The Dwarven Sorcerer

The Dwarven Sorcerer Ch 19

Kargan looked at his gaunt reflection in the polished silver mirror. His eyes were sunken into black pits and there were bags hanging heavily under them. He was paler than normal and his cheeks were dark and sunken. He couldn't hold his own gaze for too long and looked away. His hands were cut and bruised; the skin was pulled back from the knuckles exposing red meat underneath. He washed his hands in a basin filled with ice-cold water, it made his wounds sting. The pain was good, it was like an atonement of some kind. There was more cleansing in the pain than in the water. The water turned pink as it was tainted by the blood.

He slashed the icy water on his face and blew his nose in it and then spat into the basin, before passing it to a servant.

Alright, time to get your bloody shit together.

Kargan moved into the next room, his huge body filling the door, blocking out the light.

Some faceless dwarf was tied to the witch's chair waiting to confess his crimes. He had been manacled to the chair for hours, the steel jabbing his flesh through the thin woollen jerkin. Anti-magic runes hung from chains around his neck. Kargan had chosen a different approach for this wizard, sensing that violence wouldn't do much good.

The huge dwarf sat in a chair across from the prisoner, a single table separating them.

"How long have you been practising magic," he said, his deep voice reverberating off of the stone walls.

The prisoner said nothing, only scowled at the inquisitor. It stank in the small room; the dwarf had pissed himself several times in the last several hours since he's been here.

"How long have you been practising magic." Kargan wasn't going to be satisfied with a confession this time, he wanted proof of the magic. A confession would have been good enough for the inquisition, but Kargan wanted more, needed more this time. But why? He trusted in the inquisition and he trusted that they didn't make mistakes. Didn't he?

"How long have you been practising magic?"

The prisoner didn't answer. Kargan could beat a confession from him, he's done it in the past, it was easy enough.

"How long have you been practising magic?"

That wasn't enough his time. He wanted proof.

Sweat poured off of the prisoner, it was hot in the room, deliberately so. Steam pipes ran through the walls keeping the temperature at an uncomfortable level. The dwarf stank of fear; the room was thick with his stench.

"I don't want a confession," said Kargan. He slowly stood and moved deliberately to the other side of the table, leaning his weight on it. He was going to get proof. He was going to get satisfaction.

"I, I," stammered the dwarf, his eyes wide with fear.

Kargan removed one of the anti-magic runes from the prisoner and placed it gently on the table.

He was going to break this dwarf.

"I know about you," he said, his voice soft. "A mushroom picker, not much money in it." He removed a second rune and placed it next to the first one. "Haven't seen much fighting other than in the militia, and even then you didn't show much of an aptitude for it but still somehow survived while many of your comrades didn't. Maybe you just got lucky." Kargan removed the last rune. "You survived the explosion at the battle of the hag."

The dwarf looked at his interrogator again. He had no idea where he was going with it, but he didn't bloody well like it. The prisoner shifted his weight, the spikes digging into new flesh. Painful red divots dotted his skin.