‘So, like I said, if you are good little sheep perhaps the wolves will spare you for a few moments longer than you deserve.’
Tippawan returned to the room bearing a Viking broadsword, the white whaletooth hilt of which was carved into a polar bear in the old Scandinavian style. With a wicked smile Tippawan handed the sword to Sigurd.
‘Thank you,’ the huge man grunted as he took the weapon. ‘Now bring out the prisoner.’
Tippawan barked out an order in Thai, and after a few tense moments two of the guards dragged in a naked Thai man. His skin was a mess of blue and purple; the surface of it was stained both with faded tattoos and fresh wounds from a recent and evidently severe beating.
‘Here is another lesson for you ladies,’ Sigurd growled. ‘Remember it well.’
Two more guards entered the room, pushing an upright wooden post, the wood of which was dark with many layers of stains. The men lashed the prisoner’s wrists together behind the post, so that he was forced to stand with his hands tied behind him and his torso completely exposed. The prisoner was wailing and babbling incoherently in Thai. He could have been pleading or he could have been praying; Adriana could not tell which, but whatever he was saying it was apparent that he understood that death was close at hand, and completely inescapable.
Sigurd paid no heed to the man’s pleas. Instead, he spun and swung the weapon about in his hands, stepping right, left, forward and back, practicing an ancient sword drill that he performed with the mesmerising grace of a grandmaster. When he was sufficiently warmed up, he turned to face the man.
‘Whores,’ he muttered, directing his words at the women but staring intently into the captive’s eyes, ‘this man was one of my guards at this facility. A trusted captain, in fact. Yet he saw fit to repay the trust I had placed in him by embezzling thirty thousand US dollars from me over a period of two years. Now in the grand scheme of things, the amount is but a trifle. Thirty thousand dollars? I could spend that in a night if the right mood took me. But, you see, it is not the amount but rather the principle of the matter that has hurt me so! What can a man do when his own friends betray him and steal from him? The world is a cruel place, yes, a cruel and cold place. Remember this and remember it well: place your trust not in men, for they will betray you, and they will fail you.’
Adriana found herself almost hypnotised by Sigurd’s words, despite the nightmarish nature of the present situation. Sigurd, meanwhile, paused for a moment to take his eyes off the wailing prisoner, so that he could gaze with an almost childlike awe upon the blade of his broadsword. He traced his fingers over the runes that were etched in the gleaming steel, and then muttered something in Old Norse.
‘Place your trust not in men. Place your trust in steel,’ he whispered, and he lunged forward with a brutal thrust, stabbing the blade with swift power through the man’s stomach and embedding it in the wooden post behind him. The impaled man howled with agony and a gurgling froth of blood erupted from his lips, and at once the women began screaming in a frenzied panic.
‘NEVER, EVER fuck with me!’ Sigurd roared. ‘This is what happens when you fuck with me!’
He stepped back, yanking the blade out of the prisoner’s body. With a grunt he gripped the broadsword with both hands, whipping it back behind his shoulders, and then with one hefty slash he took the man’s head clean off his shoulders.
Adriana almost passed out at the sight of the decapitated head tumbling to the floor in a grisly spray of blood; black spots formed before her eyes and her vision swam. An awful heat rippled along her skin and a thundering roared dully in her ears, as if she were standing next to some mighty waterfall. However, from some untapped well within her a grim resolve clawed its way through the darkness and forced her to remain upright. She knew that she could not abandon Roxana at this moment, and even as the other women screamed hysterically, Adriana pulled Roxana’s head to her bosom and clamped her violently trembling hands over the teen’s eyes.
‘Don’t look little angel, don’t look!’
The Japanese woman’s words were suddenly beginning to seem a lot less like the rantings of a schizophrenic and a lot more like strange truths.
Sigurd stood silent for a while, staring at the blood pooling around his expensive Italian shoes. He kicked the severed head softly, almost curiously, as a toddler would kick a ball, and then he handed the sword to Tippawan.
‘Make sure it’s properly cleaned and oiled or there will be hell to pay,’ he growled. ‘Get the cleaning squad in here, and then Hrothgar can get started with his gang-bang.’
He turned to the women, and his mouth was twisted into a sneer above his great barbarian’s beard.
‘Ladies,’ he said calmly, turning to the hysterical women. ‘You’d best dry those eyes and calm down. I am trusting you to do a good job of servicing Hrothgar, or you will meet a similar fate to this headless traitor here. Do you understand?’
The ladies continued to sob and wail as they cowered in a huddle in a corner, scrambling and scuttling over each other to get as far away from the huge man as possible.
‘DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND?!’ Sigurd screamed gutturally, rage boiling with purple fury in his voice.
Adriana took the initiative and stepped forward, even though she could barely hold her stinging tears at bay and restrain her shivering limbs.
‘Yes sir,’ she said, almost choking on the sob that was rising up the back of her throat. ‘We understand, sir.’
‘Good. I like you, Storm. You seem to be fond of that little teen
