By the time the Arbiter went limp Betrim was as tired as he'd ever been and covered in an uncomfortable, cold sweat that made him, for possibly the first time in his life, wish for a bath. He let the old man's body slip to the floor with a crack as his skull hit the stone.
“Seven,” Betrim said with a grin and started fumbling with his three-fingered hand at the strap that held his five-fingered one. It seemed to take an age before the buckle was undone and his hand was free but he didn't have time to stop and rest. Betrim undid the strap on his head and for the first time in he didn't know how long, took a good long look at his own body.
He was wasted to be sure; all bones and skin and sagging bits of flesh where once there had been healthy and strong muscle. Four new scars stood out red and proud on his chest. Had Kessick really stabbed him so many times? Seemed some sort of miracle he had survived if that were the case. The Black Thorn was no stranger to a bit of stabbing, both giving and receiving. An old friend of his, Henry, had once stabbed him during sex just so she could watch him bleed. No one had ever stabbed him four times though. Seemed he had another reason to make Kessick pay.
With all the dexterity of a fish out of water Betrim worked at undoing the rest of the straps that held him down. Seemed to take a real long time before he was free. He swung his legs over the side of the stone slab and hopped down onto the floor where he collapsed in a heap next to the old Arbiter's body. His legs took a good few minutes before they felt strong enough to try holding his weight again so Betrim pulled on the stone slab and pushed on the floor until he was standing then stretched. His bones clicked and his muscles ached and trembled but it felt good to be upright again. Seemed a man could never miss walking so much as when he can't do it no more and Betrim was finding it felt more than a little good to pace a bit now.
The cell they had him kept in was little more than that. Maybe ten feet by another ten with two torches providing a soft orange glow, a stone slab of a table with a small wooden stool, another table with all manner of sharp blades and needles and a stone basin full of water. Betrim walked over to the basin, stuck his head into the cold liquid and drank deep, sucking down mouthful after mouthful until his stomach felt like it was bulging. Afterwards he found himself an unoccupied corner of the room and took a good, long piss. Stank the room up something fierce if truth be told but he felt all the better for letting it out.
He returned to the Arbiter and stripped the body. The clothes were too small but ill-fitting was better than naked, Betrim reckoned. There were spots of blood on the shirt. The Arbiter was bleeding from where his head had hit the stone floor.
“Fuckin' witch hunters,” Betrim said and spat on the body. He might have given the corpse a good kicking but he was feeling far too weak for such an exertion.
He found the old man's Arbiter coat hanging on a coat peg by the cell door and took it. Again the garment was too small but with Betrim's wasted body it would serve for a while as long as no one looked too closely. He found a heavy set of dark-iron keys in one of the pockets and started trying them in the door. Didn't take long for him to find the correct key and with a quick glance at the corridor outside Betrim slipped from the room and closed the door behind him.
The first thing he noticed was the
thump thump thump'ing
stopped. The moment the door to his cell was closed he could no longer hear the noise. It was as if the monotonous and repetitive noise had only existed inside his cell. It had been so long since Betrim had been without it he almost felt like he missed it; as if the noise had somehow become a reassuring constant in his life. That very thought made the Black Thorn as angry as he'd ever been and he turned, launched a thick glob of spittle at the door and stalked away down the corridor; not caring where it went or who he might run into.
Black stone walls lit by intermittent torches stretched out in front of Betrim about as far as he could see. Might be they ended in a set of stairs but he was finding it hard to tell from this distance. Having one less eye seemed to mean he couldn't see so far, nor so good as he used to. Not to mention he had to fight the constant, overwhelming desire to poke at the now empty socket.
The walls were rough and sharp to the touch, Betrim liked himself a good lean but to do so here might well cause an injury. He limped along; heading to what he thought might be the stairs and scratched at an itch on his skull. That's when he realised his hair was gone. The bastard Arbiters had shaved his head bald. Seemed a right insult to Betrim. Not only did they damned near kill him then fix him up only to keep him captive and strapped to a table until they could be arsed to burn him; they had to go and shave his head too. Now the Black Thorn had never been best pleased about having a head full of red hair, fact is that's why he took to dying it black every few weeks, but he was far less pleased about having no hair.
It wasn't that being bald was a bad thing for folk; truth was Betrim had known plenty of bald people and they seemed much the same as anyone else. Some were good people, some were right pricks but each were people all the same. Problem was Betrim quite liked having hair that could obscure his face some; came in useful when you were as ugly and scarred as him.
He reached the area that might have been stairs to find it was a door set back in a dark alcove. After a fair amount of fumbling with the keys the door swung open to reveal a winding stone stair case leading upwards. Up seemed as good a direction as any to Betrim, although he had no idea whether he was above or below ground.
By the time he reached the top of the stair case Betrim was panting from the exertion, leaning against the large, wooden door and wishing he had some hair to soak up the sweat that was running from his forehead like a river. Truth was Betrim would have paid good money for a bed and some time in it but truth was Betrim didn't have a bit to his name and didn't have the time to rest up. He had to get as far away from wherever he was before anyone came looking for him.
He tried eight different keys before he found the right one and pulled the door open to the brightest light he had ever seen. It was everywhere, so bright it blinded, so bright it hurt. The afternoon sun shone in through the doorway and directed its full wrath at Betrim's one remaining eye. He found himself struggling to even squint, holding his hands over his eyes for shade. Then he remembered he only had the one eye these days and took his left hand away. No need to shade an eyeball that wasn't there, that would only make him look a right fool.
The light began to dim to tolerable levels and Betrim peered out of the door like some sort of mouse peering out of its burrow; frightened of what it might find and what he found did indeed frighten him. In front of him was a courtyard, bright and dusty in the sun and populated by more buildings than Betrim could count; which put it somewhere above twenty. People walked to and fro; all of them looking busy and a good half of them wearing Arbiter coats.
“I fuckin' knew it. They got me locked up right in the middle o' the Inquisition,” The Black Thorn said to no one and expecting no answer.
He glanced to his right and saw the black tower of the Inquisition rising high into the sky as if it were trying to block out the sun. Jagged, black spikes jutted out from the tower at strange angles. It reminded him of the otherworldly shade he had seen in Hostown. That memory felt like a lifetime ago now. Thanquil had banished the demon with a single command but not before it had slaughtered an entire garrison of soldiers. Not before it had snacked on the Black Thorn's old boss.
With some effort Betrim fixed the blank emotionless stare that he was known for onto his face and stepped out of his door into the dazzling sunlight.
The door was, in fact, little more than that. It looked as though someone had built an outhouse in the middle of the courtyard. Trying to look as official as possible Betrim turned, locked the door, deposited the keys in one pocket and pulled his stolen coat as tight as it would go. It would need to be a full hand length wider if it was going to fit him but he just had to hope it was enough to fool the rest of the folk in the courtyard long enough for him to make his escape.
Betrim turned left and walked as fast as his shaking legs would go. He could see the Imperial palace in the far distance rising even higher than the Inquisition tower. If he walked toward the palace he would come to the gate leading into the city soon enough. A more nerve-racking ordeal he had never experienced. It dawned on Betrim he was not wearing any shoes; the old Arbiter had tiny feet, far too small for the Black Thorn. While going barefoot would not have seemed the strangest sight in the untamed wilds, here in Sarth it would be a right oddity, more than enough to draw attention where attention was not needed.
He strode on past Arbiters in groups, buildings filled with Arbiters, and at one point a man who looked like he might have been an Inquisitor but Betrim just kept walking. If he'd believed in any of the Gods he might have started praying but the Black Thorn had long ago given up believing in anything but himself and money and he only believed in the latter because, with enough money, you could buy yourself out of any shady situation. Betrim looked around at all the righteous witch hunters that surrounded him and had to admit he doubted any sum of bits could buy his way out of this one.
As he approached the main gate of the Inquisition compound one of the guards in his immaculate white uniform nodded. “Arbiter.” the fat-lipped guard said with a slight lisp.
Betrim grunted in reply but refused to slow his pace. For a heart-stopping moment he thought the guard might block his exit but the man stepped aside and let him pass unmolested. Betrim found himself outside the Inquisition in the city of sun; Sarth.
He knew the street; he had been here before many times. To his left was the shop where he and Thanquil had argued about money; seemed a stupid thing to argue about now given how things turned out. To his right was the tavern where the Black Thorn had started a bar fight to stop them from being recognised. A little bit further down on the right was an alleyway that would lead to the street where Betrim had fought with Kessick. A strange, morbid thought occurred to him and Betrim wondered if he went back to that street whether he could find his eyeball; all dried up and shrivelled from the heat and the sun.
With a snort at his own stupidity Betrim spat into the street. A few folk turned to look at him with expressions of disgust then averted their gazes and hurried away. Took a moment for Betrim to realise it was because he was wearing an Arbiter's coat. With a horrific grin Betrim sauntered off towards, well, truth was he had no idea where he was going just as far away from the Inquisition as possible.
A couple of hours later Betrim found himself well and truly lost and sitting on the edge of one of the hundreds of canals that ran throughout the city of Sarth. The sun bounced off of the clear water and sent shards of piercing translucent light shooting in all directions. Truth was it felt all sorts of good just to see sunlight again, even if it was only with the one eye.
Betrim dangled his bare feet in the water of the canal and wriggled all his nine toes. Tiny little fish came to investigate, darting forwards and nibbling then swimming away. Of course the Black Thorn knew all too well that water could hold more than just little fish. All sorts of dangers were known to hide beneath the surface and even here, where Betrim could see the bottom of the canal, you could never be too cautious. He was just about to pull his feet out of the water and move away so nothing could come up from the depths and eat him when he spotted a fair number of people watching him. The folk looked away whenever he met their gaze but they had been looking and no mistake. Chances were it was just they weren't used to seeing an Arbiter with such an ugly face, or one dipping his feet in the blue waters of the canals. Either way it stopped Betrim from leaving, last thing the Black Thorn ever did was show fear to anyone.
There was a polite cough from behind and Betrim turned his head to see a tall, bookish man standing there, his gaze rooted on the stone floor in front of him. He looked to be middle-aged with hair that was both greying and thinning all at once. An unfortunate appearance if ever Betrim had seen one. “Are you in need of any assistance, Arbiter...”
Betrim narrowed his eye at the man. “Don't reckon I know you.”
“I am clerk Golgen, Arbiter,” said the bookish-man with the thin hair. His teeth were crooked but he had a full set.
“Aye, an' I look like I need help...”
“No... I... uh... I just mean...”
Betrim realised he was still speaking in his normal wilds' drawl. Arbiters tended to speak all posh, just like Thanquil had.
“You jus...t mean it is a little strange ta... to see a Arbiter sat by a canal,” Betrim said, trying his best to mimic the Sarth accent and instead murdering it.
The clerk looked confused and a little worried. He glanced around, looking for support. Betrim felt it best to get rid of the man before he got suspicious.
“As it happens I do seem... appear ta... to be a little lost. Don't tend ta come back here much. I'm a... wandering Arbiter.” Betrim remembered that was what Thanquil had called himself. “Do you know where...” He paused, realising if he asked the clerk a question it would give him away. “I'm lookin' fer... for the docks.”
The clerk was now staring at Betrim with his mouth open. Betrim got to his feet and stepped close to the man. Despite his wasted muscles and the shakes he could feel starting in his legs, the Black Thorn towered over the clerk and he had no doubt his face made for a real imposing sight. After a couple of moments the clerk lowered his gaze and pointed along the canal.
“If you follow this canal it will lead you to the docks, Arbiter... Would you... um... like me to show...”
“That'll be all, clerk... uh...”
“Golgen.”
“Clerk Golden. You can go now, eh.”
The clerk nodded once and then span, almost tripping over his feet as he scrambled to get away from Thorn. Betrim shook his head and decided he needed to ditch the Arbiter coat at the first opportunity. He also needed some new clothing, and some food, and way out of Sarth but more importantly than all of those the Black Thorn needed an axe.
