House of Open Wounds by Adrian Tchaikovsky EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Language: English
- Genre: Action & Adventure Fantasy
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 4.8 MB
- Price: Free
It is a vision of hell.
The air is made of screaming. Like a picture where the gap between two
objects is revealed, after a squint, to be just more of the same, here the gap
between throat-stripping shrieks is just less-insistent sounds of men and
women in agony. A hierarchy of torment so constant and yet so varied it
becomes something close to a choir.
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Here, then, is the choirmaster. A great weight of a man who nonetheless
passes through the bloody clutter of the space with an appalling deftness.
Like the thing in your dream, that cannot possibly follow you into the small
spaces, and yet does so in defiance of reason. His bulk is gravity,
demanding the attention of everything around him. It’s a wonder the
rivulets of spilled blood don’t orbit him in a wheeling astronomy of gore.
Behind him his minions, his attendant devils, are hard at work. Time
enough for them when you’ve escaped the pull of this man, this bloodyhanded emperor, even now stomping to look over the new arrivals thrown
to his mercy.
His face is a thing of parts. It can clench like a fist, open like a flower. In
other moments, with the rigour of his profession lifted from him, it’s a good
face. A friendly thing to see. A broad smile, such as might be used to
persuade you to open your door to him at night. His moustache, which right
now is crusted with red, can make him seem clownish and harmless.
The
mass of him, which can drive a cleaver through a limb or give bite to the
teeth of a saw, becomes the ungainly comedy of a dancing bear. When he
wants it to. Right now, though, he’s working. The worst kind of torturer,
who preys only on those already in agony. No fit and healthy victims come
to his dungeon to be broken. He takes the leavings, and his people make
them squeal.
Spilling into his tent now: a flurry of men and women, some in full
uniform, others stripped to their shirtsleeves. They are whole as yet. They
aren’t his. And those that are his, well, their uniforms are already ragged,
holed, sodden, scorched. The fit set down the stretchers of the infirm and
retreat. Nobody wants to spend time in the Butcher’s company when he’s
working. Most especially not the howling victims set at his feet.
One figure remains. Uniform jacket open, slovenly, hanging improbably
from her shoulders as though it’ll slough off any moment, save it never
does. She’s been outside with the bearers, taking details, and she bends to
the Butcher’s ear.
“Taking the wall. Caught a bonecutter, then counterattack.” The words
almost stripped of their regular meaning, a code between her and the
Butcher to give him context.
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