On the other hand, the laughter suggested our current situation might just be down to the fourth purpose of a beating: to have some Gods-damned good fun. This made the most sense, but as all the other men were doing actual work – lifting cargo, helping the migrants with their things – I didn’t think it likely that they’d let a few of their fellows have all the fun.
That left only one reason for the violence, and having worked it out, I allowed myself a private little smile on the inside. They were softening us up, a time-honoured and entirely practical application of violence. The last thing you want when transporting prisoners is any chance that one might escape their bonds and get in a lucky shot that leaves you or your fellow guards wounded or dead, so a few judicious boots to various parts of the anatomy serves to lessen both their capacity and their enthusiasm for escape.
What’s good about figuring out what the beating’s for? It gives you control of the situation.
‘Aarrghhh,’ Brasti screamed, a couple of feet away from me. He began letting out little puffs of breath, then his head lolled to the side. I was a little disappointed that he’d figured it out at the same time I had. The scream was to let his captors know that he was now severely injured, and the panting and lolling was to make them believe he couldn’t take much more.
Princess grunted something at Brasti’s opponents and one of them replied with a string of Avarean I assumed to be a commentary on the weakness of Tristians in general and his in particular.
First Kest and then I followed Brasti’s lead, and before long the Avareans were standing over us, laughing to each other as they doubtless commented quite unfairly on our lack of fortitude. Then Rosie – of course it had to be Rosie – lifted his woollen kilt and pissed on me. I’d had just enough warning to roll over, sobbing in agony, so I got it on my back rather than in my face.
We got to lie there for some time getting our breath back while they fetched chains for us, and in the meantime, the villagers just walked right on by. Some looked sympathetic, some looked smug. But it was the girl, Tillia, whom I had carried up the cliff-face in the makeshift sling of my greatcoat, now cradled in the arms of an Avarean warrior, who looked down at me and said, ‘My daddy was killed by Trattari.’
It’s the blows you don’t see coming that do the most damage.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Shan Steel
‘I have a question,’ Brasti said, his words a trifle slurred. He’d had less practise in the whole ‘taking a beating’ thing than I had and was looking a little the worse for wear.
‘Ask it.’
‘We’re magistrates, right? I mean, we’re the ones whose job it is to consider complex legal issues and render verdicts.’
‘True.’
‘And sometimes that verdict involves sending people to gaol, yes? Sometimes even to dungeons?’
‘Also correct. Where are you going with this?’
He pushed himself upright until he was standing on the rough platform, trying to avoid leaning against the freezing iron bars. ‘So why the fuck are we always the ones who end up in a cage?’
The Avarean warriors had tossed us like sacks of grain into one of the eight-by-four-foot metal and wood cages I’d assumed they used to haul supplies up and down the sheer mountainside. Thick ropes ran from heavy iron rings welded on top of the box to the pulleys that creaked and whined as we clattered our way up into the air.
‘Nice view, though,’ Kest said.
Watching the ground get further and further away from us left me considerably less enthused. I tried very hard to stay in the middle of the cage – it made no sense, but somehow it made me feel better.
After a moment I realised Kest was right: looking through the bars at the slopes below as the first hints of sunrise began to illuminate the icy landscape was an experience both inspiring and humbling – at least until Brasti moved to the front of the cage to get a better view, setting the whole thing swinging wildly.
‘Stop it!’ I moved backwards, trying to balance the box as it inched up the mountainside. ‘Saint Zaghev-who-sings-for-tears, you’re going to make me lose my dinner!’
‘Still dead, and we didn’t have any dinner,’ Brasti reminded me. ‘Besides, I think I’m having fun now. Those hairy barbarians should turn this into some kind of amusement for children. They’d make a fortune.’
‘I think they intend to use it for other things,’ Kest said, ‘such as moving troops and equipment quickly and efficiently when they invade Tristia.’
Brasti grinned at us. ‘That’s the genius of my idea, don’t you see? They could make so much gold from paying customers that they wouldn’t need the war.’
In addition to the joys of our mode of transportation, we had been assigned a guard, a great burly man with braided dark brown hair and a long, reddish beard, also braided, who sat on top of the cage, apparently much less concerned with the prospect of falling than I was. Reyek or Rayicht (I wasn’t clear on either pronunciation or spelling) was taking great pleasure in talking to us – or rather, at us, since he’d clearly overestimated his ability to speak Tristian.
‘I speak you language,’ he shouted down to me, as he did every time he began a sentence. ‘I speak you language. We near top, see?’
As the cage clattered to a stop some hundred and fifty feet up, it occurred to me that dealing with spies by opening the cage and pushing us out would be highly efficient – but I suppose they could just as easily have made us climb the damned mountain and then pushed us off the side rather than have some poor bastard pull us all the way up. That made me feel better.
‘Well?’ Brasti asked, once six men had heaved the cage onto the flat area beside the winch. ‘Shouldn’t you let us out now? Or are we going back down?’
‘I speak you language. We take you now to the Magdan.’
‘Who’s the Magdan?’ I asked.
Reyek lifted his arms and shook them as if declaring victory. ‘Big fighter: fighter of all fighters.’
‘You mean one of your Warlords?’ Kest asked.
Reyek looked confused for a moment, then he grinned. ‘Magdan is Warlord. Only need one now.’
I found that hard to believe, but thought better of challenging Reyek’s obvious admiration of this new Warlord and instead asked, ‘Where will we find the Magdan?’
Our guard signalled to the men and only then did I see the large cart being pulled by two huge horses. I had to admire the ease with which the six men lifted our cage onto the back of the cart. Within moments we were rolling smoothly over the packed snow along a wide, well-made road.
‘Not far,’ Reyek said, pointing to a fort nearly hidden behind walls made from logs and ropes. ‘There you will see the Magdan. There he will see you. Then we will see.’
It was almost poetic in its odd foreign fashion.
*