Redemption of Thieves (Book 4) (7 page)

A wild look around revealed I was lying in some sort of shadowy, low-roofed hut. The only light was cast from the glow of a dying fire in a bed of stones built up in the center of the hut. This allowed me to see I was surrounded by a circle of savages, half-naked but for the animal hides and feathers they wore like decorations and the blood-red paint swirling in intricate designs over their bodies. The glow of the fading embers cast an eerie orange light across their features making them look like some nightmarish vision from another world.

At my sudden stirring, some of them jumped back a little. Still others reached for spears or blunt weapons and there arose an unintelligible muttering among them, though none moved any farther to do me harm. Each had his gaze fixed unwaveringly upon me, and there was no question I had been and still was the object of whatever mysterious gathering was taking place here.

I had no notion as to what they were planning for me or what fate had already befallen my companions. But neither question was my primary concern. My most immediate thought was of my bow and whether it was safe. Instinctively, I reached to check it was still in place, discovering as I did so my hands remained unbound. I couldn’t imagine why.

The bow was no longer slung across my back.

The disarmament came as no surprise but that didn’t prevent the jolt of helplessness I felt at finding it gone. This must have shown in my eyes because the nearest of my Skeltai captors, an aged man with silvery hair and a face so heavily lined with wrinkles I could scarcely discern the features behind them, leaned forward. There was something familiar about him but recognition eluded me. It was this man who had been bending over me when I woke. He looked into my eyes intently now and uttered some words I couldn’t understand in a voice that was cracked and reedy.

I swallowed my fear and shook my head to show my lack of understanding.

“Barra-banac.
Barra-banac
,” he repeated insistently, gesturing to the floor at my side.

Where had I heard that phrase before? Something triggered my memory. It was the Skeltai name for my bow, wasn’t it? I followed the old man’s gestures and found the bow lying on the dirt floor just a finger’s breadth from my hand.

Relief washed over me and I didn’t even attempt to hide my eagerness as I snatched the weapon up in my hands. My arrows were nowhere in sight but it didn’t matter. I felt more confident just for holding it. A ripple of murmurs passed through the other on-looking Skeltai, but the old one regarded me calmly. He made a sharp motion for silence and I gathered by the way his friends instantly obeyed him that he was a person of importance or authority.

I wondered what it was they wanted with me, why each regarded me with an expression of mingled distrust and distaste, yet also with something more in their eyes. A glint of admiration, maybe bordering on respect. This made no sense. I drew in a breath and became aware of a tightness around my ribs.

Looking down, I found a scrap of clean woven cloth wrapped tightly around my upper torso, spots of dried blood showing through. I had all but forgotten the graze I had taken during my earlier brush with the Skeltai war party back in Dimmingwood. Even the more recent blow I’d taken across the cheek and nose now seemed an eternity ago. Had my savage captors been the ones responsible for bandaging the wound? Something in the old one’s face told me it was so. I realized for the first time the sticky blood had also been wiped away from my nose and upper lip where I had taken the more recent blow across my face. Something was strange in all this.

But before I could put any more thought to it, I was startled out of my confusion by a series of defiant shouts and strangled curses filtering in from outside. My heart leapt into my throat.
Terrac
.

“Rot the lot of you! What are they doing to her?” he was shouting. “A plague take you all! If you’ve hurt her, I’ll slaughter every one of you filthy, corpse-skinned…”

The old Skeltai before me made an impatient chopping motion with his hand and the tent immediately emptied as his followers dashed to do his bidding.

“What a minute,” I cried, leaping to my feet. “Where are they going?”

I was blocked from following them by a pair of remaining savages who seized hold of my arms and deposited me, not roughly but firmly, back on the floor with the old one. Outside the sounds of a brief struggle ensued and then Terrac’s shouts cut off abruptly.

“What happened out there?” I demanded of the old Skeltai. “What did you tell your leeches to do to my friend?”

I dove for the old man, but the two savages were upon me again, and this time they didn’t release their hold until my hands were bound firmly behind my back.

An accented voice emerged from the shadows. “Forgive our crudeness. We wish to treat you with the respect the holder of the barra-banac deserves, but your… anger makes this difficult.”

I turned toward the voice.

I had counted only four savages remaining in the tent, but here was one whose presence had somehow escaped me. I started as the glow of the dying fire fell across his strong, youthful features, highlighting the blue streaks in his hair and the gracefully decorative scars etched across his torso. I knew this man. It took me a moment to place where I had seen him before and then I remembered. The last time we had met had been inside a crumbling hut in the middle of Dimmingwood. He had been bruised and bloodied, beaten into silence but never submission, by those under my command. Only then a length of rope and a half dozen of my friends with sharp weapons had stood between us. That was no longer the case.

He smiled, saying, “You recognize me. This is good.”

He gestured toward the old man. “My grandfather understands that you and I are old friends and he has been good enough to give us this chance to face one another again.”

The old man who appeared to be the leader here was his grandfather? In my worst dreams I had never imagined I would again face the Skeltai scout I had once tortured or that he might ever have the opportunity to even the score. My belly lurched as I wondered what cruel tricks these pale-skinned blood seekers were capable of devising to raise a prisoner’s screams. They probably knew methods of torture our more civilized society couldn’t even imagine. No wonder they hadn’t wanted me to die too quickly of my wounds.

Crazed laughter tried to work its way up my throat and had to clamp my jaws down to hold it in. It was no good going out of my mind before they had even touched me.

Some hint of that laughter must have touched my face because the Skeltai scout said, “Something amuses you?”

“Only my situation,” I said. “I hadn’t thought to lay eyes on you again, savage, and yet fate has laid me at your very doorstep. And this time I am the one bound and helpless.” I hesitated at the memory, admitting, “Perhaps I deserve that. I don’t know.”

He chose his words carefully and the way he continually paused, searching for the right one, showed me his grasp of my tongue, though very good, knew its limits. “The path of fate twists in circles no mortal can foresee,” he admitted. “But I do not share your surprise for I have always known we were destined to meet again. For many days and nights I dreamed only of exacting my revenge for the time you held me captive. You did not know it, but you stretched the limits of my endurance. You almost made me betray my people and for that shameful lapse of strength I could not forgive you. I need not forgive you still. For my grandfather has made me see the ultimate vengeance lies, not in breaking you as you would have broken me, but in striving toward the greater goal of my people. When we destroy this province of yours, that will be our ultimate victory. What are petty squabbles beside this final glory?”

He seemed to be taking a lot for granted and I wondered what gave him such confidence. That his uncivilized tribes could fully conquer my province with its modern weaponry and well-trained fighting men was uncertain. But I wasn’t about to spark a debate on the subject.

Instead I said, “I’m a little confused about where this is headed. Pardon me if I cut straight to the point. What happens to me now? Am I going to die?”

He shrugged. “That is up to you, young kinswoman.”

“Kinswoman? Why do you call me that?” I asked, startled.

He tilted his head and examined me. “You haven’t the sun-darkened skin and dark hair of our enemies. You are of our Skeltai ancestry, are you not?”

I scowled. “You’re mistaken. We may share common ancestors, but my kinsmen stayed in the province and became civilized long ago.”

He raised blue-streaked eyebrows. “Such contempt for your rightful people.”

I knew what he was doing. “Stop pretending your people are mine,” I said. “I have no patience for your foreign tricks.”

“One in your position has cause to cultivate infinite patience,” he pointed out. “But I see you think of nothing at this moment but your fate. So let me explain how you find yourself here. Our plan was to lure your soldiers through the portal where you would make prime sacrifices for tonight’s Sagara Nouri ritual. Understand, stupid villagers are acceptable sacrifices and vast numbers of them, harvested from your province, will be committed to the fires. But when possible, something more… special is preferred. Good fighting men, strong warriors who go to their deaths with brave hearts are the sacrifices we value most.”

With each word my heart sank deeper, every new detail like another pebble added to the weight of the burden crushing down on me. How easily we had been duped! And it was my fault. I should have nipped the idea of trapping the Skeltai before it had even formed itself into a full plan. I should have seen our enemies were too clever to allow themselves to be tricked so easily.

The old man, the one blue hair called his grandfather, was jabbering at me in his outlandish tongue again. He reached out a wrinkled white hand to touch the bow where it had fallen at my feet.

I scowled, asking, “Does he have to be here?”

“You should be grateful he is. Without his in-inter...?”

“Intervention,” I supplied.

“Yes, without that, you would be dead now. Injured as you were, it would have been easier for the war party to dispose of you than bring you back with the others. But my grandfather is a great shaman, and upon seeing in a vision that you would soon enter our forest, he commanded you should live.”

I abruptly realized where I’d seen the old shaman before. It had been after the attack on Boulder’s Cradle. Dradac, Ada, and I had pursued the fleeing Skeltai and arrived in time to see them disappearing into one of their portals. When I looked through after them, I’d seen this wizened, silver-haired old man’s bloodless face looking back at me.

I remembered now how that look had inspired me with a fear that returned to haunt me on many sleepless nights. It was he who had activated the portal, he who had somehow foreseen my coming and had made certain I would arrive in this place to find myself as I was now—a prisoner at his feet. I could only guess how much of the attack on Beaver Creek, our wild scheme to trap the Skeltai, and our disastrous pursuit through the portal had all been a part of his greater scheme.

I looked into his small, dark eyes and he returned my gaze with a knowingness that sent a shudder down my spine. I could have sworn he was reading my mind. Impossible. But I found I couldn’t meet the shaman’s eyes. If I did, he might see through my calm façade, might see the fear coursing through me as I contemplated his power and tried to guess its limits.

“What does this mean, the way he keeps touching my bow?” I hadn’t realized I was about to speak until the words had already drawn themselves from my mouth.

The Sageuon muttered some words to his grandson in their barbaric tongue and through the younger Skeltai the meaning was interpreted.

“He says there is a legend of a Skeltai warrior, one who was great among our people long ago, before the strangers came and claimed the land across the border. Because of his enchanted bow, we called him the barra-banac or Bearer of the Bow. When he died, the magical bow was lost to us, but prophecy told of how it would be rediscovered and of the one who would one day hold it again. A new Bearer of the Bow. My grandfather wishes to be that bearer.”

“That will not happen,” I said fiercely without stopping to think. “The bow is mine, and while I live, no other will hold it.”

I snatched up the weapon and held it tight.

They didn’t like that much. I could tell by their expressions as they conferred in low voices.

The bow warmed in my hands but I couldn’t focus on its anger. I was too filled with my own. Or were the two one and the same? It was difficult to tell any more.

The younger Skeltai pulled back from the elder and returned his attention to me.

“The barra-banac is not a plaything for a youngling. Its magic is great and ancient, a power you are scarcely capable of comprehending. With it, our people could do great things, could accomplish victories you cannot imagine. It belongs with us.”

Glaring, I tightened my grip on the bow and said, “The bow has chosen its bearer and I won’t give it up. If you want to kill me and take it, I can’t stop you. But I warn you I’ll bloody well try.”

The blue-haired Skeltai scowled while relaying my message to his grandfather, and when he interpreted the old man’s response, I could tell he didn’t like what he was compelled to admit.

“We cannot take the bow from its holder by force. As long as it recognizes you as its true possessor, in all other hands it would be only a lifeless piece of wood and string. You must give us the bow willingly.”

I snorted, anger making me bold. “You’re wasting your time.”

The young savage snapped. “Do not be foolish! We hold your life and the lives of your friends in the palms of our hands. You would be wise to strike a bargain with us. The shaman is prepared to make a generous offer. Your freedom if you gift us the bow.”

I smirked. “I refuse the offer.”

The Skeltai thrust his face close to mine, the dangerous glint of his eyes reminding me how much animosity he felt against me, however restrained he had appeared to this point.