Tetrarch (twoe-2, ttw) by Ian Irvine

Author:Ian Irvine [Irvine, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_fantasy

THIRTY-FIVE

The soldiers held her arms. Irisis looked around frantically but the blank walls of manufactory and cistern offered no escape. Jal-Nish was going to mutilate her.

He slashed down. Irisis flinched; she could not help herself. The sword stopped, resting on her outstretched arm.

‘It’s not that easy, Irisis.’ Jal-Nish uttered a liquid chuckle, like vomit splashing in a bucket. ‘You haven’t suffered enough.’

‘If you’re going to do it, then do it!’ she screamed.

‘Oh, I’ll do it, but not on your timetable.’

He raised the sword. Would he cut this time? Irisis did not think so, but neither was he predictable. He might just take a finger, or her nose. What if he did that, then let her live? She was too vain to endure such an existence. She tried to pull away but the soldiers held her firmly.

‘Please,’ she said in a throaty whisper. ‘I’ll do anything you want.’ She would have. Dignity meant nothing before the threat of mutilation. She heaved her bosom toward the nearest soldier.

Jal-Nish snorted. ‘You’ll make no ground there, crafter. They have eyes only for each other.’

Irisis stared at the pair, horrified. ‘But … that’s a capital crime! How can –?’ She recalled that Jal-Nish had a taste for his own sex.

‘They’ve done their duty and fathered soldiers. What they do in their own time is none of my affair.’ Jal-Nish pressed the sword point against her shoulder. It went through her coat and shirt, to break the skin. ‘Just there, I think.’

He whipped the sword up, but as he was about to bring it down someone bellowed from the top of the manufactory wall.

‘Lower your sword, Jal-Nish, or I’ll put a bolt right through your good eye.’ It was the scrutator’s voice.

‘Shoot and be damned!’ Jal-Nish brought down the sword.

As Flydd spoke, the soldiers had spun around. Irisis jerked free and dived at Jal-Nish’s legs. The sword came down so hard that it struck the ground behind her.

Jal-Nish raised the weapon to plunge it through her back, but with a tinny clang his head was jerked sideways. He clawed at the mask. The crossbow bolt, fired with only half-power, had slammed into the platinum cheekpiece, gone two-thirds of the way through, then stuck. Bilious yellow foam oozed from beneath the mask. A clot quivered on his collar, speckled with bright blood.

‘Kill her!’ he gasped. ‘Kill the scrutator too.’

Irisis had her knife out, not that it would be any use against swordsmen. Ducking behind Jal-Nish, she whipped his single arm up behind his back as hard as she could. Putting the blade to his throat she yelled, ‘Tell them to stand back or I’ll take your head right off.’

‘Think you that I care?’ he raged. ‘Kill her, even if you have to kill me first.’

The soldiers came at her from either side. Jal-Nish was a hindrance now so she put her foot in the middle of his back and sent him flying. Going into a crouch, she swayed from side to side, trying to keep both swordsmen in view at once.

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