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him.
    “The first course of business is to find Sierran,” MacDougal said in a calm voice.
    Vargas swung his shaggy head toward the Solarian and glared at him. No one knew from what part of
    that small country the man had come nor his first name. He was an enigma to all of them save their
    commander. What they did know was that he was a brave man, a methodical, steady fighter, and had no
    compunction about killing their enemies. “You think?” Vargas growled, his emerald eyes flashing.
    Mac shrugged. “That we slaughter those who have hurt our leader is a given, DuMond. That we be
    quick in rescuing him is, as well, but we have to find him before we can do the rest.”
    “There is no record of him ever having been arrested,” Seth said. “How can we find him without
    knowing where the fuck he was taken? As far as the Federation knows, the commander was punished
    for failure to comply with Thurston’s order and that he was flogged. They might not have agreed with
    Thurston, but they had to uphold the punishment.”
    “Aye and that’s as far as it should have gone,” Vargas snapped. “There is foul play at foot here, men!”
    “You think?” Mac drawled, throwing Vargas’ words back at him.
    “So what the fuck do you suggest, Solarian?” Vargas bellowed.
    MacDougal’s thin lips split into a merciless smile. “We go after Thurston and strip the skin from his fat
    gut until he tells us what we want to know.”
    Vargas blinked. “Aye, and then we’ll hang for…”
    “Who says the bastard needs to survive our visiting him?” Mac inquired softly. “All it will take is two of
    us to go to his tent tomorrow night and we overpower him. As I see it, it’s the only choice we have.”
    Seth frowned. “Why tomorrow night? Why not tonight?”
    Mac folded his arms over his stocky chest. “Because he’s got company tonight.”
    “Two of them pretty-boy hookers from town,” Vargas said, then turned his head and spat on the
    ground, leaving no doubt how he felt about anything that would lay down for the general.
    “Can’t we attack anyway?” Seth asked. “How much resistance will a pair of whores give us?”
    “Think, brat,” Vargas said, flashing his brother an annoyed look. “If there are two boys there, that means
    Thurston will have invited another half-man from amongst the battalion. That would be three we’d have
    to take out quietly before ever reaching the general. That’s like sending an engraved announcement unless
    you think it could be done with no notice or noise.”
    “I want Thurston’s balls for what he did to the commander,” Seth mumbled.
    “Well, come tomorrow night, we will have them,” Mac stated. “And when that madman dies while he’s
    being questioned—his heart having given out on him due to the stress and all or maybe even from having
    accidentally suffered a puncture wound of some kind…” His smile was vicious. “Who will care about the
    loss of that crazed son-of-a-bitch?”

Chapter Four
    There were no words Sierran knew that could describe the agony that was being visited upon his body.
    He lay stretched out, spread-eagle, upon a cold stone slab—waist height on Lord Charles—with his
    wrists and ankles locked under wide iron bands. Naked as the day he’d come into the world, he was
    shivering not only from the intense cold of the dungeon but from the all-engulfing pain that was slicing at
    his flesh inch by bloody inch. A thick gag had been wedged between his teeth and the cloying feel of its
    wetness from his own saliva made his stomach revolt. Pulled tightly, the gag had split the corners of his
    mouth and he could taste the saltiness of his blood from time to time.
    “Such excellent muscle tone,” the Dungeon Master said, running a hand along Sierran’s quivering
    abdominals. “You are quite the specimen, Commander. It seems a shame to ruin such perfection but that
    won’t be for a month or two yet, so not to worry.”
    Another slow, shallow slice