In the center of the town square, Gercomo came to a halt and Salinda sagged to her knees in a putrid-smelling puddle. Her head flopped forward onto her hands, and she was too far gone to drag herself from where she had landed. Through hooded eyes she saw a few people about, skulking in the shadows, possibly going about their business, but not quite interested enough to take notice of the newcomers.
Salinda didn’t have the strength to ask for help. With her nose to the cobblestones, she listened to Gercomo’s booted feet as he walked rather energetically in a circle around her. His behavior was puzzling. Feeling helpless, she tried to keep her eyes on him while he whirled around. Then suddenly, he faced her and pointed, yelling at the top of his voice, “Harlot! Witch!”
Instinctively Salinda flinched, then trembled as the reality of what he was planning dawned on her. With eyes full with horror, she gaped at him. Stone-faced he repeated his cry. The echo of his words reverberated around her. Harlot, harlot, witch, witch!
Folk crept from their doorways and from down the street. As they gathered around, Salinda saw that their mouths were agape with curiosity and their eyes were wet with excitement. Other town dwellers huddled like shadows at the mouths of dark alleys, too afraid to venture forward. Only their murmurs could be heard, deepening with the onset of night. It was as if every eye was burning into her, gnawing away at what was left of her dignity. The bitter tang of her own death ripened on her tongue.
A surge of anger gave her the strength to move. She pushed against the ground, lifted her head and eased back onto her knees. A waft of stench hit her as the channel of effluent she’d been kneeling in was disturbed.
Men surged forward when they saw her face. Some of them were dressed respectably in tailored clothes, others in rags. Common to all was that lustful, hungry look, which contained neither pity nor mercy. Even though her skin was dark with dirt and dried blood, her stained red whore’s lips had the desired effect. Salinda found herself searching the faces in the gathering crowd, looking, perhaps, for sympathy, for hope of rescue. When her gaze fell on some women who had elbowed their way to the front, she saw instead the prim-lipped expressions and hate burning in their eyes.
When enough people had gathered, Gercomo dragged on her lead. “Get up, whore-witch. Up!”
The crowd began to cheer and growl.
Trying not to let a whimper escape, Salinda crawled to her feet. Once standing, she swayed, losing focus as those faces surrounding her blurred. The sound of blood pumping in her ears merged with the mob’s scornful cries and jeers. Gercomo shouted at them, urging them on, rousing them into a bloody fury.
Next thing she knew he was standing in front of her, a hint of triumph in that flinty gaze of his. “See—she’s a whore.” He ripped her shirt down the middle, exposing her breasts and red-painted nipples. The clamor grew louder. She caught sight of men licking their lips. Revolted by the anticipation she saw in their gazes, she tried to shelter herself. Each breath removed more of the liquor’s taint and restored more of herself. She could no longer hide in an exhausted fugue, but had to somehow deal with this immediate and nightmarish present.
A shove from behind flung her back to the ground. Someone leaned over her upper body, forcing her face-first into the sewer. While she fought against the hold, her breeches were roughly cut away, exposing her stained womanhood. Whoever held her head down released her, letting her spit the muck from her mouth and blow it clear of her nostrils. A cheer rose up, half-angry, half-excited. Perhaps in Gunner prostitution was a crime; it was beyond knowing. During her childhood in Sartell, prostitution was how many women lived, how they survived. Depending on which government was in power, it was either tolerated or legal. But in the provincial towns, it depended on the mood of the locals and their interpretation of Magol’s words.
To Gercomo’s obvious amusement, coins began to clink against the pavement. He laughed. “Fools!” he cried. “You want this miserable wench’s services?” He turned full circle, pointing to her, reviling her with his words and expression. “You want to put your rod in that red slit? Ware, then. Ware!”
He ripped her sleeve down, exposing her witch’s brand. In unison the crowd jumped back, some with hands raised making signs to ward against her. Then, as if a flood gate had opened, cries for her blood erupted. “Kill her! Kill her! Burn her! Burn her!” Salinda knew then with cold certainty that if they didn’t tear her apart first, they would burn her in the morning for a witch.
Gercomo met her gaze and nodded when he saw her digest what was going to happen to her—saw her take in the awful truth of what he had done. His eyes gleamed with satisfaction and his lips curled into an evil smile. “Punishers!” he yelled to the sky. “Bring the Punishers.”
That call was taken up by the townsfolk as well. Their voices were deafening. Too soon, the grim-looking women were replaced by uniformed ones carrying beating sticks and whips in their ready grips. Their expressions were eager, their gazes hard. Salinda shivered. When she was about ten years old, she had seen her first Punisher. The uniformed woman had turned up at the school Salinda attended. The unsmiling woman had left a strong impression on Salinda. She remembered how the Punisher had beaten a boy in front of the class. Salinda had been so distressed by the ordeal that her mother had kept her home from school after that. But the remit of Punishers didn’t stop at mere beatings. Since she had been at the vineyard, she’d heard that their power had grown. Prisoners arriving after her had told of how they had been tortured by Punishers. Seeing them now in the flesh was hard enough. Knowing she was the focus of their wrath was nearly unbearable.
The crowd parted again, drawing her attention. Next to Gercomo appeared an overweight, slovenly dressed constable with food stains splashed down the front of his uniform. “So, Gercomo, free of the vineyard at last, are you? Must tell me all about it over a drink—a long drink, I think,” the constable said in a slow drawl. He eyed Salinda. “The reward for surrendering that witch-whore will set you up nicely in Gunner, or anywhere for that matter. We are grateful, though. We don’t tolerate evil here. Don’t often get the opportunity to stamp it out.”
Gercomo grinned knowingly at the constable. “Good to see you, too, Helm. I have things I need to discuss—important things.”
Helm dropped his gaze to Salinda once again. He licked his already wet lips while eyeing all of her minutely. “I understand … Can it wait until after the … the punishment? I am eager to hear what you have to say … but this must take priority.”
“Of course … the wiping out of evil must take precedence. Be my guest. Let the Punishers begin.”
Helm signaled to the Punishers, who then shouldered their way through the crowd, casting some to the ground with their fierce shoves. Salinda stared at them wide-eyed until she felt the impact of a missile that made her flinch. The rock thrown by one of the mob bounced with a thick splash into the gutter. That was all she could recall before blackness descended.
*
It was a dark night as Belle moon was obscured by clouds. Salinda was beyond pain, and wondered in a detached way why she was alive at all. Consciousness came and went. Dangling as she was from the pyre pole, each beat of her heart shot pain around her body in one fell pulse after another. She wasn’t sure she preferred the oblivion unconsciousness brought. It was too much like death itself and that would come soon enough. Her breathing was shallow; it simply hurt too much. There wasn’t a place on her body they’d left untouched. Ribs broken, fingers bent, cut and burned. Unconsciousness for the entire ordeal had been denied her. They roused her when they had begun. She had been aware of the young and old males of the town, who had watched while the Punishers repeatedly beat her. The whole town looked on like a slavering pack of wolves. A few scraggly children with blank-eyed stares and even fewer hunch-backed old folk also looked on, their expressions unmoved by what they witnessed.
The five Punisher women watched and screamed encouragement to each other as one by one they took turns whipping her bef
ore the crowd. It wasn’t the pain so much that hurt her but the expressions on those women’s faces and the vitriol of their words. “Hit her harder, make her bleed,” she remembered one shrill voice screeching. “Drive the evil from her,” another voice had chimed in. Over and over again they justified what they were doing to her with their pious spoutings. But they didn’t punish because they thought her deeds were wrong. No, they enjoyed it too much for that. Their faces had been alive with that glint of power—power over another soul.
How could Salinda want to help these people? They were devoid of all humanity. Mez had said that civilization would return in time, that madness would give way in the end to rationality. Salinda couldn’t see it anymore. At that moment, she didn’t even want to look.
Now that her body was broken, her spirit, too, she thought, there was no more fear. She would die. That was certain. Thoughts of Mez comforted her. Then she sensed it, the cadre, pulsing weakly in her mind. That was not a comfort to her. The cadre would die too, its purpose—to save the people of Margra—thwarted. The faint hope that she could call Plu to help her faded. To summon the young dragon would be to bring about his ending. There was nothing she could do and no one to help her. She doubted she even had the strength to pass the cadre to another. And even if she had, who among them was worthy?
A wall of blackness grew in her mind. If she was lucky it was death, and she would be saved from the final scourging and fire. Why did they burn witches? Could there not be a more humane end? But from the time before the splitting of Ruel had damaged the world there had been witch burnings. It appeared humans were always riddled with ignorance, governed by passion and power. Perhaps it was better that humans passed out of existence. Even as she thought it, she knew it was not so — there was something there …
A bright memory from her past flamed in her mind. She was a child of eight, sitting next to her mother, whose long dark hair flowed down her back. They were sewing patches of material together to make a blanket. A smile brightened her mother’s dark-skinned face. In a low voice she complimented Salinda on her neat and even stitches. Returning the smile, Salinda hugged her mother. At that treasured moment in her past she had been loved and wanted. The scene was so vivid, Salinda could smell the furniture wax and the smoke from the fire, and the beans that were cooking in the pot. It was the memory she had given to the cadre to bind her to it. Did that mean she was close now to her end?
A sound nearby startled her. The memory faded, but the cadre remained close to the surface of her mind. At first her vision was blurry from blood and dirt. She blinked several times before she could bring the square and its surroundings into focus. The cloud-shrouded light of Belle moon brought a greasy sheen to the stained cobblestones. Hard shadows cut the square in half. The sound like footfalls echoed again. Her hands were bound above her. It hurt to shift her head, but she had to try. Someone was there.
The cadre began to glow in her mind, perhaps alert to danger or hope. Whatever the reason, she wanted to see, wanted to know. If one of the townsfolk had come to light her pyre early, then she wanted to fix their faces in her mind, in case the source rejected her and she was left to roam, free to plague them until they died. She thought it might be Gercomo, but he had lost interest in her as soon as her punishment had begun. The thought that she might be traded for cash had never occurred to her, but it had to him.
What hurt her more, though, was that he hadn’t even watched her final humiliation and torture. No, that evil man, the author of all her hurt, had sat with his back to her, talking all the while to his friend, the constable. Her insignificance to him cut her to the core. That was sickness, she knew, a warping of her mind. Yet sadly there was no time left to cure it or excise it. Ultimately, she would die with his mark on her. That tainted liquor was to blame. Or was it she who was to blame for being so weak?
Her eyelids wouldn’t obey her commands. One seemed swollen and half-closed and though the other worked, it brought more blood to blind her. Nevertheless, there in the faint light cast by a flickering streetlamp she saw a shrouded figure walking furtively across the square. She sensed rather than saw him—she felt sure this was a male—for he seemed not to be there one moment but visible the next. When she could focus on him, she noticed there was something different about him. He was taller, thinner than the townsfolk. His gait was different, too, confident and less cowed. She moaned, which was all the sound she could manage. He was ignoring her, drawing his hood lower so he wouldn’t even see her. “Please,” she whimpered.
Enveloped in shadows, the figure paused. The hazy outline of him showed that he had turned toward her. With her one good eye, she tracked him. He hesitated, again drawing his hood over his head, casting his face further into shadow. She caught a glimpse of silver reflected in the light.
“What?” she gasped, though it hurt to breathe. Silver-colored eyes took shape as they focused on her. “Who are you?” The figure shifted his hood back so that she could see the long white hair that framed his face. His chin was pointed. He had no eyebrows, instead a bony arch framing his eyes. His nose was small and flat against his pale, almost translucent skin. Something in the cadre responded to this sight—it felt like recognition—and unbidden it throbbed as if hope had bloomed within it.
“Help me,” she gasped to the wavering vision before her.
Staring at her with those eyes, the being’s expression changed from pity to contempt. Drawing the hood over his face, casting it into shadow once again, he turned away from her.
Hope fell away, but the cadre wouldn’t let this opportunity go. “Please!” she said in a louder voice, hoarse from screaming.
He paused. Turning quickly, more of his face and build were revealed in the shifting of the shroud. A strange-shaped head, elongated. Long, bony fingers. “Why?” he whispered, his voice rather light, the accent strange. “Why should I help you? You are one of them.” He indicated the town around them. “Human. Lost. Forsaken. Depraved.” His tone hardened, appeared to fill with pain. “I saw what they did to you. Know you for a whore and a dealer in the dark arts—a witch.” His expression held no sympathy, held no emotion she could discern. He stepped back to take in the view of her tied to the stake, naked and covered in dirt and blood. “There is no hope for you.”
“No,” she said, her voice growing firmer. The cadre was awake. If she was too weak to grasp the opportunity this being offered, it would take over. “I’m not like them. I must not die.”
“So many have died. Billions! What makes you different? Why should I, Nils of Barr, lift one finger to help you? I have seen much of what this world has become and none of it is good.”
Salinda fought for consciousness. She was so close to death now. It lulled her, like the embrace of her mother. Only the cadre fought for life. It flared like a jewel, lit by inner fire. “Knowledge,” she whispered to the dark.
A faint widening of his eyes betrayed his interest. He drew closer, wedged a foot between the kindling of her pyre. “Did you say … knowledge?” he whispered close to her ear.
Barely able to speak Salinda mouthed, “Yes.” She was fascinated by the glow of the cadre and how it had flamed. She could lose herself in that beauty.
“What knowledge?” Those silver-colored eyes sought to meet her gaze. Yet Salinda found it hard to keep her eyes open.
Salinda wondered what knowledge would serve this outlandish man. He was strange, not of this world, the world she knew. No, he was different, the stuff of legend, of the time before Ruel moon split and fell to Margra. She had to guess, had to feel her way. “Dragons,” she said.
A surge of brightness lit his gaze. She had guessed right. She hoped it was enough. With that, she sagged against her bonds. Death was close now. So close. The light of the cadre flared up and overwhelmed her consciousness.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
An Eye on the Road
Brill hid in the rocks, covered by the camouflage cloak gifted to him by the rebel leader. Danton crouched beside hi
m, peering up to scan the sky. That was the tenth dragon swoop they’d encountered in the five days they’d been on the plain. Two men had been taken. Men they couldn’t afford to lose.
Danton touched Brill’s shoulder and squeezed. “Time to move, kid. Salinda can’t wait much longer for help. The signs are not good.”
“The fire and the smoke?”
“Yes, and the dragon sign. By rights we should not have made it this far, well, not this easily. Although we’ve seen dragons, they have been few and far between and mostly not all that interested in us as food.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Brill kept his eyes on the landscape and then flicked his gaze to the sky. Smoke lingered high up and he could taste it on his tongue. He shivered when he thought of the scent of burned flesh they could detect on the breeze that morning.
Danton signaled to the rest of his men, and they erupted from cover, some from ditches where they lay with their cloaks over them, some wedged in crevices and crannies, others flat on the ground, blending in with the scree. “For us perhaps, but not for the vineyard.”
Brill frowned and licked his dry lips. The acrid taint of old smoke was growing stronger. For the first two nights after they had crested the Fire Ranges the glow of embers had been visible in the distance. Danton feared the worst had happened. Judging by the extent of the fire it appeared not only the vineyard had gone up in flames but the whole complex, including the free village and the forest plantation. Deep inside Brill felt that Salinda was alive, but he wasn’t sure it was more than wishful thinking.
*
By dawn they had reached the deserted cistern where Brill and Salinda had gone to collect dragon urine. Brill was exhausted. Tendrils of mist wafted over dried old bones. Whatever urine had been there, it had dried up. The routine was over. Dragons didn’t come there to feed any longer.
Didly, Danton’s second, took a few men to scout ahead. Brill watched him crouch, then signal half of the rebels to follow him. They fanned out, blending easily with the sticks of charcoal that were once vine stems. Already they had smeared soot on their faces and cloaks. He lost sight of them while Danton deployed the rest of his men to reconnoiter the other side of the vineyard, with orders to salvage what they could while they were at it.
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