They had no idea what was causing it, and Shaylar looked up from her cards. Gadrial's head was bent as she sorted her own hand, and she failed to notice the intense, almost plaintive quality of the look Shaylar gave her. The Voice wished with all her heart that she and Jathmar could discuss what was happening to them with someone, and the most reasonable someone would have been Gadrial. But Jathmar was right.
They couldn't mention this to anyone—not when it was possible that the effect could be deliberately induced, even used against other Talents, by a sorceress who figured out what was happening.
Gadrial looked up, and Shaylar quickly banished her worries from her expression, if not from her emotions.
"Ready to bid?" Gadrial asked.
"Sure," Shaylar said, with a cheerfulness she was far from feeling. "Fifteen."
Afternoon sunlight slanted in through the narrow, barred windows as the outside door slammed open.
Two Arcanan guards came through it, dragging a limp, semi-conscious body between them, and a third guard followed behind them, with one of their repeating crossbows cocked and loaded in his hands. The armed guard stood back, weapon ready, while one of the other two unlocked the cell door so that his companion could toss their burden through it.
Namir Velvelig moved quickly, catching Company-Captain Silkash before the all but unconscious Healer could hit the cell floor. Silkash cried out in pain as the regiment-captain caught him, and Velvelig's eyes could have frozen heart of any Arpathian hell as he glared up at the guards.
One of them sneered at him, obviously amused by his glare, and made a taunting gesture with one hand.
His mocking expression and obvious satisfaction at Silkash's broken, bloodied condition was almost enough. Almost. Yet Velvelig's iron expression never even twitched. Only those frozen eyes spoke of the fury blazing within him. The time would come. He already knew that much. The time would come when he would finally make his try and die.
But not today. Not until the moment was right and he could count on taking at least one of them with him before the bastard with the crossbow shot him down.
The guard who'd mocked him snorted with contempt, spat on the floor, then slammed the cell shut and locked it. He said something to his companion, and all three of the guards sauntered out.
Velvelig eased Silkash down on the pallet he and the other officers in their cell had put together, and the Healer twitched, hissing in anguish as Velvelig's gently testing fingers found fresh breaks in his ribs.
The regiment-captain had cuts and bruises in plenty of his own. The last two times they'd come for Silkash, Velvelig had stood in front of the Healer. He hadn't launched a single blow, hadn't threatened the guards in any way, but they'd had to club him out of the way before they could get at the Healer.
Not that it had done any good in the end.
"Sir?"
He looked down at the faint, thready voice. Silkash's left eye was open; his right was swollen shut. He'd lost several teeth along the way, as well, and his speech wasn't very clear.
"I'm here, Silky," Velvelig said quietly. "You don't look too good."
"Well, I don't feel so good, either," Silkash got out, and Velvelig's eyes burned at the Healer's feeble attempt at humor.
"Tobis?" Velvelig asked after a moment, and Silkash shook his head.
"Don't know, Sir." The bruised, bloodied face twisted. "That son-of-a-bitch was still working on him when they dragged me out."
"Whoreson!" somebody snarled behind Velvelig, but the regiment-captain only patted Silkash gently on the shoulder.
"All right, Silky. Take it easy. We'll take care of you."
"I know, Sir," Silkash whispered, and his eye slid shut.
Velvelig held up one hand, and one of the other prisoners handed him the scrap of blanket they'd soaked in their water bucket. The regiment-captain began cleaning his Healer's face, and his touch was as gentle as any woman's, while black murder seethed in his heart.
Hadrign Thalmayr's sadism had a certain brutal cunning. There was no doubt in Velvelig's mind that he was going to kill Silkash and Makree in the end, but he was in no hurry to end his entertainment.
Perhaps it had begun as some sort of punishment, vengeance for the "torment" he believed the Healers had deliberately inflicted upon him. If that was how it had started, though, it had gone far beyond that by now. Vengeance might have offered him the pretext, but the truth was that he enjoyed what he was doing.
He was pacing himself, rationing himself ... giving his victims time to recover between sessions. Yet Silkash and—especially—Makree were growing steadily weaker, and no one seemed to care. Certainly no one was offering them the magical healing which had saved Velvelig's own life. However spectacular their healing powers might be, the Arcanan healers were obviously content to watch their Sharonian counterparts being slowly and brutally beaten to death without raising a finger to repair the damage.
"I don't think Tobis can take much more, Sir." Silkash's voice was a little stronger, which only made the despair in it that much clearer. "It's worse for him. It blasts his Talent open. Makes him Feel how much the son-of-a-bitch enjoys what he's doing to him."
"I know, Silky. I—"
Velvelig broke off, and his belly muscles tightened in anticipation as the outside door opened once more. But it wasn't the guards dragging Tobis Makree back into the brig, after all.
Velvelig straightened, and the fury in his heart redoubled as he recognized the wiry redhead. Thalmayr was bad enough, yet at least he appeared to genuinely believe his captors had deliberately tortured him when he was in their power. The Arcanan standing outside their cell now, looking in that them, had no such excuse, and Velvelig knew that if he would only come within arm's reach of the bars ... .
He wasn't that stupid, unfortunately. He only stood there, glaring at the prisoners, his face tight with hatred as he drank up the extent of Silkash's injuries. Then he turned around, as wordlessly as he'd come, and stalked back out.
Namir Velvelig watched him go, then knelt slowly back down beside his Healer and started wiping blood off his face once more.
Therman Ulthar closed the door very carefully behind him, then stood on the walkway outside the brig.
His left hand dropped to the hilt of the short sword sheathed at his hip, and his knuckles whitened with the force of his grip.
He refused to let himself look at the administration block. He couldn't, because he knew what was happening in there right this moment. He didn't have to hear the blows, listen to the gasping screams, to know what Hadrign Thalmayr was doing, and if he let himself think about it, let himself feel, then—
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
You're an officer in the Union Army, godsdamn it, he told himself despairingly. You can't just stand here, whatever Iftar said! If you don't take a stand for something, then what the fuck use are you?
There was a sickness spreading through the garrison of the captured Sharonian fort, radiating from the man who'd been placed in command, and Ulthar was afraid. Afraid of where it would end, who might find himself added to the list of Hadrign Thalmayr's "enemies." Someone had to do something, yet Ulthar was only one man, and a man Thalmayr obviously dustrusted as much as he loathed him.
You don't even have a platoon anymore, Therman, he thought, and it was true. He had exactly five men, the other Andaran Scout wounded POWs who'd been left behind here with him and Thalmayr, under his
"command." Thalmayr had been careful not to assign him to anything which might have required more men, and Ulthar knew exactly why that was.
He also knew all five of them would have followed him into any open confrontation with Thalmayr ... for all the good it would have done.
I can't take them with me, he told himself yet again. I don't have that right. But, gods, I've got to do something!
At least the Healers Five Hundred Vaynair had left behind were refusing to go along with Thalmayr. No doubt the other prisoners didn't understand, but if Thalmayr had had his way, the Healers would have repaired the damages he inflicted on a daily basis ... so that he could inflict fresh damages on a daily basis. But they'd refused. They couldn't stop him from torturing his prisoners, but they could refuse to become his accomplices by helping him do it.