The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [198]
“Oh, buggering lords, no,” Cazio said, redoubling his efforts at the ropes. He watched helplessly as a girl who could be no more than five had her arms stretched above her and nailed there.
“No!” he screamed. “By all that’s holy, what do you think you’re doing?”
“They’re waking the sedos,” Artoré whispered. “Waking the Worm.” He looked frightened, which he hadn’t before.
“How can . . .” Cazio stumbled off, overcome by the horror of it.
“How can men do things like this?” he finally managed.
“I don’t think we’ve seen the worst,” Artoré predicted. “And I think I’d best bid you farewell now.”
Cazio saw someone coming in their direction. He lunged at the robe-clad monk, but the rope went taut around his neck and jerked him back.
“Stop it!” he screamed as the man cut Artoré’s leash. Artoré was faster than he looked. He head-butted the monk in the face. The man jerked back, and then moved with blinding speed, striking Artoré in the pit of his stomach. The man gagged and fell to his knees, and the monk took him in an armlock and conveyed him to the post.
“Z’Acatto?” Cazio said feeling his breath coming suddenly short.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“What for?”
“For desserata. For everything.”
The old man didn’t say anything for a moment. “You’re welcome, boy,” he finally answered. “I could have spent my life worse. I’m glad to be here with you.”
A monk was coming for z’Acatto. Euric was coming for Cazio.
“Don’t get too sentimental,” Cazio said. “I’m still going to get us out of this, and then you’ll feel silly.”
The men were almost on them. Cazio tried to relax, so he could move quickly. He would have just an instant when the rope was slack, and he would have to use that instant well.
Euric smiled and punched him in the jaw. Cazio felt his teeth snap together, and suddenly he was choking. Just as quickly, the pressure released, and he stumbled forward, dragged by the knight who had him from behind in a wrestling hold.
“Can’t kill you yet,” Euric said. “You’re one of the guests of honor. I thought I would have to play your part, and I was ready, too, but then we found you.”
“What are you babbling about, you filthy sod?” Cazio snarled.
“Swordsman, Priest, and Crown,” the knight said, unhelpfully. “And one who cannot die. We’ve got a priest, and a royal, though she doesn’t know it yet, I’m afraid—and now we’ve got our swordsman. As for the undying—well, you’ve already met Hrothwulf.”
“Is any of that supposed to make sense?” Cazio asked, as Euric hustled him up the mound and stood him up on a block beneath the gallows tree, then set the noose around his neck. Another man brought Caspator and stuck the blade point-first into the ground in front of him. Cazio gazed greedily at the weapon, so close and so unreachable.
Now he had a good view of all the victims nailed to the posts. He could see their faces in the firelight. Z’Acatto already hung with them, blood drizzling from his crossed palms, not more than six perechi away.
Artoré was there, too—and he’d been right. It was getting worse. Going widdershins—one by one—the monks were carefully cutting their victims open and pulling out their intestines. They stretched these to the next post and nailed them into the arms of the next victim, then cut his belly, too. As this happened, a sacritor on the mound began chanting in a language Cazio had never heard before.
Meanwhile, a new party entered the clearing, a richly dressed man and woman. The man was tall and austere, with graying mustache and beard. The woman looked younger, but it was hard to make out her features from this distance, partly because she was bound and gagged.
“There’s our royal,” a voice said, just near Cazio’s ear. He turned and saw one of the monks step onto the block beside him and calmly place the noose on his own neck.
“I honestly never knew,” Cazio distantly heard himself say. “Never. I have seen cruelty, and malice, murder, and casual mayhem. But I never in my worst dreams ever imagined such sick depravity as this.