“No problem,” Ryan said, forcing a smile.
“Mebbe we like to see a good show.”
The eunuch seemed taken aback. He stared openly at the one-eye warrior, worked his mouth a few times, then waddled away, casting suspicious glances at Ryan over his pudgy shoulder.
“Students,” Eugene said, spreading his fat arms dramatically wide, as an assistant opened a box of surgical instruments. “Pay close attention and watch what I do, and why.”
The slavering dogs were chained before the terrifled prisoner as portable braziers full of hot coals were fanned to flaming life.
“I’m only a thief,” the captive cried. “I already gave back the food! There’s nothing more I can tell you!”
Eugene smiled as a white-hot iron was pressed to the prisoner’s side, and he piteously screamed.
Forcing himself not to turn away, Ryan knew the captive wouldn’t be feeling that pain yet. The pain was so intense with burning like that, a person’s nerves simply shut down for a while, unable to handle the overload. But when the flesh cooled, then agony would come. However, Ryan doubted the prisoner would still be alive then. And if he was, the minor pain of a branding wouldn’t be noticed.
“Nothing can save you, thief.” Eugene smirked, pulling shiny steel pliers into view and snapping them in the air. “Because we don’t want you. You don’t have anything we need. You’re merely an object here, a thing for the students to practice on. A demonstration to show the valuable inmates what will happen to them if they decide not to talk.”
Laboring for breath, the prisoner somehow managed to spit at his obese tormentor.
The eunuch laughed shrilly and wiped his face clean with a forearm. “Excellent, you still resist.” He leaned in close. “I might just enjoy this. They usually die so fast I haven’t the time for a little fun…’
Krysty glanced at Ryan and softly rattled her chains. Ryan sadly shook his head. He knew she could summon more than enough strength to break free of even these iron bounds, but afterward she’d pass out from the effort. This wasn’t the time or the place for them to risk fighting to escape. The poor bastard was on his own.
“Let us begin,” the fat man whispered, kissing a scalpel. The crowd of students closed around the hanging man and the screaming started in earnest.
THE BLOATED INSECT Sat just below her eye, its body pulsating slightly as it sucked the blood out from underneath her skin. Judging the swelling and discoloring were reduced sufficiently, Amanda ever so gently plucked the leech from her cheek and dropped it to the floor. Sated with blood from the bruise, the bulging bug scuttled away for the molding. Standing, she deliberately crushed the insect, her left shoe leaving a red print for a few steps as she crossed the room to embrace her brother.
“You did well, my sister,” whispered the deputy ward hoarsely, running a hand softly along the golden waves of her hair. Richard gathered a fistful and inhaled the perfume. “Oh yes, very well indeed. The Beast and the Sons, both gone.” The man couldn’t take his sight off her. In a white dress and with flowers in her hair, she seemed an angel.
“From heaven,” Richard said aloud.
“There are no more obstacles. The Wheel is ours to loot, beloved,” she said, her bruised cheeks dimpling. He held out his arms, and they kissed, bodies pressed tightly together, loins aching for what couldn’t be.
“Was it terrible?” he asked. “Did they assault you? Beat you, strip you naked and use you as a common gaudy girl?”
“Yes. Oh, yes. The Sons of the Knife did. Four of them at the same time.”
The deputy ward moaned. “How I wish I could have seen.”
“You will, dear brother, you will,” Amanda promised deep in her throat.
“And the prisoners downstairs in the school?”
Unexpectedly, Amanda broke away from him.
“No,” she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. “They did not.”
“Impossible!”
“Fact. I practically threw myself into the arms of their leader, and then his young son.”
“Perhaps they can’t,” Richard started, hitching the leather belt about his trim waist. He was adorned in delicately embroidered livery, a red velvet cape with a topaz silk shirt and mauve satin pants. But two big autoloading blasters rode their accustomed places at his hips, the checkered grips worn from use. “Some men from the Deathlands are no longer able to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh.”