Spine of the World by R.A. Salvatore

Author:R.A. Salvatore [Salvatore, R.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Forgotten Realms, Saga of Drizzt Do'Urden
ISBN: 9780786914180
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Published: 1999-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Prisoner’s Carnival

It was an hour of beatings and taunting, of eager peasants throwing rotten food and spitting in their faces.

It was an hour that Wulfgar didn’t even register. The man was so far removed from the spectacle of Prisoner’s Carnival, so well hidden within a private emotional place, a place created through the mental discipline that had allowed him to survive the torments of Errtu, that he didn’t even see the twisted, perverted faces of the peasants or hear the magistrate’s assistant stirring up the mob for the real show when Jharkheld joined them on the huge stage. The barbarian was bound, as were the other three, with his hands behind his back and secured to a strong wooden post. Weights were chained around his ankles and another one around his neck, heavy enough to bow the head of powerful Wulfgar.

He had recognized the crowd with crystalline clarity. The drooling peasants, screaming for blood and torture, the excited, almost elated, ogre guards working the crowd, and the unfortunate prisoners. He’d seen them for what they were, and his mind had transformed them into something else, something demonic, the twisted, leering faces of Errtu’s minions, slobbering over him with their acidic drool, nipping at him with their sharpened fangs and horrid breath. He smelled the fog of Errtu’s home again, the sulfuric Abyss burning his nostrils and his throat, adding an extra sting to all of his many, many wounds. He felt the itching of the centipedes and spiders crawling over and inside his skin. Always on the edge of death. Always wishing for it.

As those torments had continued, day after tenday after month, Wulfgar had found his escape in a tiny corner of his consciousness. Locked inside, he was oblivious to his surroundings. Here at the carnival he went to that place.

One by one the prisoners were taken from the posts and paraded around, sometimes close enough to be abused by the peasants, other times led to instruments of torture. Those included cross ties for whipping; a block and tackle designed to hoist victims into the air by a pole lashed under their arms locked behind their back; and ankle stocks to hang prisoners upside down in buckets of filthy water, or, in the case of unfortunate Creeps Sharky, a bucket of urine. Creeps cried through most of it, while Tee-a-nicknick and Wulfgar stoically accepted whatever punishment the magistrate’s assistant could dish out without a sound other than the occasional, unavoidable gasp of air being blasted from their lungs. Morik took it all in stride, protesting his innocence and throwing witty comments around, which only got him beaten all the worse.

Magistrate Jharkheld appeared, entering to howls and cheers, wearing a thick black robe and cap, and carrying a silver scroll tube. He moved to the center of the stage, standing between the prisoners to eye them deliberately one by one.

Jharkheld stepped out front. With a dramatic flourish he presented the scroll tube, the damning documents, bringing eager shouts and cheers.

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