Something wild and violent jerked through the man, as if he were a sack filled with rabid vermin. And in the light, it all seemed too stark, too obvious to the naked eye, the twitch and fracture of a man’s breaking. His eyes rolling beneath a stationary film of reflected white. His face caped in black, the lines of his anguish bleeding ink this way and that. Even Xonghis leaned backward.

The stranger began rocking side to side. A kind of pained tooth-to-tooth grin broke his beard. “In the dark there is always touch … you see?” He waved the severed hand in a bawling, loose-wristed manner. A thread of blood pattered across Mimara’s tunic. “I held on. I-I didn’t l-l-let go! I held on. I held on. I held on. I h-he-held on!” His eyes ceased seeing anything illuminated, became so crazed as to seem painted. “Gamarrah! Gamarrah! I got you! Don’t let go. No-no, don’t! Don’t! Don’t let go!”

Lord Kosoter stepped forward, stood so that his shadow blotted the Pick entirely. He pressed Xonghis to the side with his left hand.

“I held on!” the Pick shrieked.

As though breaking hard ground with a spade, the Captain plunged his sword down through the man’s corselet, snapping one of the Sranc-teeth necklaces. He drove the point deep, from the man’s clavicle to his belly. The Pick jerked and spasmed, shook like sodden cloth on a slave’s dryingstick. The Captain wrenched his sword clear; the body fell backward, arms unrolling, its feet pinned beneath it. The severed hand rolled soundlessly through the dust. Of its own volition, the man’s hand seemed to twitch and grope. Senseless fingertip touched senseless fingertip.

Lord Kosoter spat. In a hiss that was almost a whisper, he said, “Sobber.”

Sarl’s face crunched into a wheezing laugh. “No sobbers!” he cried, bending his voice to the others. “That’s the Rule. No sobbers on the slog!”

Achamian glanced from Xonghis to Kiampas, saw the same expressionless mask he hoped to fake. The Nonman, Cleric, stood with his mouth open, as though trying to catch some taste of what they all smelled. Achamian blinked, let go a shuddering breath. Everything had happened so quickly, too quickly for his heart to feel, let alone for his soul to comprehend. All he knew was that something was wrong … Something in the man’s gibberish had carried the deep bruise of truth.

It looks and looks and it can’t see!

“Cut him open,” he heard himself say to Xonghis, who by now was standing at his side.

“What?”

“Cut him open … I need to see his heart.”

Our skin is too thick …