The Beast of Maug Maurai, Part Two: Feeding the Gods by Roberto Calas

Author:Roberto Calas [Calas, Roberto]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Ravenscar Publishing
Published: 2013-10-20T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

One should use the Manumission from Torment sparingly. Pain is the voice of a body. And bodies without voices have a unique name in medicine; they are called corpses.

-- From “The Treatise Canalithian” by Sidare Moldrane

“Dari! Dari! Dari!”

The man’s screams were like flames. Like lightning strikes or scalding oil, and Grae just wanted them to end.

The Eridian bucked and arched. Six soldiers tried to hold him down. Meedryk stood with hands frozen in final flourish, his face slack, a flush rising. The man’s leg was bubbling a putrid green at the ankle and shin, as if the flesh were being eaten away by acids. Pale wisps of vapor rose from the bones beneath.

“I don’t . . . I don’t understand,” he mumbled, though no one could hear him under the Eridian’s howls. “It’s a simple . . . incantation. This shouldn’t . . . ”

“Hey, ‘prentice,” shouted Shanks. “Why don’t you do that on your head and save us your stupidity.”

“Somebody knock him unconscious,” yelled Grae, gesturing toward the Eridian to make sure that no one thought he meant Meedryk. “I can’t believe he’s awake through all of this.”

Maribrae, who had taken her hands from her ears, looked back just as Beldrun throttled the man with his fists. He struck again and again but the Eridian wouldn’t lose consciousness. Maribrae lost her fight against tears.

“Don’t kill him!” Shouted Grae.

“Kill ‘im? I can’t even knock him asleep,” said Shanks.

The Eridian howled with no reserves. He screamed as long as his breath held, then took a breath and screamed again for as long as he could again.

“Make him stop!” Drissdie shouted. “Make him stop!”

Beldrun Shanks raised his fist as high as he could for one final blow. And then, without warning, the man fell silent. His struggles ceased. Beldrun struck him anyway as the other soldiers slowly rose from the Eridian’s body.

“Sterling,” said Grae. “We killed him.”

“No, Brig sir,” said Meedryk. He stood beside the Eridian’s head, his hands spread over the man’s face. “I put him to sleep.” As he spoke, he looked at the man’s body. It was motionless. There seemed no life in him. “I . . . I think I did.”

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