There were three Elves – a man and a woman in identical silver-black cloaks and a deferential muscleman in a leather jacket. They appeared in the cell without a sound, moving with unnatural lightness, like huge moths, but somehow it was clear that they had strength to match a Troll’s. The Elf-woman looked the prisoner over unceremoniously and whispered something – apparently obscene – to her companion; the man grimaced chidingly.
“Maybe you’d like to tell us something yourself, Troll?”
“Maybe I would.” Kumai sat up, carefully lowering his legs off the bed, and was now waiting for nausea to subside. He had made a decision and fear receded, having no room left. “What do I get in return?”
“In return?!” The impudence struck the Elf speechless for a couple of seconds. “An easy death. Is that not enough?”
“No, it’s not. Easy death is already there for me; I’ve had a weak heart since childhood, so torturing me is useless; it’ll end when it begins.”
The Elf gave a silvery laugh. “You lie beautifully and engagingly.”
Kumai shrugged. “Give it a try. The higher-ups will give you hell if a spy dies under questioning, no?”
“We are the higher-ups, Troll.” The Elf sat down on a chair just brought into the cell by the man in leather jacket. “But please continue lying, we’re listening with interest.”
What’s there to lie about? He’s no child and understands his position. But he’s no dumb fanatic and has no wish to die for Motherland, his oath, or other such phantoms. Whatever for? The bosses keep sending them to certain death while sitting it out in the rear, cowardly dogs that they are… He’ll tell all he knows, and he knows quite a lot, having been on a lot of special missions for a long time – but not for free. Do you promise to keep him alive? It’s such a small thing for you. In an underground prison forever, in a lead mine, blinded and castrated, but alive?
“Say your piece, then, Troll. If you tell the truth and we find it interesting, we’ll find you a job in our mines. What do you think, milady Eornis?”
“Sure! Why not let him keep his life?”
Very well, his name is Cloud (shouldn’t get tripped up, he did have such a nickname as a child – that brat Sonya came up with it and it stuck to him until the University), Engineer Second Class, his last military unit was a guerilla band led by… Indun (that was an old professor who taught them optics during sophomore year). The band is based in Tzagan- Tzab Gorge in the Ash Mountains (that’s where Dad’s mine is, the place is nature-made for guerilla warfare, there has to be Resistance there… anyway, can’t come up with anything else that’d be consistent on the spot). Yesterday… wait, what day is it today? Ah yes, of course, you ask the questions here, sorry… Anyway, on the morning of the twenty-second he received orders to fly to Lorien so as to reach it on that night and spy out the positioning of the lights in the valley of Nimrodel. Personally he thinks that the whole affair is bogus, driven by desperation among the commanders who seem to be monkeying with some kind of magic. No, this time the order was not given by Indun, but by some other guy, never seen him before, apparently from Army Intelligence, nicknamed Jackal… What he looks like? An Orocuen, short, slanty-eyed, a small scar over the left brow… yes, he’s certain, the left one…
“This is very naive, Troll. I’m not calling you Cloud, because that name is as false as everything else you’ve told us. There are two golden rules for responding to an interrogation: avoid direct lies and too many details. You broke both. Tell me, driver of the mechanical dragon, what was the strength and direction of the wind on that day?”
That’s it, then – who would’ve thought that the Elf knew anything about flying? In any event, while spinning all that nonsense Kumai was readying a certain surprise for his interrogators. The dejected pose he had assumed allowed him to gather his legs under him, and now, seeing that the game was up, he lunged forward like an uncoiling spring, trying to reach the Elf in the silver-black cloak with his free left hand. He would have probably succeeded if not for another mistake: he met the Elf’s eye in the process.
The
“On the contrary – he’s magnificent, a real beast!”
“You sport! Very well, since you like his manhood so much, you can keep him. But not until we work him a little, lest he die in your embrace – it could happen, you know – and take everything he knows with him… You’d be really upset with such an outcome, wouldn’t you?”
Chapter 62
“Wake up!” The leather-jacket standing behind Kumai’s chair kicked him habitually in the Achilles’ tendon, the pain immediately jerking the Troll out of a second-long blissful unconsciousness.
“Where did you fly from? What was your mission?” That was the man at the table. They worked together: one asking questions (the same ones over and over, hour after hour), the other kicking the prisoner’s heel from behind whenever he tried either to stand up or to put down his head, leaden with insomnia. The kicks were not even that strong, but always in the same spot, so after a dozen hits the pain turned unbearable, making all his thoughts about the next inevitable kick… Kumai had no illusions: this was not even a warm-up. They simply had not started on him in earnest yet, only depriving him of water and sleep so far.
The engineer forbade himself to consider what might follow once they saw that he was not going to cooperate. He simply decided to hold out for as long as possible to buy some time for Grizzly and Wolverine – maybe those smart guys would figure out the danger and save the Weapon Monastery. He had absent-mindedly left a map with the flight route to the Nimrodel on top of his work table, and his only hope now was that someone would find it and connect it to his disappearance. But how are they to guess that I’m alive and in the Elves’ hands, rather than dead? What can they do even if they guess – evacuate Dol Guldur? Don’t know; revelations and miracles are the One’s job, mine is to hold out and hope…
“Wake up!” This time the guy behind him overdid his blow, knocking Kumai out. When the engineer came to, the leather-jacket at the table had been replaced by the Elf in the silver- black cloak.
“Have you ever been told that you’re an incredibly lucky man, Troll?”
He had lost track of time some unbelievably long time ago; the harsh light bounced off the walls and ate at his watering eyes, and a handful of hot sand had accumulated under each eyelid. He squeezed his eyes shut and once again slid into the abyss of sleep… This time he was brought back almost politely, with a shake of the shoulder instead of the usual kick – something must’ve changed in their setup…
“Anyway, to continue: I don’t know who advised you to fly your mission in uniform, but our lawyers – may they burn in the Eternal Fire! – have suddenly decided that this makes you a prisoner of war, rather than a spy. According to your Middle Earth laws a prisoner of
