Doom's Break (32 page)

In his dreams he returned to the world before the war. A lazy summer day and a long game at the ball field. Iallia was there, and so was Nuza, which was confusing. For a moment, Pern Treevi's hate-filled face filtered past but then it was gone, and Thru was concentrating on hitting the next ball as it hurtled in toward the tree.

This idyll ended abruptly with a violent shake of his shoulder. Thru struggled to wakefulness and stared around him. The familiar yet unfamiliar surroundings of the equipment tent greeted him, along with a goggle-eyed orderly.

"There is news, sir! General Toshak wants you at once, sir!"

Shaking sleep from his eyes, Thru dressed and made his way to the command post.

"There you are, Gillo. Good. Enemy made his move. A surprise attack this morning on the Great King's fleet at anchor. They've taken six of his ships, and they've also taken the admiral."

Thru sucked in a breath. "Where are they now, sir?"

"Don't know, really. Last report had them sailing back out to sea with their prizes. There's confusion in the rest of the fleet now, possibly a mutiny on one ship. We don't really know yet."

"So, no landing was attempted?"

"None. They looked in at Dronned, but they sailed away again."

Thru nodded at these words. The enemy was canny. He must have studied the first battle of Dronned. He wanted to land on better ground for a fight.

"Please take this message to Aeswiren." Toshak handed him a scroll. "And this one to King Belit. Plus this one to whichever Assenzi you find in residence at Dronned."

Thru was on the road south within a few minutes.

The cold water hit his face, and he came back to wakefulness with a sad groan. He was still in the stocks.

"Wake up, pig!" snarled an all-too-familiar voice.

Heuze blinked and looked up into the circle of Red Tops grinning down at him. Already it seemed as if they'd been torturing him for years.

The one with the big red nose poked him in the head. "Wake up and answer the questions."

Another one, with two front teeth missing, chipped in, "The excellent Muambwi Gold Top will conduct the questioning today."

Today? Had he slept all night? Had there been a night?

Confined belowdecks, Heuze had lost all idea of night and day. All sense of what was going on. He could barely think straight.

Damn, he thought, but he was in up to his neck in the excrement now.

And it was his own fault. That was the worst part. He'd gone to sleep at the tiller of his fleet. He'd never dreamed the enemy would be so daring as to attempt an attack on his anchored fleet, coming out of the mists at dawn. He'd been caught unawares, and before he could effectively respond, there'd been two enemy ships grappled to his sides and the
Anvil
was swarming with boarders.

More cold water splashed over him, to the guffaws of the young Red Tops. The muscular pair who wielded the mallets were grinning broadly. These two really loved their work.

They were good at it, too. Heuze was pretty sure he'd never use his right hand again. It was already a purple pancake, coated in crusted blood. The nails were gone, and the joints were swollen grotesquely, flattened by the pounding of the mallets.

The pain? Ah, the pain—Heuze had come to know all about pain and its various levels. He flexed his left hand, which was still recognizable as a human hand. The pain from the broken bones was excruciating, but he hardly winced anymore. He'd felt far worse.

At least, he told himself, they hadn't done a thing to his remaining foot. Why, he didn't know, but he was thankful for it with the thanks of a man with one leg amputated already.

They had taken away his peg leg, of course. And used it to break his fingers the first time round. Oh, they'd enjoyed that. The Red Tops knew who he was; they knew his reputation. The word had gotten back to Shasht about how Admiral Heuze had broken the priests of the colony and put the Gold Tops to the sword. The Red Tops had been castrated and sold down into slavery. Oh, yes, they knew all about him.

The Gold Top arrived. The Red Tops fell silent and assumed their positions. One on either side of him to seize him and shove his head in a bucket or pull his ears or slap him rhythmically on the cheeks, whatever the Gold Top indicated. The pair with the mallets leaned their weapons on their shoulders, and a third pair behind them would join in for those occasions when the Gold Top wanted them to kick the admiral in the crotch and belly.

Muambwi Gold Top sat delicately on the stool, ready to begin. This one was a skeletal fellow, with a long horse's face and cheekbones sticking up under the skin. Heuze longed for the chance to get in one punch, one solid punch, even with his broken hands.

"Admiral Heuze, I hope you will answer promptly and truthfully today. We have much ground to cover, and I would like to get this over with."

Heuze tried to speak, and coughed through his dry throat a moment or two. Muambwi waited, eyes expectant. Finally, Heuze managed, "Yeah, let's get it over with."

It was hard talking normally when your cheeks and lips were as swollen as his. When your nose was broken and some of your teeth had been knocked out. His broken nose felt enormous on his face.

"Good, then we're agreed."

Muambwi opened a folder made of stiff parchment. "Admiral Heuze, you said yesterday that you were ordered recently to send four ships south. You said you did not know why the ships were sent."

"Yes," said Heuze in a dull voice.

"I will repeat a question from yesterday. Four ships were sent. Where were they sent?"

"Not my orders. I received sealed orders that I gave to the captains concerned. I was not told anything more than that."

He was sticking to his story. First lesson about lying: Never budge from your first line of deceit.

"Who had sealed these orders?"

"The Emperor."

Heuze intended to take the secret of the ships' destination to his grave. Let them tear his heart out of his chest, he would never tell them where those fornicating ships were going.

"What does this seal look like?"

"A capital letter
A
impressed in the wax."

"Is the letter enclosed in a circle?"

"No."

Muambwi paused, riffled through the sheets of paper inside the folder. "So, the ships were chosen by the Emperor?"

"Yes."

"And what was your role supposed to be in this?"

"I don't really have a role. As I said, I passed on sealed orders. I am merely a servant of the Emperor, as is lawful and just."

Muambwi's eyebrows came together for a moment. "The Emperor sits in Shasht and is named Norgeeben the Second. There is no Emperor here."

Heuze stared doggedly into the dark eyes of Muambwi Gold Top. "So you say. But I am not in Shasht. I am on the other side of the world, and I do not know what is truly happening in Shasht. But I do know that the Emperor Aeswiren is here. I merely obey orders from the Emperor Aeswiren."

"You dissemble! You think you can deceive us?"

Muambwi made a cutting motion with one hand. Instantly, the pair of Red Tops kneeling on either side of Heuze began slapping him hard across the face. Heuze felt his head rock back and forth for what seemed an eternity while his cheeks stung and his head rang like a bell. He'd already taken too many beatings like this and soon it felt as if his head was about to fall off his shoulders and roll along the floor.

At last it stopped. His head sagged, and he struggled to breathe. His ears were ringing. His already swollen cheeks stung as if they'd been opened with a razor and bathed in acid.

"Now, Admiral Heuze, tell me no more lies!"

Muambwi sounded as if he had enjoyed the last couple of minutes.

"The fugitive, the so-called Emperor Aeswiren, is no longer blessed with the authority given by the Great God. The true Emperor is Norgeeben, who sits the throne in Shasht."

"Whatever you say," said Heuze with difficulty.

"Correct. So, tell me again what you thought your role was in this matter of these ships that were sent south."

"Very little, really. I just handed them the orders sent me."

Muambwi pursed his lips and studied Heuze for a long time. "What were the names of these officers?"

"Captain Low of
Fierce
, Captain Herrigs of
Flying Spume
, Captain Dace of
Auger
, Captain Brisbask of frigate
Sunset
."

The Gold Top was writing the names in the folder. Heuze felt a momentary triumph. He was sure now that the four ships he'd send south had not been intercepted by the enemy fleet. Otherwise they'd know well enough who they had.

He gritted his teeth. It was even more important that he steer the enemy away from the truth.

"All right, Admiral, we'll go along with this little effort at deception you're making. We'll ask you where you think these ships are being sent, not where you know they're being sent."

Heuze shrugged and winced as he hurt both hands, still trapped in the stocks.

"I suppose they're going to Mauste. We have built our main base there. Perhaps you have seen it yourself?"

"Perhaps." The Gold Top suddenly became aware that Heuze was winkling out information from him. His eyebrows came together angrily.

"Admiral, you fail to understand the tenuousness of your position. If you fail to satisfy the questioning, you will be given to the Great God."

Heuze blinked then laughed mordantly. "What are you saying? That I won't be given to the Great God if I satisfy you? Are you saying that the tradition of centuries will be forgotten in my case and I'll go free? Are you trying to pull my leg? Hah, pull the other one, it's still got a foot!"

Muambwi's face contorted with anger and then resumed its normal look of haughty insolence. "It won't have a foot for very long if you keep that attitude."

"Look, I'll come clean with you, if you come clean with me. You're going to kill me no matter what you say. I know that, you fornicating sodomite!"

Muambwi's brows collided once more beneath the gleaming crown of gold paint. He made a chopping gesture. The Red Tops who did the kicking jumped forward and put their feet into Heuze's crotch and belly a few times.

When they'd finished, Heuze vomited weakly, blood and spittle dripping down on the ruins of his shirt and trousers.

Muambwi Gold Top leaned forward once more. "Admiral, you will save yourself much discomfort by remembering your place and speaking to Questioners with respect."

"Yes, yes, of course, foolish of me—"

Heuze didn't complete the rest, not wanting those mallets to come into play again.

As the questioning continued, Heuze found his mind wandering at times, and he could scarcely remember what they were asking him about from one minute to the next. He tried to fashion credible answers, but he knew he wasn't convincing them of anything.

Muambwi was replaced by Chushi Gold Top. Chushi was a thick-necked fellow with a bulbous nose. Chushi was even more unpleasantly small-minded than Muambwi.

"Hello, Chushi," said Heuze through broken teeth and swollen lips. "I bet my nose is even bigger than yours today."

"Be silent, slave of He Who Eats!"

Chushi was not pleased. Muambwi had been unable to wring more than the captains' names from Heuze, who had babbled for hours about all sorts of things but not the information they sought: the destination of those ships.

The mallets rained down on Heuze's hands. He screamed. He roared. He howled. He bled. Eventually he was silent, no matter what they did. Even when they put hot irons to his flesh, he opened his mouth but no sound came forth.

They threw cold water on him to no effect. In disgust they left him, and he slept.

When next he awoke, it was to be summarily dragged from the stocks and up the steps to the quarterdeck. Officers were there. No faces that were familiar to him. All looked at his battered state with dismay. The pride of the navy was being besmirched by this treatment of an admiral, and worse yet, the admiral had brought it on himself.

No fault of mine, boys, he wanted to shout, but his voice no longer served him. It wasn't what I wanted to happen, he would have added.

Ropes were attached to his wrists, and he was hauled up to hang below a yardarm. Sails billowed above him, as the ship was making good progress under a breeze from astern. Despite everything, Heuze felt a certain renewal from just looking on the sea. He had spent most of his life at sea, and on such a fine day, with such a useful wind, he could not help but feel that elemental bond with the waves that he had always felt.

Why they'd hung him up like this he had no idea. It hurt like hell, of course, but it made a change from the foulness down below, being slapped around by the sodomistic Red Tops. He craned his head down and studied the quarterdeck from a position he'd never looked down from before.

He saw no sign of Captain Pukh. He hoped Pukh had dived overboard or something. He didn't want to think of his old friend Pukh being taken by the Red Tops because of a stupid mistake of his. There was no sign of any of his own officers. All had been replaced.

Damn, it was all his own fault. Even with an enemy fleet so close at hand he had neglected to set a good enough watch. To be taken as he'd been was more than stupid—it was humiliating.

He looked up as a shadow fell over him.

Streaming up from the southwest were dark clouds. Peculiar clouds, shaped like daggers, and so dark they looked like ink spilled across the sky. One after the other they slid across, leaving narrow strips of blue in between, until at last they all joined together and the sky became a black vault, utterly blocking out the sun.

Heuze had never seen anything like this in all his years at sea. Everything had gone cold. A sudden flash of purple-tinged lightning flared in the west, and a heavy boom rocked the ship.

Accompanying the dark came a chill wind that brought with it a premonition of horror. Heuze trembled in the cold breeze while uncontrollable fear spread through every man onboard. They were nought but rabbits in a field, pursued by swift beasts with mouths of fire.