081413 #worm The drumming reaches a cataclysmic pitch. Ltiky hears laughter and the pounding of blood, smells dirt, tastes a lifetime of bitter bile. He is almost--almost--prepared to surrender to the absurdity of the situation, and become reluctantly good-humored--but the dreadlocked lady is not content, and must, it seems, add injury to abject humiliation. As Ltiky starts to elbow himself upright, her tawny, arched, insensately gorgeous, naked foot flies around again, and slams hard as a two-by-four into his gut. A pathetic croak escapes Ltiky's mouth, and he crumples. Now his senses take in nothing but the mud. Nothing, that is, except one more flash of pain when that lovely foot caresses his head with all the tenderness of a pile driver, and everything goes ringing white, then black. Did he hear Krim cry out one more time? Or did he only dream that?