Page 26 of Devil's Doom

“Let’s begin the trial of chochol Kazimir, who is guilty of the heinous crime of heresy. He spreads vicious lies, undermining the peace in our prosperous city. Bring him forward.”

Two dragons push the beak-nosed young man toward the red dragon. The chochol shakes, but he doesn’t beg for mercy. His chains clink with every shiver of his lean form.

“What did he lie about?” I ask Lech, my shoulders prickling with tension. Whatever will happen, it can’t be good.

“Even if I knew, I wouldn’t repeat his words,” Lech says with a scoff. “It might have been anything, from complaining about the quality of his beer to praying to the wrong god.”

I flinch at the obvious irony in his voice and shoot him an alarmed look. Won’t somebody think his words are too dismissive? Lech doesn’t pay me any mind. His eyes are on the chained chochol, the crease between his eyebrows back.

My heart hammers sickly, and I look up, too. The red dragon raises his clawed palm, the inside of it blackened. I squint, trying to make out the shape. It looks like a tree with a strong trunk and symmetrical branches winding together.

As he brings it slowly to the chochol’s forehead, the black shape pulses with red light. I gasp, and Lech gives a weak, humorless laugh.

“Perun’s sigil,” he explains in an undertone. “It allows the captain of the dragon guard to suck magic out of anyone. Watch.”

The red dragon presses his enormous palm to the chochol’s forehead. The boy shudders. The guard captain tilts his head back, smoke curling out of his nostrils, and the prisoner suddenly screams, arching away. Two guards step in, holding him in place. He brings his chained hands up to his chest, the broken fingers twitching right over his sternum—exactly where it hurts me when my magic is depleted.

The captain steps back, and as soon as his palm falls off the boy’s forehead, he slumps with a whimper of pain, still pressing his hands to his sternum, even though his arms shake under the weight of the chains.

“He’s going to die, isn’t he?” I whisper, my lips bloodless. I’m not even sure Lech hears me, but then he squeezes my waist as if to comfort me.

My gut burns with the need to stop it, but I feel utterly helpless. I barely have any magic left, and besides, there are hundreds of people here—the prisoner’s parents among them, if my guess is correct. And no one does anything. No one but the rape-born girl who challenged her father and got a slap for her trouble.

One guard removes a chain from a portion of the large metal cage in the middle of the square and drags a crude gate open. The chochol is pushed inside, his chains still on. He’s in so much pain, he falls to the ground, dry-heaving. His broken fingers still clutch at his chest, as if he hopes to somehow put his magic back where it was and ease his suffering.

The cages containing the poroniec children are moved next. I swallow nausea when the green dragon stacks one cage on top of the other just inside the door, effectively blocking the way out. He fumbles with the cages until both fall open, the children rolling out. The dragon slams the big cage shut, and the crowd erupts with screams.

I listen and can’t believe it. They don’t scream for the guards to let the boy out or for him to somehow save himself. No, they call out to the small beasts with directions on how to attack first.

“Tear off his ears! I bet two eggs on the ears!”

“Start with his legs! Chochol feet are yummy, do his legs!”

“Bite ‘is ‘ead off!”

When I slowly turn my face up to Lech, he’s already watching me, a sardonic smile curving his lips.

“As you can see, it’s fine entertainment, just as I promised. We should bet something next time,” he says with an easy smile, though his eyes are still hard.

“We can bet your head. It must be worth something,” I try to quip, but my voice sounds hollow. I taste acid in my throat.

The small monsters come out of their cages and swipe at each other playfully, still in their childish forms. The scene would be endearing if I didn’t know what they were.

Kazimir cowers in the furthest corner of the cage, his broken, bleeding fingers uselessly sliding against the bars. I have no illusions he’ll be able to come out, and even if he does, the dozen dragons guarding the square will throw him right back in.

The girl poroniec suddenly strikes at the boy with a clawed hand, tearing the skin on his cheek into bloody ribbons. The boy shrieks like a wounded cat, and she laughs a tinkling, childish laughter that sounds utterly eerie.

When the boy lunges at her, his clawed hands outstretched, she turns on the spot like a little dancer and leaps at Kazimir, her perfectly white milk teeth bared in a wide grin. He whines when he sees her, then squeezes his eyes shut and curls into a ball. I realize he’s given up.

“Stand up, boy! Fight for your life!” A man’s loud, charismatic voice booms over the noise. I prick my ears at what I feel is a compassionate response, but then the man adds, “I bet they will start with your hands, so give them a reason! Come on, use those fists!”

I want to say this can’t be real, that it’s too horrible to comprehend, that I need to go home and never see this again, but my throat is tight, my tongue frozen.

The girl sits on top of Kazimir and pets his feathery hair with childish curiosity. Her small fingers are wet with the boy’s blood. Kazimir shakes, sobbing, and the boy jumps over in pursuit of the girl, pausing when Kazimir catches his eye. The boy cocks his head to the side, watching the chochol, and then crouches. His hand snaps for the chochol’s face, as fast as a viper.

People around us scream, some in triumph, but most in disappointment. I realize with a sickly feeling that the poroniec holds something in his pudgy fist.

He raises it higher, as if to examine it better in the light. It’s an eye, perfectly round and wet, dangling from the optical nerve pinched between the boy’s bloodied fingers.

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