Daussie’s stomach cramped in horrified disgust. She threw up again. Tugging violently at her bonds, she rolled to her stomach and tried to push herself to her feet. The ropes chafed her wrists when she tried to jerk loose, but they were unyielding. Daussie had risen to her hands and feet preparatory to standing. She pictured herself trying to hop away, knowing that escape was hopeless. The stocky man stepped closer, lifted his boot, and kicked her in the hip knocking her over onto her side.
The man dropped to one knee and brought his face closer to hers. “I’m gonna untie your ankles ‘cause I’m tired of carrying your sorry ass.”
Daussie jerked back, the man’s breath was foul. He closed the distance to her again, “Then I’m gonna put a leash on you. But,” he leered at her, “if you try to run again, when we catch you I’m gonna let Peters here ‘do you’ like he so desperately wants to. You understand me?” he said in a harsh tone.
“Why not now Waxman?” the smaller man asked querulously.
“‘Cause I said so,” Waxman barked.
Peters jerked back in fear.
Waxman grinned at Peters. “Also,” he glanced back at Daussie, “‘cause the mere thought of you trying to get into her pants is gonna keep her from running away. Right Girly?”
Daussie swallowed and jerked a nod.
Waxman picked up Daussie’s feet and untied and unwound the rope binding her ankles. Grasping her arm, he pulled her to her feet without evident effort. A minute later, he had tied the rope from her ankles to the one around her wrist and fashioned a loop on the other end of it that he could hold onto. Before they started walking, he said, “Peters, why don’t you feel her up a little, give her some idea what’s going to happen if she tries to run.”
Daussie’s eyes widened in horror and she cringed as Peters stepped close and began to grope her. She collapsed to the ground trying to escape his hands, but he followed her down.
Waxman said, “Okay, that’s enough. Let her go.” He bent and jerked Daussie back to her feet, pulling her close and saying in a low, ugly tone, “Now, I know you didn’t like that, but it’ll be a lot worse if I turn him loose, understand?”
Daussie nodded, cowering away from both of them.
Waxman turned and started off through the forest, snarling at Daussie’s tears and jerking her rope when she didn’t keep up.
***
Lizeth, Tarc, and Daum searched the raiders’ farm for clues as to where they had gone. They found no one, and Tarc could tell that no one had stayed behind in hiding either. They found a large area of disturbed earth at the corner of the nearest field. Tarc immediately sensed the rows of dead bodies in the shallow mass grave. Not just the men who’d died the night before, but two women as well. With a sick feeling, he suspected that the raiders had gotten rid of a couple of women who’d been problematic or undesirable.
Daum stepped closer to Tarc and said quietly in a horrified tone, “I think they buried a bunch of people here!”
Tarc didn’t want to tell his father how he knew who’d been buried there so he merely nodded affirmation. He glanced at Lizeth and saw that she also suspected what lay under the disturbed earth, though certainly not that a couple of the women had been buried as well.
A couple of circuits of the farm buildings were sufficient to convince them that the raiders had not left across the soft ground in the adjoining fields. If they had, the tracks would have been visible. Therefore, they must have left on the hard dirt road.
Unfortunately, there was a crossroad of sorts right beside the farm. One road went to the main highway, others went to adjacent farms. They spent some time studying the junction in hopes that they could tell which direction the raiders had gone but were unable to do so. Daum said, “Dammit, if I’d rode my horse over here I’d be able to check all four directions a lot quicker!”
Lizeth narrowed her eyes at the main road, “Unless they’d ambushed you as you came this way. That’s probably the most likely location for them to have gone. I’ll bet they’ve set up to ambush the caravan as it leaves.”
Daum frowned, “Why did they take the women with them if that’s where they went?”
Lizeth chewed her lip, “I don’t know. You’re right, it doesn’t make much sense.” She looked the other direction, “it’s hard for me to believe that they’ve pulled up stakes and run off down the main highway the other direction either.”
Tarc said, “Maybe something spooked them and they’ve moved their operations to a different farm?”
Lizeth shrugged, “Maybe. If so, they probably went down one of these three roads. We could split up and each of us check one of the roads, but the chances would be a lot higher that their rearguard would take out a singleton.”
“We’ve got to do it,” Tarc said. “We can’t leave Daussie with them any longer than we absolutely have to.”
Daum’s eyes widened, Tarc could tell he was torn between leaving Daussie in the raiders’ hands a little longer and risking Tarc on the road by himself. Before he said anything though, Lizeth said, “Three of us finding them at the same time isn’t going to get her out of their hands any sooner. It’s not like we can take on the entire group of raiders all by ourselves you know. Two of us will have to stay and keep watch while the other one tries to go back to the caravan to scare up some reinforcements.” Taking charge, she said, “Our best strategy is for us to split up and each of us take one of these roads. Be extremely careful. They’ll likely have left a rearguard. We’ll meet back here in an hour which should be long enough for us to check each of the nearest farms. Then we’ll decide what to do next.” Without waiting for any discussion she turned and started down the middle of the three roads. After glancing at one another, Tarc took the one on the right and Daum the one on the left.
***
For a while, Daussie stumbled along in Waxman’s wake, terrified and hopeless. Walking barefoot was hard on her feet but Waxman had recognized the problem and had tied some soft leather patches he had with him around her feet. She prayed that Lieutenant Arco would come to her rescue, and wondered if her father and brother might be coming as well.
At first, Peters walked behind her and she hardly noticed him. When the trail widened however, he trotted a few steps to come up on her left side. A glance showed her that he was sweeping her with his eyes, something she found disgusting. Although his slight physique kept him from appearing as dangerous as Waxman, something about his unclean interest in her turned her stomach. When he reached out for her, she lunged to the side, stumbling at the end of Waxman’s rope.
Waxman looked back at the disturbance and grunted, “Leave her alone Peters. You’ll get your turn when we get back to camp.”
At first relieved to have Peters called off, when Daussie processed the rest of Waxman’s sentence she felt even more horrified. “Turn?!” Her heart pounded and her breath came in short gasps as her stomach roiled. These men were sick, they had her, she couldn’t get away, and terrible things were about to happen.
Daussie stumbled over a root and fell hard when Waxman’s leash kept her from catching herself on her hands. Oblivious to the tears which kept her from seeing the root, Waxman kicked her several times while ordering her back to her feet.
They resumed walking and Daussie thought back to how she had felt this same way when the men had started to attack her in the stable back at the tavern. Memory of that incident brought back the calm she had felt after Tarc had killed the two men attacking her. Recognizing that her terrorized panic served her poorly, she straightened her posture, took several deep breaths and resolved to try to act calmly in the hopes that it would restore her composure. After all, her mother had frequently told depressed patients to smile because forcing your face into a smile was known to improve your spirits.
Thinking back to the serenity she felt after Tarc rescued her, she realized that, though they remained in terrible danger, the fact that he seemed able to do something about it—that she no longer felt they were helpless—had been very i
mportant. If only she had Tarc’s talent! She could use it to protect herself like Tarc had.
She smiled tremulously as she thought about the possibilities granted by her own talent. Maybe these men had gallstones, and she could threaten to remove them. She imagined them trembling in fear at her power to help them.
She tilted her head. What if one of them did have gallstones—and she offered to remove them in return for mercy? She sent her ghost out into Waxman’s body. To her surprise, he did have a number of stones in his gallbladder!
Mentally, Daussie tried to compose an offer to remove Waxman’s gallstones. Unfortunately, she didn’t know if Waxman had ever had a gallstone attack. If he hadn’t, she’d be offering to help them with something he didn’t see as a problem. However, it seemed unlikely that he would respond to questions from her about whether he’d ever had abdominal pain.
If only she had some way to bring on an attack, then it seemed much more likely that he would respond favorably to her help.
Daussie blinked. If she was capable of teleporting a gallstone completely out of the body, could she simply move one from the gallbladder into the bile duct? He stopped at a fork in the animal trail they were following. As he looked at the two paths, Daussie found herself right behind him. She reached out with her ghost. A moment later Waxman grunted and grabbed his stomach as if someone had kicked him. He stopped doubled over.
Daussie’s ghost went into Waxman again, confirming that she had in fact moved one of the smaller stones out of the bladder and into Waxman’s bile duct. She could see rippling spasms in the duct as it tried to accommodate to and push along the stone that was blocking the flow of fluids.
Waxman sagged and then sat heavily on the ground still gripping his stomach. Now he moved both hands to his abdomen, including the one holding Daussie’s leash. This pulled her closer to him though she leaned back at arm’s length to keep away.
“What’s the matter Waxman?” Peters asked querulously.
“My gut hurts!” Waxman grunted. “It’s happened before, goes away after a while.”
“Oh.” Peters said. After a moment, he continued, “If we’re going to be sitting here for a while, can I have the girl?”
Alarmed, Daussie said quickly but quietly, “I’m a healer! Maybe I can help you Mr. Waxman? In fact, I’m pretty sure I can, if you’ll promise to let me go.”
Waxman didn’t acknowledge Daussie’s plea, instead holding the loop of her leash out to Peters. “Sure,” he grunted, “just get her the hell away from me for a bit.”
Daussie grabbed Waxman’s sleeve in desperation, “Mr. Waxman! I really think I can help you with your pain!”
Waxman casually and brutally knocked Daussie aside with the fist at the end of the sleeve she clung to. “Get her the hell away from me. I don’t want to have to listen to it, so drag her off a ways.”
“Mr. Waxman!” Daussie called as Peters jerked her to her feet. He might not be burly like Waxman, but he was still a lot stronger than Daussie. “Mr. Waxman, I can help you!” Belatedly, she thought of removing the stone that was making Waxman miserable, but now she was too far away.
Daussie turned her attention to Peters, sending her ghost into his gallbladder.
No stones!
She’d thought things were bad, but now they were worse!
She checked Peters’ kidneys for stones as well, but didn’t find any there either! For a moment her dithering mind returned to hoping for rescue. Then she got a grip on herself. No one’s going to show up to save me! I’ve got to save myself!
Daussie sent her ghost back into Peters, wandering through his body hoping for inspiration. Suddenly, as she used her ghost to sense a loop of his large intestine, she realized that she could easily kill this man. Moving a small amount of fecal matter from within his colon to just outside it, into the peritoneal cavity, would cause an infection, peritonitis. That would kill him in a few days, just like it had killed Captain Pike. Unfortunately, such a death wouldn’t occur until long after he’d finished doing whatever he intended to do to Daussie. The agonizing nature of such a death might qualify it as revenge, but it wouldn’t save her.
Peters threw her down on the ground.
Eyes wide at the realization that time was running out, Daussie’s ghost scrabbled around on the ground beneath her in hopes that she would find a pebble. A pebble that could substitute as a gallstone. She would have to grab it with her fingers and put it close enough to Peters’ abdomen that she could easily transport it within. For a second, her mother’s training revolted against the thought of moving a dirty pebble into someone’s abdomen where it would almost certainly cause infection.
Peters sat on her legs and reached for the tie holding Daussie’s pants up. That erased any concern she might have had that the pebble would do harm. Her ghost found a pebble and she managed to grasp it despite her hands being tied together. She reached up towards Peters abdomen with the pebble in her fingers and her ghost found the man’s bile duct.
Just as she did so, he got her pants loose and jerked them down. The heaving motion he made not only moved his bile duct away from her ghost, but knocked the pebble out of her fingers!
Leering, he reached back up towards her crotch.
For a moment her ghost, still out in his abdomen, moved through his stomach.
His stomach’s contents, she suddenly realized, were acid!
As her bound hands covered her crotch and blocked his questing fingers, her ghost transported a dollop of liquid from just within his stomach to just outside of it. Despite struggling as he tried to move her hands aside, Daussie was able to move blob after blob of the acidic liquid the short distance out into Peters’ peritoneal cavity.
Peters grasped the rope on Daussie’s wrists and began pulling it upward. From the direction of his gaze she thought he was intending to tie her wrists to the base of a sapling beside her head so that she could no longer protect herself. Suddenly his eyes widened. Daussie, unsure of whether this was in response to her efforts, continued pumping acid out of his stomach into his peritoneum.
Peters opened his mouth as if to say something or call out. Instead his mouth suddenly slammed shut. His jaw rigid, a horrified expression crossed his face. He let go of Daussie’s rope as his hands descended to his abdomen and he suddenly curled around his middle. Tremors wracked his body as he rolled off of her, his breath wheezing in and out.
Daussie grabbed her pants and jerked them up. She rolled to her feet and began running back down the path while she fumbled to do up her pants. She glanced around to be sure she’d chosen the direction away from Waxman. Once her pants were stable, she lengthened her stride, though she still couldn’t run very fast with her hands tied to one another. She raised her wrists to her mouth and pulled at the knots with her teeth while she ran, though that proved to be very difficult.
Chapter Ten
Tarc trotted down the road at a pace he thought he could maintain, casting as far ahead with his ghost as he could in order to be sure he didn’t run into an ambush. Almost as soon as the road passed into a small stand of woods, he sensed a man standing behind one of the boles.
He ran off the right side of the road and out into the forest. His ghost showed him a trail running somewhat parallel to the road there. He considered taking it around the guard, but didn’t want to leave an enemy behind him. It could be problematic to have an enemy back there if he had to flee. He considered taking the man out with an arrow, but he couldn’t be completely sure the man actually was an enemy.
Tarc paused for a moment, sorting through possible paths that his ghost showed him in the woods. Then he ran lightly along a route that would bring him up behind the man. As Tarc got closer and could make out the man’s details with his ghost, it became evident that the man had seen Tarc out on the road and followed him as he ran off to the side and into the woods. The man was nervously looking about, surely trying to figure out where Tarc had gone.
Tarc drew an arrow and nocked it. He was ab
le to tell when the man was looking away, and crept closer only when the man would be unable to see him. When the man turned towards Tarc again he paused, quietly immobile behind various trees.
Ten yards away, Tarc stopped. Dressed in typical raider gear, the man had the hard look of the ex-soldiers who’d invaded Walterston. The man spun, wide-eyed, when he heard the creak of Tarc’s bow as he drew. Tarc said, “If you’ll answer some questions truthfully, I might let you live.”
The man sneered, “Kid, if you shoot that arrow, it’s gonna miss. When it does, I’m going to kill you a little bit at a time. I’d advise you to let the draw off that string, throw the bow and arrow down, and run like hell.” He stepped toward Tarc.
Tarc shot him in the eye. He blinked, then said under his breath, “I guess you answered the question about whether you were one of the raiders.” He shrugged, “And, I guess you also answered the question about where the rest of them are.” Tarc turned and looked on down the road. He said musingly, “I imagine they’re just little further down this road you were guarding.”
Tarc walked to the man, pulled out his arrow, wiped it on the man’s clothes, and trotted back to the road. Again he cast his ghost far ahead as he ran. He glanced up at the sun when he could see it, trying to decide if it had moved a half a fist indicating that he should start back for the crossroads. He couldn’t really tell, but it seemed like nearly a half an hour must have passed. Up ahead the woods ended. Tarc slowed and moved gingerly up to the edge of the trees.
The farm appeared deserted, but Tarc’s ghost told him that the house and out buildings were crowded with men. The buildings were far enough from Tarc that he had a hard time telling where they were holding the women. He certainly couldn’t tell if Daussie was among them.
Tarc turned and began to run back toward the crossroads. His half hour was up and by the time he got back there, the hour until their meeting would have passed.
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