The sailor rose, took hold of Rap’s feet, and headed aft, dragging him along the narrow central gangway between the rowers’ benches. Unfortunately the oars were stored there when not in use, and the narrow walk space remaining was wide enough for a boot, but not a man’s shoulders. He bounced on blades and counterweights. The first half of the journey was downhill, the second half up, as Blood Wave continued her trek over the graygreen ranges of the Summer Seas. Arriving at the stern, the gangling raider dropped Rap’s feet, hauled him up by the shoulders, and adjusted him so he was half kneeling, half sitting on the planks.
“Thanks, Vurjuk,” Kalkor said. “Be sure and wash your hands now.”
“Aye, sir!” The young raider grinned and stalked away, swaying in easy balance as the ship tilted its bow to the sky again.
Rap could not even control his whirling, reeling mind, let alone his despicably useless body. He slumped on the planks before the thane’s bare feet like a dog, or a heap of refuse. He wanted to stand up like a man, and his contemptible muscles refused to obey his commands. They would do nothing but shiver. His hands were starting to throb painfully.
Lording above him on his throne, Kalkor reached out one horny foot and nudged Rap’s head up, so he could study the ruins.
“Darad?”
“Aye, sir.”
“It’s enough to spoil a man’s lunch.” Kalkor pushed the offending face down again, still using his foot.
The thane’s private kennel was crammed with sacks and bales, which Rap had long since inspected and judged to contain the choicest loot. The overhead deck was too low for a man of any of the large races to stand upright; indeed it had not even been high enough for Thane Kalkor’s chair.
Once that chair must have belonged to a king, or perhaps a bishop. It was big and intricately carved, inset with jewels and enamels and filigree of gold. It was padded in fine scarlet velvet. But the tall back had been shortened with an ax to fit under the low headroom, and now half the jewels were gone and the velvet was stained and rotted by salt water. Even the legs were splintered where the chair had been spiked to the deck to stop it sliding around.
Now the throne belonged to a half-naked jotunn pirate, who was lounging back in it and regarding with wry amusement the wretched near-corpse that had just been dumped at his feet. He was exactly as Rap had seen him in the magic casement: big and young, powerful in every way imaginable. His hair was the color of white gold, hanging heavily like plate; his eyebrows were white seagulls’ wings of irony on his bronzed face, a face of hard, angular beauty and diabolic cruelty. Unlike the rest of the men aboard, he wore no tattoos.
His eyes were the most intensely blue eyes Rap had ever met. They burned like fragments of sky, full of cold and deadly fire. They smiled with the joy of madness. Lesser jotnar, like Gathmor, might rouse themselves to killer frenzy. Kalkor would never lose it.
And this notorious killer Kalkor, Thane of Gark, was a distant relative of Queen Inosolan and supposedly holder of a word of power handed down from their remote common ancestor, the sorcerer Inisso.
“You are Rap.”
“Aye, sir.” It hurt to speak. It might hurt much more not to. ”I have some questions,” Kalkor said. He was shouting, as Blood Wave balanced momentarily on a high green crest, and the wind shrieked in the rigging, hurling a stinging salt spray with the rain. Even his covered nook did not keep him dry. “You will answer them truthfully.” Blood Wave pitched her bow down and began the long slide into the next valley.
Rap nodded and almost fell over backward. He managed another “Aye, sir.” It was quieter in the troughs, so he needn’t shout.
Then a sudden shadow, and he looked up with farsight. The troll-like Darad loomed over him, scowling monstrously. He was stooping to see in under the helmsman’s deck, steadying himself against the edge with one giant furry paw. The hair on his shoulders stirred in the wind like ripe barley.
Kalkor’s attention left Rap and fixed itself on the newcomer with no change in its disdain.
“You promised he would be mine!” Darad bellowed.
“Did I?” Kalkor waited for a moment, and then repeated, “Did I?” in a slightly more pointed tone.
“Yes! You said he would be mine. You gave him to me! A gift to me!”
“I don’t remember. Are you sure?”
Kalkor had not raised his voice any more than necessary to let it be heard over the wind, and his calm, steady smile did not vary by a twinkle, except when rain or spray blew in his face. Darad likely had little more intelligence than a starving dog and no compunctions at all about anyone else’s life or death. Yet apparently his own fate still mattered to him, for he flinched before Kalkor’s unspoken threat.
“Well . . . I thought so, sir. Must’ve misunderstood you.”
“You do that quite often, Wolf. Don’t you?”
Incredibly, the ogre cringed even further. “No, sir I mean, aye, sir . . . I mean I’ll not do it anymore, sir.”
“I certainly wouldn’t advise it.”
Darad hesitated, lips moving, and then growled, “But you remember this, Thane: He’s a liar! He’ll lie to you.”
“I don’t think so.”
The giant hesitated, puzzled, knowing he had been dismissed and yet unwilling to go away and leave Rap babbling of sorcerers and Sagorn and Thinal and Andor and Jalon. Had he really expected Kalkor to kidnap Rap for him from a jotunn settlement, and then never want to know why?
“He’s mad, too. Imagines things.”
“Darad,” Kalkor said in the same conversational tone as before, ”it is my custom to present gifts to my guests when they depart. Would you care to choose something now? Something heavy?”
The monster took a moment to work that out, and then his eyes turned toward the ranks of green hills marching at the ship. “North for Pandemia,” Kalkor said, “but I can’t give you any clearer directions, because I don’t know.”
Darad turned and rushed off downhill, along the gangway. The blue fires came back to look at Rap. The quiet smile almost seemed to want to share amusement; but that would be a dangerous assumption to make.
“I see I have more questions to ask than I thought I had. His stupidity is disgusting. Now . . . Have you ever seen one of these?”
The thane reached behind him and produced a gruesome artifact that Rap had not noticed tucked in there. The handle was a wooden cylinder, short and polished, possibly even smoothed by long use. Attached to one end were many fine chains, each about as long as a man’s arm. They looked as if they might have been dipped in black mud, and dark pellets still clung to the tiny links.
Rap could only shake his head. His voice had failed him. He licked salt from his lips.
“This one’s of dwarvish make, I think, but the imps use them in their jails. They use them on their troops, too. Now I find that absurd! If a man doesn’t measure up, kill him and find another—why mess around? Yes, this is an impish punishment. Jotnar don’t use such barbarities.” The gull-wing eyebrows rose inquiringly.
“No, sir.”
Kalkor beamed. “Wrong! Aye, sir! Sometimes wanton cruelty is useful. One has a reputation to maintain, after all. It’s messy, though, and best done ashore. Find a suitable tree, tie the subject up by his wrists . . . The men take turns. The one who kills him wins. I have yet to see a man survive more than twenty-two lashes, but he was a quite elderly bishop who didn’t want to part with a minor treasure he had hidden away, so you might do better. Five strokes would ruin a man for life, I think—applied with enthusiasm, the chains will cut to the bone, you do understand?”
“Aye, sir.”
“So, faun, I am going to ask some questions, and you are going to answer. I am very good at detecting lies, and every lie earns you one stroke with the cat-o’-nine-tails. Behave yourself and I won’t hurt you. I may kill you, but it will be quick. Now, are we clear on the rules?”
“Aye, sir. Sir . . . may I have a drink of water?”
“No. First question: Who is king of Krasnegar?”
“There isn’t one. Holindarn is dead.”
Kalkor nodded, as if pleased—as if Rap was confirming Darad’s news. Kalkor had not known, so obviously Foronod’s letter had never reached him.
Had the factor guessed what he was inviting into Krasnegar? Or had he seen Kalkor as inevitable and just wanted to get on his good side as soon as possible? All Kalkor’s sides were bad. Rap’s feet were starting to throb worse than his hands.