The Oldest Trick by Auston Habershaw

Author:Auston Habershaw [Habershaw, Auston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

INTERLUDE

A TASTE OF THINGS TO COME

Sahand stood in the midst of what had been a sumptuous feast hall in the sleepy hills of northwestern Eretheria. A land of pretty castles and picturesque villages, this place had been the perfect storybook image of a rustic hunting lodge on the edges of a great black forest. Deer, elk, and wood-drake heads were mounted against thick oak pillars. These pillars supported delicate wooden arches carved to look like the boughs of trees, and the ceiling was painted with pictures of leaves and forest animals where it wasn’t stained black by centuries of wood- and pipe-smoke. Just before Sahand had arrived, the long table had been strewn with tray upon tray of roast quail and cured ham as well as pitchers of cider and bowls of candied fruits. Men and women in the house of Viscountess Renia Elons had been laughing and talking about the day’s entertainments, stuffing their faces with all the pleasant foods that their puffy cheeks could accommodate.

Sahand now stood on the table so that he was eye-to-eye with the Viscountess herself, who dangled by the wrists from the rafters of her own dining hall like a chicken trussed up for plucking. Joining the smell of roast meat and delicate soup was the smell of blood, now coating most of the floor and soaking the tablecloth crimson. As Sahand paced down the length of the table, he kicked the body of a man out of his way and sent the corpse toppling to the floor. “I find it hard to believe that I need to say this, Renia, but spying on me was not in your best interest.”

Of all the methods of torture devised by man, strappado was perhaps the easiest and most portable. All the torturer needed was a rope, a beam, and a strong man. The victim’s hands would be tied behind the back, the rope thrown over the beam, and then the strong man would hoist them up by the wrists, pulling their arms painfully out of their sockets from behind, tearing ligaments, mashing nerves, and, if the man were strong enough, you could drop them suddenly and then stop them with a jerk, breaking bones and ripping muscles to shreds. If they kicked and struggled, the pain only got worse. For someone who wanted to torture their enemies while on the go, there really was no substitute.

At the moment, Banric Sahand was just such a man.

“Again.” He nodded to Gallo, who wordlessly loosened his grip on the rope so it slipped a few inches before jamming down on it again with his heavy armored boot. The Viscountess shrieked as the sudden stop dislocated one shoulder. She flailed and kicked, spitting and howling like a mad cat, as Gallo slowly hoisted her back to her starting elevation.

Renia Elons was young and vital for a woman of seventy, which was a keen indication of just how much money she had and what manner of sorceries she tended to spend it on.

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