The screams of the last one that had been tied to the ground, used in base and vile manners, cut and bled into the dirt, had long faded, along with her life.

But Tedrey could not look.

He had already seen too much.

Too many.

Their spent, lifeless bodies were piled behind the tree at his back, and thus he could not look that way either. He could not again look into those staring, vacant eyes that still held the stark remnants of fear and degradation and pain.

However, in the diligent frenzy of ritual and sacrifice that had now gone on, one after the other, for two days, Fenn had even gotten caught up in it and took his turn with the others, using and dispatching the women.

They were animals.

Monsters.

Tedrey had known cruelty in his life, but he could not…

He would not…

His mind simply would never be able to reconcile this.

And thus, he focused.

As they were so very involved in their endeavors, and thus paid him little mind, Tedrey focused on the ropes binding his hands, which he hoped to free and then he could see to the ones binding his ankles.

And then he would flee.

He would want to save the ones at his side, the ones taken by Fenn, Thom and their brethren. The ones agonizing beside him, dreading their turn.

But he could not.

There was Golden Thomas, and Fenn, and nine others had come with Thom, to join the eleven with Fenn.

Tedrey had to manage to escape them all and get to Birchlire, which was closest, and warn King True.

Unless he could somehow find a loft and get ravens dispatched, not having a single coin to pay an aviast to send them.

But to save this land and all others, he had to leave the women behind.

He had to leave them to this fate.

And he had to ignore the burn in his gut at the fury he had to swallow at what had befallen the pile at his back, what would befall the terrified at his side, what he had seen that he knew he could never erase from his brain, what had been lost by all of them for this maniacal crusade.

He felt the rope at his wrists loosening and took heart, only to stop when he felt something else.

The beginnings of a quake was coming from under them, the loose dirt about him shimmying.

And then he braced, for it started slow, but it came fast and strong.

“He rises!” one of the men shouted jubilantly.

“It’s working! Quick, release her and discard the body. Bring another,” Fenn demanded.

“She is not drained yet,” another man said.

“Do what I say!” Fenn ordered zealously.

The quake shuddered to a halt, and as they went about their business much more enthusiastically, Tedrey dismissed the turn in his stomach and took advantage of their diverted attention, picking with great care at the knot at his wrists.