vest and shirt. Even his knucklebone pendant was ripped away and his worn moosehide boots were shucked off. The iron rings would be priceless goods to these destitute savages.
Painfully, his clumsy hands and feet almost useless, Sunbright rolled to his knees to rise.
A huge foot almost kicked his head off.
The barbarian heard the scuff of a bare sole, saw the flicker of motion by firelight, and ducked just in time. Still, the kick creased his shaved temple and stunned him. Flopping on his rump, he heard the tribe howl with glee. His crippled hands and feet cramped, but he had to rise or be stomped to death. Gasping, he rolled to one side, felt the earth shake as Wulgreth crash-landed with both feet where Sunbright had just lain. Mutants cheered.
Hobbling, Sunbright crouched on numb feet barely in time to meet Wulgreth's charge.
Screaming, the giant ran at the barbarian with both fists locked. Sunbright limped aside, flung up both hands to deflect the blow. Uselessly. Fists like rocks hammered his shoulder, almost broke his collarbone. He was knocked aside like a doll to bite dust again.
This wasn't a fair fight, he reflected bitterly, it was a massacre, a savage beating such as Karsus's city guards might inflict. And it was Karsus's magical mistake that had turned Wulgreth into this hideous form. The arms of the Netherese Empire were long, grasping, callous, and cruel.
Sunbright spit dust, rolled to all fours. Some feeling had returned to his hands and feet. If Wulgreth could fight dirty…
The giant had been crowing, arms in the air, calling his own name as a battle cry, exulting in wild applause and shrieks. Now he marched across the dirty arena and reached for the barbarian's horsetail to yank him upright.
Stooping, Sunbright clutched a double handful of dirt and ash, threw them into Wulgreth's dead stone eyes.
To no avail. The giant barely blinked, snagged Sunbright's hair and dragged him close. His scalp burning, Sunbright crowded the giant, bunched his fingers and rammed them into the brute's throat. The jab would have killed a normal man, crushed his windpipe, made him strangle.
Ignoring the blow, Wulgreth waded in, smashed a forearm across Sunbright's throat, and snatched the back of his neck. Choking, the barbarian struggled, beat Wulgreth's head, kicked his knees and groin and instep. Nothing worked. The undead man couldn't feel pain. Meanwhile, Sunbright would either be strangled or have his neck snapped.
Yet Wulgreth didn't want to kill his plaything. Instead, he shifted his grip, locked Sunbright's wrist, sucked wind, and shoved.
Sunbright's arm snapped at the elbow. A double bone in his forearm jutted through the skin. Blood spurted. But the magically infused Wulgreth jammed a horny thumb against the wound and sealed it, though the bone still bent crookedly. Sunbright was oblivious to the details. Electric pain coursed through his body and blotted out everything else.
Enjoying the torment of his victim and the cheering of the tribe, Wulgreth stamped on Sunbright's foot to pin it, then wrenched the broken arm high overhead. Grinding bones broke anew, then Sunbright's ankle popped.
Released, the barbarian collapsed to jeers from the crowd. Wulgreth's stony hand crashed down on Sunbright's chest and broke ribs. More blows pulped other bones.
Shock and pain flooded Sunbright's mind like a tide, and he blacked out.
He awoke to a buzzing, like bees. A whole hive, it seemed, crawled over him with red-hot stingers.
Then a stick pried at his eyelids. He fought it, but couldn't move his head, which was tied in place. When his eyelid was finally dragged up, he saw a child holding a smoldering stick. Other children swarmed around him. He was staked on the ground, spread-eagled, near the fire. Urged on by adults, the children picked up coals and burning brands to tentatively scorch Sunbright's flesh. It was a lesson in torture. Sunbright smelled his own flesh burning, gargled a cry at this unending nightmare. At least the pain couldn't get much worse, he thought vaguely.
Then a boy dropped a red coal on his eyelid, and he learned about pain.
Hours later, Sunbright, or what was left of him, was dumped in a hut alongside Knucklebones.
The thief started from a near trance. So far she'd been ignored, left as a plaything-or supper-for Wulgreth. With her shredded foot, bitten deep by the raptor, she could hardly stand, let alone flee, even if she weren't surrounded by enemies. She'd merely hunkered with her arms around her knees, head down, trying to ignore Sunbright's torture, wishing she were elsewhere. Once, when a scream had ripped out, she'd uncurled and bolted from the hut. But a man and woman guarded her, and she'd been clubbed flat, kicked savagely, and booted back into the hut. Since then she'd blanked out the world.
Now it was back, in the form of a bleeding and burned Sunbright. The savages had given up, unable to keep him conscious. Now they sat around the fire and crowed of their triumphs. They laughed in their cruel recitations, and promises of more to come.
Toughened by a hard and harsh life, Knucklebones could stand almost anything, but this wreck of her companion was beyond endurance. His bones were broken, hair singed off, body seared in half a hundred places.
Yet he was alive, croaking, 'Knuck…?'
'Yes, yes!' she sobbed, 'I'm here!' She cried real tears for the first time in her life. 'But there's nothing I can do!'
'Water… please…'
Weeping, Knucklebones crawled to the hut door. On her knees, she begged her guards for water, using hand gestures. They both laughed, and when she came closer, kicked her in the face. Tearfully she told Sunbright of her failure.
'S'aright… Not to blame… Harmed you?' His words were mushy, for even his tongue had been burned, and he stared at the roof of the hut as if blind. Probably he was.
'No, no, they haven't, but…'
She couldn't believe he, tortured and abused, thought of her safety. Oh, she thought, how cruel the gods were to send her such a man and then snatch him away! Or how cruel were people.
These last few hours had wrought wonderful and awful changes in Knucklebones's breast. Of course she'd had friends in the sewers of the city: Ox and Lothar and Mother, other unlucky souls like herself. And she'd had lovers too. Too many to count when your life was measured in days. Men who'd enjoyed her body but never touched her heart, and then Sunbright had literally dropped upon her like something from a dream. A tall, bronzed man, hard and tough as an oak tree, tough as she was, yet with a gentle and kind spirit even the city couldn't crush. He'd followed her everywhere, looked after her, cared about her, and she hadn't shown him a jot of gratitude or sympathy, for the iron that protected her heart was the hardest part, and she was afraid to open up lest it crack and leave her helpless, snuffed out by the cruelty of the city.
But in the hours she'd hunkered here, she'd prayed to every god she knew, but mostly Mystryl, Lady of Mysteries, Mother of All Magic. Mystryl was the goddess of lovers, and the poor, and those in dire strife. Never had Knucklebones been in worse trouble, nor cared so much to see someone else helped, and been herself so helpless.
And worse than useless, for she had no comfort for him.
She touched his singed scalp, recoiled at the clammy feel of his skin, hot and cold and wet and dry at the same time. He raged with fever while shivering with chills. For lack of anything better, she peeled off her leather vest and laid it gently on his scorched breast. 'I don't… What can-'
'Try to…' his voice rasped, '… find knife or stick. Kill… yourself… before start on you…'
'Yes, I will,' she whimpered. 'I promise. I will, Sunbright.'
'Oh!'
She flinched in sympathy with his new pain, but he was shaking his head in wonder.
'Wha-What is it?'
'Never… said my name… before…'
Then he sighed and blacked out again.
It was true. She'd only called him by nicknames. All this time, even 'Country Mouse,' which she'd never even thought of before meeting him. In her own way, she'd been cruel, for he was as lonely as she was, homesick and
