White powder rained down from the skies that kept the sun’s glow faint behind a veil of fog and clouds. The winter draft glided through the deep woodland like scarves coated in ice and snow. A small herd of deer scoured for twigs and berries that would keep their bodies warm and blood flowing. They scavenged and chewed peaceably, as the early arrival of winter had forced their neighbour creatures to hibernate. Their ears twitched when they heard a scream echo, and their heads turned up in unison. Sniffing the air out of curiosity, they could not locate the source of the sound, and it did not come from anything that they could see. When a second cry followed, the herd became spooked, and they scattered, believing that they were being hunted by a predator, but the sound came from one who was prey also.
Behind the thicket, there was an opening, where a lone hunting shed stood in the light under a thin canopy. Its roof was slanted with snow piled beside its walls. From the outside, the hut appeared derelict. Moss had formed on its logs, and winter vines had overgrown around its entrance, where a sprawl of bluish flowers had been tended to by nature alone, but the door was remarkably clean. The ground before the entrance had been cleared, revealing the depth of the snow that compressed the frozen earth beneath it. But halfway between the shed and the treeline was an unnatural mound.
As two figures crept past it, a gust of wind shaved off a light dusting over the object that was buried under the fresh litter of snow. The handle of a knife was revealed, poking out from a pool of red ice. Further along the shape that grew clearer, a face lay sideways. The corpse’s skin had greyed, and its eyes had been plucked out. However, it was not by the work of crows but by human hands that scarred its sockets.
The two figures tried to ignore it and slowed their crunching footsteps, their noises muffled by the endless screams of agony. The voice that produced these horrifying sounds broke, and the two figures approached the door, positioning themselves against the front wall. Kneeling down quietly, they found a gap between the logs and peeked through it. However limited their vision was, what they found was enough to make them believe that there was hell in the afterlife.
Within the shed, the hearth was alight. The fire was crackling, and a whiff of warmth occasionally escaped the interior. Its chairs and tables were coated in dust in a room that resembled a living space that had long been abandoned. Aside from the sort of traps and knives, there was not much else. Its previous occupier had done away with anything valuable, and all that was left was an empty shell for its next residents.
Needing nothing more than space for their atrocities, half a dozen men were stationed within. They were armed soldiers, elite to the core, yet their faces were in disgust witnessing an act that paled in comparison to what they had ever seen on the battlefield. The soldiers, feeling their throats tighten, tugged on their collars to breathe. They struggled not to reel back in horror, but the inhumane display forced out the human emotions that they were supposed to suppress.
At their helm was a young lady, her attire denoting her officership. She stood at ease with her hands behind her back and was the only soldier among the six who could withstand the sight without ever flinching. The noises that they heard coming out of their prisoner were maddened with pain. Trembling, the tortured coughs and cries came from the mauled man tied to a chair that was bound to the hut’s central pillar. The captured soldier, wearing a uniform unlike theirs, endured an agony akin to a circle of hell.
A curved, metal pipe was pushed into his mouth and was carefully slid down his throat. The torturer had meticulously arranged his device so that his captive would not die. Out of childish excitement, a wide grin fell onto his face as he turned around and gestured for his aide’s help. She marched around the fire and lifted a bucket, a quarter full, by her commander’s feet. Pouring the water into a funnel at the mouth of the pipe, she did so reservedly. As the stream trickled and wetted the metal, the torturer held onto the pipe, and the metal around his hand began to glow. Droplets condensed on the surface of the pipe, which began to freeze. The victim’s tongue and throat burned as the cold quickly spread. Despite his silent screams, he was unable to move his body to relieve the pain. Trembling, his seat began to intensely shake. The soldiers steered their eyes away, revolted by the cruelty, as the captive’s eyes reddened from dry tears. He hoped that any gesture he gave could signal his surrender, but the sadist simply ignored him, enjoying his torture for another six minutes, until blood bubbled out of the captive’s mouth. Any longer he was subject to the maltreatment, he would lose his speech, and the torturer was at least bright enough to understand this.
The ice retreated and melted away, and the water became liquid again. His Eifer relented, and the torturer, who was a young Rus man in the garments of a boy, removed the pipe from his prisoner’s throat and mouth, tearing chunks of flesh away. Slowly and carefully, the Aelon soldier was released from the device that was tossed onto the ground, clanking, and he slumped over, exhausted from the excruciating pain, with blood pouring out of his mouth. He choked and coughed, his hair greasy. His head was drenched in cold sweat that dripped from his nose, with each droplet shaking as his body was.
Bearing a warm smile that was but haunting to his prey, the Rus leaned over with his hands on his knees. “So, what do you have to say?” He tilted his head and faced the soldier judgingly.
The scout looked up and coughed, spewing blood over his captor’s face. However, his torturer seemed to appreciate it.
Knowing that he could not outthink this fiend, the scout lowered his lifeless eyes again. “W-We’ve… information…” The cold of the weather and in his lungs slurred his words. He was barely able to form a sentence as blood dribbled out of his mouth. “Your horde… is to assault Seding… come spring…” Wheezing, his voice was raspy, losing his sense of speech and on the verge of death.
The young Rus sniggered, then suddenly broke out in a fit of laughter. Righting himself, the amusement he found in his confession made him pace about. His blood-stained face tried to contain his joy, but in the moment he attempted to return to civility, the boyish officer burst out giggling again. Never have his guards ever seen him act this way, believing that the stories their comrades told were just baseless rumours, but they have come to realise that indeed, despite their disbelief, this man had the manner of a devil.
Frightened by their commander, the soldiers could only turn away and ignore him. However, the adjutant, who had grown accustomed to her commander’s sinful childishness, batted not an eye. She kept wary of the Aelon in case he dared attempt an escape, but he was already drained of strength, enough so he could not lift a single finger.
Marching back towards the captive with a spring in his step and his heels knocking on the floorboards that produced the only sound beside the snapping twigs in the fire, the torturer stood before the scout and bent over until they were eye to eye. “Not quite.” He corrected him.
The fiend had long sensed that two pairs of eyes were spying on him. He stood upright and turned around, glaring at the gap in the wall where the shadows had hidden behind. In panic, their clothes rustled as they fled from the hut, disregarding any effort to cover their tracks as snow crunched beneath their burdened feet. Their legs sunk deeper the more they hurried and soon, every soldier present in the shed had heard the obvious noises that came from no other creature beside the human.400Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3j6pjfGzpi
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