Neversfall - Ed Gentry [104]
Adeenya was the last to leave, her long legs easily catching her up to the bulk of the pack and quickly to the fore. The soldiers ran for several breaths until even their conditioned and honed bodies ached, and the undernourished prisoners begged for a halt. Slowing their pace, Adeenya steered them toward the Aerilpar against the objections of several of the soldiers. She insisted they would need the cover and secrecy the forest could provide. Those who were still not convinced did not argue further as arrows from the chasing enemy began to fall.
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The formian who had carried the wounded soldier moved out of the darkness toward the sitting Chondathan man. The mercenary gaped at the creature, his eyes wide.
"What in all the hells?" the man said, pushing himself away.
A storm destroys a home not because it chooses to, but because it simply exists. The large formian gave much the same impression as he lifted the Chondathan man into the air with strange, double-clawed hands and began to apply pressure.
The formian squeezed the Chondathans shoulders with force great enough to elicit a scream from the man. Guk's antennae flicked, but he did not speak. Taennen had learned that the smaller formians did nothing without Guk's permission, if not instruction, so he knew Guk was somehow commanding his underling.
The formian dropped the Chondathan, who crumpled on the ground. Blood trickled out from under the man's arms as he lay on the grass with tears welling in his eyes. The Chondathan grew pale and weak. Sitting there in the dirt, he looked like a little boy roughed up by street urchins looking for coin, trying to stifle the tears and not be thought a coward.
The mercenary tried to stand in defiance only to be knocked down when the formian skittered forward and swept his feet out from under him. Guk's slim appendages jerked wildly again, and his cohort bent to grab the Chondathan once more.
"Stop," Taennen said.
"You will ask questions now," Guk said.
"Yes," Taennen replied.
Guk's underling grasped the Chondathan and began to lift him.
"Stop, I said!" Taennen shouted and moved to wrest the man from the creature's grip.
The formian dropped the Chondathan and stepped back, once again concealing itself in the shadows.
"He will answer to stop the pain," Guk said.
"Yes, he will. But that does not make it right," Taennen replied.
"He stands against order," Guk said, as though the words were explanation and justification enough.
"It doesn't matter. Besides, if you torture him enough, he'll tell you he's a troll and can grant your greatest wish,"
Taennen said, kneeling next to the Chondathan.
"He defies order. If he does not serve the purpose of answering your questions, we will end his life. We have suffered him to live this long only because we thought he might help you. He does not respect order and should die," Guk said. The unsettling timbre in Guk's voice settled into a rhythm that Taennen found even more alien than usual.
"No," Taennen said, standing and turning to face the larger creature. He stepped closer to Guk, moving out of Lucha's light filtering down through the tree tops. Though dark, they could see one another, and their gazes locked, neither of them flinching nor blinking. Taennen held his ground, hand on his weapon.
"I can't let you murder him," Taennen whispered. "Maybe we can trick him somehow."
"Lie," Guk said. Formian voices did not lilt when inquisitive and so Taennen did not respond for the span of several heartbeats, finally identifying the words as a question.
"Yes. Fool him into telling us how many more of them there are, whether there are any secret tunnels we can use, and anything else we need to know," Taennen said.
"We will not lie," Guk said as he moved toward the Chondathan, who gasped when he saw the largest formian. Guk stared hard at the man, his head twitching slightly.