Satan's Forge (Star Sojourner Book 5) (7 page)

I glanced up as a hovair with Lithium Love Mine written across the hull swung low and cruised by. They were tracking me as I approached the compound, making sure I didn't change my mind.

Copper's shoulders were already lathered as I led him down a rocky trail. The long shadows of dawn striped the narrow path. The sun pressed my back like a hot iron. I wiped my forehead and felt sweat trickle down my sides.

I reined in on a promontory, dismounted, and surveyed the mining site below. The mounted lookouts hadn't spotted me yet and I could have still turned away from that death camp and lost the hovair in the wilds. I thought of a poem I'd once recited to Althea while we were still married. “I could not love thee dear so much, loved I not honor more.” Appropriate. The tag in the poem was going off to war, and I had my own war to fight. I mounted and continued down the road.

When I reached the broad, electrified gate of the mine, a guard shouted something in alienese to another Altairian and the gate swung open. I bit my lip as I entered. The audience was in place. Work had stopped and the slaves were gathered in rows. Armed guards patrolled on horseback. I squinted up at Slade's office window and saw him there, behind the black bars of window blinds.

The stage is set,
I thought. It needs only the martyr to complete the play. That would be me. I was flanked by mounted guards who crowded Copper and turned him toward the whipping post.

I froze. Copper felt my fear. He threw up his head and pranced sideways. A guard reached out and grabbed his reins. “Get down,” he ordered me.

I dismounted and walked toward the post, hoping my knees wouldn't buckle. Did they intend to lash me until dead? I scanned the empty sky. All that this scenario lacked was a cross for me to drag along.

The slaves watched silently as I pulled my shirt over my head and threw it at an approaching guard. He caught it and looked at the other guard. If this were to be my last act in this lifebind, I would leave the slaves with a belief in their capacity to defy the brutal, mindless power that knows nothing beyond greed.

My shoulders trembled as I walked to the flogging post. “What are you waiting for?” I threw at the guards. “You're not afraid of me, are you?”

I heard a murmur and the shuffling of feet among the crowd. The guards came forward quickly then, embarrassed, I think, at their own hesitation.

Christ and Buddha!
I was putting on a good act, but my stomach was clenched into a fist. My throat was so tight my breath shuddered through my lungs.

I shivered with cold sweat as my arms were stretched, my wrists lifted high and tied to the post, a makeshift affair of two wooden boards nailed at right angles to each other. The horizontal board bore dark-stained scratches where victims had dug in their fingernails until they bled. Would mine add to them? I'd try not to. If I had tight back muscles, this position would loosen them.

Spirit,
I sent.
Are you out there? Spirit!

I am here.

I closed my eyes.
I'm so scared!

With good reason.

Stay with me, OK?

I am here.

I kept my eyes on small shreds of clouds that drifted overhead as Azut approached and uncoiled his whip.

“Did you volunteer for this job?” I asked him hoarsely.

He glanced at the high window. “I was ordered to be the one.”

Of course. Boss Slade intended to show the slaves that there could be no friendship between them and the guards. No quarter given.

“Why did ye come
back?
” Azut asked.

“If you don't know, I can't explain it.”

A hushed silence.

I tensed my muscles into ropes. My chest was pressed against the wood and my heart drummed in my ears. I wanted to wipe the sweat that ran down my forehead and ribs. “Get it over with!” I told Azut.

“One!” I heard a guard shout.

The lash across my back was like a burning poker raked through skin. I clamped my teeth against a need to scream.

“Two!”

The second lash was worse. I felt it rip through torn skin over the first.

Spirit!
I screamed in my mind.

I am here, Jules.

“Three!”

“Stop!” I gasped as the lash tore through flesh and down to bone. “Stop! Please!” Bile rose in my throat. I choked it back down.

“I'm sorry,” Azut said.

“Four!”

“No,
don't
,” I cried. But the whip came down like the slash of a hot knife. I felt my wrists stretch and realized my knees had sagged. Blood seeped from my mouth as I bit through my lip. People in the crowd moaned.

They'll kill me!
I cried to Spirit.

No. Not yet.

“Five!”

This time I screamed as the whip slashed my back like serrated metal. I smelled blood and felt it run down my back. The clouds seemed to be turning in a slow circle. My stomach heaved, but only bile rose.

“Six!”

The lash came down but I felt only a thud of pain as Spirit probed my mind, searching. My thoughts scattered. The clouds took on grotesque shapes. I fought Spirit as he reached deeper than even Star Speaker had gone during our tel lessons on Halcyon. He touched places I'd never wanted revealed.
Get out!
I sent and pushed back.

Stop it, Jules
.

“Seven!” I heard dully but felt nothing as Spirit found the main switch and threw it.

Daylight shattered and I collapsed gratefully into a starless night.

* * *

My back burned as though a torch had been flamed across it. I smelled blood and felt it seep down my sides. I tried to walk, but couldn't as Azut and Kluth dragged me to my cell. I retched but there was nothing in my stomach.

“Jules?” I heard Dannie cry and saw her behind the bars.

“Dannie,” I rasped. “What're you doing here?”

“I hated the family they sold me to.” She clutched the bars. “They were mean to me. I ran away and came back here to be with you! Oh, baby. Look what they did to you!”

Christ and Buddha! “Dannie. You shouldn't have come back.”

They laid me face down on the cot. Azut paused. “I am sorry,” he said. He had blood on his right arm and his side.

“You'd better wash off the blood,” I whispered, “if you can.”

Azut lowered his head. “I'll leave the cell door open. Get breakfast for yeself.”

The two guards left.

“Oh, Jules.” Dannie sat on the floor beside me and took my hand. “I saw them whip you from the cell window.” She brushed tears. “They stopped when you passed out.”

“That was kind of them.”

She wiped blood off my lips with the back of her hand and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “I couldn't watch. I would have taken it in your place.”

“I wouldn't wish it on you, kid. Can you get me some water? There's a lousy taste in my mouth.”

She went into the bathroom and returned with a glass of water. “Here.” She helped me hold up my head and sip the water. “What're we going to do?”

“I'm working on it.”

She glanced at my back with a question in her raised brows. “Jules, when you feel better I think we should talk.”

“I'm listening, Dannie. You've got a captive audience.”

Well." She brushed her hand through my hair. “I think we should have sex.”

Oh, Jesus.
“What brought that on?”

“I thought about it when I saw them whip you. If we don't obey them, sooner or later they'll kill you and send me to another Terran man.”

“Suppose we just pretend to have sex?”

She frowned. “How do you do that?”

“I'll figure out something.” I lifted my hand to her wet cheek. “You're too young to become pregnant, kid. Having a baby could kill you, and the baby too. These crotes would let you give birth right here on the cell floor. So forget it, OK?”

She twirled her finger through my hair. “Someday, if I live long enough, I want to marry a man just like you.”

Against the pain, I forced a smile.

She kissed my cheek. “Will you wait for me?”

“No.”

She drew back. “But you said someday I'll become a beautiful woman!”

“You will.” I slid my hand to her neck. “And someday you'll meet a tag who's closer to your age.”

“I don't care about age!”

“You should, Dannie. You and he will have a lot in common. You'll be friends. I'd end up being your father.”

“But I think I'm in love with you, Jules. I want to…to –”

I closed my eyes and moaned. If only this fire would go out in my back.

“I want you to be my first man!” she blurted.

“Puppy love, Dan.” I squeezed in a breath. “Can we talk about this some other time?”

“I wish I could make your back better.”

“Me too. Just stay close and hold my hand. It's comforting, you know?”

“I'm not going anyplace, hon.”

Hon
? When did I become
hon
?

I was so worn down from the pain and the trauma. “I wish I could sleep,” I whispered.

She brushed my hair off my neck. “You need a haircut.”

“You think?” I drew in a breath. “I need more than a haircut. Maybe a couple of aspirin.” I forced another smile.

“Shhh,” she whispered and kissed me lightly on the lips. “Go to sleep.”

“Would that I could.”

“Lullaby, and goodnight,” she sang.

Give me a break.

Dannie fell asleep with her head on the side of my cot. Her hand slid from mine.

My cheek stuck to the sheet. “Huff,” I mumbled. My Vegan friend had always been there for me. “Where are you now?” I whispered. “Back on your homeworld, Kresthaven?”

Dannie stirred.

I rested my hand on her shoulder.

I can't remember a worse night than that one. The hours grew tails that stretched them out like taut violin strings. If Boss Slade thought he'd beaten the defiance out of me, he was mistaken. A seething hatred sprang upon my soul like a vulture that dug in claws. I pictured the Altairian overlord dying in agonizing ways, and conjured ever more brutal methods to shuffle him off this mortal coil. For what he did to me, and worse, to so many others, I knew the red throat of Hell that awaited his kwaii when he died. I knew the Black Pit that Great Mind would hurl him into. I'd seen it happen to the vicious BEM All Mother on Denebria, who ate children alive. I hoped I'd live long enough to see it happen to this greedy Altairian demigod.

With dawn, the pain finally began to subside and I fell into a fitful sleep. Every few minutes I would start and open my eyes, afraid that if I kept them closed I'd be in danger.

I was thirsty again and I had to pee, but getting up was not worth the effort. I wiped my sticky tongue on my shirt collar.

Outside the window, morning stirred. The sound of shuffling feet as slaves went to their work stations. The smell of frying dough as breakfast was prepared. The snort of a horse. An overseer, Fulg, I think, shouting to some slave to get back in line. The clank of metal plates being stacked.

The heat hadn't begun yet. It crouched in the eastern wings, red as the rising sun.

Dannie, lying on the stone floor beside my cot, stirred and rolled over. She mumbled something and woke up. "Oh, Jules. How do you feel?'

“A little better,” I lied. “Dannie? Could you get me some water?”

“Sure, hon.” She scrambled to her feet, went into the bathroom and returned with a glass of water.

I gulped it down too fast and coughed. “Another one?”

“Sure.” She went for it and came back with a fresh glass. “Drink it slow!”

“OK.” I gulped that one, too, and coughed again. I closed my eyes.

“I wish I could make it better for you,” she said.

I nodded.

She twirled a strand of the long hair at my neck. “You know, hon, they're waiting for you.”

“The slaves? It's up to them now. I've got nothing left to give.”

“All they want is you. When they took you back to this cell, people were following, crying and moaning. One Denebrian woman stopped and picked up a stone that had your blood on it.”

I exhaled a breath. “They're looking for a religious leader.”

“They're looking for you. They want to know that Boss Slade didn't break your spirit.”

“Maybe he did.”

“Then they're lost. They'll give up.”

“Do I look like Spartacus, Jesus Christ, M.L. King, Nat Crowell? I'm worn down, Dannie. I've got nothing left to give.”

She brushed fingers through my hair. “They know that. If you went out there now, it would give them the hope they need that the spirit can't be broken. They might come together and plan their own rebellion. If you wait until you're healed, it won't have the same effect.”

I pressed my hand to her round cheek. “How come you're so wise for such a kid?”

She knitted her brows. “I think a lot.”

“Christ and Buddha. OK. Get my shirt, Dannie.” It lay across the chair, with my jacket.

“Suppose you leave it off?”

“Oh, I get it. Wear my wounds like a badge of honor. Why not?”

It was morning, but New Lithnia's hot sun already blazed and threw stark shadows like bars across the mining camp. Dannie tied my shirt around my waist. I squinted in the glare of the sun. It burned my back with strokes of heat. Sweat trickled down my ribs. My mouth felt dry again. The crack of pick axes breaking through slabs of salt mixed with the mindless rhythm of pumps.

I stumbled and caught myself. “Hold onto me, Dannie.” I felt light-headed and dizzy.

“Oh, I will.” She gripped my arm tighter.

A murmur of voices from slaves as Dannie and I walked into the center of camp, mixed with the brash bell that announced breakfast. Five BEM kitchen slaves were setting out bins of food, Terran and alien, on a long table made of wooden planks.

Work stopped and the slaves formed lines alongside the table.

The smell of food turned my stomach. “I can't eat.”

“You've got to try, hon. You need something in your stomach.”

I nodded.

As we approached the table, the line of slaves broke up and they moved aside to let us through. Some bowed their heads as we went by. Some reached out to touch me.