Chapter 24: A Little Skin

Content warning: this chapter contains a graphic scene of torture.

 

Feeling returned before thought did, and Tarek didn’t appreciate either. The back of his head throbbed with pain, and other dull hurts in his arms, hands, shoulders, and sides made themselves known one by one. He was tied with his hands stretched uncomfortably overhead, dangling from his wrists with only his toes touching the ground.

Tied up again. Has it even been a moon since the last time? Wonder if they’ll hang me this time. Hey, you stupid grubs, it works better if you use the neck instead of the wrists.

He opened his eyes with difficulty. They felt gummy, and everything was blurry and spinning. He blinked repeatedly, but clarity was slow in coming both to his eyes and his mind. Must have hit me hard. Our healer Mahela would make me lay in bed for two hands’ full of days if I came to her like this. No wait, she’d try to kill me. Sorry, Mahela, I think someone else is going to beat you to it.

Finally his eyes cleared enough to see where he was. Squat wooden buildings on stubby little stilts faced him from twenty paces away. They were made of wood split into flat boards and covered with some bright kind of paint. They all seemed to be of the same size and make, with thatched roofs and low, square doorways. Only the garish colors on the boards differed from one house to the next. They were perfectly spaced five paces away from each other and stretched in both directions. They were disturbing in their sameness, and the purpling pre-dawn darkness made them even more ominous.

Looking up, he saw that he was underneath an open-sided thatch pavilion. Torches smoked in each corner, throwing fitful light out into the night. His hands caught in a coarse, biting rope that hung from a wooden frame that was the centerpiece of the pavilion. His hands were pale and bloodless from being held overhead for so long, and Yaretzi’s mist-hart ring on his pinky stood out starkly against his skin. Was this frame made to hold people up on? Do the Iktaka do this sort of thing regularly?

He was inside their village, and he was not alone. A man wearing a purple and yellow woven robe was scowling at him. The fellow wore a wooden circlet on his brow from which sprouted short, sharp horns in every direction. He was tall and spare, with deep-set eyes and hollow cheeks. That’s a chief if I ever saw one. Next to him was a shorter man in leathers, chewing a thumbnail and looking bored. No one else was about.

The man in the horned crown reached up and jostled the rope above Tarek’s hands, sending a jolt of pain down his arms and drawing a grunt from him.

“What did ya hope to do, sneaking into our town? Are ya a spy, or an assassin?”

“Neither,” Tarek said thickly. “I just needed a place to sleep.”

“Are ya really Catori? Have yer people allied with the Yura, or are ya lying to us?” The man grabbed Tarek by the face, pulling him close. “We’ll know a lie.”

Tarek didn’t like the feverish look in the man’s eyes. “I have nothing to do with the Yura. I don’t know how to make you believe me!”

“Ye could try not infiltrating our tribe, that’d be a start,” drawled the shorter man.

“I’ll have the truth from ya,” muttered the crowned one intently, inspecting Tarek’s face avidly. “Yer Yura friends won’t ruin my plans this time.”

“I’m not—” Tarek began.

The man waved him to silence and turned to the shorter one. “Quep, take care a this. I’ll take Rekamah and Baxal to search the perimeter. There’ll be others. Send a runner when he’s good and soft.”

The shorter man bowed from the waist, but the crowned one had already turned heel and walked away. The fellow in leather gave Tarek a cheery wink and strode out into the rain, slapping at the sides of nearby houses.

“Up and be doing, little ones!” he called in that thick accent the Iktaka used. “Gandara, Xorik! I know ye’re in the blankets, but up early! I’ve a treat for ye.”

With that, he moved onto another house, knocking on the wall and yelling out another entreaty to the folk within. A boy of no more than six stood in the doorway of the first house, rubbing his eyes and looking after the strange man as he went from house to house.

Tarek didn’t know what the fellow was doing, but he doubted it was anything he’d like. Digging his toes into the dirt, he managed to spin himself around beneath the frame he was strung up on. The ropes holding him were sturdy, and the only thing behind him was more of the same buildings. Surrounded on all sides. Tavi, be smart and don’t come in after me!

Children started to creep out of their homes and gather around him. First there was one, then two, then a clump that arrived all at once, roused by the crier who was now out of sight but still yelling somewhere nearby. The little ones sat in the dirt in a semi-circle under the pavilion and eyed him boldly. They all looked reasonably well-fed and happy. One little fellow had a runny nose that he kept wiping on the back of his hand.

“Hello,” he said weakly.

The children tittered and whispered to each other. A little girl off to his side picked up a pebble and threw it at him, but it flew wide.

He planted his toes in the dirt, trying to ease the tension off his wrists just a little. “It’s not very nice to throw rocks.”

She grinned up at him. She was a cute little thing, missing her two front teeth. “I’m gonna take your skin off,” she told him.

Tarek gaped at her, chilled into silence.

Several of the other children clapped and began to squeal. At first Tarek thought it was in response to the girl’s bloody-minded threat, but then he saw them pointing down the lane. Swiveling himself around on his toes to look, Tarek saw the short man in leathers returning. He’d painted lines of red on his face in the brief time he’d been gone, and he capered into the pavilion, all his attention on the children. He mussed hair and asked how their dreams had been and whether they’d been good for their mamers and das. He seemed silly and kind with the little ones, but when he turned to face Tarek, the bizarre rain-streaked patterns painted on his face made him look positively evil. That’s blood, but it’s not human. Tarek’s stomach lacked the desperate lurch that fresh blood now gave him, letting him know it must have come from a dead animal of some sort. The children were enchanted, clapping their hands and calling for his attention. Why did he get all the children out of bed before dawn just to see me hanging here?

“Now, wait for half a hold, ye little grummers,” the man chuckled. “There’s work afoot.”

“Work, work!” the children crowed, bouncing in the dirt as he waved a torch overhead.

“Who’s to be my little helper this morn?”

A chorus of mes sounded all around, and the short fellow with the painted face made a show of considering. The girl who had threatened to flay Tarek was jumping up and down and waving both hands in the air as if nothing had ever been so important to her.

“Arright, Kashee, I see you. Come on over here,” the man said, pointing to the desperate girl. She squealed with glee and danced to the front of the group, barely able to contain herself.

“So what have’ee here?” the painted man asked theatrically, rounding on Tarek as if he hadn’t seen him yet.

“A SPY,” came the enthusiastic response from a dozen throats.

The man gaped in shock. “A spy?! Noooo. Sure’n not. He’s a crop thief, maybe.”

Noes echoed through the group, and the boy with the snotty fist shook it at Tarek with a scowl.

“But a spy?” the man asked with an exaggerated frown. “I hate to think it. Say he beat his sister and have done. We can stripe him a few times and cut him down. What d’ye say?”

No, no, no was the chant among the children. They were having more fun than a pack of monkeys chasing a rat. Dread coiled in Tarek’s stomach. The children had a feral look in their eyes just like the chief had. He tugged at the rope suspending him, but it was tightly-wound and solid. Yaretzi’s ring on his little finger bit into the skin of the adjacent finger. No tata here to save me this time. Tavi, stay far away. Don’t let them find you! Bachi, why didn’t you help me out there?

“So ye’re telling me true? This fella came to spy on our fair village? To find a way for his nasty friends to come in and kill our chief?” The man clapped a hand to the top of his head as if he couldn’t fathom such a thing, and the children screamed yes.

“Ohhhh, friends, then you know what we have to do.”

“Take his skin take his skin!” the little girl shrieked, jumping up and down.

“Hold, hold,” he laughed, patting the girl on the head. “Ye’re jumping right to the end.” He turned and looked Tarek in the eye for the first time. “May just be but what we don’t have to do all that. Depends on our friend here, don’t it?”

Tarek swallowed. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” he promised. “This is all a mistake.”

The short man clucked tolerantly. “Always is, when we start.”

Tarek didn’t like the sound of that.

The man squatted down and addressed the girl. “You ready to help, little friend?”

She nodded so hard Tarek thought her head might bounce right off her shoulders.

“Go and get my roll of goodies, then.”

She darted out of Tarek’s line of sight, but he didn’t dare swivel to follow her – that would leave this terrifying entertainer at his back, and he wasn’t about to risk that. The man busied himself with making sure the torches were bright and recruiting other little helpers to hold them close, casting plenty of light on Tarek as the sky crept slowly from purple to rain-gray.

The toothless girl child returned with a roll of leather half as big as she was and offered it with a smile to the man, who accepted it with a flourish, holding the heavy object out to the other children so they could touch it in passing. Then with ritual reverence he laid the bundle on the ground and unrolled it, revealing pouches full of instruments of bone, stone, and obsidian. Every last one looked very sharp.

Tarek closed his eyes and tried to still the shaking in his legs. His stomach churned and his mouth filled with saliva. This was no hanging, no quick execution. This man was going to torture him, and these insane children were going to watch.

“I’ve done nothing,” he protested as the man drew out a long, narrow sliver of obsidian as long as his hand and no wider than his finger. “I don’t know what’s happened here, but I’m no spy!”

“Yah,” the fellow said laconically, dropping the entertainer’s act as he drew close and spoke quietly. “But would ye really say if ye were?”

“Please,” Tarek said, hearing the quaver of desperation in his voice. “Quep. That’s your name, right? I’ll tell you anything. This isn’t necessary.”

“Oh, it’s necessary,” the man said, “but you’ve got the first part right. You will tell me anything.” He tapped the flat of his blade against Tarek’s bare stomach, and he flinched at the contact.

“What’d’ye say, friends?” the torturer crowed to his audience. “How long ‘til this fella wees out every last drop of piss?”

“A hundred heartbeats!” declared snot-nose.

“Fifty!” challenged another boy.

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Other numbers were bandied about, each one smaller than the last, but the gap-toothed girl didn’t offer any suggestions. Instead, she tugged on the painted torturer’s woven pant leg and peered up at Tarek. “Can I go first?” she asked quietly.

“Oho,” the man laughed, squatting down to her again. “Thinkin’ to be my apprentice already, Kashee? Ye’re a bit young.”

“No, I’m not,” the girl said stoutly. “I’ve been practicing on beavers and pokebacks.”

That seemed to impress the man. “And how long can ye make ‘em last?”

“Nearly three turns once.”

“Well, I think that’ll earn ye a jab for starters,” he allowed. He placed the narrow knife carefully in her hand. “What’s yer pleasure?”

Tarek was speechless with horror as the child sized him up from head to toes like a hunter ready to butcher a kill. “I can’t reach,” she said petulantly.

“Well, allow me, little sharpy,” Quep the torturer chuckled. He moved off to the side and came back quickly with a tall, sturdy climbing stool as high as his waist. “Don’t get too close, now, or he’ll knock ye over when he bucks.”

“I know,” the girl said crossly, clamping the knife carefully between her teeth as she set the stool off to Tarek’s right and clambered on top.

He tried to catch the girl’s gaze. “Don’t do this, please!” She ignored him, so he directed his next words at the man. “Why would you allow this? They’re children!”

“They love it,” the man responded with a shrug. “Ask ‘em if ye like.”

Before he could reply, a shocking spike of pain coursed through him, and Tarek screamed. The sensation was cold and hard and radiated through his body. He spasmed and thrashed. He couldn’t catch his breath. The children were cheering.

“In the armpit!” Quep crowed, dancing in the firelight. “Ai, Kashee, ye’re a mean grummer, ye are. Just the spot for a start!”

The girl beamed at her blood-painted mentor and hopped to the ground, handing back the knife and soaking in the accolades of her jealous peers.

Tears were streaming down Tarek’s face, and he could feel a ribbon of wetness snaking down his side. His legs would not support him at all, and his wrists felt near to breaking. His breath came in shallow gasps, and though his eyes were wide, he couldn’t seem to focus on any one thing.

“Now that we have yer attention, my friend,” the torturer announced, “I’ve a question or three.”

“Anything,” Tarek gasped. “Please.”

“We never did see no Catori ‘round here. That’s a right far piece away, innit?”

“Yes, very far! I’m traveling to all the tribes.”

The torturer thought about that for a moment, then turned to the children. “What’d’ye say, friends? Is he telling true?”

No rang out again on all sides.

“Even a child can see that for a lie,” he said to Tarek in apologetic tones. “I thought ye said ye’d tell me anything.”

“It’s not a lie!” Tarek protested.

“Who’d be so stupid as to choose to go to other tribes? That’s just twelve different ways to die.”

Tarek would have laughed at the statement if he hadn’t been in such pain. “I have to.”

“I think ye have to since yer chief said go spy on the Iktaka,” the man said. “Looks like a Yura collaborator to me, don’t ye think, little grummers?”

The children agreed with shouts and accusations.

“Sure ye don’t want to try again?” the torturer said kindly. “Spare yerself a bit of the screaming part?”

Tarek watched him flip the obsidian knife idly in his hand and saw no benefit in sticking to the truth.

“All right, it’s true,” he said desperately. “Hopati of the Yura sent me. To make peace.”

Little stones pelted him from all sides as the children howled and spat at him.

“See how it works, grummers?” the man beamed at his audience. “A shame he had to finish it off with a lie, though. What’ll that cost him, friends?”

“A finger!” someone shrilled.

“An eye!” suggested another.

“Some skin,” hissed the gap-toothed girl.

“Oh, that’s good,” purred the man. “I like yer thinking, girl.”

The painted man fetched his stool and gave Tarek a wink before disappearing behind his back. Tarek wept again as he realized that nothing he said mattered. This wasn’t interrogation – this was entertainment. He wanted to spin to face the man, but his legs wouldn’t hold him and pain still wracked his frame from where the girl had stabbed him in the armpit.

“Come watch, Kashee,” the man called. “Gotta start small. No wider than a finger or he’ll bleed too much, too fast.”

Tarek flinched and gasped as the man lifted his ratty braid aside, his fingers strangely gentle.

“Take a deep breath,” the man advised.

The moment of blind, waiting terror that came before the pain was worse than the pain itself. Then the blade bit into his skin right between the shoulderblades, a swift, shallow cut that made him gasp and sputter. Two more slashes left him quaking and moaning. He wondered why the man didn’t stab deeply like the girl had done.

Then he felt the man’s fingers on his skin right where the cuts were and there was a sudden, fiery pressure. It got worse and worse, wringing a scream from Tarek that grew in strength and desperation the longer the terrible pressure went on. His vision dissolved into red sparks and blackness even with his eyes open, and still he screamed. The pulling pressure was worse than anything he’d ever felt.

A ripping sound filled his ears and echoed through his body. Unspeakable pain shook him from head to toe. His back felt as if he’d laid down in coals. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, and knew nothing but hurt. How long he hung there senseless he did not know, but when his sight returned, the vile little man was capering in front of him waving a red strip of something.

Take your skin, the girl had said. They’d done this before, and based on how the children reacted, it happened often. Helpless rage filled him, but he couldn’t make himself move.

The painted man whirled on him and buried his fist in the short ribs in Tarek’s side. The blow stole his breath, but the pain barely even registered.

“Who’d ye bring with ye?” he growled. “How many?”

Tarek discovered he had a little will left after all. “Nobody. Only me.” Nobody touches my brother.

The children howled at the obvious lie, demanding more blood. The torturer shook his head at Tarek with tolerant amusement.

“Oh, ye’re just asking for it, aren’t ye? Didn’t know we had us a boy what likes the pain, but I guess there’s still something new in this world for an old grummer like me to see. Well, let it never be said that I disappoint a guest!”

He turned to the crowd of rapt children and gestured to his row of tools. “What comes next, my lovelies?”

A confusion of high-pitched yells answered him, but Tarek couldn’t make himself listen. The line of fire between his shoulder blades hurt every bit as badly as it had when the skin had been torn off, and it was hard to focus on anything else. The blood running down his back was soaking into his loincloth and beginning to trickle down the back of his leg, the sensation of the feather-light tickle like a tallow candle held in front of the sun. His thoughts wandered muzzily.

The man was back in his face, slapping him back to consciousness. Tarek tried to pull back from the blows and barely moved a finger’s width. He wished the fuzziness in his head would come back, but everything was crystal clear.

“No sleeping for a spy!” the fellow laughed. He held up a pale sliver of bone only a little thicker than the needles the Catori women made from bird bones. “I think ye’ll like this one.”

The torturer dragged his stool around to Tarek’s front, careful to put it off to the side so as to not block his audience’s view. He busied himself with Tarek’s hands, which were nearly numb from the rope’s constriction at this point. Not sure what he thinks he can do up there. Nothing could possibly hurt as badly as taking off my skin.

But then Tarek felt the man bend back the fingernail of his right pointer finger and shove the bone splinter underneath and discovered he was wrong. Deeper and deeper it went as he screamed and writhed. The bit of bone had only been a little longer than the first joint of his finger, yet from the feeling he could have sworn the sliver went all the way up to his wrist. He screamed until his throat was raw, took a breath, and screamed again. There was nothing else he could do. He couldn’t have told the bloodthirsty torturer any information if he had tried.

The pain had woken all the senses in his hands, and they throbbed terribly. He could feel a thick runnel of blood sliding down the side of his finger, collecting in the crease between fingers and palm, slowly working its way sideways along that channel toward his littlest finger. When the welling blood reached the edge of his hand, he felt a strange heat banding in the ring on his littlest finger, growing from a prickle to a burn in an instant. He wondered if the man had broken his pinky and he was only now feeling it.

And then, with a peculiar wrench that he felt in his guts, Tarek's body fell apart into mist and disappeared.

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