Nikto awkwardly shook his shaggy head, trying to toss disobedient strands of hair away from his face and look at the people standing over him but it didn't work. In the beginning they had made him kneel at the wooden post, and now he was sitting on his heels in front of them, leaning against the post somewhat lopsidedly. His arms were twisted behind his back, wrists locked in steel cuffs around the post and raised up. The chain of the cuffs was fixed on the hook too high, almost disjointing his arms, not letting him straighten his back.
"Hey, Nikto." Orel sighed. "Let's make a deal. You answer our questions honestly, and we give you a shot."
Nikto finally managed to turn his head and look up at Orel.
"Why are you breaking me? Aren't you a prince, a free lord from the Upper City? We are from different worlds. Our ways never cross. You have no personal interest in me. Whose order do you follow when you interrogate me? I didn't know a prince could serve someone. Who orders you? The king's secret police?"
Orel's face twitched.
"It doesn't concern you." He raised Nikto's chin higher with the tip on his boot making him screw his eyes shut with pain in his twisted arms. "I'm asking questions here, not you."
"Make him kiss your boot, Arel! Show this dirty half-blood who he's talking to!" Tol shouted clasping Nikto's head in his huge palms. "Here, Arel, kick his mug!"
"Tol, enough," Lis said.
"Just look at it, Arel!" Tol's hand in a leather glove made Nikto open his mouth showing his long, inhuman fangs. "And claws! On his fingers! He's a shitty, dirty half-blood! And the tattoos on his cheeks!" Tol squeezed Nikto's face. "Just look at it! The letters of the Unclean. Like something's written on his face!"
Orel met Nikto's gaze. Nikto's face was nothing like crude, irregular faces of the Unclean. The man also didn't look like a commoner; he could easily be called handsome if not for a scar that crossed his forehead and the whole right side of his face, tearing his cheek so deep that it seemed a little more and one could see his molars.
"Leave him be," Orel ordered. "Nikto, if you don't want any more problems, answer my questions, okay?"
"Okay, okay! Ask your questions! I didn't quit 'water' to die like that, in front of a bunch of idiots who don't even know what they want!"