Adventuresome

Chapter 8

The girl looked suspicious for a moment, but then she nodded determinedly. She gripped her mage's staff tightly as if looking to it for courage.

They started off down the hall. The screams were loud, but the hallway was still quite long.

"I'm Lilliana, by the way." The girl whispered as they walked. She gestured with the staff. "And this is Dominick."

And I'm Perrin, she only just barely stopped herself from replying. If being Maura Latcher would get her out of prison today, she would deal with the consequences later.

"Enough lies!" the shout, male and somehow familiar, carried down the hall. The screaming, which had been quiet for a few moments, started again at a louder pitch.

Both women cringed, shared a look, and made their way a little faster towards the torture room. The screaming cut short, and Perrin feared they were too late until she heard the sound of crying.

The door to the room was wide open. Looking carefully inside, Perrin saw a terrible sight.

His wrists were bound and hung from a chain on the ceiling, forcing him to remain standing. From the bindings, the man was bleeding. The trails of red drew lines down his bare arms and chest. At his feet, barely supporting his weight, was a small pool of blood. His shoulders were turned at an unnatural angle. She had seen that angle once before, on a merchant who had stupidly gotten in over his head "helping" on an airship. The merchant had dislocated his shoulder, and it would seem this tortured man had had both his shoulders dislocated.

What she did not see was what was being done to torture him besides being hung by the wrists. What was making him scream like that?

Footsteps crossed the torture room. Lilliana gasped when the torturer came into sight and Perrin shuddered. It was the red haired bastard that had stolen Galandat when she was taken prisoner.

It appeared Lilliana recognized him. Was it a strange thing that this noble mage knew this torturer? Then again, she had known from the start the man was some kind of leader. He must be higher up in the chain of command than she had expected.

In which case, why was he the one doing the dirty work? Why was he the one torturing this man? Why not make someone else take care of this?

"Sir, I beg you. I cannot answer your questions. I know not their answers." The man pleaded, tears streaming down his face.

"It was your arrow they found in Lord Tibol's neck." The red haired man said, pacing in front of the other. "Your arrow. I know this because you are the only fool in my army to insist on using those colorful feathers on the arrows. You are the only fool who insists that he always gets his arrows back and it was your arrow in that damn lord's neck."

Perrin glanced at Lilliana and saw that she had gone sickly pale and was visibly trembling.

I wonder if she knew that Lord whatever his name was.

"I didn't. I didn't kill him. You gave orders and I followed them. I didn't stray from them, I would never."

The red haired man reached out and touched the man's chest with the tip of a small knife.

"You know, you have been repeating that for the last half hour and I still don't believe you."

"Please, please, sir."

A light shone from the hilt of the knife, and Perrin noticed the crystal for the first time. The crystal turned pink, and then ruby red.

The man screamed, straining to back away from the knife but his bound wrists and dislocated shoulders gave him nowhere to go. Fresh blood dripped down the man's arms. His eyes rolled in his head.

The red haired man pulled the knife away and the other hung limp from the chain.

There's no way we can get him out of here. Perrin realized. Unless we kill the red haired man and hope no soldiers find us, there's no way we can help that prisoner. Even if we could get him out of the prison, we have no where to take him. No where he could go to heal.

Swallowing the bitter taste in her mouth, Perrin looked to Lilliana to gesture that they had to leave while they still could. She looked over one shoulder, then the other, but saw no sign of the noble mage.

"That is enough!"

Perrin closed her eyes and begged the spirits to make it not so. To make it so that when she opened her eyes she would see Lilliana next to her and not inside of that room about to face off that blood thirsty torturer.

"Lady Lilliana, what a pleasant surprise."

Reaching up over her shoulder, Perrin unsheathed Galandat. If she was going to die in this prison she was going to go down with blood on her sword that much was certain.