Free Dark King Of The North (Book 3) by Ty Johnston Page B

sense of direction, though Belgad seemed to know where they were heading.
    Eventually the troupe entered an open area, what appeared to be a marketplace that had been cleared. A hundred feet ahead of them rose the city’s walls, four times as tall as a man and as thick as a stone’s throw. A pair of gigantic iron doors stood open, and Adara could see beyond a tent city filled with soldiers in black going about their military routines.
    Belgad led them to the open door where they were greeted by another big man in black armor; on one arm he wore a round shield painted black with white striping the edges.
    “Take her.” Belgad shoved Adara forward.
    Captain Lendo caught the woman with his free arm. “Want to do it yourself?” he asked the Dartague.
    “I find your Kobalan amusements not to my taste,” Belgad said, his thin smile showing he was not altogether happy with the situation.
    “You’re not nearly as tough as your reputation.” Lendo grinned then turned away, tugging Adara along with him into the mass of upright canvass.
    Keeping her dignity while with Belgad had been simple, but now Adara was unnerved. She had not expected to be turned over to the Kobalans in so brusque a manner.
    “Where are you taking me?” she asked.
    Lendo slammed his shield into her face, knocking Adara back and sending blood spraying from between her lips. She would have fallen if the captain had not yanked her back by the cords around her raw wrists.
    “You don’t ask questions,” the man said, then pulled her on.
    Adara glanced about, catching the iron-eyed faces of the hundreds of soldiers surrounding her. Most continued with their business without paying the least attention to her, but a number stopped whatever they were doing to watch with stern curiosity.
    Another hard tug and Adara found herself standing in a a circle of triangle tents with a small camp fire in the center. Tents spread as far as she could see until her eyes reached the towering walls of Mogus Potere.
    Lendo let loose of her bindings and waved at a group of men to one side.
    The group, eight in all, tromped forward carrying a wooden beam nearly as thick as a man’s waist.
    “What is this?” Adara asked, true fear in her voice.
    “Hold her down,” Lendo ordered without looking at her.
    The eight dropped the cumbersome pole and two grabbed Adara from behind, pulling her down to the ground as she realized her fate and began to struggle.
    “Hammer.” Lendo held out a hand.
    One of the soldiers supplied a black iron mallet.
    “Nails.”
    Another man placed four rough nails, each nearly as long as a dagger, into the captain’s waiting hand.
    “Hold her against the wood,” Lendo said.
    The two men gripping Adara drug her to the thick piece of timber. She tried to fight, but a cuffing sent her into a near stupor. One of the two lifted her arms above her head and held her wrists to the wood. The other man drew a dagger and cut away her black boots, then gripped her ankles.
    Lendo shrugged his shield off and knelt next to the woman, the hammer in one of his hands and the nails in the other. “This is going to hurt,” he said with a grin. “Scream all you want.”
    The captain placed a nail against slender, crossed wrists.
    As the hammer raised above the captain’s head, Adara’s mind raced back to Kron, then to her mother and father and to the green lands of Corvus Vale, her homeland in East Ursia. She had not seen Kron in many a day. She had not seen her home in many a year. A tear came to her eyes.
    The hammer slammed down.
     
    ***
     
    Her thoughts were hazy, muddled as she hung in the cool night breeze. Her arms were upraised, stretched above with her head hanging between, the limbs pinned to the wood by a pair of black, bloody nails. Her body was in shock, numbing her to the metal pins ripping through her wrists and ankles and impaling her on the upright log. She was not suspended high, her feet barely above the lingering fire, though the heat too