It was so trite. I mean—really! You’d think the Place Worse Than Hell would have more of an imagination. I’d been hoping that Benvenuti was being subjected to some kind of spiritual torment, don’t you know? The sort of ethereal agony that Greyboar and Hrundig and I could have spent hours standing around scratching our heads wondering what bruisers like them and a sensible sinner like me could possibly do about it. While we enjoyed a quiet lunch and maybe a flask of whiskey.
Nope. Instead—
Benvenuti was stripped naked except for a loincloth, suspended upside down from the ceiling by a rope tied around his ankles, his head not more than five feet above a huge iron kettle full of boiling oil set over a bronze brazier. The rope ran through some kind of pulley arrangement and was tied off on a post set in the stone floor of the cavern maybe ten feet from the kettle. Ready at an instant, obviously enough, to lower him to his doom. Which, judging from the various flaying instruments sitting upon a giant tray next to the kettle, was intended to be protracted.
Apparently—judging from the rope marks still on his flesh—his arms had also been bound up. But somehow he’d gotten loose from those ropes and had even managed to shed the manacles on his wrists. One of them, anyway—the set of manacles was still dangling from his left wrist.
At first, I thought the Cat might have cut them loose with her lajatang. But then, seeing the freewheeling style with which she was wielding the thing against her enemies, I realized that couldn’t have been it. As sloppy as ever, in a fight, the Cat would have hacked Benny himself to pieces.
No, I found out later that Benny had done it himself, as soon as he saw the Cat waft into the cavern. Turns out one of the many things his multitude of uncles had trained him in was the secrets of what they call “escapology.” He’d been saving it up as a last resort while he held off Even Worse Hands with the secret lore of suspended insults and shackled derision in which his uncles had also trained him. He’d managed to stall the Even Worse Hands for days that way. Got them so infuriated they held off from flaying him alive until they could rummage up the kettle and enough oil for boiling.
(Benny was an orphan, you see, and had been raised by his artist and condottieri uncles. And if you’re wondering why I hope I never meet those uncles, figure it out for yourself. The nephew is plenty bad enough, getting-you-into-scrapes-wise. Why would his uncles know all that stuff if they didn’t need it? Huh?)
Greyboar, of course, was rushing off to the Cat’s rescue. As slippery as she was, Even Worse Hands had her pretty much cornered against a wall of the cavern. She was flailing the lajatang around like you couldn’t believe—way better than she’d ever used a sword. Hrundig, I now realized, was every bit as good a weapons trainer as his reputation. But while her enemies bore the marks of several slashes, they could obviously shrug off the injuries easily enough.
Knuckle them off, I should say.
I suppose this is as good a time as any to describe Even Worse Hands. Picture two gigantic hands, each one about the size of a bull. Great, gnarled, ugly things, with calluses all over them and the worst manicure you ever saw. Fingers more like talons than fingers, and fingernails so long and scraggly they were almost claws.
Okay? Got the picture?
These were Even Worse.
They were prancing around on their fingertips, like giant tarantulas. (Oh, yeah. Of course they were hairy.) Lunging back and forth, working together like—well, like a pair of hands—one of them trying to feint the Cat out of position while the other one got itself around her. After that . . . it’d be all over. As huge and powerful as Even Worse Hands were, either one of them could have crushed the Cat in seconds.
Greyboar flew through the air and landed on the right Hand. A moment later he had the thumb in a half nelson and was giving it the old hip roll. The hand went skittering across the cavern. Greyboar followed, like a hound after his hare.
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