"Karl Edward Wagner - Kane 01 - Darkness Weaves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wagner Karl Edward)

while Efrel watched, the six lords who had sworn allegiance to Leyan were led out and bound to frames
erected during the night. After attention had been given to their tongues with red-hot pincers and to their
limbs with iron rods, their families and servants were brought out. Slowly, without breaking the neck--so
to prolong the agony--every man, woman, and child of them was hanged before the lords' eyes. And
once they had witnessed the deaths of all their households, the conspirators were cunningly impaled and
hung like spitted steers over slow fires. A ghastly penalty, but such is the punishment just laws demand
for conspiracy against our lawful government.

Throughout the long afternoon--for it was near dusk when the last lord had died--Efrel had been forced
to watch the gruesome spectacle--her torture made worse because she was still treated with every show
of respect. What must have passed through her mind only the gods know. She knew Maril to be without
pity--a man overruled by his volcanic emotions. She knew that mercy was not to be hoped for. But
perhaps mingled with dread anticipation there was a scrap of hope that Maril might deal mercifully with
one whom he once had loved. Foolish hope, if hope there was.

When the last gruesome carcass had ceased to writhe, and the crowd shuffled with boredom, awaiting a
finale worthy of their long attention, Maril turned to Efrel.

"For you, Efrel--deceptive whore with serpent's kisses--I have devised a less common death. One that
suits your animal lusts and noble blood. I've found a consort equal to your gentle character and pristine
morals." As she shrank in fear from the rage that twisted his face and choked his voice, Maril signed to
his guard.

Then several strong slaves came into the square. They led a fiercely heaving wild bull. To restrain the
animal called for all their sweaty effort, for it was driven mad with pain and drugs. More so were those
who held Efrel compelled to exert all their strength--for the girl had become frenzied at the sight of her
fate.

They carried the struggling girl, beautiful despite her terror in all her exquisite finery, into the square.
There they cuffed her wrists to two long silver chains that were fastened to a collar about the bull's neck.
A section of the crowd was moved aside, and the bull and the Empress were led into a narrow street
leading through the city and beyond the gates.

As she saw the hopelessness of her plight, Efrel's terror gave way to venomous fury. She cursed
Netisten Maril and vowed vengeance in a manner that chilled the souls of those already sated with
torture. She swore by strange gods that she would return to bring red flames and utter ruin to all
Thovnos, to wrest from Maril his throne and all that was his. Maril only laughed at her and signaled the
slaves to release the bull.
 With a last shriek of inhuman hatred, Efrel was jerked from her feet and dragged across the paving as
the maddened bull plunged away. The enraged beast plummeted down the winding, cobbled streets as it
sought to find the freedom of its native meadows--pounding headlong past walls and buildings and
taunting creatures, past tenements and hovels and paving that gave way to dirt. It never gave a thought to
the slight burden that bounced and smacked behind its hooves--a mewing, broken thing that left a trail of
blood and scraped flesh upon the rough pavement over which it passed.

"The whore leaves us with her new consort!" roared Maril. "There'll be little of the bride left for the
groom by the time he carries her past our walls--but I wish him better luck with it! Let her serpent's
carcass lie unburied wherever it chances to fall--and let no man again speak her name to me!" With that
Netisten Maril contrived to dismiss the matter from his thoughts.