Free Clash of Empires by Brian Falkner Page A

move, her arms constricted by a grimy straitjacket. At first Willem is not even sure that it is Héloïse.
    Her hair, once long and wild, is almost completely gone. Only short stubble covers her head. Her arms are blue with bruises and covered with black splodges. It takes Willem a moment to realize they are leeches. The chair is spinning and the girl’s face is contorted in fear and pain.
    Willem is speechless. It is Héloïse. He is sure of it. The girl whose life he once saved from a firebird and whom he will forever feel responsible for. The girl who repaid the debt by defending them all from the madness of François. A girl of the wilderness, happiest only in the sunshine, with the trees, birds, and small saurs of the forest. Yet here she is a prisoner in a straitjacket; locked in a lopsided, stone-walled madhouse; kept away from the sun and fresh air; forced into a contraption that spins her to such incoherent giddiness she can barely scream. Even her cave in the dinosaur lair beneath the Sonian Forest was better than this.
    A large man in the uniform of an orderly stands by the side of the frame spinning the chair by turning a handle.
    â€œStop that!” Willem cries.
    The man looks at him, but otherwise does nothing. He has a hooked nose and small, haunted eyes. His hair is pure white, although he seems no more than middle-aged.
    â€œStop that!” Willem cries again.
    The man turns away and begins to wind the handle faster. The chair becomes a blur of movement.
    All he has seen of this place suddenly explodes inside Willem and in a surge of anger he runs forward, pushing the orderly backward with two flat hands to his chest. The man stumbles and falls to the ground, knocking his head on a small wooden table behind him. The spinning chair starts to slow.
    The orderly raises himself to a sitting position. He puts a hand to his scalp and it comes up bloody. He grins, a lopsided, unhinged smile. He stands and moves toward Willem.
    Willem backs away slowly. There is a strangeness about the man’s small eyes, as though something evil and animal lurks just below the surface.
    Willem backs into Frost and stops. He is frightened, but he will not abandon Héloïse.
    â€œWhat is it?” Frost asks. “What do you see? What has happened?”
    â€œAn orderly,” Willem says. “A rather large one, and I fear I have angered him.”
    â€œIs Héloïse here?” Frost asks.
    â€œShe is,” Willem says.
    â€œYou are an officer,” Frost says. “Act like one.”
    And all at once Willem straightens his back and steps forward, seemingly unafraid.
    â€œSir, I am Major Johannes Lux of the Third Netherlands Infantry Division. I apologize for my anger, and the cut to your head, it was an accident.”
    â€œIt were no accident,” the orderly snarls, continuing to advance, drawing his wooden baton from its loop on his belt.
    Frost pushes past Willem. “Sir, I suggest you back away,” he says. “We are officers in the king’s army.”
    â€œYou need a blind boy to do your fightin’?” the orderly says, his eyes fixed on Willem.
    â€œI choose to fight,” Frost says. “Are you such a person as would strike a blind man?”
    The orderly hesitates, then abruptly reaches out and pushes Frost to one side, the baton in his other hand swinging toward Willem. Willem ducks under the blow and dodges away from the man, darting around the back of the apparatus, behind Héloïse in the still-turning chair.
    The orderly smashes his baton against the wooden framework of the device. He does it again and Héloïse screams. Behind him Frost grabs at his arm but the man pushes him off easily, sending him crashing into a corner.
    Willem moves quickly away from Héloïse. He does not want to put her in any more danger. He reaches the small table and puts that between him and the orderly.
    The man grins and thrusts forward across the