The physical pain in Dark's eyes and hands was bearable only because he had no choice but to bear it. The consequences of what had been done to him gave far greater agony.

Blind, mute, scarred; unable to fight or work or even to take care of himself, he would serve as a reminder to all who once knew him that it was futile to challenge Baron Janosk Obour. Worse, he would live out his days as an object of pity to his wife and boys, as well as his village.

If he ever reached it. Since he had left the Obour camp, he had been hearing the cries of the forest cats. At first their screeches had been distant. Now they seemed to be growing closer. The cats were large, but cowardly. They would not attack a grown man in daylight. Had he been whole, he would have simply traveled on until nightfall, then made for the rocky ground and found a cave or fissure in which to sleep. Knowing any attempt to leave the road would undoubtedly result in his being lost, he sat with his back to a tree and waited, thinking that whatever pain the cats inflicted with their teeth and claws would be nothing compared to what he'd already been through.

And they would spare him a useless future.

As he waited for the end to come, he sensed another sound, the faint footsteps of someone steal-ing closer, trying to get a look at him without being seen. Soldiers would not bother with such stealth. It had to be one of his own spies moving toward Baron Janosk's camp.

Hope, that refuge of the vanquished, rose in him once more, and he gave a low cry, the first cry he made without means to speak. It sounded scarcely human.

"Dark?" someone whispered.

The voice was so soft, so low he could not tell if the person was young or old, male or female. He turned in the direction of the voice. Cried out again, louder.

Another whisper. "Is it safe?"

Dark nodded and heard the sound of someone shuffling closer in the darkness, kneeling beside him, and whispering, "Dark! Dark, what has Baron Janosk done…?" There must have been a moon lighting his face because the voice trailed off and the arms holding him began to shake. Did he really look so terrible?