stared straight ahead. He barely winced when the powerful brute slugged him in the gut or when that awful poker slapped against his armpit, sending wispy smoke from his skin.
"Strong one," the brute said and chuckled again. "More fun's all." He brought the poker up level with Wulfgar's face and began moving it slowly in toward the big man's eye.
"Oh, but ye'll howl," he said.
"But we have not yet been tried!" Morik complained.
"Ye're thinkin' that matters?" the gaoler replied, pausing long enough only to turn a toothy grin on Morik. "Ye're all guilty for the fun of it, if not the truth."
That struck Wulfgar as a profound statement. Such was justice. He looked at the gaoler as if acknowledging the ugly creature for the first time, seeing simple wisdom there, a viewpoint come from observation. From the mouths of idiots, he thought.
The poker moved in, but Wulfgar set the gaoler with such a calm and devastating stare, a look borne of the barbarian's supreme confidence that this man-that all these foolish mortal men-could do nothing to him to rival the agonies he had suffered at the clawed hands of the demon Errtu.
The gaoler apparently got that message, or a similar one, for he hesitated, even backed the poker up so he could more clearly view Wulfgar's set expression.
"Ye think ye can hold it?" the brutal torturer asked Wulfgar. "Ye think ye can keep yer face all stuck like that when I pokes yer eye?" And on he came again.
Wulfgar gave a growl that came from somewhere very, very deep within, a feral, primal sound that stole the words from Morik's mouth as the little thief was about to protest. A growl that came from his torment in the pits of the Abyss.
The barbarian swelled his chest mightily, gathered his strength, and drove one shoulder forward with such ferocity and speed that the shackle anchor exploded from the wall, sending the stunned gaoler skittering back.
"Oh, but I'll kill ye for that!" the half-ogre cried, and he came ahead brandishing the poker like a club.
Wulfgar was ready for him. The barbarian coiled about, almost turning to face the wall, then swung his free arm wide, the chain and block of metal and stone fixed to its other end swishing across to clip the glowing poker and tear it from the gaoler's hand. Again the brute skittered back, and this time Wulfgar turned back on the wall fully, running his legs right up it so that he had his feet planted firmly, one on either side of the remaining shackle.
"Knock all the walls down!" Morik cheered.
The gaoler turned and ran.
Another growl came from Wulfgar, and he pulled with all his strength, every muscle in his powerful body straining. This anchor was more secure than the last, the stone wall more solid about it, but so great was Wulfgar's pull that a link in the heavy chain began to separate.
"Pull on!" Morik cried.
Wulfgar did, and he was sailing out from the wall, spinning into a back somersault. He tumbled down, unhurt, but then it hit him, a wave of anguish more powerful than any torture the sadistic gaoler might bring. In his mind he was no longer in the dungeon of Luskan but back in the Abyss, and though no shackles now held him he knew there could be no escape, no victory over his too-powerful captors. How many times had Errtu played this trick on him, making him think he was free only to snare him and drag him back to the stench and filth, only to beat him, then heal him, and beat him some more?
"Wulfgar?" Morik begged repeatedly, pulling at his own shackles, though with no results at all. "Wulfgar!"
The barbarian couldn't hear him, couldn't even see him, so lost was he in the swirling fog of his own thoughts. Wulfgar curled up on the floor, trembling like a babe when the gaoler returned with a dozen comrades.
A short while later, the beaten Wulfgar was hanging again from the wall, this time in shackles meant for a giant, thick and solid chains that had his feet, dangling several feet from the floor and his arms stretched out straight to the side. As an extra precaution a block of sharpened spikes had been set behind the barbarian so if he pulled hard he would impale himself rather than tug the chains from their anchors. He was in a different chamber now, far removed from Morik. He was all alone with his memories