militiamen hurl themselves into the Amaranthine line, singing their strange hymn.
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Such ferocity!
Such blind faith!
Farah'an understood now what Araris Cousland had tried to communicate her. Faith had a place on the battlefield. She'd mistaken his faith, his certainty of victory as hubris, a conceit the man clad himself in. But now she saw. He'd forged and tempered his people's faith in him into a weapon he could grasp and wield.
No matter how many she cut down. No matter the ease with which she did it. More and more militiamen, peasants accustomed to hold a pitchfork or a hammer, threw themselves at her in a lunatic frenzy. Their faith appeared without limit. She slew three of the fools in the time it took her heart to beat, but five more were eager to fill the space, howling with reckless abandon.
Farah'an stepped to the side, her twin blades opening arteries and severing muscle and tendon. The militiamen's crude attempts couldn't so much as scratch her ash-coloured skin. Aimless attacks, more akin to stumbling forward, she deflected with her soaring blades, and punished immediately with a counter. Weak attempts were blunted or dodged outright. The spilt blood of scores hardened on Farah'an's skin in jugular-spurt patterns.
With calm and surgical precision she crept along the frontline. Repelled the vain efforts of the enemy wherever she fought.
Found herself face to face with the hammer-wielding man who stood nearly as tall as her. The long-bearded boar who'd crushed many of her comrades to pulp, guiding his heavy weapon with a facility belying his age.
He bellowed at her. "Come, Loghain's beast-whore! Let me crush your skull!"
Farah'an smiled behind her porcelain half-mask.
The throng of people around the man pressed closer, smelling opportunity. But they were kept in check by qunari and men at her flanks, although only barely. The lines teetered back and forth, trading blows, claiming lives, ever on the brink of collapse.
Farah'an stepped in close. Blades flashing hungry in the brilliance of the sun.
The boar's advance jerked to a sudden stop.
Farah'an pummelled him with swift slashes and feints. With the avian speed of her swords, the boar's mighty hammer had no hope of keeping up.
Gashes split open his arms and legs.
The boar faltered and slowed, the countless small incisions exacting their toll.
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"This is stupid." Corks lobbed the grapefruit-sized clay container into the air, caught it again with his large palm.
"You're stupid," muttered Jan, half-heartedly, occupied with eyeing the small hillock and the figures bustling around on top.
"I am not!"
Jan hissed. "Shut up, you brainless donkey. They'll hear the farting noises that come out of your mouth."
He threw a sidelong glance at Corks, his heart slipping into his trousers. "And, for the love of the Maker, stop playing around with dwarvish bombs like they're something else."
Corks looked at him with uncomprehending doe-eyes. Sometimes Jan questioned the man's intelligence, if something like intelligence even swirled around inside his thick skull.
"Unless you want roasted pork," Jan tried to explain.
"I like pork."
Of course. Jan shook his head. "Well, you can gnaw it off your bones, then."
Corks stared at him. Mouth hanging open, salivating. Then clamped shut. Repetition was ever the way out for those at an end of words. "This is stupid."
"You already said. But we've to wait for the signal."
"Waiting is stupid."
Jan sighed. "My lordship Araris told us to wait for the signal. So we'll wait."
Corks started playing with the dwarven bomb again. It'd been pure luck that a dwarven surface merchant was stopped by a cavalry troop scouting the lands surrounding the rebellion's encampment a few days previous. The Great Names in their council sessions decided to seize the opportunity.
Corks froze, mulled something over, nibbling his lower lip. Arrived at an insightful conclusion. "I don't like my lord Araris. Tristan is much nicer. You can talk to him. My lord Araris always hides in his tent."
"Andraste lend me strength to weather this sodding simpleton."
The sapper sergeant crept up from behind, spared them a glare, and ordered the odd pair to be ready at a moment's notice.
Not much longer now, he said.
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Messengers came, bearing dread news of losses and gains. Minimal and great at the same time.
And were dispatched post-haste with new orders. To account for the flow of battle and the reshuffling of formations and situational adaptations devised by Iskara.
Cauthrien stood back, wholly without use. Tracking the progress with narrowed eyes. Not that she could actually discern anything of note with the curtains of dirt screening the two locked forces, like large things alive, raking each other with a thousand thousand iron claws.
To the north, beyond the right flank held by Dragon's Peak men struggling with streams of South Reach infantry and unforgiving Highever veterans, Gwaren lancers and South Reach cavalry continued to bleed each other dry. They seemed farther away than moments before. Entire wings disengaged, reformed some distance off and charged back into the disorganised fray. The white-winged laurel wreath fluttered, the thinned-out company of the Mortal Swords ranged around and took one such troop by surprise, drove into their flank and cut them down in the confusion.
At her back, Iskara conferred with the messengers crowding the flat hillock. Listening, absorbing, reacting. With one ear she followed his instructions, trying to penetrate his process of thought. Try as she might, the intricacies of warfare eluded her for the most part. Cauthrien didn't know how, but Iskara managed to keep up with the throng of reports flooding his way.
The awareness emerged from some dark place she couldn't name. The way the South Reach cavalry drew the Gwaren lancers farther and farther away from battle. The subtle exposure. The creation of an opportunity. The absence of one of the Great Houses of the rebellion.
Stirring, the treeline shifted and bended with movement. The banner of Waking Sea took to the field. Hoisted above knights and armoured chargers, wearing skirts of mail, stamping their hooves. Aiming for the right flank of oblivious Dragon's Peak soldiers, who concentrated their efforts on the infantrymen of South Reach and Highever locking them in combat. Lining up for a decisive cavalry charge that would cleave right to their heart.
Cauthrien turned, shouting at Iskara. The old commander whipped about, scanned the distant deployment of Waking Sea knights. Bellowed at the messengers.
Something sailed through the air. A grapefruit—where?
It landed among the messengers. Splintered open, splashing black fluid.
Shower of sparks, dull in the afternoon sun.
Then flames.
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Their horses flew across the Iachus Plains like creatures of legend. No shouts were raised. No war-cries hurled at the enemy. No arrow loosened. The knights of Waking Sea charged in silence. The pound of their horses' hooves mostly obscured by the clutter of iron on iron and the voices of thousands crying out at once.
War is seizing momentary opportunities, Araris had told her. The secret lies not in spotting them. But in making them.
It beggared Alfstanna's mind. This shaping Araris had wrought. How! How could he have foreseen the steps and movements necessary for this moment to come to pass? Alfstanna had asked him as much this morning, when he'd informed her of what her part in this battle would be. The knife striking the killing blow. The knife that would cut tendon so that the body crumpled, according to Araris.
I do not seek to defeat them, Anna. I do not seek to humiliate them. A glimpse of the preternatural halo surrounding him whenever he spoke in cryptic responses. Responses she railed against in silence. I seek to possess them.
And it seemed he did. Absolute possession of the pieces on the board. A step back here and a step forward there. A feinted retreat to draw in and expose. A lightning-quick strike to distract.
Araris played with thousands of lives, prodding them this way and that. To control the happenings. To control the circumstances. To control the outcome.
Shaped in the confines of his tent. Before even laying an eye on the enemy.
How!?
How couldn't she doubt? How couldn't she believe? How couldn't she be torn by these diametrically opposed forces.
Faces turned. Fingers pointed. Men reared back in horror and the knowledge of impending death crashing into them. The soldiers of Dragon's Peak retreated until they bumped against and stumbled over each other. Their scrambling panic proved to be their undoing.
The wedge of caparisoned chargers spurred by the knights of Waking Sea drove into their undisciplined flank.
Men were hoisted into the air, speared on lances, and thrown back into the cowering ranks. Swords and maces swung down. Skulls were split and bludgeoned to flying bits of meat and splintered bone. The horses did their fair share of killing, trampling those the knights didn't get.
Alfstanna guided her charger to the left, veered around, the knights following behind. She let arrow after arrow fly into the faces of the enemy. The hacking, stabbing, and cutting of Waking Sea knights seemed more for appearance's sake than for any real discernible motive. The horses ran the Dragon's Peak men down anyway, beat them to bloody pulp.
Then they broke through, went out back the spine of the square. Having carved a path of ruin and mangled bodies through the Dragon's Peak formation, halving them. Even now, the South Reach infantry contingent of Leonas hastened their onslaught, pressing the advantage, covered by hard-bitten Highever veterans. Before their cleaving swords and their rigid discipline, the right flank of the royal army melted away. Consumed by the sword-toothed apparition mauling their flesh. The lines shrunk, were swept inward, and the flank enveloped. Men were separated from their comrades and slaughtered absentmindedly.
Alfstanna had her knights regroup. Her gaze swept around, trying to grasp sense in the surrounding madness. Here, Araris instructions ended. And her judgement was called upon. He'd trusted her to make the right choice. Her!
She found the royal mabari and the banner of the wyvern, on the flat hillock overlooking the battlefield, in flames. Black thrashing shadows framed in golden fire, a handful locked in combat. Another one of Araris' strokes, no doubt. Alfstanna spotted the tall figure of Ser Cauthrien, surrounded by what of her command cadre remained alive, fighting for their lives.
More distant—the obscure whirling in seemingly random circles and arcs, superseded by clash after clash of Gwaren lancers and South Reach cavalry. The heavy lancers had regained their ground, found again their fortitude of spirit and now hacked Leonas mounted men to pieces in fierce reprisal for the horrendous losses they'd suffered. Their training and equipment superior, heedless of the numbers Araris had thrown at them. Heedless of the fact that Araris himself had added his own sword.
Her decision made, she gave command to relieve Leonas and Araris.
The knights of Waking Sea set out at a canter that soon turned to gallop.
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No time to blink!
No time to stop and catch his breath!
No room for the tiniest misstep.
Only the thick plates of his armour had saved him so far. Without it, he would've lost his head twice already. Just to her first few probes of his defence. And, he knew, the female qunari savage had found them wanting.
Gallagher felt himself sorely pressed within an inch of his life. He knew to be outmatched by margins he couldn't comprehend. This qunari animal danced a dance he'd not learned, something so far beyond him, it swiped the ground from beneath his feet.
Tiny wounds—too many of them!—leaking, sapping him of strength. His hammer growing heavy. His muscles aching and sodden with spent energy.
Searing pain across brow and hip.
Gallagher didn't even see the twin blades flash.
Blood streamed down his face, filled his vision, blinding him. His right leg gave out, collapsed, unable to support his weight. His hammer slipped from his shaking hands.
The militiamen flinched back, horrified. Incapacitated on the ground, Gallagher shouted encouragement at them and, like a wave, they lapped around him, closing the distance. By sheer mass and pressure, the qunari was pushed back, now fighting for her skin.
Gauntleted hands dragged Gallagher back. His knights, ushering him away from the thick of combat. He clawed weakly at one arm. The knight leaned down, through a haze of red, Gallagher saw the shape of a face in part obscured by a plate helmet.
"My lord?" The voice droned distorted from beneath iron.
"Fetch a messenger." Gallagher tried to contain the flutter in his voice. "Araris. We need Araris."
Else the centre will collapse. And all is lost.
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Tears streamed hot across her cheeks.
Her vision washed into a blur.
Anethayín clawed at her auburn hair. Pondered the notion of leaving the watchtower and stride down among the men and women gladly butchering each other. Just to scream at them to stop. It shone vivid in her mind. Like a goddess she would stride across the Plains, her voice lightning and thunder, rooting them to the ground in wonder and fear of her wrath. She'd command them to cease this senseless folly.
A child's fantasy. This knowledge led to only more tears. Anethayín slid down into the corner of the decrepit flagstone crenellations, sobbing, breath coming in short, cut-off intervals.
She cupped her face. "Why?"
More forceful, as if in accusation of the heavens. "Why!"
Screams rang ceaseless across the Iachus Plains in answer.
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They burst out of the woods, breaking and uprooting thick redwoods and pine-shed larches. Slim birches exploded in a shower of wooden shrapnel. Horses reared in surprise and men shouted in confusion.
The Che'ell brothers vaulted the tapered stakes driven into the ground to provide a defensible perimeter against world-born men. The seven of them laughed in mirth.
The camp was arranged with military proficiency, with clear pathways, intersections, and yards reserved for training drills. The closer to the heart it got, the more it reeked of authority and command.
With the backside of its claw, the seventh of the Che'ell brothers swatted aside a mounted human. The beast's belly he rode was shorn open and innards ripped out. They slapped wetly against the canvas of a tent, slid down in a streak of red.
The eldest of the Che'ell brothers, its carapace shining translucent and with cataracts of greyish green, ripped a horse apart with its enormous claws. The geyser of blood showering its leathery skin hissed into plumes of vapour. Its tapered tail lashed out, shattered the legs of a human creeping up on it from behind.
The fifth brother—the one closest to the whorls of insanity—flayed rags of skin off animal and man. Stuck them to the hooks it'd drilled into its carapace, cladding itself in a macabre suit of stretched flesh.
Art! O, glorious art!
The seventh's massive axe sliced away the veil of meat and exposed the stink beneath. Its brothers descended upon the few left behind to guard the camp with thrills of pleasure. Their obsidian axes bisecting men and horses indiscriminately. The humans, shitting and pissing themselves, abandoned their post, crying out in mind-breaking horror, and struck to the back of the camp with the intention of flight from the alien presence in their midst.
The Che'ell brothers took to butchering the horses and cattle bound to poles and stakes, as they'd been commanded. Torches were thrown into tents, tripods of glowing coal upturned, dusting the encampment in the glitter and crackle of starting fires. On occasion the Che'ell brothers tasted and feasted on human and animal flesh to sate their smouldering hunger. Of each sacrifice in His name, they crafted profound art.
To be witness by those who'd return hollow-eyed after battle. And take from them the very last sliver of their will and bind it to death.
There'd be no need to draw weapons against these emptied men, for they'd aim their weapons at their own throats, their hearts black as pitch with hopelessness.
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Biting sting.
Cold against his cheek.
Then unreliable wakefulness behind the screen of agony. It thrummed up and down his left side. Crashed into him like the hammer on an anvil.
Screams filled the air. So distant. So near.
Somebody dragged him. His entire arm was white-hot pain. His torso felt wrong. His left leg dragged behind at an odd angle, bumping over the rough earth.
Franderel realised the screams were his. Felt a burning warmth down his legs.
How can this be? I am dead. At the Maker's side is where I belong! Is this it? Is eternal torment all that awaits? More screaming.
They dropped him to the ground. Broken bones creaked and chafed. Franderel bit off the edge of his tongue. Liquid copper washed out his mouth. He spat. Inhaled fine-grained dirt.
A voice. Remote and intense with a sneer. "The great Bann Franderel! Who so frustrated our efforts. Who denied Blist and cost him his head. No more than a broken, old cripple now. His fortress he can hold, but not his bowels and bladder it seems."
Laughter.
Franderel seethed, wanted to claw, and gouge. For even now, slowly dying, he felt shame at those words. He swallowed, his throat desert-dry. Craning his head back and against the pain, Franderel peered up, one-eyed, at the man standing above him. Found a plain young face staring back, ordinary to the point of blandness, save for the unwavering eyes drowned in brutal glee, and a stubbled jaw bunching uneven.
Franderel opened his mouth in retort, but managed only a wrecking cough. Blood and catarrh stuck to his chin.
"I'll have your men gutted and strangled with their own intestines. Then I'll have them bound to their horses, so they may be delivered to your fortress." The young officer smiled a torturer's smile, sweet like a lover, with dead eyes. "My name is Naujeri. Remember it. And don't worry, you can stay and watch."
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