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She wants desperately to lift the sack from her face but does not chance it. It stinks of sweat, of mold. It suffocates, but she represses the urge. She listens and hears the shuffle and murmurs of the human slaves and without warning, her clothes are being yanked. She hisses as her sleeves are pulled down her injured arms. The ties of her tunic are loosened and she pulls her chained wrists to her breasts, but they cannot reach. The sound of torn fabric comes from every angle as the captives are stripped, their coats tossed, their boots pulled from their feet.

When the person who undresses Dawsyn finds the ax under her coat, they hesitate before removing it and let it clatter to the floor. The same happens when they find the blade. And it sounds as though she is not the only one who arrived armed. The sound of metal on solid ground clangs in her eardrums at intervals. Dawsyn feels it when the drafty air hits her nipples, her stomach, her thighs. She shivers violently. Around her, the snickers of the Glacians grow, and her stomach sickens.

Is this to be it then?she wonders.Are we mere entertainment?Had she escaped a man with the same intent at dawn, only for it to be in vain by dusk?

The sounds of more shifting, and something heavy and coarse is pulled over her head and down her arms. She feels fingers at her back, tying something together.

They move as a group once more, only to stop again after a short time. There are hands at her wrists and she feels the weight of the shackles disappear. Her ankles are freed and she is shoved sideways, this time by hands too large, hands that chill her through her burlap sleeve. A Glacian.

Her shoulder hits the floor and Dawsyn yells as fiery pain lances through her.

A laugh, and then, “Sleep tight, girl.”

It takes a long time for Dawsyn to rise.

When she does, it isn’t without effort. Carefully, she removes the sack from her face, blinking away the haze.

A dungeon of sorts. How very predictable.

She isn’t alone. Lined against the walls of the tiny stone room are the other five selected. They, too, have removed their blindfolds. A collection of men and women, old and young. Next to Mavah is Deidre and Carl, both similar in age to Dawsyn. Carl looks as though he put up a fight. There is an open wound on his jaw and it weeps sickeningly. On the opposite stone wall, Justin and Lester, both stooped and gray-haired, inspect their shoulders.

Dawsyn drags herself to a spot against the steel grid of the door – the only opening in the stone – and blinks in confusion at the sound of dripping. She looks down and sees the small pools collecting on either side of her. The sleeves of the prisoner garb she wears bloom red with blood. She watches the patterns spread, arcing along her chest, like the watery paints her grandmother made. Reluctantly, she pulls one sleeve down on her shoulder to reveal the damage there. Three deep gouges, the flesh torn unevenly. Her shoulder is mottled in purples.

But she lives. Contrary to their presumptions, they all live.

Dawsyn watches the holes in her shoulders and chest for a while. She watches them pour rivers of her into the burlap, onto the slate. Before she can slip away with it, she has time to wonder what will become of her tomorrow, if she survives this night.

Eventually, the darkness comes to collect its prize. She collapses.

CHAPTERSEVEN

“Dawsyn? Yeh alive, darlin’?”

Dawsyn’s eyes blink. “No.”

“’Fraid yeh are, lass. More’an I can say for ol’ Lester.”

Dawsyn’s eyes open to find Mavah hovering over where she lies. Slowly, Dawsyn turns her heavy head to where Lester is slumped, chin to his chest, eyes half-shut. There is a bluish tinge to his skin, an air of death in the room. Lester must have succumbed in the night.

Dawsyn sighs and gingerly rolls her head back. “That’s going to smell.”

Mavah nods, her face ashen. She appears to be trying to wrap the remnants of her blindfold around one shoulder, her eyes squinting in pain with each movement.

Dawsyn sits, gritting her teeth, but finds her shoulders do not ache with the slump of gravity, the way she expected. Mavah has wrapped her wounds as well. She is a medicine woman of the Ledge – or was.

“Thank you,” Dawsyn tells her.

“Ol’ habits and all that. I doubt it’ll stay an infection,” she responds grimly, tying off her makeshift bandage with her teeth. “God knows what these abominations are carryin’ under those fuckin’ claws. But we ain’t in the position for wantin’, now, are we?”

“Not to mention, we’ll likely be chewed up and spat out by sundown. Perhaps an infection would make the meal less appealing.”

Mavah chuckles mirthlessly in response.

When Dawsyn looks around, she sees that the others have already been bandaged, the bleeding stanched. Most lie asleep or unconscious, save for Carl, who pants quietly in the corner; Lester, who is dead; and of course, Mavah, the benefactor.

All wear the same cuts of burlap over their bodies and they do nothing to curb the cold. Already, they shiver, all but Carl, who sweats.

“Is he infected so soon?” Dawsyn murmurs to Mavah.