His head swam. He felt his knees go from under him. He staggered to one side and retched onto the floor.
A boy – a boy’s body – lay on the table. His face was untouched, revealing that he had been much the same age as the girl downstairs, but his torso had been sliced to allow the skin to be peeled back to either side. Ribs had been clipped away to allow complete access and for the organs to be exposed. Some of those organs had been removed and lay neatly to one side. The rest were still visible.
And the heart was still slowly beating.
‘Oh by all the gods,’ Brann whispered. ‘What evil is this?’
A sheet of notes in neat and precise script lay beside the boy, and as Grakk moved to seek some clue from it, he noticed a small empty vial near the child’s head, and sniffed it briefly. ‘What little consolation there can be is in the fact that he has slept through this.’
Pain constricted Brann’s throat, making his voice hoarse. ‘But when he wakes?’
‘He must not wake.’ Grakk picked up a slender blade, its tip curved, from the trolley and deftly nicked a vein in the small boy’s neck, dark blood swiftly pooling on the table top. ‘He will not wake.’ A single tear ran down his cheek, but the tribesman seemed unaware. ‘The gods will have him now.’ He moved beside Brann and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You wondered about the gods? This is where we need to believe they are there to care for those such as this poor soul.’
Brann nodded, but felt a fury building in him. He rose and reached for his knife.
Grakk’s hand tightened on his shoulder. ‘I know,’ the man said. ‘I know. But we are here for a purpose. We have seen the monstrosity of our enemy in the past, and for the sake of other children like this, we must not let further examples of the same divert us from our course.’
Brann nodded, and forced his breathing deep and slow. He looked away from the table. He would not look back. He gasped as his eyes lit on two cages, tall as a man’s waist and narrow – in one, a small boy crouched. Brann almost slipped as he rushed to it, but as he drew close he saw his haste was wasted. The eyes were open but unseeing. The hands were missing several fingers, but still grasped the bars with what ability they had possessed. He had been cut and stitched with precision in multiple places, with some wounds having partially healed while others were clearly more recent. Again, a sheet lay alongside – a quick glance revealed a list of dates and notes, but a quick glance was all Brann could bring himself to give it. The body was stiff to the touch, but he still felt at the small neck for a pulse. He had never thought he would find himself glad to find a child to be dead.
Two similar cages sat alongside, both empty. On one, the latch was bent and the door ajar – it seemed most likely to have been the home of the little girl.
Grakk was at the desk, looking through the documents. ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘This is what we seek.’
Brann moved across, averting his eyes from the boy on the table and glad of something to take his attention that did not involve the torture of children.
Grakk indicated piles of paper, one a map and the rest covered with text or diagrams. ‘There is more here than we can peruse at this time.’
Brann shrugged. ‘So we take it all.’ He pulled a sheet from the bed and laid it by the desk, lifting the papers onto it. Grakk nodded and helped him, tying it into a bundle when they had finished. Brann looked back at the bed. ‘To think he slept here, chose to sleep here, in the midst of all of this.’
They couldn’t leave the room quickly enough, and wound their way back down the stair.
The scene was much as they’d left it, except that the Duke had acquired a swollen eye and was clutching one wrist to his chest. Brann stood in front of him, staring, and wondering what happened in the head of such a man that made him capable of such things.
‘You saw my workroom, then?’ the man said brightly, almost proudly. ‘So much has been learnt in that room. So much has been discovered, such advances achieved, such help that will be brought to those who seek to progress the human condition. If you can grasp even a fraction of the enormity of what has been achieved in that room, you will thank your gods for the work wrought by such higher thought.’ His eyes glittered, and he shook with excitement. ‘If you will but permit me to share just some of my findings…’
Brann fought to control himself. ‘Right now, I thank the gods that I am ordinary.’ He looked past the Duke. ‘Gerens, it is time for this man to answer our questions.’
Gerens nodded solemnly. ‘The slow way or the quick way?’
‘To be honest,’ Brann said, ‘I would love the slow way, but we are not blessed with time. Those who knew that something was amiss, I would expect, are all in this room, dead or alive, so we can do what we have to do. But I would rather we were on our way,’ he thought of the scene in the room above, ‘sooner rather than later.’
‘The quick way, then.’
He marched the Duke to the window and pushed him backwards until he was lying on the sill. Grabbing an ankle in each hand, he tipped him until the man was hanging upside down above the drop.
‘He’s gone quite rigid, chief,’ Gerens said. ‘I think he’s a bit frightened.’
Brann was sure he was. ‘Are you sure you can hold on to him? Remember we need information.’
‘He really is very light,’ Gerens reassured him. ‘There’s actually nothing to him.’ To demonstrate, he let go with one hand, then leant out of the window slightly. ‘Now, don’t wriggle. You might break free, don’t you think?’ He reached out and grabbed the free ankle again. ‘There, we go. Don’t want him to get too scared to speak, I suppose.’
‘Good,’ Brann said. ‘Ask him about Loku.’
Gerens leant forward. ‘My friend would like to know if you have encountered a man called Loku recently. Or maybe you know him as Taraloku-Bana?’ There was a muffled sound from outside, and Gerens spoke over his shoulder. ‘He knows him as Loku, and he was indeed here when we thought he was. It appears he is a colleague.’
‘Ask him who he reports to.’
‘My friend would like to know who your boss is in your affairs with Loku.’ He turned his head again to Brann. ‘He says Loku was arranging a meeting across the water with others like them, to report to he who controls them and receive instructions. This dangling man is to meet this boss for the first time at that meeting.’
‘Ask him where Loku is now.’
‘My friend would like to know where that bastard Loku has gone.’ He relayed the message once again to the room. ‘He says there is a camp near here, a day’s ride to the east. He might still be there. Some have already been sent to the next stage of fulfilling their purpose, and he was to assess who would be ready to go next.’
Konall strolled across and looked with interest over the top of Gerens. ‘I must say, this Duke is being fairly eager to help.’
‘Would you not, in that position?’ Brann asked.
Konall frowned. ‘It would be impossible. I am too heavy for Gerens to hold for such a length of time.’ He noticed something and eased partially past Gerens to peer out of the window at an angle. ‘Excuse me,’ he said politely to Gerens.
‘Of course,’ Gerens said, leaning flat on the sill to allow Konall to lean further. A moan came from outside the window.
Konall turned back to the room. ‘Two guards have come round the corner. The fools are chatting enough that they are unlikely to look up here, but the man hanging from Gerens’s hands will be able to see them very soon, and I’m pretty sure he will start shouting.’