Call of the Colossus: An epic fantasy novel (The Mindstream Chronicles Book 2) (16 page)

“Sit her down over there,” Justice Captain Milad said.

A chair was positioned at the foot of a long, wooden table. The table’s surface was marred with dozens of cuts and scratches, every one caked with dried blood.

The old woman sobbed. “Please don’t do this. I’ll bleed to death, and my grandchildren will have no one.”

Korlan pressed down on her shoulders to sit her in the chair, then followed Milad’s instructions to tie her into it, though he tried to be gentle as he pulled and buckled the straps across her thighs and chest. The chair was outfitted with a longer, swiveling arm on each side, each with its own set of straps. “You’re right handed, aren’t you?”

The woman was crying so hard, she couldn’t speak, but she nodded, and he strapped her left arm down so that her forearm and wrist lay atop the table.

“Can I at least give her some poppy first?” Korlan asked.

Milad sneered at him. “That would negate the effectiveness of the punishment.”

“Isn’t losing a hand effective enough? Come on, boss. She’s an old woman.”

“And she should know better. She’ll think twice about stealing again, won’t she?”

Korlan gave her a sympathetic look and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

Her sad, drooping eyes pleaded with him to do something. His own position was precarious enough, and he couldn’t risk his life or his family’s to oppose the entire judicial system, when Milad would probably just do it himself anyway.

Milad went to the far wall and pulled an axe from where it hung on a hook. “Use this one. It looks pretty sharp, and it’s heavy enough to get the job done.”

Korlan took the axe, felt its weight in his hand, got a sense of its balance. He ran his thumb across the blade. “This could use a few passes with the whetstone, I think.”

Milad tested the blade the same way. “It’s fine. Now come over to this side. Aim for the joint, right here.” He drew his finger across the woman’s bony and age-spotted wrist. The skin was thin, the veins clearly visible beneath. “Too low on the arm and you’ll just bury the blade in her bone and have to wrench it out and try again. Too high on the hand, and you’ll have to cut through all the small bones.”

Korlan’s mouth started to water. He wasn’t sure he could do this. He lightly touched the blade to her skin, measuring the right place. His arm trembled, and the handle felt slick in his sweaty palm.

“A little lower. Right there. Now do it. Give it a good blow.”

Korlan raised the axe. He blinked his eyes to clear away the gray spots forming, but they multiplied, obscuring everything in his peripheral vision.

The next thing he knew, a thick wetness had his face stuck to the floor. He sat up. The floor around him was covered in tacky blood. The woman was gone. Milad was gone. The axe was on the table above his head.

He climbed unsteadily to his feet, gripping the table edge for strength. His fingers left sticky red marks on the wood. Had he done it? He didn’t remember cutting off her hand. He only remembered starting to faint.
Challenge the god!
If he’d fainted, leaving Milad to do his job, he would catch hell not just from his boss but from all the other enforcers.

Footsteps approached. It was Trond, a crooked smile on his face as he sauntered down the corridor.

“I hear you fainted before you could cut off that crone’s hand. Hah! We’ll have a good laugh about it later. Milad sent me to tell you to go clean up. He has another task for you.”

Korlan wiped the blood from the side of his face. “Let me guess. I have to pull out the fingernails of a five-year-old girl.”

Trond laughed. “Good one. No, not this time, but you’d be wise not to disappoint him a second time. He won’t be so forgiving next time.”

“Forgiving?”

“Yah, your next task is a punishment of sorts. Don’t complain. It’ll just get you in worse.”

Korlan hurried back to his room, careful not to touch anything he didn’t have to with his bloody hands. He washed using the left-over water from that morning, now cooled, and changed into his spare shirt. He ran the bloodied one down to the bathing room and asked the man folding towels for advice on getting it cleaned. The man offered to take it to the laundry with him on his next trip, and Korlan gratefully accepted the offer.

When he reached the justice building, he met Milad in the corridor outside one of the courtrooms. He waited until his boss finished a conversation with an adept and approached.

“Sorry about earlier,” Korlan said. “I’m not squeamish. I don’t know what came over me.”

The justice captain snorted softly. “Everyone goes through an adjustment period. Give it a few weeks, and you’ll be laughing at the new fellows who do the same thing.”

Korlan hoped not. “So what’s my next assignment?”

“It’s both an assignment and a punishment for your inability to perform the last task. Your friend, Jora Lanseri.”

His heart fell into his gut. “What about her?”

“Though she’s been pardoned of her crimes, you’re to follow her anytime she leaves the premises to ensure she’s not violating the terms of her pardon.” Milad jerked his head, signaling Korlan to walk with him.

“What are the terms?”

They reached the door to the stairwell above the facilities. “She’s not to investigate matters pertaining to that smuggling business you and she were involved in.”

“We weren’t involved in it,” Korlan shot back.

“I don’t give a damn about the details,” Milad said, starting down the stairs. “Make sure she doesn’t poke her nose in it. The king’s men are investigating her claims. She needs to stay the hell away. If you even suspect she’s looking into it or interfering in any way, come to me directly. Do not confront her or warn her. I’ll know if you do.” He tapped his temple with one finger. “I was a novice before I became an enforcer. I can Observe you.”

“All right,” Korlan said. At least he wouldn’t have to beat her or cut off any of her body parts. It was probably for the best anyway. Boden had died over the smuggling. Lots of people had died over it, and he didn’t want to be among them. “How will I know if she does?”

“You’ll know. She’ll talk to people outside the bureau—legion men, in particular. She might even ask you about it. She considers you a friend, right?”

Korlan lifted his lip in disgust. So he was expected to use their friendship against her. If she brought up the issue of smuggling, he would simply change the subject and hope she got the message.

“If I suspect you’re looking the other way or, worse, you decide to help her, I’ll let Gruesome and Nob take turns on you. You’ll be sorry you were ever born.”

Korlan shuddered. “All right. I get it.”

In a room near the back of the hallway was a table topped with a slab of marble. Chains and leather straps dangled from rings set into the platform beneath it, and on the floor, the dark stains of old blood. From hooks on the walls hung various types of gags, iron tools, straps, belts, whips, and paddles. Korlan’s stomach roiled, threatening to chuck his dinner. He doubted he would ever get used to the smell of these rooms or the barbaric instruments used to torture convicts.

“Who’s this for?” he asked hoarsely.

Milad turned to him with a dark smirk. “This is where you’ll carry out Novice Jora’s punishment.”

Korlan swallowed down the foul taste in his mouth. “What punishment?”

“Bucking and gagging. Grue will show you how. Wait here. He’ll bring her in a minute.” Milad turned and stalked back down the hallway. His boot steps faded to silence as he climbed the stairs.

Just what he’d always wanted—a fellow nicknamed Gruesome to show him how to torture a woman he considered a friend. Milad’s earlier words came back to him.
You might wish you were dead in a month or two.

Korlan didn’t think it would take that long. A day or two was more like it.

He paced the length of the room, trying to ignore the scent of blood, urine, feces, and the lye they’d used to clean with. He tried not to think about the sound of his boots echoing off the floor or how a woman’s screams might do the same. In all his nineteen years, he’d never considered what role the enforcers played within the Justice Bureau. Not really. Sure, he’d known they carried out the punishments handed down by the Elders who sentenced criminals, but it hadn’t occurred to him that some of those punishments would be torturous. If a thief was behanded, he’d always assumed the convict would be given spirits or poppy to mask the pain.

A pair of footsteps approached, one heavy and the other lighter. Korlan paced, chewing his bottom lip. He looked forward to seeing Jora, but he dreaded the look in her eyes when she saw that he’d become an enforcer. It wasn’t like he’d had a choice.

When she entered the room, her face lit up. “Korlan!” She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck.

“Jora,” he said, holding her tightly. “It’s good to see you.” She released him and stepped away, her face still aglow and her smile broad. She looked thinner in the face but otherwise unscathed, though she had on trousers and a tunic rather than the purple robe he’d expected to see her wearing.

“I’m sorry about the enforcer thing. It was the best I could do.”

He blinked a couple of times, confused. “What do you mean? The Legion reversed my conviction.”

“I know,” she said, patting his chest. “Isn’t it great? I’m lucky to have Princess Rivva as a friend.”

“You…” Korlan swallowed hard. Jora had saved his life, and now he was going to be the one to issue her punishment. What kind of cruel bastard was Milad to assign this task to him?

“You can thank me later.” Her smile dimmed as she looked around the room. “What’s this?”

He looked at the enforcer who’d accompanied her, a tall brute with shoulders almost as wide as the doorway. If Korlan thought his own shirt was too tight, this man was nearly bursting out of his, and it was easily twice the size of a normal shirt. His face was surprisingly handsome with a square jaw and piercing blue eyes beneath thick black brows, but there was a coldness in his eyes that made Korlan want to sidle away, as if the black pupil were the shadow of something sinister behind his eyes. This had to be Gruesome.

“Go ahead,” Gruesome said, his voice as deep as one expected for a man so big. “Tell her.” His teeth were uneven, two of them broken at sharp angles. Two molars were missing behind his extraordinarily long eye teeth, making his smile look like the snarl of a wolf.

Korlan swallowed hard. “Sorry, Jora. I’m assigned to issue your punishment.”

Her mouth and eyes went round. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry. I’d delegate it to someone else if I could.” He cast a wary glance at Gruesome.
Not him.
“But maybe if I do it, it won’t… it won’t hurt as bad.”

She hung her head and said nothing.

“Bucking and gagging for six hours,” Gruesome said. “That’s what Milad says. Four for her initial offense, two more for her refusal to return some stolen books. Not a minute less–”

“They’re not stolen,” she muttered. “They’re rightfully mine.”

“–but if you want to go longer, I won’t say anything.” He winked at Korlan, grinning his wicked grin.

Korlan’s stomach churned. He thought he might spew. For the previous fifteen months, he’d slain men in the most brutal way, seen their guts spill and their blood spatter, smelled the stench of death, but none of that compared with the idea of torturing a woman, a friend, a fellow patriot.

“Up on the table, Novice,” Gruesome said. Jora complied, hopping up backwards and swinging her legs up. She sat with her legs outstretched before her. “Now, we take this rod here.” He plucked an inch-thick, wooden dowel from its wall hook and handed it to Korlan. “And put it under her knees.”

Jora lifted her knees so Korlan could slide it underneath.

“Bend the knees some more. That’s it. Now she puts her arms under the rod.”

Jora held the rod against the undersides of her knees with her arms, nestling it in the crook of her elbows.

“Then,” Gruesome explained, removing a pair of shackles from the wall, “you put these on her wrists. The chain goes against her shins.”

“Sorry,” Korlan whispered as he clamped the shackles on her left wrist, then went around to the other side of the table and affixed it to her right. She looked terribly uncomfortable, and sitting for six hours that way was going to be brutal. He wished he could at least share the punishment with her—do half the time for her.

“Now tie her ankles together with this.” Gruesome handed him a few yards of cord. “Nice and tight.”

Korlan did as he was told, trying not to tie it so tight as to turn her feet cold and blue.

“That’s the bucking part,” Gruesome said cheerfully. He removed a rectangle of black cotton from its hook. “And this is for the gagging part.” He handed the cloth to Korlan. “Tie it good and tight. It’s not punishment if it’s loose.”

Korlan put the gag into her mouth gently and tied the cloth behind her bald head. He tried to make it look tight without actually pulling it hard.

“Tighter,” Gruesome said. “Don’t be a baby. Yank it hard.”

Korlan tugged it a little tighter, but the other enforcer wasn’t convinced.

He pushed Korlan out of the way. “Move.” He grabbed the two ends of the fabric and yanked hard, eliciting a muffled cry from Jora. He tied the knot and tugged hard to set it. “There. That’s how you do it.” He clapped Korlan hard on the back. “For this particular prisoner, though, we have one last step.” He handed Korlan a silver band with strange black symbols stamped or burned into it. Around the outer surface were knobs of bronze or gold, and between them were screws with flat heads, ideal for tightening with the fingers. “Set it on her head, down low on the sides over her ears.”