WindDeceiver (26 page)

“The walls are twelve foot thick reinforced granite. The lower levels also have eight foot thick timbers lined side by side as double insulation from attack,” Belial explained and was successful at keeping a straight face although he had the urge to laugh as that despairing gaze shifted to him.

“There are no battlements. None are needed. The roof is made of steel plates sandwiched between nine layers of four foot thick timber and braced with stone columns. There is only one entrance.” He pointed to the wide steel door for which they were riding.

Conar’s gaze moved slowly to the steel door studded with hundreds of long iron spikes jutting outward in sharp points.

“The doors are ten foot thick steel plate reinforced with horizontally-laid two foot thick timbers. It takes three dozen men fifteen full minutes to open the doors and only one man a split second to close it. Beyond the doors is an antechamber shut off from the inner portion of the fortress by a triple-thick portcullis of forged iron. The bars of that portcullis are so close together, even an eel can not slither through it.”

Belial looked down to see McGregor’s hands trembling on the pommel of his mount. He smiled. Even the bravest of men soon lost their courage when faced with the overwhelming spectacle of Abbadon Fortress.

“Not since this stronghold was built has there been one prisoner to escape its walls, McGregor.” Belial grinned as his prisoner looked at him. “And you will not be the first.”

Conar jerked his eyes back to the fortress. The sinister steel doors were open only a foot or two, not even enough to allow a single horse through, but already he had counted over fifty men standing outside those clanking doors, weapons in hand, awaiting their arrival.

“There will be another ten inside the antechamber and fifty more inside the fortress. There is no margin for error when a prisoner is brought into Abbadon. The leg irons will be welded onto you before you even get down from your horse.”

A long breath of dejection pushed from Conar’s lips. If he had entertained any notion of being able to escape his captors, those hopes were dashed when he had set eyes on the place he would be kept. This was no Labyrinth, he thought bitterly, where he would be allowed outside in WINDDECEIVER Charlotte Boyett-Compo 122

the sunshine. This was no Tribunal cell from which he had dared to expect his friends and family to rescue him. This was an place of great evil, a place of hopelessness, where he feared he would spend the remainder of his days.

“They will come to attempt a rescue,” Belial said. “Your friends.” At the despondent look in the desperate face, Belial drove the shaft deeper. “And they will die in trying.”

Once he entered those lethal-looking doors, Conar thought, there would be no more hope.

He could no longer delude himself into hoping there would come a time when he could free himself and the men he now knew were also held captive in Abbadon Fortress. He could no longer entertain the thought that help would come.

“There is no way out of this place, McGregor,” Belial assured him. “Once inside, you will remain inside.” He laughed. “Even when you die.”

The only chance he had was to try to escape before they took him inside that hellish citadel of utter defeat.

If he could but get his mount’s reins out of Belial’s hands, Mistral might be able to outrace the other horses. Surely by now Sajin and the others had realized he was missing and knew where he might be brought. Surely they were, even at that very moment, racing to his rescue.

“If you attempt to run, McGregor,” Belial informed him, “I have been given permission to have you hamstringed.”

Conar’s head jerked toward his tormentor. He didn’t doubt for a moment this brute would do just that and he would spend the rest of his life crippled, unable to walk, the tendons behind his knee having been sliced into by Belial’s blade.

“I would catch you, McGregor. Make no mistake about that. Before you got fifty yards away, you’d be brought to ground by a quarrel in your steed’s gut.” Belial’s gaze roamed over the stallion. “That would be a waste of fine horseflesh, but such is life, eh, McGregor?”

Ahead of them, only twenty or so feet away, the double steel doors with their glistening spikes were open just enough to allow one horse through at the time.

“They can open no further if you are wondering of it, McGregor,” Belial said. “Supply wagons are off loaded outside the fortress and the goods taken in man by man.”

The horrible clanking and grinding had stopped, but there was another sound being emitting from deep within Abbadon Fortress. It was the sound of wailing: loud and trilling, heartbroken howls of sorrow.

“You have arrived on execution day,” Belial chuckled. “Those are the families of the dead bemoaning their fates. The widows and daughters of age will be given over to the Warriors for their amusement; the young boys will be turned over to the Master-at-Arms or slain if they are not worthy to be warriors.”

“And the babies?” Conar made himself ask, the first time he had spoken since being made to yield to this savage man.

“Disposed of if no one wants them,” was the matter-of-fact answer.

Great, wracking pain went through Conar. These people, these malevolent, despicable people had little care for life. No care for personal freedoms. For thousands of years the Hasdu had practiced ethnic cleansing, ridding themselves of age-old enemies and the weaker races. They had enslaved their own and made prisoners of those who dared to defy them. Perhaps more bloodthirsty and vile than the Brotherhood of the Domination, the Hasdu were a race of murderers and despoilers. A race of beasts that walked upright.

Belial stopped his horse before the doors and slid from his saddle to land with a heavy thud on the hard packed sands. He handed the reins of Conar’s horse over to one of the guards.

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“Watch him. He thinks he might want to escape,” Belial laughed. He looked up at his prisoner’s sweaty face and grinned. “I hope he does.”

The guard snorted and glanced down to make sure the prisoner’s bare ankles were still tied together under the belly of the stallion. He tugged on the hemp. Satisfied the rope was secure, he pulled on Mistral’s bridle and began to lead the horse through the three foot wide opening.

The moment Mistral was through the double doors, a piercing shriek rent the air, making Conar flinch and duck his head down into the protection of his shoulders to dull the sound. The steel portals slammed shut with a finality that made his heart thump madly in his breast.

“Dead man coming!” someone yelled from the antechamber as Mistral was stopped in the center the twenty foot square enclosure.

“Dead

man

coming!”

The cry was repeated among the guards in the interior of the fortress until the words were only soft echoes coming back to Conar to taunt him.

“Hold him,” he heard someone say and he twisted his head to the left. His eyes widened as he took in the small smithy set into a small alcove off the antechamber. There, in the semi-darkness was the bellows, the anvil, all the paraphernalia needed to apply manacles and leg irons to the prisoners brought into Abbadon Fortress. As Belial had said, there was no margin for error in this place.

The guard who had led him into the antechamber stepped back and took Conar’s right arm in a firm grip while another guard came forward to grab his left. He looked down at the men, saw hate in their dark eyes, and knew instinctively they were enjoying this. There was a promise of immediate retribution if he should dare to struggle and from the stares that were impaling him, he understood they would hurt him as much as they could before finally beating him into submission.

“Stand aside,” the smithy snarled as he hunkered down beside Conar’s left leg. Taking the hem of the Serenian’s breeches in his hard, calloused hands, the man ripped them up the leg and clamped a leg iron band around Conar’s ankle in one brisk, no-nonsense move. Hammering the pin in place, he stood up and went for the red-hot metal rod that would weld the pin to the band’s slot.

Even if he had had the strength and the hope to try to escape, there was nothing Conar could do once the leg iron was clamped into place around his left ankle. Two men held the other end of the chain, waiting until the rope was cut between his ankles and he was dragged from his horse, before handing that chain to the smithy.

“They are taking no chances with him, are they?” Conar heard a guard chuckle.

“We have been waiting a long time for this one,” the smithy snorted. “He even has a special cell prepared for him.”

That news did not set well on Conar’s mind as he was pulled from his horse and forced to lie on his belly in the loose gravel of the antechamber. A heavy foot was pressed painfully into his upper back while his thighs and arms were held down firmly by four of the guards. He wondered what Jaborn thought he could do with all these men about. Did the fool think he could run with nearly a hundred men watching his every move?

He winced as the right leg band was clicked into place around his ankle. He squirmed, grinding his hips into the gravel, for it had caused him pain.

“Too tight, McGregor?” the smithy asked.

“You know it is,” Conar said through clenched teeth. He was surprised when the smithy loosened the constriction of the band before driving the pin home. Craning his neck behind him, he found the smithy watching him. There was a faint smile on the man’s soot-grimed, sweaty face.

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“His Grace was most adamant that we not hurt you unless you fought us, McGregor. If I caused you discomfort, I apologize.”

Guffaws of laughter came from the men standing over him and Conar jerked his head back down, seething with humiliation. He could not remember ever feeling so helpless in his life, so at the mercy of those around him, and when they dragged him to his feet, the heavy leg irons in place around his ankles, he was forced to kneel in the dirt while his manacles were applied, further adding to his feeling of desperation.

When they had chained him, six guards: two holding his arms, two in front, two behind, marched him under the portcullis and into the fortress lower level. Behind him, he heard the portcullis slam shut and the double steel doors begin to crank open.

“In case you’re wondering, McGregor,” one of the guards holding him quipped, “the antechamber can hold six horses at a time. The others will be brought in in that fashion until the whole war party is behind Abbadon’s walls.”

He wasn’t wondering and he damned sure didn’t care, Conar thought to himself as he shuffled along. The heavy iron was dragging in the dirt, hindering his steps, and already beginning to abrade the flesh around his ankles; the manacles were pulling at his shoulders and although he had known the torture of both before, it had been many years and he had forgotten how dehumanizing such appliances could be. He felt like a lamb being led to slaughter.

Looking about him at the eager faces watching him, he saw no women about the wide hall into which he was being led. Only men, warriors from the look of them, stared back at him with morbid curiosity. He heard his name whispered here and there and understood they knew who he was. He saw no pity on these rugged features; no mercy or clemency or compassion. There was no sympathy for his plight and no understanding of how untenable his position. There was only ruthless vindictiveness glaring back at him as he passed. Unrelenting, inflexible stares followed him through a low doorway and he could hear a louder buzzing from those pitiless warriors as the door was shut behind him.

Inside this even larger chamber into which he was taken, were more men scattered about who stopped what they were doing to watch him pass. Their eyes were hard, callous, and the gazes sadistic as Conar was jerked to a halt in their presence.

“McGregor?” one of the older men questioned.

“Yes.”

He felt naked standing before these men whose gazes were inspecting him, scrutinizing him as though he were a bug specimen in a jar. Some came closer, eying him with sneers of contempt while others leaned negligently against the wall and scoffed openly. He had the wild desire to shout at them, to lunge toward them and turn himself into the beast they no doubt thought him to be. But something warned him not to, that they were looking for any excuse to beat the shit out of him and if he but opened his mouth, he would give them the excuse they were looking for.

“Looks afraid to me,” someone joked.

“Maybe he knows what’s coming!” someone else chortled.

His guards yanked him forward, seeming to have given these men all the time they needed to look him over. He wondered if their stopping here in front of the particular men had been to humiliate him, to degrade him. If that had been the intent, it had worked. He had not felt so humbled in a long, long time. Not since he had been thrown naked into a chicken pen at the Labyrinth in full view of the men there.

They took him to a steep stairway and made him stand still at the base of the stairs until one of the guards could loop a length of hemp around his neck.

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“Is that necessary?” he couldn’t stop himself from saying.

There was no answer from his guards. The noose was dropped over his head and tightened.

Not enough to cause him any concern, but tight enough to know that if he should try to twist himself sideways off the stairs, he’d strangle.

They led him up the stairs: one in front holding the noose, one behind with a hand gripping his belt. The other four stayed at the foot of the stairs, taking up positions with drawn weapons.

“What the hell are you people afraid of?” he asked, amazed they were taking such particular precautions with him. Where did they think he could run to inside this pile of rock?