Chapter 26

Meri lay perfectly still in the cold building, trying vainly to keep warm as she waited for the rebels in the camp to settle down and finally go to sleep.

It was already late into the night and many of the men were still up and still drinking. Half of them, Meri was certain had already passed out dead drunk during their victory celebration. A victory she was planning on foiling.

She turned restlessly under the thin blanket she had been given to sleep with; hardly thick enough to even begin to keep her warm in the sub-zero temperatures. She was almost certain the temperature had dropped and outside a light snow had begun to fall.

Several more hours passed, during which Meri began to tremble from the cold. Finally everything was silent out and Meri rose quietly so as not to wake the rebels that had come in and dropped into a drunken sleep, though most had crashed outside around the blazing fires.

Pulling the Force around her, she used all her training to sneak out of the building and across the camp. She slid from shadow to shadow, trying to blend in as she headed for the animal pen on the far outskirts of the camp.

On arriving, she glanced warily around, her senses straining to hear any noises. When she heard nothing she crawled as quickly as possible through the fence slats and into the green hedge created by the small bunch of trees.

She shuffled slowly forwards in the pitch black until her boot ran into something solid. "Folly?" she whispered softly.

There was a sudden flurry of movement as snow was kicked up around her, and suddenly a hand clamped over her arms, pinning them to her sides as another clamped over her mouth.

She struggled until the hand dropped away.

"Meri! You scared the living day lights out of me!" Folly whispered loudly.

"Shh," Meri hushed him frantically as he loosed her. Quickly she turned to face him in the inky dark. "Folly, you have to contact my Master! Tell him…" Suddenly her ears picked up on the sound of approaching footsteps crunching in the snow, lots of them. Her heart turned over.

Folly heard them as well and tried to lead Meri away from the opening with a firm grip on her arm, but she stumbled and almost fell as her ankle gave out.

Gripping the front of Folly's tunic, she pulled him close. "Tell my Master they've planted a bomb in the meeting house set to go off in the morning. Tell him Folly," she whispered, even then, she knew that she was probably being heard.

Letting go, she shoved Folly away from her and stumbled backwards. "Go," she whispered loudly as loud voices broke out around them.

"I can't leave you here," Folly said incredulously.

"You have to or they all die, now *run*," she pleaded.

There was a deep pause and Meri knew Folly was making the decision that would mean her Master's life. In a sudden scuffle of snow, he was gone.

Before she even had time to breath a sigh of relief, cruel hands were pinning Meri's arms to her side as light broke into the hedge of trees.

"Go after him!" a voice yelled and two men took off after Folly.

Roughly Meri was jerked around to face her captor and was knocked to the ground with an unexpected blow to the face.

Never before had she been hit in the face by anyone and the pain floored her. Almost immediately, though, she was being hauled back to her feet and dragged out of the hedge of trees.

Once outside, Meri could see that dawn had arrived and she prayed that Folly would be able to get away from the two pursuing rebels and able to contact her Master before the bomb went off.

"So, we have a traitor in our midst," the man holding her snarled.

Meri didn't reply.

Another man stepped up and glanced at her hanging from her captor's grip. "You know San`Tenela has gone to watch the bombing, we'll have to wait to kill him until he gets back," he said calmly as he glanced at Meri.

"I know," growled her captor. "I'm not going to kill him. Yet. Let's show him what we do with traitors, before we kill them," he said ominously.

Meri was dragged back into camp and her wrists were bound together with a rough rope. Leaving a good length attached, the rebel jerked the rope and jeered when she fell face forward into the snow. He then proceeded to tie her hands around a post, over her head. What happened next scared her badly.

Grabbing the back of her heavy tunic, the rebel tore it from her back. He kept on until the only thing she was wearing was a normal tunic of light material.

Meri gulped, her heart beating madly. The only thing now saving her from them finding out she was a girl, was the fact that she was leaning forward on her knees. The overly large tunic hung out instead of forming to her feminine curves.

The seventeen-year-old took a steadying breath and glanced over her shoulder, wishing almost immediately that she hadn't done so.

The rebel was standing about ten feet behind her, and unfurling the long length of a whip. A group had gathered to watch and was cheering him on.

Meri paled and allowed her head to fall forward. A sick feeling began to rise in the center of her stomach. //Oh, Force…Oh Force, help me.//

Before she was ready, the sound of the whip was heard singing through the air and biting into her back. It took every ounce of her strength and will power not to scream.

It was a hot, searing, slash of agony. No sooner did the whip lift, then it came down again in a new place of smooth untouched skin. Repeatedly the whip came down on her back, until the tunic was in tatters and covered in blood. Finally she couldn't hold it in any longer and began to scream with each violent lash.

Her world began to fade in and out and Meri begged the Force that she would faint. In the fuzzy background, she heard the men mocking her and calling out that she was only up to 25 lashes and that she sounded like a girl.

Another lash fell, this time landing on the soft skin of her neck. Meri tried to scream but no sound came from her lips as she sagged against the bonds that held her.

Slowly she moved nearer and nearer the place of unconsciousness, yet just before she fainted, the whip stopped as the voices around her rose in volume.

Meri sagged against the rope holding her, all her weight hanging from the ropes biting into the tender flesh around her wrist. She didn't understand why they had stopped, she was too disoriented to understand what was going on, and her eyes wouldn't open. If she'd had even the slightest grip on reality she would have noticed the familiar weight of her long hair hanging down her back.

Suddenly a voice broke through the thick hazy cloud of pain surrounding her. "He's a girl!"

She fainted.