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dragon, too. It’s only a small one, though. It lives east of the town.” The flames climbed higher around her, sometimes completely obscuring Dante’s view of her. “Now can I have some apples?” She laughed as she writhed against her bonds. For a moment, she looked right into Dante’s eyes, and he was shocked to see her gaze was not filled with pain or terror, but with some manic, erotic excitement that seethed then burst forth from her – a frenzied glee as the cruelty of the crowd smashed into her innocence, like a hammer onto an anvil, and both these primal, unquenchable forces together savaged her fragile body and broken mind. Her eyes sparkled and her laughter rose above the flames and the screams from the crowd. “Don’t go near the elderberry, Mother. Sometimes there’s a pig that climbs its branches! He’s a wily one, with red eyes and sharp tusks. But don’t hurt him, Mother. He doesn’t know any better. He thinks he can fly, like he used to. Wheeee!”
    The soldier’s horse reared up one more time, then he finally got control over it, pointing it right toward Dante and making it crash through the scattering remnants of the crowd. He pulled up next to Dante, panting and flushed. “Come!” he shouted. “We have to get out of here!”
    The soldier rode off, but Dante couldn’t tear himself away from the horror of the dying woman and the senseless, frenzied chaos of the people dashing all about the square, some of them on fire, some trampling others under foot, some swatting and screaming as the wasps stung them over and over. And beyond the flames, he now saw other people shuffling in to the square. These people did not seem panicked, but moved slowly, stiffly, and deliberately. Although the waves of heat coming off the flames made it hard to see clearly, it looked to him as though these people entering the square were covered in blood. The one closest seemed to be missing his left arm. Dante could hear their moaning, underneath and all around the other sounds of death and pain assailing him.
    Bogdana tightened her grip around Dante’s waist. “Go, go! You can’t help her! They’ve all gone mad!”
    Pulling back on the reins, he closed his eyes and could barely keep from sobbing. He kicked the animal hard to get them out of there. He could hear the woman’s laughter a long time after they had left the town behind. Her eyes he would see in nightmares all his life.

Chapter 6

    “These have no longer any hope of death;
    And this blind life of theirs is so debased,
    They envious are of every other fate.”
    Dante, Inferno , 3.46-48

    Dante’s horse galloped after the soldier. They veered to the right, circling around the town, back towards the west, away from the direction of the advancing army. There was no telling if they were already surrounded. Dante narrowed his eyes and scanned the nearest trees, expecting to be hit with an arrow or crossbow bolt at any moment, but for now nothing bad happened. He looked ahead and saw the soldier turn and glance over his shoulder at them, then the soldier kicked his horse to increase its speed. Dante tried to match him. His horse – more so than the soldier’s – would not be able to keep this pace up for long, but they had to get as far from there as quickly as possible.
    Crashing through a stand of fruit trees, they finally came to the road Dante had hoped to find when they reached the town. There were more fruit trees on the other side of the road, and looking back toward the town, Dante saw people running toward them. The way they moved, they obviously were not dead.
    “Help us!” the man in the lead of the crowd approaching them shouted. He held a shovel in his right hand as he ran. “You must help us get out of here!”
    A woman was close behind him. “Yes, help us! We didn’t know the army was so close! We didn’t know they would do this!” She looked better dressed than most of the townspeople Dante had seen, and he noticed she had