People of the Moon(167)
He nodded, and the rest followed, as if at some unseen signal. “Time.” He mouthed the word. Inserting his knife on the other side, he began the process of slitting the fabric over her left shoulder.
Crow Woman watched in fascination as the faded red fabric parted and fell away to expose her smooth brown skin.
They’re peeling it away. And when they had removed her clothing, what then?
I will no longer be a warrior. She clamped her eyes closed, insisting, Yes, yes I will!
That was when the blow caught her. A smacking impact that blasted her kneecap sideways. She would have fallen but for strong hands fixing her pole. The thong cut into her neck, causing her to stiffen, gasping for breath.
She blinked, seeing them, each male face leaned close, peering, as if to see her fear from a hand’s breadth away.
“Where is Ironwood’s camp?” Narrow-frame whispered.
“I don’t know,” she insisted. “In these mountains somewhere.”
“Good,” came the whispered reply.
For a moment they watched; then Narrow-frame reached out and cupped her breast. His touch was light, little more than a caress of her nipple. Nevertheless the hard callus on his hand made her stiffen.
He lifted the knife. “You heard about the Dust People?”
She jerked a nod.
He ran the keen blade in a circle around the swell of her breast; the sharp edge left a white scratch on her dark skin. “If I cut this off, we will eat it. And you will watch us.” His hand went to her other breast. “Then we will eat this one.”
She tried to speak, to deny it, but a croaking came from her throat.
He was playing the obsidian blade up and down her stomach, following the line from her sternum down to the navel. The rope at her waist parted, and the remains of her dress fluttered down to wad around her ankles. She stared down in horror as the obsidian blade traced around her abdomen, then patterned a spiral above the black thatch of her pubic hair.
“I will eat your womb when I cut it out,” another of the warriors whispered. This was a thickset man who was missing two of his incisors.
She tried to shrink away from the gliding blade. Faint white scratches on her smooth skin marked its course.
“Tell,” Narrow-frame whispered, his voice barely audible above the wind in the distant pines.
She leaned her head back, screaming, “By the gods, just kill me!”
“Oh,” the sibilant whisper assured, “it won’t be that easy.” A pause. “Unless you tell us where Ironwood—”
“If … if I do … you’ll just kill me?”
Narrow-frame nodded, voice rising. “After we enjoy you, yes. You will make it good for us? You won’t just lie on your back like a sack of corn?”
“No.” She tried to nod through the shivers. “I’ll make it good.”
He smiled, eyes glittering. “And you won’t lie about Ironwood? If you did, well, we can eat you slowly. A piece at a time until you die.”
Gods, kill me now! “I . . I won’t lie.”
“Good.” He reached up with the knife, slicing a line across her chest just above the swell of her breasts. Then he severed the thong at her neck. Two of the warriors stepped back, pulling their war shirts over their heads, grinning. One already had an erection that bobbed as he tossed his shirt to one side.
The hiss might have been the exhalation of the gods—the meaty slap, a clap of thunder.
Crow Woman tried to make sense of the image. The two naked warriors jerked up and down like Dancers, their muscular bodies writhing back and forth, out of step. When one moved, the other twisted. She could see the point protruding from the thickset man’s side like a misplaced second erection.
“What in … ?” The narrow-framed man stepped back, his knife in hand, ready to attack. His darting gaze took in the brush, and he blinked, night-blinded by the fire.
The last man leapt for his weapons as the first two warriors staggered and stumbled, then fell to the ground. The thickset man had lost his erection, his hands clutching the spearhead that stuck out of his side. A wild scream broke from his mouth, only to be cut off by a bubbling froth of blood.
Another hiss ended with a thud as the final warrior stood, his war club in his hands. He stared down stupidly at the dart point that extended half a body length from his chest. He grabbed it with his left hand, sagged to his knees, and gasped out a hoarse rattling cry.
“Show yourself!” Narrow-frame cried. “Come fight like a man!”
Something warned him. He threw himself sideways, a long dart cutting the air where he’d been standing but a heartbeat before.
Narrow-frame lunged for his dying companion, plucked the war club from his hand, and backed quickly to where Crow Woman balanced precariously, her pole held only by her hands and the rope at her ankles. Her knee was an agony of pain.