“Very well,” Temok said. “After my men rip you limb from boney limb with their bare hands, I will dine on your dripping entrails while you still have enough mind left to watch.”
Sage sucked in a deep breath. Riken did likewise, his bravado taking a serious hit for the first time.
“Better,” he said, then stayed his tongue.
“Are there others?” Temok asked.
“Nay.”
“You brought only four men to take on the Black Earth tribe? I doubt that.”
“We assumed that would be enough.”
“Where does the rest of your party hide?”
“Our fourth? I believe you would know more about that than I. He’s obviously in your coin purse.”
“I grow tired of this sack of skin,” Temok said. He turned to a woman at his side. “Bring Sefen’s conspirator to me. He seems to like jewels enough to betray his kinsmen. It may be that he’d enjoy living long enough to spend them.”
Sage watched the woman depart, trailing her little finger along the surface of the tables. When she reached the end, her finger was wet with spilled juices. She stuck it into her mouth, sucked at it, then disappeared through the southern entrance.
Sage looked back to Riken Snowtear. His head was down again, as if he’d lost the spirit to keep it upright. His jaw was red from the beatings, but even in his dilapidated state, his eyes showed he was far from defeated. He had fight left in him.
Sage was determined to aid him.
When his friend walked through the tent’s entrance, rudely escorted by Temok’s woman, Riken felt like a boulder had been dropped on his chest, then ground into his bones until they were a fine powder.
Tawny kept his eyes glued to the ground, never once looking up at Riken. If he had, he would’ve seen the deepest look of sadness that had ever marred a human face. Riken’s mind refused to believe the young man had betrayed him. There had to be another explanation. He wouldn’t, couldn’t.
The small sack clenched in his hand told another tale.
“At least have the decency to hide your blood reward,” Illter told Tawny as the young man reached the center of the table.
Tawny flinched, but his gaze never left his boots.
Riken had seen that look in Illter’s eyes before. Cold as an icicle to the heart, as if Tawny had already ceased to exist. For good or ill, Riken couldn’t conjure the same raw contempt. Tawny was a friend, a commodity Riken had always been in short supply of. Until it was incontestable, he would hold off his denouncement.
When Temok’s commanding voice addressed him, Tawny finally lifted his eyes.
“Where is the rest of your party?” he asked.
Riken heard it before he saw.
Without a sound coming from his mouth, and with force Riken hadn’t known the man possessed, Illter constricted his arms inward, and the x-shaped boards confining him snapped like rotted driftwood. Splinters burst like feathers, and Illter lunged for the head table, dragging the pieces of wood still tied to the ropes on his wrists and ankles with him. He vaulted atop the table in a swift, fluid motion, scooped a wedge of broken plate into his hand, slid off the table, and threw his full weight into Temok. Illter’s shoulder collided in the dead center of the larger man’s chest, and Temok lurched backward with a ragged grunt, slapping into the rock wall like a wet cloth.
Riken realized what was about to take place only a moment before it dawned on Tawny himself.
Their young traitor’s eyes widened so that they almost popped from their sockets, and his hands went to his face, cowering. The little sack clung to his fingers.
Illter never hesitated. His face didn’t even convey the hatred the act would necessitate. He bypassed Tawny’s flailing arms, grabbed a chunk of the boy’s hair from behind, and tilted his neck prone. When a shivering whine escaped Tawny’s quivering, spit-laden lips, Riken tried to look away, but not quickly enough. Illter skimmed the jagged glass across Tawny’s white neck.
As his lifeblood pumped in copious spurts from the deep gash, soaking his woolen jerkin red, the little sack of jewels fell limp from Tawny’s hand.
Illter let the boy fall. His arm dripped Tawny’s blood. He dropped the scrap of pearly white glass as a swarm of Black Earthers descended upon him.
Riken shouted as the wave of bodies swallowed Illter.
“Retore ah lemitore,” Temok bellowed, his voice ringing off every surface in the giant tent.
The men and women assaulting Illter froze and leapt away from him as if he’d suddenly become of pile of striking snakes.
Temok rose from the ground. His eyes danced, livid. The back of his head was bleeding. Rolling his massive shoulders, he straightened to his full height, seeming to have grown at least a foot. He clutched the sides of his head and drew in a cavernous breath as he ran his hands through his wild mane, grasping the thick strands as if he meant to yank them from his scalp. When he released the long breath, his fired expression cooled.
“Rebind him,” he said. “Do it right this time.”
Riken let go of the tight breath he’d been holding. Temok heard him and turned to face him, his dangerous eyes narrowing.
“Is that relief?” he asked. “Let it die. Tonight you and yours will feel the full wrath of Black Earth. Tonight you will learn the true nature of agony.”
For once, Riken couldn’t formulate a response.
A hot tear blinked from her eye, scolding her cheek.
What valor. The battle was lost, and still these men fought.
Gabby had fainted out the sight of all the blood gushing from the blond man’s neck. Wilma had crawled under the edge of the table. A woman with enormous, brown breasts barely concealed beneath her ratty furs kicked at the little girl, sticking her in the back with toenails that might never have been introduced to a knife, but Wilma remained cowered underneath, trying to hug herself despite her arms being bound behind her. Tessa had further moistened Sage’s foot with water from her eyes, and Renna sat at Sage’s right, staring blankly at the proceedings. In their direction, anyway. Sage doubted the petrified girl saw anything through those abused eyes.
“Bring water for our guests,” Temok called.
Sage frowned, and she bit at her lip. She doubted Temok was offering the men a drink to cool their throats.
I must do something, and soon, she thought, but didn’t know what. She stared forebodingly at the bubbling cauldron being carried toward Riken Snowtear by three robust Black Earthers. I am not strong enough by far.
She looked at Temok. He wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were enjoying this spectacle. His beast of a sword had fallen to the ground during the earlier commotion. For now, it lay forgotten underneath his table.
The three men placed the rusted cauldron in front of Riken.
“Where is the rest of your party?” Temok asked, looking at Riken.
Riken answered by lifting her exhausted chin and spitting a chunk of thick blood on the ground at his feet. A thin stream lingered on his lower lip.
“Unbind his leg,” Temok said.
When one of the men did, Riken put up no fight. He looked like he’d been drained of all fortitude, hanging limp as an overcooked noodle on his x-shaped beams. When Temok nodded, the man holding Riken’s leg bent it at the knee, then plunged it into the scolding water.
Riken let out the vilest scream Sage had ever heard. Her soul almost fled her body as the grievous resonation stretched on, refusing to quail. The animals joined in, filling the tent with howls.
When they pulled his leg out, the skin was marred pink as a baked ham, and had sprouted tiny boils like gooseflesh that wouldn’t rescind any time soon, if ever.
When his terrible cries finally dampened, Riken’s upturned head slumped again to his chest.
“You will answer my question,” Temok said. “Though the answer will not save your life. It can, however, decide the means by which you leave this world. Where is the rest of your party?”
Riken didn’t answer. They dipp
ed his leg in again.
This time, the entire tent joined in his misery, howling in mockery at his bravery.
Sage couldn’t help herself; she looked away. Her eyes clenched as tight as she could possibly make them, she heard a soft, rushed whisper from the other side of the tent wall. She looked to her sides. Her guards were baying wildly at the ceiling, their dirty faces euphoric. She inched back a couple steps and strained to hear. She heard whispers again, but couldn’t make out the words. The commotion was too loud.
Then she saw a huge hand reach beneath the wall and lift it slightly. It motioned for her.
Her first thought was sheer, unabashed liberation. Riken’s party. They’d come for her, and her guards were too involved in ridiculing Riken to notice. When she saw the round, bearded face peek beneath the leather wall, she could’ve showered it with kisses. But then she looked back to Riken, and her brief flirtation with hope sank like a heavy stone in a cold, dark ocean.
“Come on,” the man behind the wall said, gentle but with desperate urgency.
She took a step backward and kicked the hand away.
“Come now,” the man said. “We haven’t much time.”
“Riken has none,” Sage said, her voice breaking. What am I doing?
“Riken can take care of himself. We have to get you girls out of here while we still have time.”
The big hand snatched for her ankle, and she kicked it again. He caught her, though, and started to tug.
“Let go,” she said, trying to hush her voice. When he didn’t, she smashed his fingers with the heel of her free foot. No cry of pain sounded, but he let her ankle free.
“By the Fire,” the man cursed.
“Sage, you must come with us,” a female voice said. Hers was calmer, collected. “There’s nothing we can do. Please. Do not ruin his sacrifice.”
The howling within the tent subsided, and regretfully Sage returned to her spot. It took all her small stipend of courage to do so. Freedom was just beyond that slim, leather wall, but she couldn’t take its hand, not with her saviors dying before her eyes.
“Answer me, little man,” Temok said, his voice starting to sound perturbed. A scowl had formed on his face. The guise chilled Sage’s bones.
Sage watched as Riken’s head tilted up again. By the energy the act seemed to require, she didn’t think he’d be able to do it again. His amber eyes were defeated. Sweat drenched the strands of blond hair littering his face. His leg twitched, scorching red and – By the Fire – bubbling. He opened his mouth as if to speak, failed, then his chin once again thumped on his collarbone.
Temok frowned, his face reddening. “Very well,” he said, and nodded to the man nearest Riken with the empty quiver still strung over his shoulder.
A Black Earther with sunset red hair covering his eyes like a sheep dog took a step toward the unconscious man, gripped the top of his head in a large paw, unsheathed a small corroded dagger, and sank it into the man’s neck. He sawed it like a butcher would a stubborn cut of beef. Sick popping and tearing sounds uttered from the assaulted flesh. Riken screamed,
a mournful, devastated wail. His other friend stared on in silence. A final gut-wrenching pop and snag, and the bushy-headed Black Earther freed the archer’s head from his neck.
“By the Father and Son, I’ll…” Riken’s hoarse, raw voice couldn’t finish his threat. He jerked within his binds for only a moment, unable to continue, then slumped again, crying.
A guttural cheer went up like a roaring of thunder. The diners at the tables banged their flagons on the wood, shaking the ground. The rest of the tribe resumed their howling. The animals joined.
“Payton,” Sage heard the woman behind the wall cry quietly. “Sage, come now. Come now, or I swear on my life, I’ll kill you myself.”
“I…can’t…”
“You would let them die in vain? For what?”
“I…” she couldn’t explain it to the grieving woman. If there was even the slightest chance that she could rescue the two remaining men, she had to do it. She couldn’t leave them, not after they’d come for her. Not after all they’d already given up. How could she ever live with herself?
Still nestled on Sage’s foot, Tessa whimpered. She felt a low welling rising in her stomach, spreading through her entire body, tingling her fingertips. She knew what her choice meant for the rest of the girls, too, but she couldn’t allow them to flee. Temok and the rest of the tent would notice their absence. She couldn’t risk it. Even though that might mean…
Sage swallowed the sob forming in her throat, choking on it like a lump of meat too big to gulp down.
“Wait for my signal,” she whispered over her shoulder, hoping her would-be rescuers were still there. “Then, whatever you were planning on doing to get us out of here, do it.”
She didn’t think they were going to answer. Finally, they did.
“Very well,” a dejected voice said.
“My thanks,” she said, and meant it.
On the far end of the tent, just beyond the line of tables, Riken saw the girls, and the lean morsel of courage he’d been seizing onto mocked him as it flittered away.
When Tawny had been revealed as the traitor – exonerating Dexter – his hopes that Uther and the other two might still be able to salvage the rescue attempt had been renewed. During his excruciating introduction to the scolding water that had been melting his leg, he’d held staunchly to that prospect, praying that he could prevail just a little longer. Just long enough for Uther to get those little girls to safety.
Riken’s knew his ineptitude had wrought havoc upon all their heads. If surrendering his life would grant those children a reprieve, maybe Amana would finally forgive him. Maybe then, after he released his grip on this world, she would let him be with her once more. The epiphany had given his heart solace, even as his body had recoiled under the enormous anguish of its torture.
The fact that the children were still in attendance proved true a reality Riken had always suspected. This world had never tendered any love on him, and it never would.
“You are a brave man, Riken Snowtear,” Temok said, drawing Riken’s fading attention away from the doomed girls. “I would not have thought so by looking at you. For that, you have my admiration. Though you will die soon, and badly, I offer you this consolation: I wish my own son had been more like you.”
Riken could barely concentrate on the man’s words through the all-encompassing turmoil tearing and shredding through his body. His leg was afire, dulling the rest of his pain, but making coherence almost unfathomable. Even the sweat and tears streaming down his face burned. The sight of Payton’s head being sheered from his body was smoldered onto his eyeballs, a permanence within him now.
Not that I have long to harbor it, he thought
For the first time, he was glad Tawny was dead, though it was hardly all the boy’s fault. The heftiest portion of blame already lay in its rightful place. On Riken’s own shoulders. He’d brought them all here. It was his failure to find Sage Ullimar sooner that had required this fateful expedition. It was his ineptitude, his curse, his nature.
“And I wish my father weren’t the bastard spawn of some filthy dirt wench,” Sefen said. “I wish he’d just oozed down her leg like so many uncountable before him.”
Temok actually smiled. “You wish you had never been born? At least in that we share a like mind. Fear not, Sefen, spawn of my disgrace, a portion of your desire is about to be answered.”
Sefen only sneered, but Riken, even in his haze, could see the manic fear forcing its way to the surface of the man’s poised exterior.
“But wait your turn,” Temok said, looking away from his son in disgust. “A true warrior like Riken Snowtear dies first in battle. He does not linger in the back row, praying to the Fires that his number will not be called to fight. He charges forth, taking on all that will stand in his path. It is an honorable death, blessed by the kiss of the Fires.” Temok locked eyes with Riken. “You and yo
urs will not be among our sacrifice. Your fortitude has won you a death of honor. After my blade pierces your heart, spilling your lifeblood back to the Dirts, your gallant remains will be placed in our flames, so that you may rest and be reborn with the Fires.”
Riken didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He closed his eyelids and awaited the retribution of his failed life. He heard Temok approach, but his eyes refused to reopen.
The steel was cold and hard and excruciating, parting his flesh with ease, entering his chest. When it pierced his heart, sheering the vital, pumping organ in two neat halves, Riken thought he felt that too.
So ends the loathsome tale of Riken Snowtear. Hated among most. Scorned by many. Purveyor of nothing. Benefactor of none. Mourned by no one.
He waited for the sleep of sleeps to come, almost relishing the finality of it. He waited…and waited…and…
Sage had never had to hold onto something so long.
The demanding effort slammed and slammed against a mind untrained to sustain her minor fibra so indefinitely. Her head pounded like the Black Earthers’ giant drums. Her eyeballs felt like they bulged in their sockets. Her limbs grew ever benumbed. Even conjuring such a small illusion, Sage had to focus every ounce of her being into retaining it long enough to see the deed to culmination.
She cursed herself for her slothfulness. If she’d have worked harder all those cycles ago at the Foundation, instead of taking the easy route, this wouldn’t be a problem. Sure, she could manifest illusions of majestic beauty – functioning waterfalls laced with rainbows of color; whole parties of tiny, dancing, singing performers; once even a full-sized house, complete with a smoking chimney stack atop a thatched roof – but she could only hold those images for moments. Nothing like the masters of Illusion. She’d never even attempted sustaining one this long.
How much longer she could, Sage Ullimar didn’t know.
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