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shine light on the desolation. The optimism in the artist's conception seemed
to mock them all.
Delrael imagined a time when the streets had not been silent:
horsecarts taking characters to the reclaimed hexagons for work in the fields.
He thought of Tairans talking, doing business, even squabbling with one
another. Scartaris had taken all that away.
The tannery was one of the larger buildings in the city, now modified
by adding shutters to close off the windows. A gate stood ajar on crude hinges
in front of a stained leather curtain that hung over the entrance. Smoke from
fires used to cure and dry the stretched leather drifted out of the window
openings like fat snakes. Outside the building lay stacked rows of finished
shields, varnished leather coverings over a sturdy iron frame. The bad smell
forced Delrael to take short, hitching breaths.
"I don't see why we have to do this," Bryl said, mumbling his words. He
covered his nose with the blue cloak. "If we've got the last horses, there's
no more leather for shields _anyway_."
Mindar glanced at him with a strange look on her face. Her smile might
have been wry if the expression hadn't been so bleak. "Horses are much too
valuable to Scartaris. He would never use them just for leather."
She blinked her eyes at the piled shields, the pale, discolored leather
glinting off the iron frames. Disgust distorted her face.
"But if it's not horsehide, then -- " Bryl began.
"Shut up, Bryl!" Vailret snapped. His face turned greenish.
"We must destroy this place," Mindar whispered.
She dismounted and drew her sword. "Come on, Delrael. We'll get the
people out, then Bryl can destroy it with the Fire Stone. Enrod would want
that, burn it clean."
Without waiting for him, Mindar strode to the front of the tannery.
Delrael took three running steps to catch up to her. She pulled open the iron
gate, letting it clang against the far stone wall. She used the tip of her
sword to slash across the sewn leather curtain and let it fall to pieces. Her
boots stomped it flat as she entered the building.
Delrael followed her into the firelit dimness. The stench hung in the
air like foul liquid pressing into his lungs. Irritated tears formed in his
eyes, but he blinked them away.
"We won't fail this time, Scartaris," Mindar said at the shadows around
her.
Delrael's knuckles whitened around the hilt of his sword. Other Tairans
moved in the large, but somehow claustrophobic, room. As his eyes adjusted to
the gloom, he staggered from the grisly sight around him.
Four Tairans grappled with a wooden frame, stretching a skin on a rack.
Another woman took a flat knife and began scraping the back of the skin.
Entrails, bones, and waste leather lay piled in deep stone vats, dripping in
pools of clotting blood.
Against the walls sat basins filled with brine solutions, lime, and
tanning chemicals, each stuffed with ragged skins. A covering of ash was
scattered on the floor to soak up the blood. Brownish-red footprints left
aimless trails in the gray ash.
Racks of drying, treated skins hung from the stone arches, showing
vague, distorted shapes of what had once been arms and legs. Piles of finished
leather lay stacked in the dim corners, waiting to be mounted on shield
frames.
The orange light from torches and braziers flickered with the air
coming in now that the leather curtain had been torn down. Mindar let out a
strangled cry at the scene, and Delrael closed his eyes with a wince, then
forced himself to open them again. He was a fighter, after all. He should have
been immune to the sight of gore and carnage.
A mound of human heads, useless for their leather, were piled high in
the corner. Their soft jelly eyes stood open in a blank expression of terror.
Some of the mouths hung open, dry and black inside.
Then Delrael noticed something that made the nausea surge up inside
him. These eyes weren't the pupilless white of the other empty Tairans -- they
were normal, terror-stricken, brown irises and blue. Scartaris had given them
back their minds an instant before death, letting them know what they had done
and what was going to happen to them.
"You bastard!"
Delrael bent over, feeling his chest and stomach muscles spasm. This
was foul and unfair. Scartaris did not play the same Game -- no glorious
combat with heroic deeds. Just slaughter, no honor or challenge or excitement.
How could Scartaris enjoy this? _Always have fun ... _ Such a warped
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