Conflict (25 page)

The General’s command tent was luxurious, full of rich decoration. Tapestries and paintings in golden frames covered the white cloth walls, while marble statues, great vases and golden flags decorated the room. The General was sitting behind a big table with elaborate decorations, flanked by two guards. Behind him, thick beige and white curtains gave way to the bedroom, which a single glimpse told Lasgol was even more elaborately decorated. He was surprised by this, since Norghanians were not very fond of superfluous adornment and the army officers even less so.

“Did you wish to see me, Forest Ranger? Lasgol, isn’t it?” the General asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“The Kingdom is grateful to you. You’ve done a great service to your country. This exploit will soon be known throughout the camp. You know how rumors run through the army, worse than sexually transmitted diseases.”

“Thank you, sir, I just did my duty.”

“Nonsense! You went far beyond duty to capture this assassin. Very few would have gone after an escaped murderer into the very depths of the sacred mountain of the Masig. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I guess you did it to prevent war with Rogdon.”

“You guess correctly, General.”

“Well. We’ll see whether it’s possible after all. Is there anything you need, or that you want to ask me for? Gold, women, both perhaps? You only have to ask and it’ll be yours.”

“You honor me, General, but no. What I would like is to be allowed to speak to the prisoner.”

“Strange request. The prisoner is no longer your concern. You delivered him, you are no longer responsible for him. Now he’s mine, I’ll take care of him.”

“I know, sir, but I’d still like to see him, with your permission. Perhaps I might convince him to talk.”

“Hmm…that’s not such a farfetched idea after all. I like that. We lose nothing trying a bit of … less aggressive persuasion… All right, let’s go and see if your presence has an effect on him or not.”

They left the command tent and turned towards one end of the camp, under the shadow of the enormous mountain gorge, where metal cages had been built to lock up captured prisoners. On either side, two huge rectangular tents of intense red made Lasgol’s hair stand on end. That was where they delivered unparalleled suffering. They went to the closest and walked in. It was indeed a torture chamber. The tent was filled with tools and machinery for torture, waiting to cause all the pain imaginable. Just seeing those instruments turned Lasgol’s stomach.

Yakumo was hanging unconscious, upside-down, his feet in two black rings anchored to a wooden beam. He was bare from the waist up, and Lasgol noticed that his torso and back were crisscrossed with wounds. They had poured salt onto the open cuts of the whip to inflict more pain. Cuts and burns from red-hot-irons were clear on his chest. Four soldiers were on guard inside the tent. Lasgol walked up to Yakumo, passing close to the expert in torture, who grinned at him, showing teeth as black as coal, with two of the front ones missing.

When he reached Yakumo, he looked at his hands tied behind his back and saw with horror that two fingers in each hand had been broken and left in impossibly grotesque positions. A feeling of utter guilt assailed him as a shark assails its prey. He felt so mean he had to look away in shame.

“As you can see, we haven’t wasted any time,” the General explained. “But we haven’t been able to get a single word out of him.”

“Not a single cry of pain,” the torturer said in some surprise. “Never in all my long years in this trade have I seen anything like this. He didn’t cry out even when we burnt him with a hot iron. He’s a very unusual man, nothing seems to make a dent in him. But sooner or later he’ll talk, they all do. Where’s he from? Do you know?”

Lasgol looked at the man, trying to hide his loathing. He was aware that men of such base instincts were necessary when it came to dealing with certain matters that the kingdom found uncomfortable, but seeing the results of his work only made him despise this sewer rat absolutely.

“I don’t know where he’s from, it must be some other continent,” Lasgol replied icily.

“Those slanting eyes intrigue me,” the General said. “I’m not aware of anybody of this race in our continent, which worries me…”

“He’s never told me anything about his origin, sir, but it’s clear he’s no Rogdonian…”

“I see… He might not be Rogdonian, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t paid with Rogdonian gold.”

“He told me that wasn’t the case.”

“We’ll see,” said General Rangulfsen. “In the end he’ll confess. But in all honesty, he’s a remarkable man, this Assassin. I’ve never witnessed this before, his endurance of pain, his mental discipline, something truly unbelievable.”

“Do you wish me to wake him up, sir?” the torturer asked.

“Yes, go ahead, we’ll ask him some questions.”

“Very well, sir. I have a bucket of vinegar, you’ll see how he screams when it hits the open wounds.”

He threw the bucket of water at the unconscious Assassin.

He reacted by shaking his body violently, swinging in the air from the intense pain he must be experiencing.

But he did not utter a single sound.

“Impressive,” General Rangulfsen admitted. “I have with me the Tracker who captured you, he wishes to speak to you.”

The Assassin lifted his head from where he was hanging there upside-down and looked at Lasgol.

“Tell them you don’t work for Rogdon, tell them, or they’ll go on torturing you without stopping.”

Yakumo shook his head.

“At least he’s communicating, which is something,” said the General.

“Tell them the whole truth! There’s no need for all this. Tell us who sent you. Tell me!”

Yakumo gave Lasgol a long glance.

And then shook his head once again.

The torturer cracked his whip on the prisoner’s back.

“Answer when you’re spoken to, you foreign crap!”

The Assassin received the whip-lash without even a grunt of pain.

“Come on, Yakumo. You have to tell the General who sent you to kill Duke Orten. Tell him! It will stop the war, you have to tell him,” pleaded Lasgol.

But there was no answer.

The whip cracked again, over and over. The torture went on until the General raised a hand for the executioner to stop.

“Have you got anything to tell us, Assassin?” the General asked him, affording him the chance to talk.

A tense silence filled the room.

“Come on, Yakumo, speak!”

The Assassin looked at Lasgol and at last, in a heavily accented whisper, he said:

“You are a man of honor, Lasgol, but they aren’t. If I speak, they’ll torture me to death to make sure my last words don’t contradict me. If I don’t, they’ll kill me just the same. Either way I’m going to die, but how I do it is in my hands. In the second case I’ll live a little longer, and the suffering might help redeem some of the many evil things I’ve done. That’s the choice I’ve made. Now go, follow your path, Tracker, there’s nothing here for you.”

“Well, it seems the murderer won’t speak to you either, Lasgol,” said the General. “It’s time to leave him in the hands of the torturer. We’ll see whether he’s capable of bearing the hell he’s going to burn in.”

Looking at the executioner, he added: “He mustn’t die until he’s confessed in detail.”

“As you say, sir.”

Lasgol looked at Yakumo for one final time, and his spirit was crushed by a feeling of guilt as overwhelming as an entire mountain. He was going to allow this man to be killed. He felt like a coward for allowing it, even though there was nothing he could do to help him. He had done his duty, he had to turn away and go back to Norghana, forget the whole business. It was no longer his concern. He could not turn against his own people. But none of this calmed his conscience.

“Come on, Lasgol, I’ll treat you to a comforting glass of strong liquor. I’d like to know some of the details of your adventure,” said the General.

Lasgol turned round and went out with him.

And that act, that abandonment, soiled him and blackened his soul, perhaps forever, perhaps without hope of redemption.

A shadow of sadness brought on by his weakness came upon Lasgol and he felt cold, not with the cold of the evening but that of his own weakness, which chilled his soul.

The last rays of the evening crept in through the small square window of the room, warming the bleak space. On a hard bed in his humble room in the Temple of Light Lindaro lay unconscious, struggling between life and death. The Black Lady of eternal oblivion spread her shadow over the priest’s bed, awaiting the end like a fateful carrion bird. The plain grey robe with its insignia of the Order of the Light hung from a chair, covered in blood.

Beside the bed, sitting on a low stool, Komir watched him. Gena, one of the Sister Healers of the Order of Tirsar, was tending to his own wounds with gentle hands. His body was healing fast under the talent and powers of the Healer. He could feel the effects of the Healing running through his system, repairing the damaged done. The pain gradually receded. But nothing could mitigate the horrible anxiety that gripped him at the sight of his friend on the brink of death.

They had moved Lindaro as fast as possible to the Temple of Light in the hope of saving his life, despite knowing that the wound was lethal and that the kind man of faith had lost a great deal of blood. Abbot Dian had summoned the Healers of the Temple of Tirsar as soon as he realized how serious the wound was, hoping for the kind of miracle which was only within the reach of a Healer. The city surgeons had been able to do little for Lindaro, nor had the priests’ prayers to the all-powerful Light been fruitful. As a personal favor to the Abbot, remembering the fondness which had bonded them for years, Sorundi, the Mother Healer of the order, had come to the Temple of Light in Ocorum as soon as she heard, and was now attending to Lindaro personally. Luckily the peninsula where the Healers had their base was just a short distance away from the port city.

Komir did not take his eyes off her, hoping for her to perform a miracle. He could perceive the bluish energy penetrating his friend’s fragile body wherever the Mother Healer placed her magical hands. She had already been at work for some time, and this worried Komir. It was not the first time he had seen that type of knife-stab in the stomach. All the warriors in his tribe knew that once the stomach was pierced or deeply cut, death was slow and painful. The image of Uline came to his mind. A year before, pirates from the northwest seas had landed on the territory of the Arabaios, a minor tribe of the Norriel. Answering the sister tribe’s request for help, Auburu, matriarch and leader of the Bikia, sent her warriors to repel the pirate incursion. Komir had fought beside Hartz and Uline. The three were companions of Udag, the same age. The pirates, bloodthirsty and ferocious, fought with the certainty of past victories in their vicious eyes and the lust for plunder and rape in their hearts.

Unfortunately for the invaders, the Norriel were not as easy a prey as those other tribes the pirates had attacked without mercy. At sundown on the second day of fighting, most of the pirates were dead, lit by the intense light of the flames given out by their burning ships. They called for retreat with strident horns, and a few ships escaped out to sea without looking back.

Komir remembered with sharp clarity the moan which made him turn round to find Uline lying on the ground among several dead attackers. When he crouched to help him, he realized the seriousness of his friend’s wound. He had been savagely stabbed in the belly, and his death was inevitable. Uline, holding his stomach with both hands as he tried to stop the bleeding, looked up at him with enormous begging eyes. Komir would never forget that look, a look which searched for hope in the midst of abysmal fear. Komir checked his wound, and once he had confirmed the inevitable end he shook his head at his friend. The look on Uline’s face grew cold and hope fled his heart, to be replaced by the cold horror of imminent death.

An hour later, surrounded by his comrades in arms, who honored him by forming the Circle of Life and Death, Uline died a sweet death. Master Warrior Gudin had given him the
coup de grace
to end his agony, whispering words of affection and praise. His comrades gave him a last farewell, singing the Song of the Brave. Komir would never forget that day… that begging look. Unfortunately, his friend Lindaro was now in the same terrible situation.

“Will he come out of this?” Komir asked, unable to wait any longer. One of the Healer Sisters helping Sorundi turned from her place by the bed and put her finger to her lips, motioning him to be quiet.

Gena whispered in his ear, “Silence, Norriel, the Mother Healer needs to concentrate in order to do the healing. It’s very important not to distract her or break the intensity of her power.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered back, downcast, “I didn’t intend to disturb her… I just wanted to know whether he has any chance… “

“In cases like this little can be done, not even the best of our Healers can manage a cure. I’m sorry to be so harsh, but honesty is one of the rules of our order.”

Komir felt a pang of dismay he could not hide.

“I’m sorry if my words cause you pain,” Gena whispered, “but I must tell you the truth as it is. I can only tell you he’s in the best possible hands. Sorundi, the Mother of our order, is a gifted and experienced healer. If anybody can do anything for your friend it’s her. Be patient and trust, perhaps today a good man may not die.”

“I hope it’s so, or I’ll never forgive myself,” Komir said, feeling absolutely miserable.

Gena put her hand on Komir’s shoulder meaning to comfort him, but at that moment nothing could ease the worry he felt in his soul.

“Where are your two other friends in need of care?”

“They’re waiting outside, in the outer courtyard. You can’t miss them, a giant warrior and a redheaded girl in white armor.”

“I’ll go to them, I’m done with you. A little rest and the wounds will heal well. Avoid exertion for about a week, rest and recover. You’ve got two bruised ribs, and the sword wound on your shoulder will be sore for quite a while yet.”

“How rude of me,” Komir said. “I haven’t even thanked you for your wonderful healing, it’s unpardonable. Thank you very much.” He tried to bow, but he had to hold his side because of the pain.

“You don’t need to thank me, warrior, it’s my duty, my calling. I’m going to see to your comrades. Be strong, and if you have faith, pray for him.”

“Thank you again,” Komir whispered as Gena left the room. For the first time in his life he wished he had faith, like the Rogdonians. But the Norriel only believed in natural, tangible things: the Sun, the Moon and the Earth.

He waited expectantly and hopefully, watching the magic of the Healers in action, something he knew nothing about and which impressed him greatly. Never before had he heard about these women who devoted their lives to helping others. What they were capable of doing with their magic was amazing. At first he had doubted the truth of their power, as there were so many charlatans who took advantage of people’s need to believe, but when he experienced it in his own body all doubts had been dispelled. Those Healers had impressed him with both their skill and their goodness, which was something the world stood in great need of.

Another thing had changed inside him as well: his loathing for magic, for the occult. Since he had been very young, following the beliefs and superstitions of the Norriel, he had feared and hated magic, even more so taking into account the incident at the river in his youth. But as he saw what went on here and learned about the benevolence of the Healers, he was no longer sure what he believed. If magic could do such good to people and be used to heal, then perhaps his own inner power, his own magic, which he loathed, was not something to be hated after all. This made him think, and he sank into an inner debate of contradictory reasoning.

Finally, after several long hours, Sorundi got up from the bed with unmistakable signs of great fatigue and weakness. With Abbot Dian supporting her she sat down in a chair, completely drained.

“Will he live?” Komir asked, unable to stay quiet.

Sorundi looked up. “The Light has blessed this humble servant of hers. I think I’ve managed to save him. It’s something I’m rarely allowed to do in cases as serious as this. He’s undoubtedly protected by the Light.”

“Then Brother Lindaro is going to live?” Abbot Dian asked hopefully.

The old Healer nodded. “Yes, he’ll live,” she said. “He’ll live. He’ll need a long time of rest and care, but I think we can get him to win through. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go and rest.”

“Blessed be the Light which protects the innocent and defends her servants! It’s a miracle!” the Abbot said gratefully. “Thank you so much, Mother Healer. I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to compensate you for this miracle!”

“It won’t be necessary, Dian. Our friendship of half a century is payment enough. And now, if you’ll forgive me, I’ll leave before I faint.”

Komir waited for the Healers to take Sorundi to another room, then went up to Lindaro. He looked down at the ashen face of the restless, lively priest and smiled.

“You’re going to be all right, Lindaro. It’s a miracle on the part of the Healer Sisters. You’ve no idea what fears you’ve made me go through. When you recover I’m going to give you the biggest hug you’ve ever had. You’re brave, my friend. Keep fighting, don’t give up, live!”

He left the room with a lighter heart after the good news. From the moment of the fateful wound he had feared the worst, in fact had been convinced there was no possible solution, and had been preparing himself for the death of the scholarly man of faith. During the last few weeks a sincere fondness had developed between them, forged by the powerful events they had lived through together. He scratched his head thoughtfully. These Healers worked true miracles, and he could never thank them enough.

He went out to the courtyard and saw Gena using her gift on the wounds of his giant friend. Hartz, feeling the beneficial effects of the healing on his flesh, was looking at her with absolute incredulity. A few moments later this turned into gratitude and joy. The big man lifted Gena off her feet in one of his bear-hugs. The Healer, blushing at the giant’s excitement, did not know what to do to make him put her back down and let her finish the cure.

Komir could not believe his good fortune: Lindaro, given time, would recover, and Hartz too was well. They had been very close to perishing, but they had come out victorious ‒ and what was even more important, they were alive. Thanks to the amazing courage of the man of faith and Hartz’s immense fortitude, they had come out alive from Guzmik’s palace. He could not find words to thank them both for what they had done, but he would find some way of letting them know. As for Hartz in particular, nobody could wish for a better friend, good and loyal to the core. And now he owed him his life, so that he would have to find a way of paying back his debt. The big Norriel deserved it.

Kayti appeared from behind one of the arched columns of the courtyard, carrying an earthenware pitcher of water and some clean cloths which she gave Gena to help with the washing of the wounds. At once Komir’s joy was engulfed by rage. Instinctively he reached for the sword he wore on his left side. He waited patiently until Gena finished healing his friend, while anger steadily blackened his heart. He could not help himself, so that every instant his rage grew against that woman who had lied to them, and on whose account they had almost died. He clenched his jaw, and images of the past crossed his mind. They were images filled with pain and suffering of the death of his parents that fateful night. The white warrior had lied to them. She knew a lot more than she had told them, and she would pay for that betrayal. Komir tightened his grip on the pommel of his sword, Kayti had better answer him honestly and clearly, or her life would be forfeited. He would finish her off there and then without hesitation.

Gena finished healing Hartz, and passed by Komir on her way to the room where Lindaro was resting. Hartz had not noticed his friend was there. As soon as he saw him he asked:

“How’s Lindaro? Tell me they managed to save him, please…” Worry cast a shadow over his usually jovial manner.

“It’s hard to believe, but they did manage to save him. I don’t really understand how, but their Healing magic is truly impressive. He’s going to live.”

“Are you serious? He’s in the clear?” asked the big Norriel.

“I’m absolutely serious. They healed a deadly wound. It’s truly unbelievable.”

“That’s wonderful news!” Kayti cried.

When he heard her gentle voice and saw her, all Komir’s concentrated anger exploded. In a single breath he leapt down to the courtyard. With his sword drawn, he came to stand two paces from the redhead.

“Listen to me carefully, Kayti, if you want to stay alive,” Komir said in a cold, threatening voice. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and if I’m not satisfied with the answers I feel you owe us all, I swear I’ll kill you right here and now.”

Kayti took a step back in the face of this threat. She too drew her sword and stood ready
.

“Who’s that Guzmik, and what did he have to do with you?” he asked, ignoring her weapon.

“You’d better calm down, Komir. I don’t want this to go any further, but I won’t allow you to threaten me. Neither you nor anyone else,” she replied defensively.

“Answer my question! I’ve reached the limit of my patience!” he cried, and raised his sword threateningly towards her.

“Calm down, Komir!” Hartz pleaded, getting to his feet. “Don’t do anything rash. Control yourself! Let’s talk calmly, for goodness’ sake. Be reasonable, this isn’t the way of Igrali! Don’t dishonor the wise Moon Goddess by doing anything crazy.”