Reaper's Gale

Tanal bowed then led the way out into the corridor, to the broad stairs where they descended to the main floor, then strode through the double doors and out into the compound.



The row of prisoners had been positioned in full sunlight, near the west wall of the enclosure. They had been taken from their cells a bell before dawn and it was now shortly past midday. Lack of water and food, and this morning’s searing heat, combined with brutal sessions of questioning over the past week, had resulted in more than half of the eighteen detainees losing consciousness.



Tanal saw the Invigilator’s frown upon seeing the motionless bodies collapsed in their chains.



The Tiste Edur liaison, Bruthen Trana of the Den-Ratha tribe, was standing in the shade, more or less across from the prisoners, and the tall, silent figure slowly turned as Tanal and Karos approached.



‘Bruthen Trana, most welcome,’ said Karos Invictad. ‘You are well?’



‘Let us proceed, Invigilator,’ the grey-skinned warrior said.



‘At once. If you will accompany me, we can survey each prisoner assembled here. The specific cases-’



‘I have no interest in approaching them any closer than I am now,’ Bruthen said. ‘They are fouled in their own wastes and there is scant breeze in this enclosure.’



Karos smiled. ‘I understand, Bruthen.’ He leaned his sceptre against a shoulder then faced the row of detainees. ‘We need not approach, as you say. I will begin with the one to the far left, then-’



‘Unconscious or dead?’



‘Well, at this distance, who can say?’



Noting the Edur’s scowl, Tanal bowed to Bruthen and Karos and walked the fifteen paces to the line. He crouched to examine the prone figure, then straightened. ‘He lives.’



‘Then awaken him!’ Karos commanded. His voice, when raised, became shrill, enough to make a foolish listener wince-foolish, that is, if the Invigilator was witness to that instinctive reaction. Such careless errors happened but once.



Tanal kicked at the prisoner until the man managed a dry, rasping sob. ‘On your feet, traitor,’ Tanal said in a quiet tone. ‘The Invigilator demands it. Stand, or I will begin breaking bones in that pathetic sack you call a body.’



He watched as the prisoner struggled upright.



‘Water, please-’



‘Not another word from you. Straighten up, face your crimes. You are Letherii, aren’t you? Show our Edur guest the meaning of that.’



Tanal then made his way back to Karos and Bruthen.



The Invigilator had begun speaking. ‘… known associations with dissenting elements in the Physicians’ College-he has admitted as much. Although no specific crimes can be laid at this man’s feet, it is clear that-’



‘The next one,’ Bruthen Trana cut in.



Karos closed his mouth, then smiled without showing his ‘ teeth. ‘Of course. The next is a poet, who wrote and distributed a call for revolution. He denies nothing and indeed, you can see his stoic defiance even from here.’



‘And the one beside him?’



‘The proprietor of an inn, the tavern of which was frequented by undesirable elements-disenchanted soldiers, in fact-and two of them are among these detainees. We were informed of the sedition by an honourable whore-’



‘Honourable whore, Invigilator?’ The Edur half smiled.



Karos blinked. ‘Why, yes, Bruthen Trana.’



‘Because she informed on an innkeeper.’



‘An innkeeper engaged in treason-’



‘Demanding too high a cut of her earnings, more likely. Go on, and please, keep your descriptions of the crimes brief.’



‘Of course,’ Karos Invictad said, the sceptre gently tapping on his soft shoulder, like a baton measuring a slow march.



Tanal, standing at his commander’s side, remained at attention whilst the Invigilator resumed his report of the specific transgressions of these Letherii. The eighteen prisoners were fair representations of the more than three hundred chained in cells below ground. A decent number of arrests for this week, Tanal reflected. And for the most egregious traitors among them waited the Drownings. Of the three hundred and twenty or so, a third were destined to walk the canal bottom, burdened beneath crushing I weights. Bookmakers were complaining these days, since no-one ever survived the ordeal any more. Of course, they did not complain too loudly, since the true agitators among them risked their own Drowning-it had taken but a few of those early on to mute the protestations among the rest.



This was a detail Tanal had come to appreciate, one of Karos Invictad’s perfect laws of compulsion and control, emphasized again and again in the vast treatise the Invigilator was penning on the subject most dear to his heart. Take any segment of population, impose strict;yet clear definitions on their particular characteristics, then target them for compliance. Bribe the weak to expose the strong. Kill the strong, and the rest are yours. Move on to the next segment.