The Maelstroms Eye Read Online Free Page A

proved helpful, and the general usually let the screaming set the pace of his work.
    The present system of handling elven prisoners was a great improvement over the old one, the general reflected as he paused in his work. Many of the troops still preferred the dusk-to-dawn mass rituals now permitted only during religious holidays and military celebrations, when prisoners were many, but that system ate up too much time and required too many troops to manage the captives; it was simply wasteful. Now only three or four soldiers and a war priest could handle affairs, and the limited pool of subjects was stretched considerably. The timing also allowed for normal sleep, and the new ceremony still satisfied the legions. Best of all, it had a profound effect on those prisoners awaiting their turns on the red-stained granite block in the citadel’s withered garden, and they offered up the most remarkable secrets in the hopes that they would be spared. That was always the most amusing part, thought the general, as he started the last of one batch of reports and took another bite of his meat and rice.
    Sometimes the general would stop and listen to a particularly interesting cry a victim would make. He thought he could make out individual words in Elvish, most being pleas for mercy, but he was never sure. His hearing had only recently recovered from the day when the main gun on the Groundling Scythe had blown up in front of him during the landings on this curious little world, which the elves had named Spiral. The blast had otherwise merely bruised and cut the general in numerous places, thanks to his thick armor and innate fortitude, but it had also killed eighteen marines and his previous goblin aide, the third he had lost in only a year. Aides were damned hard to train properly, and getting along without them was inconvenient at best. He hoped the current one would last a while.
    The morning sun’s red light was supplemented by magical light globes set up around the room, and the general had no trouble reading. The air was still cool, not yet up to the dry oven heat that would come in the afternoon. The food was well prepared, and the water cold and fresh. It must have been the tedium of the reports, then, that caused General Vorr to let a page drop from his fingers to the desktop. He rubbed his bald gray pumpkin head with both huge hands, his eyes closed. It was hard to concentrate, and he wasn’t sure what was bothering him. He’d gotten used to the low ceilings in the elven buildings, barely two feet above his eight-foot frame, and Spiral’s sun didn’t bother his eyes the way the brighter stars did. He paid no mind to extreme temperature changes. Even his steel-banded, black-trimmed armor was as comfortable as leisure clothes could hope to be.
    It couldn’t be a lack of exercise, either. Despite the end of direct combat action in these last few weeks, the general was careful to maintain his Herculean musculature with heavy lifting and stretching exercises every other day. His pale-gray skin had a healthy shine, and none of his many old injuries were bothersome these days.
    Something was wrong. After a moment, the general knew what it was, and he knew also that there was no immediate cure for it. He sighed and looked down at his paper-strewn desk, noting the heavy, red-iron tarantula paperweight his troops had cast for him, then the thick mithril-steel globe the elves had long ago made of Spiral, showing the strange, winding rivers that flowed from its polar seas to its equatorial ocean and back. He felt no inspiration there, and that was the trouble. Spiral was already conquered.
    Looking up, the general found himself staring at the immense clawed hands mounted to either side of the oaken double doors of his expansive office. The green, four-fingered husks went well against the white walls, mute testimony to the broken might of the elven ground forces. The zwarth that had once wielded those claws had been a real titan, a