Weeping, she lay looking up at him through tear-flooded eyes and
the wisps of her own hair, from a bed of bent and broken stalks,
entirely obscured from the view of those watching in the nearby fields.
Habrunt was already uncoiling a heavy bull whip, and there was a
strange look of ferocity and despair on Habrunt's troubled features.
Shaking her head slowly in hopeless denial, Si'Wren raised her arms
defenselessly and remained mute as he took hold of the whip by it's
heavy pommel and shook it out behind him on the grassy knoll, snaking
the long sinuous coils into a long scythe-like arc as he prepared to
deliver the first stroke.
"Ten lashes!" he declared.
He tensed the bulging muscles of his right arm as he raised the braided
leather pommel to shoulder height and brought it around once to round
it out properly, and then hooked it in at the proper moment with all of
his strength in a viciously aimed shot.
CRACK!! The whip banged like a thunderclap, the sonic boom echoing
across the fields as a scream was ripped from Si'Wren's throat and a
distant flock of surprised birds took suddenly to flight, darkening the
sky with their panicked multitudes of beating wings.
Men and women who thought they too, had hated Si'Wren, felt sudden
horror at the astonishing impact of the whip's bang upon their eardrums.
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