Elnice leaped at him and slashed his cheek with her nails, leaving three welling streaks of blood. Then she turned to Hata. "Bring the wounded. Show him what he faces."
A wounded pong warrior was dragged to the clearing. He was peeled quickly. Skilled Devourers used sharp knives to make a circle around the pong's left arm, his uninjured arm, and then the hide of the arm was seized in powerful pincer tools and ripped off, leaving raw, unprotected flesh welling blood as the pong screamed in agony and became unconscious. The hide was like a glove, complete with fingers and thumbs. Elnice picked it up gingerly and slashed it wetly across Duwan's face.
"Your treatment will be slower," she said.
He closed his eyes as seven wounded were peeled, first the arms, then the legs, then, in strips, the hide from the back, belly, ribs, hips. Death and the smell of it surrounded him, and the moans of it, for careful peeling left a raw, bleeding mass of flesh that lived on, often for more than a day. Fortunately for those who had been peeled, many were near death from their battle wounds so soon only two lingered, screaming in pain.
"I will give you death," Elnice said, standing over one of the screaming masses with sword in hand. "Tell me of this Duwan."
"He is the Master," the dying pong gasped. "He came from the earth. He is the appointed one of Du, the one Du. He gave us magic to eat the green and to drink of the sun."
"How many eat of the green?" Elnice asked. That question had been asked many times before of dying pongs.
"Tens of thousands," the dying one said. "And more each day."
"Liar," Elnice screamed, bringing down the sword to finish the pong's agony. The last survivor died as she asked her first question. Duwan wept. Even in death the warrior had been loyal. "Tens of thousands," he had said, and it was, as Elnice had said, a lie, for there were mere hundreds, and no one knew how many of them would survive to reach the doubtful security of the western wilderness.
"I want this one peeled with the greatest of care," Elnice told the two guardsmen whose specialty was shown by the oddly shaped knives they carried. "He is strong. Peel him in tiny strips. I want him to live for a day, perhaps two. Then we will see if he has had enough talking, or if he will be eager to talk, will beg to be heard, in exchange for the release of death." A peeler came to stand beside Duwan, knife in hand, made a cut at Duwan's shoulder.
"No," Elnice said. "Start at his feet. You should know that he will last longer if you start there."
She sat in a chair beside the tree and watched with slitted eyes as Duwan's left foot was lifted and the knife made an incision and the sole of his foot was peeled away. She looked up at Duwan's face, contorted in agony.
"Some find that screaming helps. It seems to use up energy and hasten death," she said. "Will you scream?"
He screamed, loudly and lustily, as the knife sliced and the hide was peeled from the arch of his foot and down off his horned toes. The clearing was now surrounded by soldiers. Some lay on the ground, heads cocked to see the show. Others sat, kneeled, stood. They drank their rations of wine and made wagers on how long Duwan would live once he'd been fully peeled.
It happened slowly, slowly. Little by little, strip by strip, his lower legs were bared. Flesh oozed blood. The pain of peeling made his senses reel. He screamed. And the peeled, exposed flesh burned with the slightest movement of wind, burned with a pain unlike any he had ever felt, a pain more severe than that he'd felt when the rock sucker was draining all his blood and he had cut off his own arm.
When he was without skin to mid-thigh he began to pray to Du for death. He didn't care if anyone heard him, he prayed aloud, almost screaming the name of his Du, and the High Mistress laughed.
"Pour wine on his exposed flesh and see if his du can stop the pain," she said.
Duwan screamed and writhed against his bonds as liquid fire attacked his exposed legs.
"Your du is not on duty today," Hata said, laughing.
"So he came from the earth," Elnice said. "Let us return him to the earth. Peel him to the waist and then plant him to mid-thigh in the earth. Let us see if that will awaken his du."
Jai, of course, had not obeyed Duwan's wishes. In the darkness of the night she had whispered to Duwan the Elder, "I go. Don't bother to follow me. Take care of your own." Then she was gone, and Duwan the Elder could only continue, for he had the responsibility of his mate and others on his hands.
Jai lay hidden high on the side of the canyon. She had, by sheer good fortune, chosen a place where no enemy came down, and she watched the last battle with wild, desperate tears. More than once she jerked, almost making the move that would send her down the wall of the canyon to join the dying remnants of the once great pong army, but, although she had broken part of her promise, she could not bring herself to betray Duwan's orders totally.
When, at last, Duwan stood alone and then was taken she was in shock, incapable of movement, save for her eyes, and they followed him as he was carried away. She regained movement and crept along the side of the canyon to 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 will talk. Tell me, if nothing else, of your childhood, my lover."