"There's the bunch! Get 'em!"
Prodin woke with a jerk and scrambled to his feet with the rest of the scurvy crowd that had been sleeping against the warm bricks of the baths. His momentum was slow as his entire body ached from sleeping on the ground and he was one of the first to be tripped up. Rough hands grabbed him and threw him about as more of the motley crew was hauled in.
It was all a blur of shouted vulgarities and sudden, blinding sunlight as they were shoved and generally beaten out of the dark alleys into the open light of the public square. A large group of merchants were there, pointing out rogues they remembered having snatched items from their stalls. Prodin was suddenly shoved against a wooden canopy post, his hands tied fast together to tether him there like a beast. He was frightened, true, but in a confused delirium of ignorance as to what was happening. It was when they threw the bloodied leader of the band to the ground nearby and, with little more than a vulgar oath about his thieving ways, cut off his hands at the wrists with the same blade used to butcher chickens that Prodin understood what was happening.
Uncomprehending fear gave easy way to unholy terror as he watched blood gush from the man's' wounds as he was dragged out of sight. Another undesirable was forced onto the scene by a hand clutched cruelly in his hair. A horsemaster set to flaying him, lashing at the man until the single red stripe of the whip could not be discerned against raw flesh any longer. Then, Prodin felt his own clothes torn from his back and a panic choked him, making him lose control of his water, the hot fluid streaming down his leg in a stinking miasma. Meanwhile, a woman was stoned by the indignant crowd.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Prodin clutched at the wood post, splinters stinging his bare skin. He desperately desired that all would dissolve into just another nightmare, the familiar hanging round his bed shifting into focus as Egypt's soft cajoling eased him out of whatever hellish place his mind had gone to in the hours of the night. Instead, he felt a soggy mass hit him hard upside the head.
Having no control, he began to sob like a child.
"Here," he heard a raucous voice proclaim, "this un's mussed hisself and is cryin' for his momma! Let's make sure she recognizes 'im, hey?"
Nearby, handfuls were scooped out of a stye and heaved at his nakedness. Offal was smeared on his face, in his eyes and mouth. He choked and wretched, his body going slack against his bonds. Someone cut the rope at his wrists and he was hauled bodily to be dumped among the filth of a pen of squealing pigs. Then there was screaming pain as he was held down and a brand burned into his flesh just below his left ear.
"There, now you have the mark of the animal you are!"
