The terrible sounds raised the hackles of the two scientists. Harold drew his belt-model stunner and Emmett checked his larger one carefully before setting hand to the door. Another of the hideous screams came as the door swung slowly open, accompanied this time by a sizzling, frying-pan sound. The air that gushed from the unseen space beyond the door was heavy with a burnt-meat odor, underlaid with stinks of wet wool, hot metal, and long-unwashed flesh.
Although the massive iron hinges of the door squealed shrilly, that sound was lost in yet another horrific scream from the near-nude man hanging by his wrists from a rope looped over one of the beams supporting the next floor.
To Harold, it was as a scene from the works of Dante— black-streaked stone walls and a soot-coated ceiling, a filthy greasy floor littered with odds and ends of smashed furniture, clothing, weapons, broken crockery, gnawed bones, and a couple of dead, well-hacked corpses. The huge bar that had barred another, larger door was broken in two pieces and lay before that door, which hung drunkenly from a single hinge. Snow blew in to melt slowly into puddles, but it blew from out of darkness.
Out of darkness into near-darkness, the large chamber was very dimly illuminated. All light came from a couple of smoky torches thrust into wall sconces and from the roaring fire in a recessed fireplace at least six feet wide. The fire seemed to be fueled exclusively with worked wood, probably from the ruined furniture, and a number of iron bars lay on the hearth, their tips thrust deep into the glowing coals. It was with these bars that the hanging man was being savagely tortured.
The hairy, bearded, black-robed figures grouped about the victim cackled and cavorted insanely, sometimes chanting a singsong rhyme in a language Harold could not understand. Two or three of them had what looked to be a representation of a Celtic cross sewn to the backs of their sleeveless robes; these two or three also seemed to be better dressed and armed, their feet shod in real boots rather than the rawhide brogans of the others.
One of these men tucked an iron bar back into its fiery nest, wrapped a piece of wet hide around the hearth end of another, and pulled it from the fire, its tip glowing and sparking. But when he made to press it into the helpless man, Harold—peace-loving Harold—leveled his stunner and pressed the stud and felt well served when the unconscious man crumpled to the hearth and rolled into the fire.
The stunners made no sound, of course; therefore, Harold and Emmett had dropped most of the original dozen torturers before one of them turned and saw their attackers. It seemed that every greasy hair on the short, stout man’s head stood up straight, his bloodshot eyes bulged out from the sockets in a face suddenly gone the color of curds. He screamed once, then spun about and ran out the broken door. The others tried to follow, but were brought down by the stunners.
Harold used his sword to saw through the rope above the bloody, lacerated wrists of the terribly burned victim, while Emmett eased the body to the floor. After only a moment, however, he straightened and stepped back, shaking his head
“He’s dead, Harold. With all that those bastards had done to him, his eyes and all the rest, death was probably the most merciful thing that could’ve happened.”
Harold heard but could not answer until his stomach had ceased spewing up its contents. Then, weakly, “Oh, my God, Emmett, I … I’d thought … I’d hoped we’d left this kind of senseless atrocity behind us.”
Before Emmett could frame an answer, there was a metallic clanking just beyond the smashed door, then that portal was thrust aside with such force that the last hinge tore loose and the ironbound panel slammed onto the floor. Framed in the opening were two man-shapes; their black, sleeveless sur-coats bore the red Celtic cross and partially covered full suits of plate armor. The one on the right gripped the foot-long hilt of a sword that looked to be five feet or more in the blade, while the one on the left carried a weapon that the scientists recognized from their studies as a Lochaber axe.