Blades of the Banished - Robert Ryan Page 0,50

in Esgallien, though snow was certain to fall. He was not sure if the city would survive to see it though.

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Brinhain lifted his weary head. His chains rattled, and his wrists chaffed where the thick iron cuffs secured him.

He wished he had not moved. Pain stabbed through his left side, and he felt the most recent of his wounds open afresh. Warm blood seeped from it, adding yet another stain to his filthy clothes.

All about him dozens of other prisoners moaned, or stared vacant eyed, already dead in spirit. For he was in a dungeon, though it was like none that he had heard tell of: it was the throne room of Esgallien, and the Witch-queen ruled here, as she did in all the realm, only in this place her whims were played out as soon as they came to mind. There was no delay as messengers whipped their horses for speed to deliver her latest orders, though here there were still whips – knotted and cruel, and other implements of torture. He had seen, and felt, them all.

The greatest of the tortures though was to see and hear through the windows, for the outside world offered hope. But this was a lie born of wishful thinking; his only true hope lay in death.

Each day a prisoner was slain: one that had suffered and passed beyond the threshold of endurance; one no longer capable of begging for mercy. And they did beg while they could, not that they had any expectation of receiving it when none that had gone before had.

Yet still the slain spoke with their last breaths. He watched now as an old man, though perhaps he was in fact young, it was hard to tell, recoiled from Ebona’s touch.

Two guards, one stony faced, the other watching eagerly, held him by the chains remaining on his arms near the base of her throne. Ebona was gracious as always, and her bare feet made no noise as she rose and paced toward him.

The prisoner watched, trembling, fearful, but unable to take his eyes off her.

She came. Reaching out, she caressed his cheeks, and then pressed the palms of her hand against his temples, gazing like a lover into his eyes. He trembled. A moment later he stilled as some force of witchery caught his body. Blood began to seep from his ears. Several bright drops splashed over the polished timber floor.

Then the screaming began. Yet still the man could not move. If he were able, he would have thrashed and kicked and punched. But Ebona held him by the power that was in her, and by that same power she burned his eyes. They sizzled and bubbled in their sockets. Smoke curled from them. A foul stench crept through the room.

A final wisp of flame flickered within the darkened sockets, and then Ebona leaned forward, her face intense.

“Tell me what you see,” she said.

Brinhain was sick of this. He had watched the same thing too many times. But he could not look away. That was not permitted, and he had learned that disobedience had a price. What happened now was part of his punishment: to watch others endure torment and thereby observe and anticipate his own fate on a day yet to come. He would rather die by the sword, but that mercy would not be granted to him.

Yet torment was only one of the Witch-queen’s purposes. As he watched, the old man spoke in a ragged voice. For though his eyes were gone, as with all her previous victims, by her dark arts she induced in him a vision of some far off place, and he told of what he saw.

“Many horses,” he gasped. “Many riders speed to the north, and a white light shimmers about them. A Raithlin leads. He carries a great sword. Bright is its blade.”

The man groaned. Fresh blood dribbled from his ears. The old blood dried and darkened on the floor.

“Speak!” Ebona commanded.

“The faces of the riders shine … but a great darkness gathers behind them. I see mountains. Grim. Tall. Dark. Ash and death shroud them. Rivers run from them, but not of water. Elugs and strange men stream by the tens of thousands. They are a great army, and like a flood they sweep across Galenthern. They come! They come! They come!”

The old man suddenly thrashed. Whatever force held him was no longer of sufficient strength, or perhaps he was so close to death that it no longer had power over