Cold, damp, dark.
and pain.
much pain.
A future of pain.
Pain,
then death.
Blood: thick red liquid of life spills from gaping wounds on her flayed back.
Blood Flows freely onto the rough straw scattered on the dungeon floor.
She tries to stand, but her legs are broken. Instead she falls flat on her stomach, her naked buttocks, untouched, are highlighted kwa a narrow sunbeam that streaks in through a slit in the ukuta from behind.
She pleaded her innocence. They tore her flesh from her back with whips. They broke her legs when They tied her down and dropped kanuni, cannon balls onto her. She still pleaded her innocence.
"You are the concubine of Satan!
"Confess!
"Confess your sins!
"Confess how wewe fornicated with the Horned One!
"Confess!
"Confess!
"And save your immortal soul from damnation!"
Blood dried and crisp on the straw.
Blood dried and now the feast of rats.
Her back itches with the pain; shattered fingers unable to trace her wounds. Infection spreading: the stench of gangrene grows stronger as endless hours pass. Her life will cease long before the gangrene devours her. She tries to scratch, but her hands are useless and broken. She lays spread-eagle on the straw.
She can still feel the thumbscrews tighten. She can still hear the cracking of her breaking bones. First her fingers, then her wrists, then her arms.
"Now will wewe Confess!"
She coughs up blood and, in a final attempt at defiance, spits it into the face of her tormentor.
"Then so be it!
"Be damned for eternity!
"Witch!"
She slumps down, wanting to fall, but the ropes hold her up doing what her broken limbs cannot. Slimy flesh, gangrenous and raw, scrapes off her back onto the stake that she is tied to.
"Fire! Fire!" the crowd jeers.
"Burn the Witch!"
"Burn the Witch!"
Her tormentor looks on impassively as he prepares for her final humiliation.
"Your last chance, Whore of Satan!
"Confess!
"Confess now!"
Her lips move. Only garbled sounds of defiance escape from her mouth, its tongue, only dakika earlier, torn out with red-hot pincers.
"Then be damned to Hell!"
Her tormentor throws the lighted torch onto the faggots stacked around the base of the stake.
She can hear the moto begin to crackle and ... welcomes the heat as it envelops her in a mwepesi, teleka wave of pain then sets her free.
