The Raven: Prince of Iron and Blood.

Numeris Vienuoliktas

MIDNIGHT MOUNTAINS

His lungs rattled in his thin chest, bringing up a fresh wave of blood that coated his stomach walls. He hacked up the mouthful of blood let it pool out of his mouth and slid to the frozen gold of his torture cell. He knew it would turn to solid blood within minutes.

A sheen of ice had already coated his arms and naked chest from the length of time he had remained here. Was it hell that had let the ice surrounding him not freeze him alive while his torturers brutally ripped into him at bouts? His lips had returned to their colour of blue and his body was shivering with fever and the cold that soaked him to his bones. Dripping sweat from his head had turned to icicles on the stones and his fingers—where he could groggily see his bones sticking through the fragile skin—snapped each one and popped them into his mouth, hoping it would kill him before his torturers split his body in twain to finish him.

Rattling chains and hinges shrieked in the silent air. The noise was pitched in his ears. He was thankful he had ears left... Boots slapped on the icy stones and hard hands yanked his arms roughly so that his weak head snapped back from the sudden force and a trial of blood covered his lip. He wished that his neck had snapped and he would be dead already.

"UP!" barked their voices and they proceeded to drag his body over the stones towards the door. Someone cracked his fist over his head, sending the black waves of pain through his half-frozen brain. His weak legs refused to steady his own body. Another crack over the head. Another swing, another blow, and the blood began to flow.

Their fists were brutal and were smeared with his blood. Knuckles smashed up his eye, blinding him with a mist of crimson and instant swelling. Blood and sweat mixed into his filthy ebony hair tangled in messes over his scarred back. They had once hoisted him by his arms by chains and with a cat of nine tails, whipped him until he was delirious from the pain and could barely speak. That bout had not killed him. It had only been one hundred lashes. He prayed they used the whip today. This time, it would kill him and his life would end.

The tips of his broken wings scraped against the sharp edges of the stone steps where the chamber awaited. Its smell of blood and fear was overpowering in his nostrils, making him choke. His throat was dry and gasping for air and the air in the torture chamber was pungent. Dried clots of blood rattled in his lungs as he tried to force the last dregs of the cold hair from the cells behind him before this stinking, stale, sweet air of a tortured prisoner overwhelmed him.

Lining the walls were whole stones and cement, used to muffle the screams of interrogation. Iron beams crossed over to hold up the roof. Some beams were long hooks and shackles, one for whipping, another for flaying. A long bench with arm straps. He had faint whispers to his mind where they had strapped him down and broken every one of his fingers. They could not break them again. In the centre of the stone room only ablaze with candles in silver candlesticks, was a sturdy iron chair. They were not leading him to the chains or the gleaming hooks. Not the bench.

No...My god...No!

The chair.

Through a bulging, bloody eye, he could see its grim welcome. "No...My god...No!" He began screaming, struggling for his life. "Please! Please!"

His torturers were not going to kill. They were going to make it last for an eternity of hell.

A thundering uppercut to his swollen face knocked out his lights and his body sagged while the four men roughly threw him to the chair. The same leather, blood-crusted straps locked around his wrists. His head lolled over the back of the iron chair as another strap circled his pale neck and began tightening until he could hardly breathe.

"Now" the same distorted voices of his torturers swum around his head. Over the days, weeks, even years, their names had faded in his mind. He remembered nothing...Only pain. Blood. The crack of bones. And broken flesh.

Blinding light glared in his shadow-rimmed eyes. He creaked one open. Three men stood over him, his tunics removed and their silk sleeves rolled back over her tawny, muscled arms. One was standing behind him, and his grimy hands grabbed at his hair, yanking it back, forcing him still. There was enough force in his hand to rip out his hair, and the young Raven grimaced, swallowing back the fear.

A silver tray was displayed before him. On the silk was a collection of cruel-bladed knives. Without a stain of blood. In his previous dreams he had seen visions of knives, each one for different uses and sections. This was the fourth use. There was only one area untouched. His blood went screaming.

Each man would have a turn with a knife of their choice, he knew, until they were satisfied, which was never-ending. Eagerly, the first man, one with prickly hairs tickling his nose and pig-black eyes gleaming with the pleasure of pain. He picked up the first knife and held it up to the blazing candlelight. It was curved like a smile, and serrated. He pressed its flat edge next to the young man's cold face, right next to the corner of his mouth, his eyes. He smiled. The knife flashed through the air and only pain existed next. Pain and blood.

"Kael?"

Black eyes like the pit of the fires gazed into the glass. They stared, transfixed, searching over the area of their face... something hidden in the skin. Deep under the skin. Beyond reach.

He remembered everything. Every ounce that was inflicted on him poured into his brain like a dam of water. The horrors, the sheer fear and terror as he'd screamed as the onslaught cut into him. So much....blood...so much. Any man would have been dead from the loss, yet his damned body clung for life, when he wished the blades to kill him.

"Kael!"

He jerked, his head up, the memory evaporating like a wisp of smoke. The memory would come and leave like smoke. His long fingers gently, almost like a brush, skimmed over his face. His wounds would not fade. Not ever.

They were still fresh in his memory. Even a century would not erase the markings. The pain was there every day, fresh, raw, and livid red. There was even a weeping of blood that trickled from the corner of his left eye like a teardrop where the worst of injuries he'd sustained. It was constant, a reminder that it was still there of the memory disappeared.

"KAEL!!"

Earthenware vessels slipped and split on the stone. The dam opened.