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don’t have the strength to— “YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAWWW!”
    It felt like the tendons of his muscles were being pulled from his skin . Inch by inch. It was unimaginable. Excruciating. Mind numbing. His body shuddered from toe nail to chin. The top of his skull was on fire.
    Flaggon pulled cord after cord from within and seared his skin with the torch.
    Venir screamed. Stopped. Screamed some more.
    “My , he’s a gusty one,” Tuuth said.
    “That grub ’s as long my innards!”
    “Keep pulling it out !” Flaggon said. “It’s almost out!  Get the knife ready so we can cut the head off!”
    It felt like a cord of thick rope was being pulled through his body. He yelled at the top of his lungs, “GET THAT BLASTED THING OUT OF ME!”
    “There’s the head! Oh slat! What’s in the mouth of that thing! Keep it still!”
    “Kill it!”
    The sound of steel cut through the air.
    Slice!
    “You got it! Bish! Barely! It almost got us!” Flaggon said. “How’s the man, Tuuth?”
    Tuuth shrugged his broad shoulders. Venir wasn’t moving. “He’s breathing, not that it matters. He’s crippled now. A peaceful death being eaten alive would have been better.”
    What have the underlings done to me!
    Thoughts were rac ing through Venir’s mind despite the agony. How much suffering would they put him through?
    Someone pulled the bag off his head
    When he managed to look up, it was into the big pale face of the orcen man, Tuuth.
    “His eyes still have some fight in them, Flaggon. Look at this?”
    Flaggon stepped into view, eyed him and said with avid curiosity, “Can you stand, Stranger?”
    “Can underlings die?” Venir said. He pushed against the stockade. Wobbling on his feet.
    Tuuth and Flaggon looked at each other, astonished.
    “Can you walk?”
    Venir took his first step and collapsed face first to the stone floor.
    “Help him up,” Flaggon said.
    “No!” Venir said.
    He was free . Despite all the pain, he was going to enjoy it. Unable to use his hands because of the pain in his wrists, he rolled onto his elbows. He pushed himself over and sat himself up. He felt like he would pass out.
    Bone!
    He saw his legs. They were raw. Scarred. Pale as the orc. There was a hole in his thigh that led to the bone. That was the first one he saw. To the side, the grub lay dead on the floor, six feet in length. It looked like a hairy earthworm as thick as his thumb. Its head as big as his knuckles and filled with tiny teeth. His stomach churned bile up to his throat, but nothing came out.
    “Well , Stranger,” Flaggon said “you can’t walk, but we’ll let you crawl if you like. Else we can carry you.”
    “No,” Venir said.
    He was numb. Looking at his arms, the bracers on his aching wrists were loose. The bulges in his arms were gone. What had been done to him? The only thing left whole on him it seemed was his beard.
    “Then get moving, Stranger. The underlings are expecting you.” The brighter tone that Flaggon carried changed. “And seeing how you survived this much , I can only warn you that the worst is yet to come.”
    Venir swallowed hard . On elbows and knees, trembling, he crawled forward.
    ***
    Tuuth rubbed the bracers on his wrists. The haggard form of Venir crawling stirred him. In the little amount of time the man had been imprisoned, he’d become a husk of the man Tuuth had battled earlier. Tuuth would never forget the shock in the man’s granite face when he cracked his wrists. It should have broken the man. But it hadn’t. The Stranger still had fire in his eyes. An anger. A thirst.
    Watching Venir crawl up the steps , he shook his head. Tuuth unslung the man’s backpack from his shoulders and pulled out the sack. He’d already been into the woods and back again, searching for the man’s armament. Opening the neck of the sack for what might as well have been the hundredth time, he reached inside and found nothing. Stuffing the sack inside the backpack, he hoisted it back over his shoulders.