Instinctively, Drakis leaned back from the onslaught, catching himself with one hand behind him before he could fall to the floor. Sha-Timuran stood over the startled warrior, his hands shaking with fury. “But, my Lord, your warriors . . we saved them for you, and I thought I was throwing the crown to. .”
“Saved them?” Sha-Timuran’s lips twitched into a hideous grimace. “You thought?”
In a sudden eruption of rage, the elf lord’s baton slammed against Drakis’ face, its medallion cracking his jaw. The sharp edges of its ornamental wings cut furrows across his cheeks and nose that instantly erupted with welling blood. Drakis’ head pitched sideways with the blow, its power twisting him around until he fell with his face against the marble.
Through the haze enveloping his mind, Drakis saw his blood staining the marble beneath him.
Marble, he noticed only now, that had been deeply stained before.
The pain of his broken face was nothing compared to the confusion that overwhelmed his mind. Drakis had fought and killed many creatures-human and otherwise-who had done him far less harm. Yet all he could think was that Timuran was good. Timuran was kind. Timuran was father to them all. Surely there had been some mistake. His master, he thought, did not understand. He pushed himself up, kneeling on the floor, his hands clasped together as he turned to grovel before the elf lord.
“I didn’t want them saved you stupid, thoughtless hoomani! I wanted the crown! But now my neighbor has the crown, and in his appreciation of your ‘gift,’ he arranged to have you delivered to me at once-so that all the Myrdin-dai would know which House of the Western Provinces gave away the greatest prize of the war!” Sha-Timuran shouted through a rage that seemed boundless, beyond control or thought. His hands were working the length of the baton handle now, twisting it and pulling at it. “You embarrass my House, you embarrass my name, you make me the heart of every citizen’s laughter from one end of the Empire to the other, and you think that is worth saving the pointless, worthless lives of a few slaves! You will pay for the insult-someone always has to pay, Drakis-someone always has to pay. Hoo-mani always have to pay!”
The baton handle separated under Sha-Timuran’s hands, revealing as they pulled apart the long strands of a living firereed. The nine fronds of the plant extended nearly six feet in length, a whip waving menacingly in the air as Timuran raised his arm above his head.
Drakis’ eyes went wide. His speech was slurred by the sudden swelling of his cracked jaw but he spoke past the pain. “My Lord! The bounty we brought you! The greatest treasure of the dwarves. .”
“Bounty?” Sha-Timuran snapped. “You bring me a dwarven fool and an ugly piece of rock and call it ‘bounty’?”
Sha-Timuran’s arm swung. The fronds flashed suddenly through the columns of light, wrapping around Drakis’ back. The razor-sharp hooks of the firereed cut through his tunic, burrowing down into the flesh of his back. Searing pain engulfed the human as Sha-Timuran pulled, raking the fronds across his back, their barbs tearing his flesh and leaving his nerve endings raw and exposed.
Drakis’ tears mixed with the blood flowing from his face. “Please,” he choked. “I’ll do anything for you! Tell me and it shall be done!”
Sha-Timuran, his hand raised for another blow, gazed for a moment at Drakis through the solid blackness of his eyes.
Then, with a coldness Drakis had never known, Sha-Timuran slowly smiled.
The firereed whip cracked again through the hall, ripping at Drakis’ back and tearing new furrows in his skin and muscles.
“Master! Please!” Drakis sobbed like the confused child he was, “Tell me what you want!”
The blows rained down on him faster now, the pain becoming an overwhelming, encompassing reality. Drakis panicked within himself, repeating the same words over and over again through the cries and sobs that were wrenched from his soul.
“Please. . I’ll do anything. . tell me what you want!”
The last thing Drakis knew was the sound of the whip grating against his own bones. .
. . And the sound of Sha-Timuran’s angry laughter.
“Truly, Draki, I’m finding this tiresome,” spoke the reedy, high voice, calling him back from oblivion.
Drakis’ sight returned to him slowly along with his awareness. He was staring up into a hazy, dim green fog as pungent, conflicting smells assaulted his nostrils.