The Chronicles of Corum by Michael Moorcock Read Free Book Online

spread-eagled on the board while new rivets were driven into the links of chain, securing him there. Corum could smell stale blood. He could see where the board was scored with the marks of knives, swords, and axes, where arrows had been shot into it.
    He was on a butcher's block.
    The Mabden bloodlust was rising. Their eyes gleamed in the firelight, their breath steamed and their nostrils dilated. Red tongues licked thick lips and small, anticipatory, smiles were on several faces.
    Earl Glandyth had been supervising the pinning of Corum to the board. Now he came up and stood in front of the Vadhagh and he drew a slim sharp blade from his belt.
    Corum watched as the blade came toward his chest. Then there was a ripping sound as the knife tore the samite shirt away from his body.
    Slowly, his grin spreading, Glandyth-a-Krae worked at the rest of Corum's clothing, the knife only occasionally drawing a thin line of blood from his body, until at last Corum was completely naked.
    Glandyth stepped back.
    "Now," he said, panting, "you are doubtless wondering what we intend to do with you."
    "I have seen others of my people whom you have slain," Corum said. "I think I know what you intend to do."
    Glandyth raised the little finger of his right hand while he tucked his dagger away with his left.
    "Ah, you see. You do not know. Those other Vadhagh died swiftly—or relatively so—because we had so many to find and to kill. But you are the last. We can take our time with you. We think, in fact, that we will give you a chance to live. If you can survive with your eyes gone, your tongue put out, your hands and feet removed, and your genitals taken away, then we will let you so survive."
    Corum stared at him in horror.
    Glandyth burst into laughter. "I see you appreciate our joke!"
    He signaled to his men.
    "Bring the tools! Let's begin."
    A great brazier was brought forward. It was full of red-hot charcoal and from it poked irons of various sorts. These were instruments especially designed for torture, thought Corum. What sort of race could conceive such things and call itself sane?
    Glandyth-a-Krae selected a long iron from the brazier and turned it this way and that, inspecting the glowing tip.
    "We will begin with an eye and end with an eye," he said. "The right eye, I think."
    If Corum had eaten anything in the last few days, he would have vomited then. As it was, bile came into his mouth and his stomach trembled and ached.
    There were no further preliminaries.
    Glandyth began to advance with the heated iron. It smoked in the cold night air.
    Now Corum tried to forget the threat of torture and concentrate on his second sight, trying to see into the next plane. He sweated with a mixture of terror and the effort of his thought. But his mind was confused. Alternately, he saw glimpses of the next plane and the ever-advancing tip of the iron coming closer and closer to his face.
    The scene before him shivered, but still Glandyth came on, the gray eyes burning with an unnatural lust.
    Corum twisted in the chains, trying to avert his head. Then Glandyth's left hand shot out and tangled itself in his hair, forcing the head back, bringing the iron down.
    Corum screamed as the red-hot tip touched the lid of his closed eye. Pain filled his face and then his whole body. He heard a mixture of laughter, his own shouts, Glandyth's rasping breathing . . .
    . . . and Corum fainted.
    Corum wandered through the streets of a strange city. The buildings were high and seemed but recently built, though already they were grimed and smeared with slime.
    There was still pain, but it was remote, dull. He was blind in one eye. From a balcony a woman's voice called him. He looked around. It was his sister, Pholhinra. When she saw his face, she cried out in horror.
    Corum tried to put his hand to his injured eye, but he could not.
    Something held him. He tried to wrench his left hand free from whatever gripped it. He pulled harder and harder. Now the wrist began