Citing the most ancient of Poritrin laws, Lord Bludd decreed the terrible punishment for Bel Moulay’s crimes. Most slaves would receive amnesty, since Poritrin needed the labor pool, but the insurrection leader could not be forgiven.
Ishmael pressed close to Aliid, the two captive boys sharing silent support and grief. The young slaves from the canyon mosaic had been brought back to Starda and confined where they would be forced to watch the execution. As punishment for the damage to the mural, Niko Bludd would put them back to work with extended shifts. But only after they witnessed the consequences of Bel Moulay’s folly. All slaves were required to be present.
The boys crowded together, hungry and tired, their clothes dirty and their bodies smelly because they had not bathed in days. The work overseers growled at them, “If you behave like dogs, you will be treated like dogs. Once you start behaving like humans, then perhaps we will reconsider.”
Aliid muttered defiantly under his breath.
In the central plaza of Starda, Dragoon guards hauled Bel Moulay in chains toward a high platform that had been erected for the spectacle. The crowd fell into an uneasy silence. Moulay’s inky beard and hair had been shorn away, leaving pale spots on his scalp and chin. But his eyes blazed with unshakable anger and confidence, as if he refused to accept that his rebellion had failed.
Holding him, the gold-armored guards tore off the Zenshiite leader’s robes. They let the rags fall away from the platform, leaving Moulay completely naked, shaming him. The slaves grumbled, but their leader stood firm and brave, amazingly unafraid.
The voice of Lord Bludd echoed across the square. “Bel Moulay, you have committed grievous crimes against all the citizens of Poritrin. It is within my rights to punish every man, woman, and child who participated in this insurrection, but I am merciful. You alone shall bear the penalty of your transgressions.”
The crowd moaned softly. Aliid slammed a fist into his palm. Bel Moulay said nothing, but his expression spoke volumes.
Niko Bludd tried to sound benevolent. “If you people learn from this, perhaps you will eventually earn the right to a normal life of servitude again, to pay your debt to humanity.”
Now the slaves howled. The Dragoon guards pressed closer, thumping their long-bladed staffs against the ground. Ishmael sensed that in spite of the ugly mood, the slaves had been beaten, for now at least. They had seen their leader publicly humiliated, put in chains, shaved, and stripped naked. And, while he showed no sign of being defeated, his followers no longer had the spark.
Bludd said, “The old laws are violent, some might say barbarous. But since your actions have been uncivilized and barbaric, they demand the same response.”
Bel Moulay was given no opportunity to speak on his own behalf. Instead, Dragoon guards battered out his teeth with a hammer, then used long metal tongs to reach into his mouth. Moulay struggled in defiance but not terror. With surgical precision, they cut out his tongue and tossed the gory, sluglike mass into the crowd.
Next, they used their diamond-bladed axes to chop off his hands and threw them into the recoiling throng as well. Bel Moulay’s bloody stumps sprayed scarlet rain into the air. Next, using hot irons, the Dragoon guards burned out his eyes. Only at the very end did he make any sounds of pain, though he somehow found the resolve to stifle them.
Blinded, the insurrection leader could not see what the gold-armored torturers were doing until they had slipped the noose over his neck and strung him over a gibbet. He struggled as the noose tightened around his windpipe, choking him slowly, never breaking his neck. Even after his horrific injuries, he seemed ready to fight against the guards, if they gave him the slightest chance.
Ishmael vomited on the ground. Several boys dropped to their knees, sobbing. Aliid clenched his teeth as if to suppress a thousand screams inside his throat.
AFTER THE EXECUTION, Norma Cenva felt a coldness in the pit of her stomach. She hardly spoke beside Tio Holtzman as the scientist looked grimly on, dressed in his finest white suit.
“Well, he brought it upon himself, didn’t he?” the Savant said. “We never treated our slaves badly. Why did Bel Moulay have to do this to us, to our war against the thinking machines?” Holtzman drew in long, deep breaths, his nostrils flaring, and glanced down at the diminutive woman. “Now perhaps we can get back to business. I suspect the slaves will behave now.”
Norma just shook her head. “This repression is unwise.” From a distance, she looked at the still-twitching body dangling on the projecting arm of the gibbet. “Lord Bludd has only succeeded in turning the man into a martyr. I fear we have not seen the end of this.”