Fire.
A few feet away Eben wept like a frightened child. Josiah trembled but glared at the Wyandot with youthful bravado.
How vulnerable and alone men are at the hour of their deaths.
The thought, detached from emotion, flickered through Nicholas’s mind, left dark regret in its wake. Why hadn’t he been able to get to them faster? Why hadn’t he been able to stop this? Why hadn’t he found a means to escape?
He closed his eyes, sent up what might have been a prayer.Let it be fast.Let us be strong.Do not let them suffer!
Even as the last thought faded, several women stepped forward from the crowd and walked toward the captives. Nicholas felt cool fingers brush against his skin as his shirt and breeches were cut from his body, leaving him entirely naked. A glance showed him Josiah and Eben had likewise been stripped. Both were red in the face, and Nicholas realized they felt shame at being unclothed before strangers.
As Atsan’s last words drifted into silence, the women who’d undressed them moved to the fires and began to stir the flames.
Something twisted in Nicholas’s gut. He tried to force down his fear.
A young woman appeared at his side, the same young woman he’d rejected the day before. She looked up at him, her brown eyes dark with an emotion that might have been anger—or lust. In her hand was a knife.
Nicholas just caught a glimpse of the blade before she slid the tip into the skin of his belly. His muscles tensed in surprise at the razor-sharp pain.
To his left, Eben shrieked.
Nicholas watched in odd detachment as the woman deftly carved a small pocket from his flesh and wondered for a moment if she intended to skin him. Hot blood poured down his belly, past his exposed groin to his bare thighs.
She looked up, met his gaze, a faint smile on her lips. Then she stepped aside to make room for an old woman, who carried a small glowing ember from the fire on a flint blade. Nicholas realized what they were going to do a moment before they did it, and took a deep breath.
I will not cry out.I must not cry out.
The crone slipped the tip of her blade into the cut, pried the pocket of flesh open, and dropped the ember inside.
A sizzling sound. Searing pain. The smell of burning flesh—his own flesh.
It hurt far beyond anything he had imagined.
He heard screams. Were they his screams?
No. It was Josiah and Eben.
A hiss of breath was all that escaped him. His gaze met the young woman’s and held it.
They will not break me.
The women worked efficiently. Swiftly they cut him again and again, carved deep gashes in his belly, chest, and back, tucked live embers inside each.
Pain consumed him—blistering, searing pain. His entire body seemed to burn. Sweat poured down his face, stung his eyes. He fought to control his breathing, to keep his thoughts focused, but felt himself growing dizzy, disoriented, almost delirious, as if his mind were seeking escape from the unbearable torment that had become his body.
They will not break me.
Several feet away, Josiah jerked and writhed like a tortured puppet on a string, screaming in agony. Eben had fainted and hung limply in his bonds. Women worked to revive him, splashed water on his face and chest. It was not compassion, Nicholas knew, but a desire to prolong the boy’s suffering.
Rage. It cut through Nicholas’s pain, through his muddled thoughts, burned like a brand in his gut. He searched the crowd for Atsan, found the old man watching him, met his gaze. Drawing on his knowledge of Tuscarora and doing his best to imitate Wyandot inflection, Nicholas spoke, his voice rough with pain and hatred.
“E-hye-ha-honz, o-negh-e-ke-wishe-noo.”
I am dying, but I will conquer my enemy.
Whether Atsan understood him, Nicholas could not tell. The old man did not react. And Nicholas wondered for a moment whether, in his pain, he had imagined speaking or whether his words had been meaningless babble.
Another cut, another ember.
