No one noticed. They were all intent on the show Yod was putting on.
Neqa screamed again, piercingly, as Yod's body covered her. She writhed on the ground and one of her hands slipped loose, but Yod stayed with her, grunting. The men grinned as they held her legs apart.
Neq twisted the knife, but he could not get it angled properly at the cord. His hands became slippery with his own blood. Then the strands began parting, reluctantly, as the flat of the blade wedged against them.
It seemed to take forever for the rope to give.
The outlaw chief stood up, short of breath. Neqa was sobbing brokenly.
"Hey--she was a virgin!" Yod exclaimed. "Look at that!"
The men crowded close to look. Neq, numbed to physical pain, sawed at the infernal rope.
"Why'd she have his bracelet, then?" someone demanded.
"I heard he wasn't much of a man outside the circle!" Still the bands held. Han the dagger got up and fled, looking sick.
"All right--line up and take your turn," Yod said. "Every man of you. She's a good one."
The men lined up. Neqa had stopped crying. Three men still held her supine and spread on the ground.
Three more completed their business before Neq's hands finally were free. He severed the hobble-cord and lurched to his feet. He plunged the blade into the back of the fourth man as he lay astride Neqa. One down--four to go.
"Hey! He's loose!"
They piled on him. Neq fought savagely, but the dagger was not his weapon and he was grossly outnumbered. In moments they had him prisoner again.
Helpless, he had to watch while forty-four more men ravished his wife.
But it was not over.
"That's another he killed--and several more wounded," Yod said angrily.
"Kill him!" several cried.
"No. I granted him life. I want this bastard to suffer." Yod considered. "Cut off his hands." He lifted his sword.
Neqa, momentarily forgotten, climbed slowly to her feet. Her eyes were staring. The dagger Neq had used lay near her on the ground. She stooped to pick it up.
Then, silently, she launched herself at Yod. Her blade sliced down the side of his face, catching part of one eye and eyeball.
Yod whirled, swinging his sword in an automatic reaction. It caught her across the neck, sinking in.
"Damn!" Yod cried, not seeming to realize the extent of his own wound. "I didn't mean to kill her! We need women!"
Neqa dropped to the ground, her blood spouting. Neq heaved his captors forward and they all fell.
It was too late for Neqa. Her teeth were bared in the rictus of the terminal agony; her red blood pooled in the dry dirt.
"Damn!" Yod repeated. "It's his fault. Hold him!"
They held Neq. Under Yod's grim direction they tied his hands again by the wrists, this time stretched forward. Four men hauled against his body while two pulled each rope, putting a terrible strain on his arms.
Yod positioned himself and swung his sword as though he were splitting wood.
Neq felt horrendous pain, and blanked out.
He came to immediately, or so it seemed. The pain had intensified unbearably, and sweet smoke stung his nostrils. They were holding torches to his wrists, burning them so the flesh bubbled and popped.
Then nothing more.
CHAPTER EIGHT
He woke at dusk. His arms terminated in great crude bandages, hurting ferociously. Neqa lay beside him, pale and cold. His bracelet was still on her wrist.
He woke again, shivering, in the dark. Nothing had changed but the hour.
Toward morning he became delirious.
Light again, and someone was tending him. It was the cage-man, the surgeon. "You'll live. I'll bury her. You two saved me; I owe you that much."
"_I'll_ bury her!" Neq cried weakly. But he had no hands.
He cursed meaninglessly as he watched Dick do it, as the dirt fell over her dead lovely face, over his bracelet, over his dreams. He had loved a crazy.
Miss Smith was gone forever. Neqa was dead.
Time passed. Dick the surgeon turned out to be no phony; he knew his medicine. The fevers and the chills subsided, strength of a sort came back; the thigh wound, excavated and cleaned, healed. But the hands were gone, and so was love.
Dick did everything, though he was no nomad. "I owe it to you," he said. "Her life, your hands--all because of me."
"They would have done it anyway," Neq said, not caring how the blame was parceled out. "They ambushed us before we ever saw you. We were already prisoners."
"She took several minutes to get me out of that cage, and she waited while I got some circulation back into my legs so I could walk. She would have gotten away, otherwise."
"You can't bring her back. If you owe me a favor, kill me too. Then I won't hurt any more--any way."
"I deal in life, not death. After Helicon, this is just an incident. I do owe you, but not that." He looked about. "We should get away from here. They dumped you both and left--but they could come back at any time. I was lucky they didn't see me following them."
Neq was not in a position to argue further. He talked with only a part of his consciousness, the least important part. The rest was obsesssed with what had happened, and his impotence in the face of such calamity.
Only one thing kept him going. At first it was intangible, nebulous, a background emotion that gave him strength without comprehension. But gradually, as the days passed, it became solid, better defined, until it occupied the clear forefront of his mind, and he knew the need for what it was.
Vengeance.
"You are a surgeon," Neq said. "From what was mooted, the best in the world."
"Not necessarily. I was 'trained by a master, and he trained others. I've heard of remarkable surgery in the Aleutians--"
"You do talk like a crazy. Can you operate on me?"
"Without my equipment, my laboratory, drugs, competent assistants--"
"Was that what you told Yod?"
"Essentially. Surgery without sterilization procedures, anesthetics--"
"They sterilized my wrists, all right. With living torches!"
"I know. Yod is an outlaw, but he keeps his word. He wanted you to live."
"I keep my word too," Neq said. "But if there are ways to sterilize, why couldn't you--"
"Try a flaming torch on abdominal surgery!"
Neq nodded. "So Yod figured you were lying."
"I wasn't going to help him anyway. Any life I might save for him would mean death, for others. His tribe deserves extermination."
"That may come," Neq said, but decided against clarifying the matter. "We'll get equipment, somewhere."
"Yes, with the necessary facilities I could operate. But in what manner? I can't give you back your hands. No one can do that."
"Tyl said--he said that the Nameless One, our Master of Empire, the Weaponless--by whatever name you know him--he said that man had been made strong by an underworld surgeon. You?"
"I had considerable assistance. And there was a strong possibility of failure. As it was, I understand I rendered him sterile."
"If you could do that for him, you can do this for me." "What do you want?"
Neq held up his truncated right arm. "My sword." "Without a hand?"
"My sword will be my hand."
Dick studied him appraisingly. "Yes, I could do that. Insert a metal brace, attach the blade--it wouldn't be flexible, but there'd be plenty of power." "Neq nodded.
"It would be awkward," Dick continued, considering it further. "For sleeping, for eating. You would not be able to use that hand for any constructive purpose, except chopping firewood. But once you learned to control it you might re-enter the circle. Much of your fighting skill is in your brain, I'm sure; you could overcome a substantial flexibility handicap. You would not be the warrior you were, but you could still be more than most."