Satan's Forge (Star Sojourner Book 5) by Jean Kilczer

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