in damp and decay. When the huge firepit below was blazing, the smoke floated up and hung there like a thick layer of yellow cream, an unshifting mass whose only escape was time and the odd, errant draft snaking in from the upper corridor.
The fire was a low, paltry thing today, barely hot enough to glow red at the heart. The only irons heated had been the ones applied to the young man strapped on a nearby table. His leg was bare from hip to ankle, and a wound on his thigh had been perfunctorily cauterized to staunch the flow of blood. The lad could not have been brought to the donjon much before the Wolf’s own ignominious arrival, for the stench of burned flesh had been pungent and fresh enough to act like strong vinegar in clearing his addled senses.
The Wolf shifted slightly for a better angle of view, grinding his teeth against the expected darts of pain. There had been no sign of movement from the lad and Lucien might have perceived him to be a corpse if not for the frequent inspections given by the sweating, bulbously grotesque bulk of D’Aeth, the castle’s chief subjugator. As broad as two men, with gleaming, oil-slicked boulders for an upper torso, D’Aeth had obviously been given instructions to keep the boy alive as long as possible. Now and then a flat, square-tipped hand grabbed a fistful of genitals and squeezed until the lad cried out in pain. Satisfied, the squinted, watery eyes peered speculatively into each occupied niche before he returned to where he was working at a low bench in the corner.
Eight other guards were present, six stationed at the bottom of the spiral staircase, two at the top. The six at the bottom were seated at a small wooden table playing at dice. Occasionally one would glance at D’Aeth and wince over a particularly gruesome tool the subjugator was cleaning and sharpening with such dedicated reverence.
The Wolf leaned back and choked back an involuntary groan as the wound at the base of his skull scraped against the stone. The Dragon had caught him with the flat of his sword, saving his neck from a swift detachment from his shoulders, but leaving him with a lump the size of a man’s fist. His armour, surcoat, and mail hauberk had been removed, and if not for other, more pressing concerns to occupy his thoughts, he would have noticed how cold he was, dressed only in an open-throated shirt and torn hose.
One of his main concerns was to hold on to his sanity. Pain was his biggest enemy at the moment, and he knew he had to conquer and master each individual wave of agony before he could block it from his mind. To help his concentration, he isolated and identified the incessant dripping sounds, the muffled groans, the scraping whinny of tools and whetstone, the furtive scuffling of rats in the rushes. He chose one sound and closed his eyes, forcing himself to see past the pain, to envision each drop of water as it formed, swelled, stretched, and finally fell into an inky puddle below. Another drip, another source of pain was numbed. He worked his way through his body like a navigator charting and marking known landfalls, using methods taught to him years ago when he had wept for madness or death to claim him. Now he prayed only for a chance to survive and lay his hands on a sword or a dagger … a bow … anything! Just once more. And just long enough to get within reach of Etienne Wardieu.
A sound that did not fit into the malevolent breathing pattern of the donjon caused the Wolf to open his eyes again. It had only been a fleeting thing, a scrape of cloth where there should have been only air and wafting smoke, but weeks of training his senses to become alerted to misplaced footfalls and snapped twigs in the forest, made him angle himself forward against to see out of his niche.
The weak orangy glow from the torches barely lit the cressets they were propped in, much less the vaulted gloom above, but the Wolf stared up into the darkness, waiting for the sound to recur and be identified.
His gray eyes flicked once to the recessed enclave where D’Aeth worked. They scanned briefly past the sentries dicing at the bottom of the stairs, then followed the spiral upward to where a faint smear of light