The Mist and the Lightning. Part 19

“That’s it! All you have to do is serve well! Do the bare minimum and nothing more! You don’t need to worry about anything, because I think for you! I take care of everything! Your owner takes care of you like a parent! And you are always under guardianship, you don’t bear any responsibility, you don’t need to think about anything! But you can’t even serve properly! It’s hard for you too! Lazy irresponsible creatures, you will know what real grief is! I’ll teach you! I’ll show you! You’ll forget what it’s like to whine over little things! Open your mouth! I’ll make you a beautiful smile! I will count with an iron stick all your iron teeth!”

Parky slowly bared his teeth, opening his mouth, and Kors raised his stick, but Tyutya, seeing this, suddenly howled loudly and distracted Kors. The blow turned out to be blurry, blood spattered from the mouth of the unclean one, but the steel jaws remained in place.

“Are you protecting each other?” Kors was breathing heavily. “The wolf is ready to accept the punishment for the fox, you fool! And the fox squeaks in fear. You know that she self-willed in the city as she wanted! Feeding Adrian! She dared to call me hangman.”

Parky covered his smashed mouth with his hand.

“It’s not her fault,” he barely said, “she called you that because everyone in Ore Town called you that!” He looked up at Kors defiantly. “And now everyone calls you that!”

“What?” Kors lowered his rod. “Who calls me that?”

Parky spat blood on the floor.

“Everyone!”

“Parky…”

“Neither I nor she is to blame for this! I faithfully serve you and Desmod!”

“Whom?” Kors stammered. “Me, and who else do you serve?”

“I am a Desmod’s warrior!”

“But why are you with me then?” Kors completely lost his fighting spirit.

“Because the White Lord ordered Desmod to assign warriors to you when you met us at Riverside, and my commander Desmod chose me.

Kors froze. He didn’t remember the details, but yes, it was. Nik gave him a regiment to command and Parky as a captain. And Kors was very flattered by this and rejoiced. Now everything has finally fallen into place. Yes, the unclean ones only pretend to serve him, but he is not the main one at all.

“Who does Desmod serve?” Kors asked quietly, already knowing the answer.

“Desmod serves the White Lord,” said Parky, “we all serve the White Lord, you know that!”

“Go away,” Kors sat on the bed, “you are pretenders. Go! Serve your White Lord, Desmod and all the unclean ones! You are not really my subordinates.”

“No, we are yours, Commander,” Parky objected, “we were given to you.”

"What if Desmod orders you to kill me?" Kors asked.

Parky was silent.

“You are silent? Goood! What if I order you to kill Desmod? Who will you kill? Me or him? Answer!”

“I can’t kill him or you,” Parky said.

“Because the White Lord didn’t order it? Yes? What if he orders?”

Parky fell silent again.

“Answer! ”

“I’m just a captain,” Parky finally said, “I’m a junior officer and I don’t have that kind of authority.”

“You little Demon, you can’t kill the highest in the hierarchy, okay… at least one piece of good news. And I? Can I kill you, Ark?”

“You can…”

Kors stood up abruptly and walked over to them. They continued to kneel, neither he nor she even moved, flinched, recoiled.

“Your hangman is kind today,” Kors muttered and walked past them, “and go to all your devils!”

He walked out of the tent, walking quickly without knowing where and just trying to recover. “What did he personally do bad to them and other unclean ones so that they would call him that?”

Chapter 8

Kors himself didn’t understand how his feet brought him to the center of the camp to the tall and elegant tent of Zaf, which Kors still called “Circus”.

Around, as always, servants and slaves fussed, tied horses stood. Kors, without stopping and paying no attention to them, entered…

It was noisy inside the tent, and many unclean warriors and commanders were sitting at a richly laid table. Butwhat can I say, far from being a small tent of hospitable Zaf was simply packed.

The stuffy stench that overwhelmed him made Kors involuntarily catch his breath. The bitter smell of strong tobacco hit his nose, mixed in the most disgusting combination with the smelly meat aromas from smoking plates and the sour stench of spilled wine. In the center of the table was a dish with a black pig’s head, it was huge, and its empty eye sockets stared curiously at Kors. He tried to cope with uncontrollable nausea, a lump approaching his throat. Trying to breathe through his mouth and not step on the gnawed bones, Kors froze at the threshold, standing on the sawdust-strewn, dirty and spat-stained floor.

“Vitor! I’m glad to see you!” He heard the satisfied roar of Zaf, who tried to shout over the noisy commanders.

Zaf was sitting far from the entrance, at the head of the table, next to his warrior named Matin.

Kors knew Matin and had long been accustomed to him, but in spite of everything, the very first recollection of this warrior was forever imprinted in his memory: