He quickly barred the guards' access to little Si'Wren with an outstretched arm, while the guards, stupid oafs, laid off and left her alone, to go for her three terrified accusers instead.
"This one said, 'Let her be forgiven'," said Borla, with a brief wave of summary dismissal. "Therefore, she is forgiven."
"Oh thank you Sire!" gibbered the terrified woman, immediately falling down before him.
Borla ignored the prostrate woman groveling before his feet, as he regarded the next one.
"This one said…"
As Borla repeated the proposed punishments of Sorpiala back at her, she shrieked, "NAAAAAAAAA!…" with a wide-eyed look of insane terror, backing away in a series of quick, shuffling half-steps and retreating blindly backwards into the ready hands of two burly guards approaching from behind her.
What Sorpiala had sentenced was too elaborate to be carried out in court, so the guards dragged her away, struggling and shrieking out a prolonged series of thin shrill screams, long and utterly soul-despairing. The bloodcurdling screams were partially obscured by her removal to the halls, but therefrom emerged the echoes of her departing wails, as of a living soul descending into the very pit of deepest, darkest hell itself.
"And now this one…" said Borla finally, extending his arm out to one side and holding out his hand without looking.
Hastily, the ceremonial arms-bearer stepped forward and planted Borla's sword in his hand. Like the late and unlamented Master Rababull, the ability to unflinchingly execute the harshest judgements was one of the most terrifying things about men like Borla. Si'Wren longed to beg Emperor Euphrates to have mercy upon her accusers, to forget their awful, unreasoning hatred, but could only remain utterly and eternally silent, lest she betray her vow.
While four separate burly guards kept an iron grip on her to immobilize her, the third one, screaming like one possessed, suffered her own intended punishments before the Emperor and all the general assemblage at the hand of Borla himself as Si'Wren shut her eyes and wished she could shut her ears also as she turned her head away and felt sick to her stomach.