The Swordmage Trilogy Bundle, Volumes 1-3 (3 page)

Royce dropped his hand from the executioner's ax and waved him away. He knelt beside the girl and flipped up her thin shift, exposing the pale skin of her back all the way up to her breast band. Her sides were mottled in the green, purple, and yellow of aging bruises. It was an old slaver trick. Keep them in line, but only where the paying customers can't see. He ran a calloused hand down her side and the girl shied away from the touch. There were new layers of bruises on top of old here. There was no telling how long she had been brutalized this way.

“So she's to lose her head,” Royce remarked quietly. “As an example for the others.”

Royce jerked his head at the other girls, chained wrist to wrist, each with a thin witchmetal collar, clustered at the edge of the square.

The slaver had brought them here to teach them the consequences of rebellion. It was an age-old trick. Kill the usurper and keep the rest of the subjects in line. It was a trick Royce had used himself from time to time.

The slaver shifted from one foot to the other. Royce expected that he knew a trap when he walked into one, but he had offered the girl little mercy. He should expect none himself.

“So she dies as an example, the others fall in line.” Royce was stalling now and he couldn’t fathom why.

“Y-yes, Mi’lord.”

Royce nodded, scratching his gray-black beard with gnarled fingers.

“How much,” he asked after a long pause.

“Mi’lord?”

“How much did you pay for her? Surely she must have been quite a nuisance for you to waste perfectly good coin on executing her as an example. You could have done it with your own blade for free. But, then I don’t suppose you like getting your hands bloody. So I ask you again, how much did you pay?”

The slaver's eyes darted from Royce to the girl and back again. The trap was sprung, he knew. Now all that was left was to see how much of his leg he'd have to lose to get free.

“Twenty crowns, Mi’lord. And a pair of aurochs.”

Royce raised an eyebrow. “That's no small sum.”

“Well, sir, she is untouched,” the man blurted, then snapped his jaws shut as if he could cut the words off before they slipped out. He knew he had said too much.

“Ah.” It was a softly spoken syllable, almost a sigh. Royce looked from the slaver down to the girl. He knelt and with a gentle touch, flipped her shift down to hide the bruises. “So you were looking to sell her to a man, then. One with, shall we say, peculiar tastes. Surely you’d have gotten top crown for her once she was fully functional.”

“Not worth it,” Cerrin sneered. “She’s worth more to me minus her head.”

Royce stood, his hand dropping to his belt. It hovered there a moment, poised over the foot-long dagger that was sheathed there. Beads of sweat stood out across the slaver's brow. He licked his lips in a constant nervous motion, his eyes watching Royce's hand and the blade hilt for any movement.

“You’ve no right,” the Magistrate interrupted, stepping forward. Royce merely looked at him. The Magistrate withered under his glare. “Fine, do as you will.” He threw his hands up and stormed off the platform, his robes swirling around his ankles.

Slowly, Royce dropped his hand to his purse and tugged it free. He unthreaded the lace and shook some coins into his hand, dropping the first few back into the pouch and palming the larger, thicker gold coins that sparkled in the muted morning sun. Each bore an underscored numeral twenty on the face and the namesake crown of the king on the reverse.

“Twenty crowns and two aurochs. I should think that forty crowns should cover your expenses and your, ah, inconvenience.” Royce tossed the coins at the slaver's feet. They struck the platform and bounced with a dull ring, spinning for a moment before falling flat.

The slaver made no move to retrieve the coins. He stood there, still shifting from one foot to the other, his eyes flicking between Royce, the coins, and the girl. Royce tucked his purse back into his belt and tugged the loop from the hilt of his knife, laying his hand on the cap.

“You’ve made your sale, slaver. Take your payment, and go. Now.”

A sudden cry of derision burst from the crowd, breaking the tableau. Shouts went up from the commoners as they collectively realized they had been denied any more entertainment for the day. The slaver snatched up the coins and scampered off the platform, dodging and weaving through the crowd of hands that tried to pluck the coins from his grasp and the purse from his belt.

Royce took a knee beside the girl and put a rough hand under her chin. A shock went through his fingers, traveled up his arm, and down his spine, settling into the pit of his stomach like a writhing sickness. Whoever this girl was, she had power to spare.

They would have time to discover the nature of her power later. For now, they had to get off the platform and away from the commoners. Things were growing ugly, and quickly.

“Get up,” Royce grunted, unlocking her shackles from the block. “I own you now, so you're my responsibility.”

With some effort the girl got to her feet. The glance she shot Royce was wary and vengeful. He owned her now, this demon, full of rage and fire. Royce shook his head. What in the name of nine different hells had he been thinking? He had purchased the girl outright, so she belonged to him. Now all he needed to figure out was what he was going to do with her.

A rotten tomato slapped into Royce's heavy leather chest guard, spraying him with fermented juice and bits of pulp. Denied their prize, the crowd was rapidly taking on the mob mentality. Assaulting the Constable was an offense that could merit a death sentence itself, but the surging mass of people granted anonymity and they were angry.

Royce drew the long dagger from his belt and grabbed the girl by the arm, ignoring the second jolt that coursed through his thick frame. He all but dragged her from the platform into the torrid sea of flesh. He swept the blade back and forth, forcing the crowd to yield before them as they made a hasty retreat from the square.

“My cottage isn't far,” he grunted to the girl as they passed out of the throng and into the relative safety of the mostly empty street. “It will be quiet and safe. Then I can figure out what I'm going to do with you.”

He felt the girl tense. It wasn't hard for Royce to figure out why. The slaver had said she was untouched. His purchase of her must have made rape seem inevitable. She was, after all, a slave. She was his property, to do with as he pleased.

“Not that way, girl,” he said, guiding her down the side street that led to his modest cottage
. “I have other plans for you.”

~~~~

Tiadaria stumbled, but the man's vice-like grip on her upper arm kept her upright and propelled her along the sparsely populated road. His touch caused her skin to tingle in a way she had never experienced and made the witchmetal collar burn around her neck. Every time he touched her, it felt as if her skin was on fire. She wanted to run, to get as far away from this village and its people as she could, to find her way back to the north where things were familiar. She would find a place as Klanjon; the expatriate of one clan sworn to serve another. She had heard that some of the clans actually revered their women and treated them with respect. That’s what she would do. She would make her way back to her homeland and claim vengeance on her father and the Folkledre of her former clan.

This man who had paid for her would have to sleep eventually, and when he did, she would disappear. Or better yet, cut his throat and be done with it. He may have purchased her from the repugnant little slaver, but he would never own her. She would fight until her dying breath to free herself from captivity and gain her revenge.

They turned down a long, empty dirt road and the man stopped his head-long flight.
He released her arm and at once the almost-painful burning tingle that had
danced over her skin, vanished. The collar around her throat seemed to expand, letting air into lungs that ached and were
starved for breath. She stopped, her hand going to her throat. The man turned to her, his storm-gray eyes ranging over her face before he motioned to a little cottage at the end of the dirt road.

“That's where we're going. Are you going to walk, or do I need to carry you?”

She sprung at him, wanting to grab him by the throat, but her chains made her slow and clumsy. He easily kicked her legs out from under her, sending her sprawling in the dirt on her back. He was suddenly beside her, his knee pressing into her throat and the tip of his long dagger digging painfully into the soft skin beneath her left breast.

“Give me a reason, little one,” he snarled at her. “I own you, from toes to teats and everything in between. I can cut your throat right now and as long as you're wearing that collar, no one is going to question a thing. Do you understand?”

She glared at him in silence. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of an answer and there was nothing he could do to make her. He glowered at her and she stared back. She was getting to him. She could see it in his eyes. If she could push him off-guard, he might slip up and she'd have her chance.

His free hand went to her collar and his fingers slipped under the band. As soon as his fingers were between the metal and her flesh, a burning so intense that she thought her skin was on fire spread from her neck down her spine. She arched her back against the agony, her vision going gray around the edges from the unexpected onslaught. Her stomach churned as her body tried desperately to vomit from the pain. She couldn't see, couldn't breathe, and couldn't think. She was going to die.

He ripped his hand from her throat and the pain ebbed quickly. She stared at him through involuntary tears. Tiadaria wouldn't realize until much, much later that the contact had hurt him too, perhaps as much as it hurt her. She gasped for breath, trying to calm herself and settle her still writhing stomach.

“I will walk, Master,” she said in a voice that was little more than a croak.

The man shook his head, frowning. “No, not Master. You will address me as Captain, or Sir. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He stared at her for another long moment and then stood up. He took the chain between her wrists and pulled her to her feet. Without another word, he motioned for her to continue down the narrow street to the cottage beyond. She paused at the gate, which he unlatched and passed through without a glance at her to ensure that
she followed. He was used to his orders being followed directly, she decided. Captain, then, probably wasn't a nickname.

He certainly had the look of a soldier. His arms were thick with cords of muscle and his gray-black hair was cropped close to his scalp, the better to fit under a snug metal helm. He wore leather scale armor, a thick breastplate that was all too recently stained with rotten fruit, and a pair of breeches woven from some sort of thick, coarse fabric.

He held his dagger like a fighter too. He walked on the balls of his feet, almost dancing as the blade reached out from his outstretched hand, cocked slightly to one side. The blade gleamed in the morning sun. It was recently oiled and had no blemish, no spot of rust, and no sign of any neglect whatsoever. Tiadaria decided then and there that this was a man who deserved to be watched very, very carefully. She would have to bide her time and watch for the perfect moment to make her escape. If she rushed her plan, or erred in its execution, she would be dead. She was certain of it.

Tia passed through the gate behind him and closed it,
clicking the latch with delicate fingers. She waited behind him as he stood on the step and fished a small brass key from inside his chest piece. The key was tied to a simple length of black ribbon, but there was nothing simple about the key. It was made of brass, and where the teeth on a normal key might have been, there was a strange array of gears, nubs, and depressions. The man slipped the key into the lock and instead of turning it, let go. Tiadaria stepped back involuntarily as the key twisted on its own, a series of metallic clicks and clangs issuing in muted symphony from inside the door.

“Gnomish engineering,” he said, with no further explanation. “It opens and closes with my key and my key only. Don’t get any ideas.”

Tia nodded. She had suffered enough disgrace. She had no intention of showing her ignorance by telling the Captain that she had no idea what a Gnome was, much less why they should be interested in crafting beautiful and complicated doors. There was a click and the door swung inward, the man walked through the open portal.

She wasn't sure what she expected to find after she crossed the threshold, but a simple cottage with plain adornments seemed completely at odds with the marvelous door they had just come through. There was a
small eating area with a basin, a cooking hearth, and a simple trestle table and chairs just inside the door.

The rest of the main room seemed to be occupied by the remnants of some long-fought battle. The table surfaces were covered with maps and parchment that spilled over onto the floor, sometimes landing in other piles that were ankle deep.

There were pieces of armor strewn about, some were plain armor that Tiadaria had seen on guards and soldiers on her brief trip south from the clan lands. Others had obviously been modified for purposes she couldn't comprehend. Still more discarded treasures lay scattered about the room. Daggers and swords were propped against tables, hung on pegs, or in the case of one particularly wicked looking dagger, driven through the body of a book stained with something that looked unsettlingly like blood.

Beyond the eating area was a curtain that Tia suspected led to the bathing and bedding areas
. The man strode to the curtain, pulled it back and motioned for her to precede him.

A cold coil of dread settled itself around her stomach and she knew, with fearful certainty that her time of being untouched by men had passed. Swallowing against the sudden rise of bile in her throat, she raised her chin and marched through the divider with only a moment's hesitation. If he thought he could take her with impunity, he had another thing coming. A man naked was a man vulnerable.

The curtain led to a small hallway with three additional doorways that were also covered with curtains. He gestured at the one nearest to
the main room.

“The bathing chamber,” he said with grave courtesy as he pointed at that curtain. Further down the hall, he stopped at two curtains hung opposite each other.

“These are my quarters,” he said indicating the heavy cloth hanging from the doorway. “You are not to enter my quarters unless I expressly request your presence, and then, only after you've announced yourself at the threshold. Do I make myself plain?”

“Yes, Ma...Yes, Sir.”

The old soldier looked at her for a moment and then gestured to the other curtain, far more thin and threadbare than the one that blocked access to his quarters. “That is your sleeping room. You may arrange it as you see fit.”

She held out her wrists and he stood there, as if trying to decide if taking the shackles from her was a good idea. At length, he took a large ring of many keys from his breeches. He flipped through what seemed like an impossible number of keys before he settled on one and used it to unlock the shackles around her wrists. He tossed them through the curtain in the main room. They landed somewhere with a clatter. Now Tiadaria knew why the main room looked the way it did.

She rubbed her wrists, trying to restore circulation. She offered one ankle, stretching it as far as the chain between them would allow. The old soldier laughed without humor.

“I don't think so, little one. I want to hear you coming.”

With that, he brushed the curtain to his room aside and disappeared from view, leaving Tiadaria standing in the dimly lit hallway. She stood there, rooted in indecision, trying to decide if he hadn't found her attractive enough to bed, or if he just wasn't interested in her that way. He was a man though, and from everything she had heard in her village, all men were governed by the brain between their legs. She smiled in silent malice. Well, just let him try. She may still be in leg irons, but he had freed her hands and she was sure that she could make him regret trying to bed her with just those at her disposal.

She pushed the thin curtain aside and slipped into the room. Looking around, Tiadaria decided that the term “room” was being far too generous. Her new living space could be adequately described as a closet without deviating far from the truth. A thin, high window slit allowed a single shaft of sunlight to enter the room, offering scant illumination or life to the narrow space.

There was room enough for a small cot, a water jug and basin, and a desk. The desk could only be used by someone seated on the cot, so the cot served double-duty as a bed and a chair. There were two small shelves above the cot, and a small bookcase with two nooks next to the desk. There was an oil lamp on the desk, along with an inkwell, a quill, and a sheaf of blank parchment. At the foot of the cot was a cedar chest with brass hardware. It was clearly the most well-maintained object in the entire room, the rest of it seemingly thrown together without as much as a thought.

Tiadaria traced her fingers across the surface of the desk, etching parallel lines in the dust that had settled there. It was clear that this room hadn't been occupied in quite some time.
Still, the soldier had said that she could arrange it to her liking, so she set about trying to determine how to fit all the contents of the room, into the space in such a way that it all made sense. It soothed her troubled mind to put things in order. Once the chaos had been tamed, she found that she had settled somewhat. She still did not trust this man or his intentions, but her cubicle was undoubtedly better than sleeping in the wagon or in a cell with one eye open.

Once the furniture was organized to her liking, she sought for and found a rag under the water basin, which she used to brush the dust from all the surfaces. She took the thin sheet and blanket from the bed and carried them outside through the miracle door, which the Captain had left standing open.

Outside, she had an insane moment of wanting to cast the bedclothes aside and run for her freedom as fast and far as her legs would carry her. Looking around, she noticed that the windows of the man's room looked out over the small yard. Perhaps the open door was a test. She dare not try to escape when he could be watching her at this very moment.

Besides, even if she did manage to escape, where would she go and what would she do? She was a collared slave. No business would employ her and no inn, halfway house, or work camp would give her lodging unless she presented the signed and sealed leave of her Master. The collar made a far more effective prison than the fancy door and the tiny gate. It was a prison that followed her wherever she went.

Tiadaria channeled her rage into a violent snapping of the sheets and blankets. The dust drifted off as if it sensed the anger coursing through her. Seeking the solace of more order, she shuffled back to her room. There she made up the tiny cot as neatly as she could.

Looking around, she nodded to herself. Her room was perfectly livable, even homely. If she was going to lull the Captain into a false sense of security, she would need to play the part well. She could start by bringing some order to the collected chaos of the tiny house. She left her room and listened in the hallway for a moment. She heard no sound. No snores, no footsteps, no indication that she was anything other than completely alone in the small cottage.

As much as she wanted to be angry, this was the first time she could remember that she wasn’t fighting with the other children over scraps of food, or being tormented by her brothers. She may be a slave, but being left alone to her own devices had an appeal that could grow on her very quickly.

The chain between her shackles grated loudly on the floor as she waddled down the hall and into the eating area. She was appalled at what she found. The utensils were clouded and dull, having not been given a good scrubbing in quite some time. The pots and deep skillet were crusted over and showed spots of rust here and there. It was obvious that for all the care and upkeep the man lavished on his weapons, none of it carried over into the tools used for making the daily meals.