Vanth tied his hands behind his back with the rope. His wrists were thick, tightly knotted with bulging tendons and almost as densely furred as his legs. It made tying the rope extremely difficult. Finally satisfied, Vanth straightened and moved to face her captive.
“I do not take you for a lunatic, as you seem somewhat cogent. So, what are you doing here?”
“I will not tell you that.”
Vanth regarded him for a moment before punching him in the jaw. Her hand flared in protest. She could already feel her knuckles swelling, the thin skin stretched across them split and raw. The satyr’s head snapped back and blood flew from his mouth in a wide arc. When he moved his gaze back to her, his lips were torn.
“What are you doing here?” she tried again.
The satyr simply stared. Vanth was about to hit him a third time when they were interrupted by a loud knocking on the door.
“Are you still sleeping, Vanth? Time to get up, you lazy dog.”
Vanth grimaced. Albin truly chose the most inopportune moments to appear.
“I’ll be ready shortly,” she shouted back.
Already she could hear the gentle buzz of morning about the citadel, the tread of boots on stone, and the low hum of voices as the Salt Swords made their way to breakfast.
“This is becoming a habit, Vanth,” Albin replied. “What are you doing in there?”
To her horror, the door started to open. Vanth leapt away from her captive to slam her shoulder against it, preventing Albin from entering.
“I have my month-blood,” she hissed. “Piss off.”
Albin turned and left without another word. Vanth waited until his footsteps retreated before turning back to the satyr. He had managed to lift himself onto his knees but was swaying on them, struggling to retain a grip on consciousness.
“This is no time to sleep.” She bent again over the chest against the wall and brought out a small blue bottle with a red cap. “The other Salt Swords are waking, we can’t stay here.”
Vanth removed the cap from the bottle and held it beneath the satyr’s nostrils, only removing the foul-smelling brew when his streaming eyes sprang open. Essence of bloodrot was a revolting concoction that brought a person to their senses quickly, making it useful on the battlefield. It also burned like flickering tongues of flesh melting flame. The satyr jerked his head away and tried to cry out but Vanth pressed a firm palm against his bloody mouth.
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“Suffer quietly, goat man, or I’ll raise my sisters and brothers and have you dragged before Lord Dewer himself.”
Even in the midst of his agony, Dewer’s name was enough to strike fear into the mighty heart of the satyr. He fell away from Vanth and convulsed silently on the floor. She watched him for a moment with grim curiosity. He was throwing his head around as if deranged, desperate to bring his bound hands up to his searing eyes and unable to do so.
Vanth risked opening her door to peer outside. The corridors were quiet for now, the Salt Swords occupied with eggs and porridge two floors below. She walked back to the quivering satyr and took a firm hold of the rope about his wrists, bracing herself and using her entire weight to heave him to his feet. For a moment, she thought he would be unable to comply but he eventually rose, unsteady on his injured leg.
“Now walk,” she instructed.
With one hand holding his bound wrists and the other wrapped around a fistful of his hair, Vanth pushed the satyr out of her room and into the corridor. They turned right, through a heavy wooden door and down a shorter corridor until they reached a long flight of narrow stairs.
“Down we go,” Vanth said, giving the satyr a small push.
The stairs were steep and poorly lit, thrusting down into the bowels of the Obsidian Citadel. The satyr nearly buckled and fell several times, his large hooves clumsy on the worn, lichen-spotted stone, but Vanth yanked him back by his hair, forcing him to steady himself. Eventually, the stairs ended, petering out into an expansive, cloying darkness that smelled like ashes.
“No,” the satyr managed, realising where they were. “No, not here.”
“You are the only one with the power to change your fate,” Vanth said, close to his ear. “It’s very simple. Tell me the truth, or waste away in this hole until the end of your wretched days.”
They walked through an archway into a dank, dripping place, the air stale and dense. The Pit of Thorns. The towering satyr began to quake. He made a move to turn on Vanth but she had already unsheathed one of her glittering daggers and laid it against the nape of his neck.
“Don’t be foolish, goat man. Behave yourself, or I’ll break what is left of your pretty face.”
She jostled the satyr into the nearest vacant cell and watched him stumble inside, groping in the dark and skidding across the bare cobbles of the floor. His torn leg was matted with blood. Vanth concentrated on not falling back against the wall herself, her own injured leg ablaze with bright pain.
The satyr finally fell to the floor in an ungainly heap of hair and muscle, letting out a short gasp. A hideous, screaming cackle emanated from somewhere beyond the cell, rebounding from the seeping, growth-covered walls of the corridor. The satyr lifted wide eyes towards it.
“You can’t leave me here.”
“What else am I supposed to do with you? I can’t leave you to stomp about the citadel whilst I attend to my duties, can I?”
The satyr lapsed into silence, hanging his head and letting his hair fall across his face in a way that made him appear childlike.
“I must join the Salt Swords before I arouse suspicion,” Vanth told him. “But I’ll be back, goat man. Perhaps while you languish, you can think about how much easier it would be to simply answer my bloody questions.”
She paused before pulling the door shut and locking it. “If anyone else comes, just lie down in the stinking straw and pretend to be dead.”
As she walked away, Vanth was sure she heard the satyr begin to moan. It was a small, plaintive noise like the tiny cries of a wounded puppy, but the sound was soon swallowed by another high-pitched scream rattling elsewhere in the dark.
