Laughing, still laughing.
“You will never breach the Stronghold,” he said. “It is built for war and guarded as if it were the greatest of treasures. Whatever you want in there, you won’t get it, you hear me, you bastards? You. Won’t. Get it.”
Thren ripped out his eye anyway, then tossed the orb over his shoulder so that it landed at Haern’s feet.
“I think,” he said, “we have made a mistake.”
When Jorakai’s screams stopped, he resumed his mocking.
“The windows are barred,” he said. “The doors always guarded. There are no gates, no tunnels, nothing but that front entrance. Who is it you seek there, you fools? One of us? Or do you think you’ll take our gold and jewels?”
Out went the other eye.
“Nothing for you,” Jorakai screamed. “Nothing but a death far worse than mine. Go there, I beg of you. Go willingly into the hands of my brethren and their pits. What I suffered for weeks, you will suffer for decades.”
Thren abandoned his short sword, instead drawing a thin knife from his belt and beginning to work. After finishing with the face, he moved downward. He cut and thrust, opening up the man’s belly so he could reach his hands inside. Jorakai could no longer laugh, only scream as Thren shouted.
“You think I will suffer?” he asked. “You think I fear your pits and lions? Your home is a home like any other, and I will break into it. I will find the man within who has toyed with my life and manipulated me like a pawn in his fucking game!”
Haern put his hand on his father’s shoulder.
“Enough,” he said. “Let him die.”
Jorakai’s face had turned pale, and Haern knew he’d pass out soon enough from the pain. His empty eye sockets looked up to the stars, and the sight of them reminded Haern of the Widow’s victims from months before. To find him party to one doing the same filled him with unease.
“He deserves worse,” Thren said, refusing to look back at him.
“It doesn’t matter if he does. We’ll gain nothing from him. Let him die.”
Thren stood, his hands slick with blood, so red they seemed to glow in the night.
“If you want him dead, then you kill him,” he said. “Otherwise, I want this bastard to suffer. However slim the connection, he is part of what is happening in Veldaren, and we need to send a message.”
“What message?” Haern asked. “Who will know of his death? Who will see it? This is for your own enjoyment, nothing else, so don’t lie to me, nor to yourself.”
Thren froze, his eyes meeting Haern’s, and they were filled with fire. Haern felt a tingle travel down his spine, and more than anything, he wished to have his swords in his hands.
“You of all people are the last allowed to say that to me,” he said, his voice dropping, his words shaking with intensity. “Not you, not a man who is a living lie. Deep down, past the cloak and the hood and all your protective shadows, I know the monster you truly are. Never again, you understand? Never dare tell me that again. No matter what this man says, we’ll go to the Stronghold, we’ll break inside, and we’ll find our prey. No building is impenetrable, not to us. Now clean up your mess.”
With that, he walked away, leaving Haern alone with the dying man. Jorakai was breathing slowly now, each one accompanied by a wheeze due to the damage of his throat. Haern put his foot on a wrist, then withdrew the blade stabbed through the palm. He stared down into those two bloodied caves that were now the paladin’s eyes.
“Why did your god try to manipulate us?” Haern asked him. “Why would he work with the Sun Guild to help move them into Veldaren?”
Jorakai’s lips peeled back into a gruesome smile. Several teeth were missing from where Thren had pried them out with a knife.
“I cannot decide if you’re deluded or merely stupid,” he said, coughing and spitting blood to the side. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know where you’re from. Whatever you think happened, Karak had nothing to do with it. No priest or paladin worthy of their title would aid the Sun Guild.”
Haern was again perplexed. How could that not be a lie? Luther had worked with Grayson in organizing the Sun Guild’s initial arrival to Veldaren. So, unless they’d been lied to before …
“The priest named Luther,” Haern said. “Tell me where he is, and I’ll give you mercy.”
The paladin let out a chuckle.
“Mercy? Why should I want your mercy?”
Haern knelt down, and he felt a shadow cross over his soul.
“You may have my mercy,” he said, “and if not, I will have Thren return so he may resume his work. Your choice.”
Jorakai let out a sigh, and his entire body seemed to relax.
“So be it,” he said. “Luther is a disgrace, an insult to our order. We are holding him in the highest room of the Stronghold as our prisoner.”
The words left him stunned.
“Prisoner?” Haern asked.
“Prisoner,” Jorakai said. “Are you satisfied?”
Disgraced? Prisoner? Suddenly, his earlier confusion clarified. What if the priests and paladins of Karak were in the dark when it came to Luther’s actions? Given Jorakai’s reaction to the idea, it had a sort of logic to it. Did Luther hide his involvement for fear of retribution from his brethren? Or were his actions the reason for his imprisonment? Above all, what would cause a priest of Karak to risk so much that he’d hide his plan from his own order?
Even more unsettled, Haern placed the tip of his sword against Jorakai’s throat.
“Thank you,” said the paladin. “Send me to my god. Let me find succor in his embrace.”
“I’ve seen the Lion,” Haern told him. “You’ll find no succor, not with him. Only fire.”
He thrust, twisted the sword, then pulled it free. The paladin bucked for a moment as he failed to draw breath, and Haern watched until the body fell still. He felt no pleasure, but no shame either, no guilt. Just exhaustion.
Yanking free his other blade, he held both out wide and looked up to the stars, to where he pictured Ashhur looking down upon him.
“What we do, is it madness?” he asked. “Is it wrong?”
There was no answer, as he knew there wouldn’t be. But deep down, the answer was obvious.
It’d taken both of them to handle a single paladin of Karak, and now they headed for their home, to where they were raised, trained, and sent out into the world to spread their order. What they did, it wasn’t hopeless. It wasn’t madness.
It was suicide.
“I do this for others, not myself,” he insisted. “I do this to save those I love. I have to. Even my father … somewhere in there, he knows I am his son, and he’s ready to die for me. It has to mean something. All of this. Luther, Thren, Delysia…”
There was no confirmation given to him, nothing but the blowing of a cold night wind across the blood on his blades.
CHAPTER 13
Ghost didn’t know where he was going or even where he wanted to go, but he knew he had to keep moving. The pain was unbearable, his skin feeling as if it were constantly aflame. Not that he could see it, his eyes always watering from the pain. He tried brushing at his arms once, but that had only made the pain worse, so much worse. With each step he took, he cursed the damned wizard in yellow and the fire he’d bathed him in.
He was walking down a street; that was the one thing Ghost knew for sure. His eyes were locked on the ground, watching himself as he took step after step. With each one, it felt harder to move, his feet growing in weight. His stomach was tight, and even the slightest movement of his legs sent waves of pain bouncing throughout his body, overwhelming him, preventing him from even knowing the source exactly. Was it his arms, his legs, his face? Did it even matter?
At last, he could go no farther. He dropped to the ground, and at the impact, he screamed. It must have been loud, for the scream made him feel better, if only momentarily. He rolled onto his back, and that helped a little. Lying there, he stared up at the night sky and wondered what the point of escaping the gentle touchers had been. They’d never hurt him, not like this. Perhaps because they couldn’t. Perhaps because this much pain, this much fire, meant he would soon die.