later on , gallan , who had stepped in front of her to hide her and kept watching , would tell her that tulanda and the fault were held under the milk but didnt dissolve , their corpses ultimately floating away whole , while the abomination , milcloth-less , whining and squirming , was seized by a handful of makers who , at the sages command , drove knives through its eyes , cut off its heads and limbs and tossed them into the sacred river , its whiteness momentarily maculated by a blood as dark as the excrement of a cow .