A woman close by is scream­ing, and sev­eral men are yelling. Through sand-caked, bleary eyes, all Gil sees are a crowd of native men.

Then he is thrown into a clear­ing in the cen­ter of the crowd, stum­bling into Kiddu. They both get up, and the men form a ring around them.

At first, Gil is just embar­rassed that all of these peo­ple appar­ently saw Kiddu so thor­oughly beat him up. But the expres­sions on the natives’ faces make it clear that they have some­thing more seri­ous in mind than mak­ing fun of him.

Right­eously Angry Native
The Law of Asham calls for four wit­nesses. Who among us will bear wit­ness to this sin?

Three men raise their hands, and behind the crowd Gil sees the slen­der arms of three women.

Right­eously Angry Native
With the women this makes four and a half wit­nesses. And it is now well-known that they are no brother and sis­ter. Quickly, bring stones.
Kiddu
WHAT?

She breaks free from Gil and makes to rush into the ring of native men—but one of them men­aces her with a club. She backs away, retreat­ing to Gil’s side.

The inner ring of men pass stones amongst themselves—some peb­ble­like, oth­ers fist-sized with jagged edges.

Gil
You can’t do this! We’re with Jaruna!
Right­eously Angry Native
You are pris­on­ers, Akka­dian! And four and a half wit­nesses will now tes­tify that the girl acted shame­fully, pros­ti­tut­ing her­self in front of our camp! And that you lay down beneath her, com­plicit to that pros­ti­tu­tion! And so the Law says: you shall purge sin from your midst, before the sun rises! Now go on! Pray for mercy on your jour­ney to the Under­world!
Wide-Eyed Native
Not that Asham will lis­ten!

Some­one throws a rock. It cracks against Kiddu’s shoul­derblade.

Unfazed, she crouches down, grabs the rock, and whips it back into the crowd.

Kiddu
This is bull­shit! You peo­ple are a bunch of God-damned sav­ages! Go get Jaruna—

A big­ger rock hits her in the side of the head. She crum­ples.

Gil leans over her, cov­er­ing her with his skinny frame. A few more stones hail down. One of them shat­ters against his fore­arm. Another flies into his back, punch­ing the breath out of his lungs. Pain flares all up and down his body.

Gil
Stop this! You have to! I—I am a prophet of the mujasha­triya!

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