Hell or High Water Read Online Free PDF Page A

These, too, harbored the restless stench of decay and rough smears of various molds. Still, with the use of uncountable patches and slapdash repairs, they remained good enough for some.
    Galgur’s faction of the White Leech called them home.
    They’d approached the hillside through a veritable thicket of peculiar reeds. Protruding stiffly, reaching almost a man’s height above the waters, they didn’t appear remotely natural to their surroundings.
    And now Ameyanda knew why.
    “We’ll put you in the swamp for a time. You’ll be so much more succulent after you’ve softened and ripened!”
    Despite her best efforts, or the shame it brought, she’d finally panicked. First the bag, yanked over her head and sealed around the neck with some viscous sludge. It smelled of light tanning and animal fat, and it had one of those long reeds—long, hollow reeds—protruding from one side.
    And then she’d felt herself manhandled, strapped by leather cords to a heavy log, and tossed in to lie amidst the others.
    They didn’t even mean to kill her first. Let her lie, submerged in the marsh, half-buried in muck, until her waterlogged skin came loose on her flesh. Only then, she knew, would they haul her up—a primitive rope-and-pulley system dangled from an overhanging cypress branch—to feast.
    So yes, as the world went away save for the sound of the torpid waters beyond the bag and the patter of rain on the surface, gradually slowing as the squall finally passed, she’d thrashed, bucked, screamed in panic.
    But only for a moment.
    No large animals, was her first rational thought. Galgur and his men wouldn’t want anything to rob them of a meal, so they must have some means of keeping the bigger predators away from their “crop.” Nets in the water, perhaps. It meant there was nothing—well, nothing large enough to kill her outright—to be attracted by the blood.
    And there would be a lot of blood.
    Ameyanda pulled her left wrist toward her shoulder, as far as the straps would allow—and then kept pulling. For minutes beyond count, she pressed the ball of her hand against the leather, against the soft wood of the log. The pain was enough to draw another scream. So be it; let them think she howled in terror, if they could hear at all through the breathing reed.
    She pushed; she twisted. And slowly, agonizingly, the jagged crocodile tooth—one she’d knocked from the unliving creature’s mouth, the thing she’d deliberately fallen upon and concealed within her own meat—slid from her skin.
    She’d expected that she might need to free herself of bonds; she’d never begun to imagine the circumstances in which that need would arise.
    Her fingers seized up, twitching, and she almost dropped it. The breath caught in her throat as she bobbled at it, and she almost cried in relief when she once more held it firm. The hand was weak, limp with pain and a growing infection she could already feel.
    But it would do. It had to do.
    In tiny twitches, Ameyanda began to run the edge of the tooth over the leather, again and again.
    ∗∗∗
    “I know what you did.”
    It was hearing his own language, more than the words themselves, that yanked Seyusth awake through the fog of pain. The room smelled of rotten wood, and as he pried his eyes open, he could see huge blotches of mold and water damage on the walls.
    The room was also at a slight angle—no, he was at a slight angle. They hadn’t even bothered to stand the stake to which he was crucified straight up; just leaned it in the corner.
    And then full awareness finally flooded through him, and he lowered his gaze to the one who’d addressed him.
    “Issisk! Leaves and scales, you live!”
    The younger lizardfolk stood in the chamber’s open doorway, perhaps a bit scrawnier than Seyusth recalled, but healthy enough. He nodded once, but otherwise offered no response.
    “They allow you to move freely?” Seyusth asked.
    “Largely. They keep eyes on me, to ensure I do not