Chapter 30 #3
“We shalt spare her the fingers and turn straight to the thumbs. The heathen requires a firmer touch this day.” Sliding metal from suede, the acolyte presented the Thumb of God to Falstaff with a flourish.
The druid lifted the tool, turning it slowly as he inspected its edge.
I entertained myself with the memory of Ashara spitting on his veil, of the glob of it wetting the chain.
He held it to the light.
The Blood God’s Thumb was no mere appendage, but a rod of steel, the thickest of the set.
Though not as wide as an actual thumb, it was a nasty fucking thing.
All His fingers were—each as long as a forearm and speared at the ends, sharpened for the primary purpose of piercing flesh and puncturing bone.
They entered with unsettling ease, His touch brutal but merciful in its efficiency.
It was the leaving that hurt. Gods, it hurt.
Tiny barbs lined the metal’s edge, angled down, ensuring that one remembered His loving touch long after His finger withdrew.
I winced despite myself, hoping Esioul didn’t notice and my face remained lost to the shadows. By now, we all knew what it felt like to be at the mercy of the Blood God’s hands, though the acolytes rarely used the thumbs.
“I deem, heathen, the acolytes have put the same questions to thee as I. Yet I am told thou refusest to speak unto them in our Lord’s most gracious tongue. I have come to purge ye of the bile and venom and to make thy speech as pure as honey and milk.”
“Odi te. Odi te. Odi te.” Esioul’s dark eyes widened, fixed on the patchwork of light above. Wherever or whatever she was losing herself to, I prayed to the Other she’d stay there. Anywhere but here.
Falstaff’s gloved, bony fingers grasped the thumb tighter, his knuckles as pronounced as its barbs. He rounded the slab, aligning himself with her middle.
“How dost thou know Ashara Laurel, the seamstress of Dendra?” She’d been asked this before. Countless times. Her answer was always the same. Always the truth.
Silence.
Falstaff’s free hand reached for her palm, turning it over to rest face up on her lower stomach. Esioul remained pliable, allowing him to manipulate her however he wished, eyes still intent on the light.
“I’ll ask ye once more, heathen. Let it not be said that the Dendralis knoweth not patience.” He twiddled the thumb, stroking it in an upward motion with slow fingertips.
“How dost thou know Ashara Laurel, the seamstress of Dendra?” Her name on this tongue was profane, and I longed to rip it from him. Instead, I had to make do with biting my own.
“Odi te.” Her letters barely carried over the expanse of the cell, just a whisper.
His hand shot to her face, fingers pitting her cheeks with trembling force. “Speak not another cursed vowel of that damnable tongue, or I shall bid an acolyte carve it from thy mouth and have it boiled in blessed water.”
I thought of Ashara’s mouth—full and defiant, and ever chastising. Unlike Esioul, I hoped she kept it shut so they would spare her the Hand. I knew she was clever. I knew she was wise. I also knew that sometimes she couldn’t help that damnable tongue.
Hold on just a little longer, darling. I’ll find you.
Retracting his claws, Falstaff plunged the thumb into her palm.
It slid in easily, like a knife through churned butter.
Blood bubbled in its wake, sputtering around the base of its sides.
Esioul grunted, her body arching against the binds as it pierced through cartilage and bone to pass through her hand and into the soft flesh of her stomach.
He released the thumb, her hand now pinned to her navel.
I blew out a breath, warring with the urge to say something stupid, something imbelic, something that might exchange my body for hers. Though, if he meant to kill her I’d be no good to Ashara a corpse.
His helm tracked the expanse of her body, the movement stiff, no doubt deciding which part of her to carve into next. Wrapping his fingers around the small curve of her hip, he prodded and poked at what little flesh was there, hunting for the optimal spot.
“Art thou and the grey laurel bound in any plot or scheme wrought against the Dendralis?”
Silence.
All the laurels were innocent, but they’d continue to ask. Again and again, until we were most likely dead, bled out on the floor.
This time, he didn’t afford her the grace of repeating himself.
I had a strong stomach, but the acidic sting of bile was already thick on my tongue.
He’d made his selection, albeit a predictable one.
It was the acolytes’ favourite, too. They avoided major organs with a healer’s precision—the bastards wanting to keep us alive, for now.
Pain, though…pain was the bounty of love.
We all watched, even Roderiq, his eyes usually clamped shut by now, as the metal thumb drove into her side, the length of it shuddering as it scraped against bone.
Lips pressed into a downturned line, she fought with a scream, her brow furrowed and face reddening as the rod rammed deeper and deeper inside her.
The silence was thick, my breaths shallow and fast.
That was the last of the thumbs; mercifully, he’d have to use a thinner one next. She’d bleed out on the slab if he retracted the others without a sister to patch up her wounds. The smaller ones could be just as malicious, especially when honed on a nerve or joint, but recovery was easier.
He selected another.
“Final chance, heathen, ere I do that which the Blood God hath inspired within me. He watcheth now and hopeth thou wilt yield Him the truth.”
Beneath the mesh, his mouth must have been wet, for I heard the soft smack of lips as he swallowed.
“If not, His adoration is most potent this day.”
Ambling back to stand between the bare soles of her feet, he cradled a toe between two fingers, lifting her foot from the stone as if to examine the extent of the dirt caked to her skin—we were washed weekly, but filth was tenacious and the grime built up quickly.
He let it drop, her heel smacking the slab.
“Let me show thee, heathen, the measure of love bestowed by our Lord.”
With the lightest of pressure, he dragged the Blood God’s finger up over her foot, tracing its arch, upwards to her ankle, trailing over the bone in her calf.
Say something. Find Ashara. Do something. Find Ashara.
With his other hand, he hoisted her skirts, revealing two knobbly knees that shook.
Blood God damn me, I almost looked away at the sight of it.
We shouldn’t be here. It was too vulnerable.
Too sick. Wherever the finger’s point kissed, her skin puckered and my own did the same, as if I too could feel the ministrations of its phantom spike.
Do. Something.
With a heady dose of self-loathing, I sealed my lips shut, giving Esioul the only thing I could, small as it was: my witness.
Up and up it went until it paused at the mound of her sex.
He lingered there, hovering over her, chainmail practically vibrating as he watched her squirm.
I cast my gaze to the floor. Fuck. Fuck.
Chain rattling, I gave my bound hands a small, useless shake.
Maxius stared at me with wide, rounded eyes from the opposite beam and thrashed, trying in vain to wiggle himself free.
Roderiq was crying, tears streaming down his face in silent rivers.
Even Iagor’s gummy mouth lay agape, his face slackened in either disbelief or horror.
We braced.
But Falstaff moved on, and with a stiff hand he trailed it across her skewered hip and the hand pinned to her stomach.
The finger’s tip brushed the peaks of her breasts before outlining the dip of her throat, rolling with the wave of her swallow.
Dragging it over her lips, she closed them tighter, her breath huffing from her nose.
Rested in the inner tear duct of her eye, he paused, leering closer towards her.
“What profane, heathen fellowship art thou and the grey laurel a part of, that ye would dare scheme against the Blood God?”
Silence.
A long, breathy sigh seeped from under his helm.
Before the fountain of blood, we heard it: the wet squelch of an eye needled with steel. A whimper, and a low whine from her chest, then a pop. As it ruptured, she screamed, the sound a penance all on its own.
He twisted and pulled, and with a rip, tore her eye from her head, the orb speared on the peak of the rod.
He swivelled her iris, black and round under the webbing of blood, to face him, rotating the spike.
Like a tadpole, the severed nerve lay limp at its bottom, the serrated edges of his Blood God’s hand enough of a purchase to have wrenched it free from her skull.
I vomited my breakfast, showering my already soiled shirt in curdled milk.
Her scream whittled to silence, pale limbs drooping like a wilted flower as her jaw hung open and loose.
I spat a bitter mouthful aside and turned to examine her chest. It rose.
I sent thanks to the Blood God and the Other, whoever it was that might grant such small mercy, for at last, at long fucking last, she had fainted.
“Pity, such lovely dark eyes.” Falstaff turned the rod this way and that, as if appraising a jewel.
Under my breath, with a hardened C, I repeated the same word over and over, almost hoping that he’d hear it, even if it lost me my tongue. “Cunt. Cunt. Cunt.”
Unaware, his fingers plucked it from the metal, the juices running onto his gloves.
For a dreadful moment, I feared he might toss it into his mouth, to suckle on it, like a sugared grape.
Instead, he pocketed it, her eye disappearing into the folds of his long black robes. Stomach purged, I simply gagged.
“I am told women value their countenance above all else. Hath this any truth, acolyte?” His silkened finger traced the hole in her head, skimming its bloodied edges.