Dark Apostle

Other slaves had not been able to stop themselves leaping from the walls of the tower, but it gained them little. The chains that linked around the slave's necks were bolted to the scaffolds at intervals and those slaves that slipped, or hurled themselves off the edge, seeking an escape from their hellish existence, ended up dangling against the inside wall of the tower. Normally, they would drag a handful of other slaves with them. It was not usually enough to kill them. The only chance a slave had was to throw himself with as much force as he could muster and pray that his neck snapped. Still, if he survived, the punishments at the needle-clawed hands of the overseers were severe, and meted out not only to the instigator, but to all those who were dragged over the edge with him. Such was the fear of these punishments, that any slave that looked as if he might try to end it all was restrained by his fellow captives and forced to continue with his servitude.

The thick weight of the mortar hose swung into position above Varnus with much hissing and steaming of pistons, and Pierlo and he reached up, pulling the hose across so that it hovered above the middle of the stone block. Thick, gruel-like mortar began to emerge in congealed lumps from the end of the hose, slowly at first, then faster, piling in the centre of the stone block. A deep pile of the foul substance was deposited before the hose, clanking and steaming, swung away from them to a pair of neighbouring slaves. Varnus and Pierlo dropped to their knees to spread the mortar evenly across the surface of the stone with their hands.

The mortar that held the stones in place smelt foul and was a sickly shade of pink. Varnus tried not to look too closely at the disgusting substance after he had found human teeth in it some time earlier.

That was where the dead of Shinar ended up, he had realised with horror. They were ground up into a thick paste, bones and all, and turned into this foul blood-mortar.

He was smeared in the stuff, from head to toe, and he tasted the hateful, metallic tang of it on his tongue, and smelt its repugnant stink in his nostrils.

A Discord hovered nearby as the slaves worked, its tentacles hanging limply as it blared a hellish cacophony of sound from its grilled speaker. An evil collection of voices chanted something in a language that Varnus hoped never to understand amidst the garbled, daemonic sounds, bellows and sibilant whispers that blasted from the infernal thing. Varnus, he imagined a voice whispering sometimes amidst that din, his quietly spoken name almost hidden beneath the garbled, Chaotic roars and screams. Not a moment went by when the slave's eardrums were not assaulted by the insane sound. Kill him, he heard a reasoned voice say, in amongst the jumbled shrieks, horrified moaning, ceaseless chanting and the drone of static that was emerging from the Discord.

Varnus and Pierlo finished smearing the blood-mortar across the top of the stone slab just as another sharp note rang out, and they hurriedly stepped back onto the scaffold. Shrieks of agony rang out from those slaves that had been deemed too slow as they were disciplined by the overseers.

The slaves held onto the metal spars of the scaffold as it shook. The outside wall of the tower was not perfectly smooth, but rather was slightly stepped, each block overlapping the one below by half a hand-span. After every twenty layers of stones were laid, the mechanical scaffold would climb those narrow steps, pistons steaming as the spiderlike legs of the framework pulled it further up the growing structure. It was an ingenious creation, Varnus had been forced to admit, though he hated it to the core of his being.

Varnus squatted atop the shuddering structure, holding on tight. Pierlo grinned at him, his eyes lit up feverishly. He guessed the man was losing his mind, for he almost seemed to be enjoying the hellish work. It took almost ten minutes for the framework of the scaffold to reposition itself, and it was the only real break that the slaves got until the shift rotation. The Discord blared its hateful sound.

'So what was it that you did before?' whispered Varnus. He knew his fellow slave's name, knew that he had lived his entire life in Shinar and that he had fathered no children. But he did not know what the man had done before the occupation. It was almost as if the man had been avoiding the subject, and Varnus had been waiting for this moment to ask him directly.

The blood-mortar smeared man looked away. 'What did you do?' whispered Varnus again, more forcefully. Betrayer, he thought he heard amidst me horrific sounds blaring from the speaker of the Discord.

'I was a manservant and bodyguard.' Pierlo said, his eyes flicking left and right madly, and it suddenly clicked where Varnus had seen him before.

'I have seen you before,' he said. Pierlo looked around sharply, his eyes blazing with unnatural heat. He shook his head vigorously.