"Did you get anything out of him?" A hoarse voice, muffled and sharpened by two thin slits of dark metal echoed in the tent.
Mavius never once took his gaze off his sight from the dangling, bloody sack of torn meat hoisted up on a chain like a heavy, useless punching bag.
"The torturer believes he did, Your Imperial Majesty," Landoff answered, his tone flat and utterly professional. He signaled the guards to release the chain. The metal shrieked against the pulley, an abrasive sound that grated on Mavius's already frayed nerves.
"Any answers about the questions I had for him?" Mavius pressed, cutting straight through the theatrics to the core of his anxiety.
"Nothing definitive, really," Landoff noted, shaking a folded piece of blood-smudged parchment. "And truly, nothing new to add to what we already gleaned from this."
Mavius sighed, the sound like tearing coarse linen. "You know I needed names."
