see that he had been tied to a tree and she could hear what was said. She ground her teeth in anger as the wounded were tortured and then she almost screamed with Duwan when his first agonized wail came to her.
He was going to die. She did not want to live with him dead. She gathered her limbs to leap to her feet and go charging down the hill to, hopefully, surprise the enemy and get within swords' length of Elnice of Arutan, to take that evil with her and Duwan into death. She was poised to move when she heard, 'Stay as you are, daughter.' She looked around, frightened, for she had been very much alone in her hiding place. And she was still alone.
'You have given your word,' the voice said, and she realized that it was in her head, not her ears.
'Who?' she whispered.
'I, too, know his agony,' the voice said, 'and he is my grandson, but you have promised him. You must not die with him.'
And, in spite of her efforts, she could not stand. When Duwan screamed again she hid her face in her hands.
She had to look. She saw the torture proceeding slowly and, although he still writhed and screamed, she knew that he was dead, for he was peeled to the waist and no one could survive that. A silent wail of grief filled her, and the voice spoke, and it was laughing.
Laughing?
'The fools give him to the earth, daughter.'
He returned to the earth, buried up to his hips in an upright position. He knew a new agony, for as the soil was shoveled and packed around his raw legs it was as if he'd been dipped to his hips in the molten rock of the land of the fires.
They braced his back against a post and tied his hands above his head so that the peelers could reach the tenderer hide of his underarms. Between each strip, the peelers rested, and Elnice, seated comfortably in her chair, taunted him, promised him that he would talk, would answer all her questions. And in her hiding place above, Jai died a little with each strip of hide removed from Duwan.
When, as the day grew long and Du sank low, there was only the skin on his face left, he had screamed so that his sounds of agony were now nothing more than a hoarse croak.
'Leave the lips,' Elnice ordered, as the peelers began on the face. His eyelids were removed carefully. Now his orange eyes seemed on the verge of popping from his head and he stared without seeing at the smiling face of Elnice.
'You've stood more than most, already,' Elnice said. 'It is not that I believe you have any secrets worth knowing, it is just that you
'The curse of Du be on you,' Duwan said. 'The agony you have given me will be returned to you in multiples.'
'Take the fool's lips,' Elnice snarled, leaping from the chair, her skirts swirling as she walked regally away.
Night. A light rain came, cold, not a great hardship to the camped enemy, but new horror for the peeled Drinker, with each drop striking like acid fire. He could no longer moan, for his throat was swollen closed with his screaming, and his breathing was difficult. There was no time. The rain stopped and he knew that death was near. He did not know how long the night had gone on, whether for an eternity or for an hour. He determined to live until Du came, to look upon Du's kind face just once more.
His sight was blurred by the blood that ran over the lidless balls, but he saw a lightening in the east. He lifted his head to agony. He had been in a semiconscious state of shock, and the movement seemed to awaken his mutilated body to fire. But there was Du. He could not blink to protect his eyes from the brightness.
'Du,' he tried to say, and managed only a croak, 'take me. I can stand no more.'
And then the red, fiery circle was fully exposed above the hills and he set his lidless eyes on it and prayed until the rays began to burn his sight and blackness came slowly, slowly.
Elnice was in her uniform. Around her the conqforce was making preparations to move out. She stood and looked down upon the raw, bleeding body. His head was hanging on his bloody chest. His lungs had ceased to function.
'I had hoped,' she told Hata, 'that he would last at least until the heat of midday began to cook him.'
'He died just after dawn,' Hata said, 'with one last prayer to his du.'
'So much for dus,' Elnice said. 'I am ready.' She did not look back. The last of the conqforce was out of the canyon by midday, leaving behind a feast for the scavengers of the earth and the air, and a weeping female who knelt before the dead one. In her nostrils was the stench of the newly dead and the long dead, for the enemy did not bury his own, much less dead pongs.
