Eric van Lustbader - Sunset Warrior 05 by Dragons On The Sea Of Night

Author:Dragons On The Sea Of Night [Night, Dragons On The Sea Of]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-06-08T14:23:49+00:00

‘Yessir!’ The Fe’edjinn snapped to attention at their arrival. ‘The prisoner is resting.’

‘Resting?’ Hamaan said, as they inarched down the hallway. ‘Has he had his meal?’

‘He indicated that he was not hungry,’ the Fe’edjinn said crisply.

‘I left strict orders that he should not be deprived,’ Hamaan said, annoyed.

‘Yessir, but I did not believe that meant force-feeding the prisoner.’

‘He is not a prisoner, Third Darman. At least, not yet.’

‘Yessir.’

The hallway in which they found themselves was part of a vast labyrinth of like-looking corridors - a veritable warren in one of Mas’jahan’s myriad pleasure palaces. But since sex and religion were deliberately intertwined among the Catechists, there were as many dervishers as there were half-naked women there. Many, Moichi saw, appeared to be both.

‘In their endless proselytizing, the Catechists believe that sex is the lure and religion is the hook. They are quite right, often enough,’ Sardonyx whispered.

Another Fe’edjinn guarded a locked door at the end of the corridor. He, too, was at attention before they arrived in front of him.

‘How is your charge, Second Darman?’ Hamaan asked sourly. ‘Still starving himself?’

‘Yessir!’ the Fe’edjinn replied. ‘That is, I believe so. I have not heard a word from him since he refused his food.’

‘Open the door,’ Hamaan said impatiently. ‘And see that we are not-‘

‘What was that?’ Moichi pushed the guard aside, put his ear to the door.

‘What did you hear?’ Hamaan said.

‘I do not know,’ Moichi replied, ‘but it sounded like a chair being kicked over.’

‘Open the door!’ Hamaan roared.

While the startled guard fumbled with his keys, Moichi took a step back, smashed his bootsole just above the door lock. It shattered and the door swung wildly inward.

Inside, the room smelled of sweat, blood and fecal matter. It was a small beamed cubicle furnished with the bare minimum: a mattress on the floor, a nightstand with a pitcher of water, a chair and rickety table. Tatty curtains billowed about an open window in the far wall.

‘Chill take it!’ Hamaan cried.

For Yesquz, his face sickly and bloated, hung from a rope that had been tied to the center rafter. Below him, a chair on which he had been standing had been kicked over, perhaps by him. Perhaps not.

Moichi ran to the open window, looked down into a narrow gray alley. A Fe’edjinn lay on the ground, one floor below, either unconscious or dead. Behind him, he could hear Hamaan bellowing at the top of his lungs, and there was the martial sound of booted feet coming at the double. He levered himself through the window, dropped to the ground.

Crouched beside the Fe’edjinn for a moment, he took his pulse, then turned his head. Throat slit neatly and expertly. He looked around. Sand had built up in the alley and he could see the faint outline of footprints. Large ones. He took off after them.

The alley debouched on a crowded street that led to the spice market. He saw a big man in a d’alb hurrying into the closest edge of the stalls and he headed that way, shouldering people aside.

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