The black swan by Day Taylor Page B

of Sleath, Revanche's overseer. She knew he would kill her if the others didn't. Sometimes late at night he would come to her cabin, pulling her out of bed and sleep, and force her ahead of him down the long row of whitewashed buildings, his whip biting through her thin shift every step of the way. When at last they would reach his cabin, he'd throw her onto his putrid bunk and ...

"Oh, Lawd! Lawd!" He wouldn't do it to her this time without a fight. As he came near, her knee came up forcefully into his crotch. He gasped and fell heavily onto her. She thrust her hands through the openings of the mask and drove her thumbs as hard as she could into his eyes. Sleath screamed, drew back his fist, and broke her jawbone.
    Tom, laughing as he watched the shouting boys in their crazily rocking boat, heard Sleath's cry, "J'hoshaphat, what was that?" He heard nothing further, except Adam, Ben, and Beau. "Sounded like a painter!" he said jovially.

    Then Ullah's animal screeches were the only sound he could hear. They went on and on, mindless, hair-raising, sending a taut tingle through all his veins. Ashen, he began to run. Never had his legs seemed shorter then when he went crashing up the woods path, splashed through the clinging muck of a small pond, climbed its bank, and emerged, still running, from the edge of the woods.
    What he saw was something out of hell. In a rough circle were three gaudily painted animals, yelling, leaping, and prancing insanely around a fourth who was attacking a flattened object on the ground. A Goat sat nearby, holding himself and drinking clumsily out of a flask. The animal heads bobbed in outsized grotesquery, urging the attacker to greater speed, to greater heights of lust and brutality. Slightly out of the radius of the circle stood a curved-tusked Boar, his arms folded and his booted legs apart, holding a three-tongued whip. Somehow, on the evil painted face, Tom sensed a smile of satisfaction.
    Tom caught a glimpse of blue calico with white flowers' on it. UllahJ Mounted on her, rocking obscenely to and fro, was a soft-eyed Raccoon with his fawn-colored breeches pulled down.
    Screaming Ullah's name, he raced for the circle of attackers. Only the Boar noticed his approach. Tom plunged into the group, knocking aside two of the animals as he dived for the Raccoon, hitting him with the full impact of his hurtling body, rolling into the dust at the feet of the Boar. He grunted in pain, feeling a sharp crack as the Boar's shining boot kicked him in the side.
    "Ullah! Run! Run!" he screamed, struggling to regain his feet. He swung his fists wildly, his wrists absorbing the shock each time he connected with a solid body. He heard her voice strange sounding, piteously cry his name once, then a hard slapping noise and a hollow laugh of unholy glee as the next man took his turn.
    After that Tom hardly knew what he was feeling. The Snake and the Alligator caught his arms, wrenching them from their sockets as they pulled them up and behind him. As they stood still for a moment panting, the Boar walked near, raised his right boot, and planted the point of it into Tom's stomach just below his ribs. Tom's breath left him in a hard grunt. The earth grew gray and spun nauseatingly. The Snake let go with one hand and chopped Tom in the windpipe.

    The Boar spoke sharply. "Hold him, Ross! I want him to see."
    The dread fears of the past weeks hit him. It was Edmund Revanche who was the Boar, Edmund who stood to one side smiling evilly, whip in hand so Ullah couldn't possibly escape, taking his vicious, perverted pleasure in watching while his friends wrought his vengeance on Tom's wife.
    The Goat was not content with rape alone; he hauled Ullah to her feet, ripping the shreds of her dress away so that she was naked and trembling, barely able to stand, the blood dribbling out of her mouth onto her breasts.
    With the Goat's first blow Tom lunged mightily against the two men who held him. He got one arm loose, but then