Will flexed his bruised hands. Breathing evenly, concentrating to ignore the pain, ignore the two broken fingers, the wrist and elbow fractures; think of nothing now except escape, nothing about medic-mages or temple healing; think only that even naked one has teeth, nails, and strength; one is not weaponless—
Ned began wordlessly to howl. The sound made even the hairs on the back of Will’s neck stand up. He poised himself at one side of the cell door.
The metal covering on the grill slid back. An orc hand was briefly visible. Something metallic clinked against the bars. A small metal ovoid hit the cell floor, rolled across the flagstones, and came to rest a yard from Ned.
Before either halfling could speak or move, there was a flat crack!, frighteningly loud in the enclosed space. White fog billowed up, pouring rapidly into every corner of the cell. Will choked, coughed, ground his fists into his suddenly streaming eyes, bent double, and began to retch helplessly. In pain, through tears and convulsions, he heard Ned whimpering, an ululation of pain broken by racking coughs.
At some point an altercation between orc voices resulted in a silence, after which a key was turned in the lock. The cell door opened, clanged shut; bars and bolts were settled again. The booted footsteps departed.
Three people coughed, retched, lay choking on the damp cell floor.
Some while afterwards, his eyes still swollen shut and his lungs raw, Will Brandiman whispered, “Ned?”
His brother groaned.
A new voice said, “Son, is that you?”
Will Brandiman began to weep, with a sound not too far removed from laughter. At last he crawled across the flagstones until he encountered a soft bulk. A hand rumpled his hair. He seized it. In torchlight through the grill, with the foul mist gone, he made out the calm features of Magda Brandiman.
He wept in her lap for some while, and after that Ned was discovered to have stopped shivering, so between the two of them they chafed feeling back into his body and hypothermia out of it, and Magda wrapped her crimson velvet cloak around her sons’ bodies. They sat huddled together, arms around each other, in the least damp corner of the Nin-Edin cell. Brief mutters and whispers passed information on capture.
“You paid the Visible College…?” Breath failed Magda Brandiman. Will felt her small body tense. “That must have cost—you could have set me up in my own House—a chain of Houses—you told me you were poor!”
Embarrassed, Will murmured, “Mother, you know what you’re like with gold.”
“My sons!” She began to weep, small sounds of surprise and outrage rather than grief.
“Mother, we’ve come to rescue you!” Ned stopped and glanced around the dim, dank cell. “Look, don’t worry, we’ll think of something.”
The halfling raised her head, her dark cropped hair spiked up into cat’s-fur tufts, the lines prominent around her eyes and mouth. Her eyes glittered. “That big orc treats me better than my own boys! And who said I needed a rescue? Who asked you to come here? He and I— Oh, you could be killed!”
She wept again, softly this time, hugging Will and Ned to her prominent bosom, and neither of her sons winced against the pain of their injuries.
The air began to smell of deep night.
Will broke the long silence.
“I think I see a way. It isn’t easy. All of us will have to do things we don’t like. You most of all, Mother.”
Magda Brandiman’s voice came neutrally. “What must I do?”
Aching, the weakness of internal bleeding filling him with dread, Will schooled his voice to confidence.
“Simple enough, Mother. Come out of hiding, abandon your false name—come forward and be recognized as who you really are.”
Standing on the parapet, Ashnak spared a glance for the winter stars above Nin-Edin. Three hours till daybreak. And is the Light planning a pre-dawn attack too?
His broad, hairy nostrils suddenly flared.
“Sir!”
Ashnak took a salute from a rotting, albinoid figure in black combats that materialised out of the night. “Yes, Corporal?”
“Reports from the scouts, sir. One recon team got back,” Corporal Lugashaldim announced. “They advise that in the last hour dozens of messengers have been coming into the enemy camp.”
Ashnak wiped his hairy nostrils on his sleeve, his eyes watering at the proximity of the SUS marine. “Reinforcements, dammit! They’re getting reinforcements.”
“Nothing else it can be, sir. We think there are more Light forces in the general area.” The Undead marine grinned rather more widely than Ashnak found comfortable. “Guess they didn’t want Amarynth Fartarse to have all the glory of doing for us, sir.”
“Well done, marine. Keep me advised of any further reports. You!” He snapped his fingers at an orc marine aide, whose helmet slipped down over her eyes as she saluted. “Send the halfling prisoners to my quarters for interrogation. Start with the female. While I’m there, see that I receive regular situation reports on military developments.” Ashnak showed his fangs. “You know how involved I get in interrogations.”
“Sir, yes sir!” The orc marine left at the double.
Ashnak loped slope-shouldered through the chill night. Inside the keep it was colder, with the damp of ancient stones. The chambers and corridors echoed to the shouts of orc marines gearing up, NCOs bawling out their grunts, officers shouting for reconnaissance and situation reports. He walked through it all, grumbling under his breath about the burdens of command, and shrugged his flak jacket tighter across his muscled, hairless chest.
Approaching Nin-Edin’s largest tower, and his command post, a noise attracted his attention. He paused by the closed door of the guard-room, hearing the whistle of a whip.
“Ah. Interrogating prisoners. Well done, marines.” Cheered, Ashnak opened the door and beamed. “Possibly a little in advance of ourselves…”
Chained face to the wall, stripped of everything but leather underwear, Perdita del Verro winced and arched her back as the lash struck. Ashnak glimpsed her between the six or seven grunts surrounding her chained body—female orcs with spiked white hair, in a somewhat unorthodox Battle Dress Uniform of black leather, with studded belts and wristbands.
The Badgurlz marines jeered their helpless victim. Sergeant Varimnak, sleeves rolled up, black cloth headband tied around her brows, wielded the heavy whip. “Take that, bitch!”
“Mercy!”
Ashnak beamed sentimentally to himself at the traditional sight of orcs inflicting pain.
A petite Badgurlz marine with silver studs through her hairless ears, nostrils, and nipples elbowed Varimnak in the ribs. “She’s had ages, Sarge. What about the rest of us?”
Perdita del Verro turned her head, chin resting on her striped, bleeding shoulder. “You stopped…” she complained.
“Take her down,” Varimnak ordered. “Hey, Tukurash, get up there; I’m gonna make hamburger of your pretty ass! Unless our guest…?”
Ashnak witnessed the Warrior of Fortune correspondent climb down from the stone bench, and grin painfully and widely at Varimnak. The elf’s glossy braids had come half undone, her red ribbons were sweat-stained. She took Varimnak’s black leather whip.
“Take that, bitch!” The elf cracked the tip of it accurately across Tukurash’s back. The orc marine whimpered. Varimnak nodded admiringly.
“You’re supposed to torture the prisoners!” Ashnak exclaimed, affronted. “Damn it, they’re not supposed to torture you!”