LITMIR.BIZ

       TWENTY Stones

      There are techniques a man can use to deal with torture. One is to learn to divorce the mind from the body. Half the anguish that a skilled torturer inflicts is not the physical pain, but the victim’s knowledge of the level of damage done. The torturer must walk a fine line if he wishes his victim to talk. If he takes his destruction past what the victim knows can heal, then the victim loses all incentive to talk. He but wishes to plunge more swiftly into death. But if he can hold the torment short of that line, then the torturer can make the victim an accomplice in his own torment. Suspended in pain, the anguish for the victim is wondering how long he can maintain his silence without pushing his tormentor over the line into irrevocable damage. As long as the victim refuses to talk, then the torturer proceeds, venturing closer, ever closer to damage the body cannot repair.

      Once a man has been broken by pain, he remains forever a victim. He cannot ever forget that place he has visited, the moment when he decided that he would surrender everything rather than endure more pain. It is a shame no man ever completely recovers from. Some try to drown it by becoming the perpetrator of similar pain, and creating a new victim to bear for them that shame. Cruelty is a skill taught not only by example but by experience of it.

      – from the scroll Versaay’s Uses of Pain

      As the sun rose, we rode on. Farmsteads, cultivated fields and pastures became less common, and then vanished to be replaced by rocky hillsides and open forest. My anxiety was divided between fear for my wolf and for my young prince. All in all, I had greater faith in my four-legged companion’s ability to take care of himself than I did Dutiful. With a resolution Nighteyes would have approved, I set him out of my thoughts and concentrated on the road beside me. The increasing heat of the day was exacerbated by the thickness of the air. I could feel a storm brewing. A heavy rainfall might take all trace of their trail from the road. Tension chewed at me.

      Without speaking of it, Laurel rode close to the left-hand side of the road and I the right. We looked for any sign of horses leaving the road; specifically, we looked for sign of at least three horses, galloping in flight. I knew that if I were fleeing mounted pursuers my first thought would have been to get off the road and take to the woods where there was a better chance of losing them. I assumed the Prince and his companions would do the same.

      My fears that we had missed their trail in the dark built, but suddenly Laurel cried out that she had them. I no sooner looked at the marks than I was sure she was right. Here were a plenitude of shod hooves leaving the road, and all in haste. The wide tracks of the great warhorse were unmistakable. I was certain we had discovered where the Prince had left the road with his companions, and where the mob had pursued them.

      As the others left the road and followed, I paused and dismounted briefly on the pretence of securing our baggage better to Myblack’s saddle. I used the opportunity to relieve myself at the side of the road, knowing Nighteyes would be seeking sign of my passage.

      Mounted again, I swiftly caught up with the others. A darkness gathered at the far horizon. We heard several long rumbling threats of thunder in the distance. The trampled path of the pursuit was easy to follow, and we urged our weary beasts to a canter as we followed it. Over two open hills of grass and scrub we followed them. As we ascended the third hill, a forest of oak and alder came down to meet us. There we caught up with the pursuers. There were half a dozen of them, sprawled in the tall grass in the shadows of the trees.

      Their ambushers had killed their mounts and the dogs as well. It was a wise thing to do; riderless horses returning to the village would have brought out the pursuit much sooner. Yet the act sickened me, the more so because it had been done by those of Old Blood. It seemed ruthless in a way that frightened me. The horses had done nothing to deserve death. What sort of folk were these that the Prince rode with now?

      Laurel covered her mouth and nose with her hand and held it there. She did not dismount. Lord Golden looked tired and sickened, but he dismounted alongside me. Together we moved among the dead, inspecting them. They were all young men, just at the age to be caught up in such madness. Yesterday afternoon, they had leapt onto their horses and ridden off to kill some Piebalds. Yesterday evening, they had died. Lying there, they did not look cruel or vicious or even stupid. Only dead.

      ‘There were archers in those trees,’ I decided. ‘And they were waiting here. I think the Prince’s party rode through, relying on folk that already were in position here to protect them.’ I had found but one broken arrow, cast aside. The others had been frugally and coolly recovered from the bodies.

      ‘That is not the mark of an arrow.’ Lord Golden pointed out a body that lay apart from the others. There were deep puncture wounds in his throat. Powerful clawed hind legs had disembowelled him. His guts buzzed and clustering flies covered the look of horror in his eyes.

      ‘Look at the dogs. Cats attacked them as well. All the Piebalds rounded and stood together here, and killed those who followed.’

      ‘And then they rode on.’

      ‘Yes.’ Had the Prince’s cat killed this man? Had their minds been joined as the cat killed?

      ‘How many do you think we follow now?’

      Laurel had ridden a little way ahead. I suspected she did so to be away from the bloating bodies as much as to study the trail. I didn’t blame her. Now she called back in a low voice, ‘I make it at least eight that we follow now.’

      ‘And follow we must,’ Lord Golden said. ‘Immediately.’

      Laurel nodded. ‘There will be others from the village riding out by now,

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