Dull but acute pain at neck and shoulders pried Tash from the clingy tar of unconsciousness. She opened woozy eyes to view moonlit forest bracken. Little Oothra had been joined in the sky by large, silvery Gáo. She saw her own legs, too, lashed with cords around her ankle and more cords at her knee. Her toes dragged among pine needles, dried leaves, and a rock about the size of a human heart. Rather than covering her feet as might be expected, her boots lay neglected a spitting distance away. Her body position was vertical, but her head hung forward. Experimentally, she raised her head a few degrees. The pain in the back of her neck flared, then faded. She pressed her feet into the ground. The pain in her shoulders lessened, only to highlight wrist pain caused by rope bindings. A glance to the right confirmed it. A taught rope led from her wrist to a pine tree. The same held true on her left. Stretched between the trees, essentially, she had been crucified.

Feck. Is it Pogrosh?

A male voice growled, "Stop! That's too tight."

Another whined, "I've got to stop the bleeding, haven't I? Take your medicine, coward."

Tash raised her head higher and located the voices. A tent-like roof had been raised, its canvas strung up by various ropes to nearby trees. The base of a cliff made a wall to the right. To the left, an airy void. They stood on a wide, flat shelf, broad enough to grow trees.

In front of the crude tent, a sullen man in leather armor wrapped rags around a shirtless half-orc's upper arm. Sitting next to the half-orc on a log was a squat man in chainmail who might be a half-dwarf. He grumbled, "Six of us left? Didn't we start with twenty? Piss. This is doom."

"It's just a setback," said a nasal voice behind Tash.

Tash twitched in unwelcome recognition. Flaming dragon dongs. It's Pogrosh.

"A setback." The half-dwarf spat onto the forest floor. "More like a reset."

"Come on," wheedled Pogrosh. "There's a bright side. Maggothead, for example. I'm pretty sure he's dead. We won't have to put up with his shit anymore." The lanky bandit leader ducked under one of Tash's ropes and entered her field of view. Unfortunately, his body stench also entered her nose.

The half dwarf seemed half-convinced by the argument. "Maggothead. Or Bixter, either. An Omnian took his head off, or nearly did. I hated Bixter."

Pogrosh grinned, tangled teeth on display. "See? And, look, I got a prisoner for you. I always take care of my boys."

My luck has run dry, thought Tash. He probably saw me asleep, tucked me under his arm, and scampered here. All my weapons are gone.

"The boys that survived," said a new voice from under the canopy that belonged to a long-bearded human. He wore a relatively clean bandage around his head, and blood soaked a spot on the white cloth about the size and color of a rose bloom.

The hairy longbeard supported a completely bald man in leathers with some kind of leg injury. Together, they limped closer, and the bald man said with false cheer, "Fewer shares means more loot for each. Oh, wait. There was no loot."

"You ain't missed a paycheck, yet, Slick," snarled Pogrosh. "So the raid went bad. How was I supposed to know they were carrying a demon with 'em? Be reasonable. We'll head to the seven arches hideout and hit some merchant wagons next."

Bald "Slick" squinted at the crucified woman. "Hey! That's Tash. Fecking Tash, for pity's sake. Have you gone six kinds of crazy, Pogrosh? You're playing with magefire."

The prisoner in question knew different. She knew that Pogrosh knew his knots, for one thing. She knew that his hatred for her burned with an undying fire. And she knew her sums, and the sum at the end of this equation was that she was dead. He would carve her up slowly, but be it hours or days, she would be meat for the butcher at the end of it. He might hint of a possibility for escape, but it would be a lie for his amusement. He would try to induce tears. If I cry, his heart will sing, the twisted fecker.

Everyone looked at Tash and she glared back. She said, "I will drink your blood." That came out a lot steadier than I feel. Good. I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing me break. I will not break.

What happened at the ambush? Is everyone scattered or dead except the demon?

The longbeard left Slick at the log and approached Tash. The moonlight transformed his eye sockets into black pits. "I heard of her. When I signed up with you, Pogrosh, they were talking."

"Ancient history," Pogrosh said with a glib, dismissive gesture. "She's just a woman tied between a pair of trees, now. Somebody give me a rag to stifle her with."

Longbeard shuffled closer. "But is she alone? She stole the Sultana Emerald, they said. Then she un-stole it, then you got mad and gave her a scar over the eye. Yep, there it is. Nice scar, Pogrosh."

The bandit leader clamped his teeth shut, and his jaw muscles rippled. "Is there a point to this? Because you're pissing me off."

Longbeard knelt right in front of Tash. She looked elsewhere. He said, "I'm just thinking out loud. You attacked her and killed her lover, they say. What did she do to you?"

I skewered him through the nuts, of course. But he'd never admit that in public.

Pogrosh narrowed his eyes. "She reversed the theft that would've set me up for life, ain't that enough? If it weren't for her, I'd be sitting in a manor house. I'd be sipping aged wine and wondering which whore to bestow my shaftly blessing upon tonight. Not talking to whiny tin-plated wannabes."

Liar. The talk about whores was pure, slightly desperate, bluster. As for the Sultana Emerald, it had been too important to steal. Its powers kept a pod of merfolk alive. I'm a murderer, but not a mass murderer. As for poor Daireth, yes, Pogrosh had killed him, casually and contemptuously. But all that was long ago.

Her attention drifted—

—until Longbeard reached for her belt pouches. She wriggled, but he seized the bag holding the brazier gems.

She stiffened and choked off a curse. Now, that was a tragedy. Her biggest haul since the Sultana Emerald by far. Not only would Pogrosh shortly murder her, but he'd get all the gems, too. I might cry, after all. This is so unfair.

Longbeard felt the bag, then peeked inside. "You could learn a thing or two from her, Pogrosh. She's fecking loaded."

"What?" said Pogrosh.

The bearded man's fingers dug and stones trickled through his fingers. "Four or five pounds of gems. Diamonds. Rubies. The works."

Tash made a raspberry sound. "Doom comes for you, you pathetic dolts. You idiots don't even know who you ambushed. Forget stepping in a bear trap. You've stepped in a bear."

Pogrosh shrieked, "Somebody fecking get me a rag to gag this shrew with! As for that bag, lemme see."

All six surviving bandits converged on the bag of gems, babbling like madhouse inmates.

For Tash, thoughts of Séa pushed the squabbling outlaws into background noise. There's no way that demon stood a chance against Séa. And the rest of the King's men should arrive soon, or maybe they're here already. Séa would hunt for me, wouldn't she?

Tash's guts clenched, cold and hard. Except she can't. She hasn't the skills.

So, I'm dead.

How does one pray? I can't put my hands together like Séa does – I'm all tied up. If I cry out to Torugg to save me, somewhere in Celestia he'll just laugh. If I cry out ... If I cry out?

Tash inhaled deep, thenscreamed.