Dragging.

Yes. She was being dragged. There were hands under her armpits. Strong hands. She understood now that two men were half carrying her and that the toes of her shoes were scraping along over dirt and grass.

Jason. Claudia.

Suddenly the question was no longer who they were, but how they were. And where. With that Rachael felt herself coming back. All at once she knew who she was.

She also knew how much trouble she was in. Happy Valley. The slave labor. The escape attempt. The kick to the head. All of it. Her eyes were still caked with blood, but from the sounds and the grunting effort of the men as they hauled her over rough terrain, she reckoned she was outside.

Why, though? What was going to happen out here? Were they going to kill her? Rape her? It had to be something serious, otherwise they’d have simply tossed her outside the walls, slammed the gate and be done with it. This wasn’t expulsion, it was . . .

What?

Abruptly she was released and falling. She landed hard and badly, and the impact with the ground tore a cry from her. One of the men laughed.

“Yeah,” he said, “she’s awake. Good.”

Rachael felt sick and weak and knew that was from the kick to the head. In the old movies the heroine could get knocked out and then wake up ready for the next big action scene. Not in the real world. Trauma severe enough to knock her out did damage. The muscles and tendons in her neck hurt abominably, and there was a persistent ringing in her ears. She lay where she’d been dropped and brought weak hands up to paw the muck from her eyes. The world emerged. Daylight. Blindingly bright; she winced and hissed as if scalded, turning her head to the side to avoid the glare.

That’s when she saw the dead people.

So many dead people.

Orcs and . . . others. Some of them simply dead. But it wasn’t actually simple, was it? No, she told herself. This was wrong in a lot of very bad ways.

The corpses were tied to posts, straight poles with crossbars that stood all of the dead up like a grove of scarecrows. The corpses were in horrible shape. Emaciated, starved; their faces marked by their screams and suffering. She turned to see them, to see all of those faces. Every one of them had died hard out here. Many had been fed upon, with parts of arms and faces and bodies eaten away. Others slumped down in final, total defeat; unmarked by bites but clearly dead. On some of those, Rachael could see single post-mortem wounds from where someone had quieted them. A small mercy. A very cold comfort.

Then she saw two figures lashed to crossbars who were still alive.

God, she hoped they were still alive.

Jason.

Claudia.