The Swordmage Trilogy Bundle, Volumes 1-3 (7 page)

A few of the humans tried to put up a fight, but the clerics made short work of them with spell and staff. The entire attack was over in less than an hour. Every living thing in the village lay dead or dying, except the
Xarundi. Slowly, the pack began to reform around the High Priest.

“Orders, Your Holiness?”

Zarfensis's long black tongue flicked out, cleaning off the blood and gore that dripped from his long talons. Once they were clean, he turned to his second in command.

“Collect the offal and set it to burn. Then burn the village. I want nothing left s
tanding.”

~~~~

“I just can't,” she screamed, throwing the blade down in the grass by her feet. She wanted to cry and in truth, she was dangerously close to tears, but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

The Captain just stared at her, his lips set in a thin, white, disapproving line. She knew she was disappointing him, but they had been training for four hours and she was sore and tired and frustrated.

“Pick up your weapon.”

She took a little too long to follow his order and she paid for it with a sharp slap of the broad side of his scimitar across the backs of her thighs. She yelped, and this time she did start to cry.

“I don't understand why this is so important to you anyway,” she sobbed. “Maybe you are wrong!”

“I'm not wrong,” he said quietly. “You need to focus. You need to center and stop getting distracted. Only then will you be able to channel your power.”

Tiadaria bit her tongue. She wanted to tell him exactly where he could stuff his center and his power and even his scimitar. She had told him off once. Exactly once. She'd had the bruises for days afterwards. There were times when she thought that “training” was just a synonym for “thrashing”. At least, that's what it felt like.

“On your guard, little one,” the Captain said, shifting effortlessly into an offensive stance.

She raised her sword, resigned to taking the beating he would no doubt dish out in response to her stubborn outburst. Then she noticed the men at the edge of the training field. Her grip went slack, the sword nearly falling from her fingers.

The Captain turned to look over his shoulder, seeing that she wasn't being obstinate this time. He sheathed his scimitar and crossed the training field in long strides.

She watched the men talk from a distance. He was shouting, she could hear his voice from where she stood, but she couldn’t make out the words. His posture was menacing, his arms flailing about in emphasis of whatever he was saying. Her stomach lurched in response to his mannerisms.

He was agitated and getting more so by the second. One of men dropped a hand to his belt dagger and the Captain took a step back. His hand went to the hilt of his scimitar, but the taller of the men, clad in a voluminous gray robe, raised a warning hand. He said something to the Captain, who looked at Tiadaria. He shook his head, his face set in an angry scowl.

Whatever was going on, it wasn't good. Tiadaria knew the beginning of a fight when she saw one. She had seen more than one brawl in the longhouses and it wouldn't be long before the conflict at the edge of the field came to blows. She wasn't going to wait around to find out how it turned out. She plucked her practice sword from the grass, turned on her heel, and set off in a dead run.

There was a shout behind her and she knew, without looking back, that whoever these men were, they planned to run her down. The edge of the training field was thickly wooded with dense conifer growth. If she could make it into those protecting boughs, she could circle around and meet the Captain back at his cottage and find out what exactly was going on.

Her lungs ached with the effort of keeping her legs pumping toward the wood. The felt the pressure of the air change on her left and she ducked right. She was thirty feet from the edge of the wood. Just a little longer and she would be safe. She could slip into the wood and—

Her frantic thought was cut off as something slammed into her shoulder, spinning her around. An invisible blow slammed into her stomach, knocking the wind out of her and sending her falling backward over her own feet. She crashed into the ground, her head snapping forward as she hit the drought-hardened ground. Tiadaria's world went black.

She floated back and forth between states of consciousness. Things would lighten for a moment and then slip away. She could smell dirt and blood, but everything sounded as if she was underwater. Somewhere in the distance, she heard the Captain calling her name. He sounded upset.

Tiadaria wanted to tell him that she was okay, that she was just very tired, but she couldn't seem to open her eyes, much less make her mouth work. She heard someone tell the Captain that she was alright, that she would recover completely in a few hours. Of course she would recover. She had just fallen down.

Suddenly she was seven years old again. Even though she had been scolded time and again about climbing the watchtowers, she had picked her way to the very top of the tower that overlooked the valley. She had stayed there most of the day, only climbing down as the sun was slipping low to the horizon. Her brothers thought it would be fun to teach her a lesson, so they waited at the bottom of the tower and shouted at her, scaring her, as she descended. Her foot slipped off the cross-rung and she fell fifteen feet to the frozen earth below. Her brothers hadn't known what to do when she wouldn't wake up, so they ran to the village and brought their mother and father. It was scant consolation that the boys got just as much of a punishment as she did. She'd had a headache for days.

Tiadaria felt a pressure on her head and then warm breath in her ear. It was the Captain and he was whispering something to her, over and over.

“I'll come for you. I promise.”

She tried to tell him that she understood, but she was too tired to fight against the coming darkness. She gave in and was still.

* * *

Tia woke with a splitting headache that made her stomach churn. She felt as if any movement, no matter how slight, would set off her sickness, so she stayed as still as possible and kept her eyes closed. She had no idea how long she laid there, but eventually the nausea subsided and she was able to sit up without retching.

She sat on a thin, threadbare mattress on a plain iron frame. The walls were lichen-covered stone and damp to the touch. The air was cool and carried an unpleasant odor of mold, urine, and stagnant water. A black web of mildew traced its way across the side of the mattress. The only light came from a flickering torch on the wall outside her cell.

“Hello?” she called tentatively. The only response she got was her own voice, a faint echo down what must be a long corridor.

What had happened to her? She remembered seeing the men at the edge of the field. She remembered the Captain telling her that he would come for her, but the rest was awash in a murkiness of memory that she just couldn't shake.

Over time, her headache began to subside. As it did, she found that there was a distinct pain in her throat where the witchmetal collar touched her skin. She worked a finger between the collar and her throat, trying to ease the discomfort, but that only seemed to make it worse. It was tolerable, for now, but she hoped that she wouldn't be here for long. Whether it was the iron bars, or a remnant of the blow to her head, she just wanted it to stop.

As frustrated and angry as she had been at the Captain during their training, she wanted nothing more now than to be with him. In the field with a sword in her hand, or anywhere that isn't here. She thought longingly of their comfortable nights around the hearth, exchanging tales and adventures. Her sword, obviously, was nowhere to be found. There was no way out and she had no weapon. Once again, she was imprisoned against her will. When will I ever be free?

Tiadaria began to cry.

“Now, now, girl. No reason for all of that.” The droning voice came from the man she first recognized by his robe. The Magistrate was leaning on a long wooden staff and peering into her cell. She hadn't heard him approach, being rather involved with her own problems.

“Easy for you to say,” she snapped, drawing the back of her hand across her eyes. “You're not the one in a cage.”

“True,” the main replied, nodding sagely. “You'll be free soon enough. We just have the matter of some paperwork and you'll be free to go.”

Tiadaria was suspicious. She had never heard about any paperwork from the Captain, and he was as much an expert on the laws of the land as anyone she had ever heard of.

“What paperwork?”

“Just the rightful registration of ownership. Captain Royce didn't enter into a proper contract when he purchased you. There was no sealed agreement.”

“What does that mean?”

A stocky little man stepped out of the shadows, large gems on each finger reflected the flickering light of the torch in its holder. Cerrin smiled, the slaver’s feral grin full of malice and hatred.

“It means that you are being returned to your rightful owner, slave.”

The little man hooked his thumb at his chest, still grinning. Tiadaria shrank away from the cell door until her back was to the wall. She slid down to the floor, too numb to speak.

* * *

Royce ground his teeth as he raced down the path between the training field and the cottage. There had never been much love lost between himself and the Magistrate, but now there was open animosity. There may not have been a letter-sealed bargain for his purchase of Tiadaria, but it had been a legal transaction.

The Magistrate was just looking for a way to stick it to him. He would learn, soon, that he underestimated the lengths that the Captain would go to protect the girl. Legal bargain or not, Royce wasn't going to let Tiadaria go back to that slaver. Cerrin was exactly the type man would want his revenge and he would take it out on Tiadaria in unthinkable ways. There was no way Royce was going to allow that to happen.

He fished the key from around his neck and tried to fit it in the lock, but it wouldn't budge. He tried again, to no avail. Dropping to one knee, he peered into the lock. Someone had shoved clay into the mechanism. Unleashing an endless stream of profanity that had been cultivated from the seediest bars and taverns in the land, he rooted around beside the house until he found a suitably thin twig to dig the clay out of the lock. He didn't have time for this. Every moment he wasted here was a moment that the slaver would be farther away.

Royce ground his teeth together in impotent fury. Of course. That was part of the plan. It had to be. He wondered if the sneaky little rat had known he would come back to the cottage, or if it had just been a lucky guess. Regardless, it was costing Royce time that he really couldn't afford to lose and he'd see to it that the slaver paid this debt thrice over.

He fitted the key into the lock and this time it did its trick, though protesting profusely. Normally a series of ticks and pops accompanied the unlocking of the door. This time, there were squeals of stressed metal and grinding. Royce didn't like the sound of that and he wasn't sure he'd ever get the door open again, but he didn't have time to worry about that now.

With nimble fingers, he donned the thick leather armor that was his daily wear. He exchanged his training blade for the fine scimitar that he preferred in combat. He crossed to the cabinet and flung it open, slinging a black leather quiver over his shoulder. He all but ran down the hallway, through the curtain into his room. From the rafters he took an intricately carved longbow. Sliding the tip of the bow against his instep, he bent the top of the shaft and hooked the waxed sinew over the other end. The string made a satisfying twang as he strummed it. He slipped the bow over his shoulders and went to the stable.

Out on the trade road, Royce pulled up on the reins and brought the stallion around in a slow circle. He stood at a crossroads. There were two main routes out of King’s Reach. North and south. If Royce were a betting man, he'd bet south. The slaver had already been north. Had already visited the Frozen Frontier and taken everything there was to take. South would take him through the heart of the Imperium and eventually to Dragonfell. Slaves were an unwelcome commodity in Dragonfell, but there were plenty of little towns and villages between here and there. Cerrin could probably unload his cargo in any number of them. Then he’d have heavily lined pockets when he arrived in the capital.

Spurring his mount onto the southern track, Royce dug in his heels. They rode for such a long time that Royce began to doubt his instinct. He was ready to turn around and try to catch up on the northern track before he saw a thin curl of smoke climbing into the darkening sky of evening. There were no other signs of travelers along the road. He urged his beast into the woods and tied the reins to a low tree branch. He paused only long enough to take a feed sack and a handful of oats from his saddlebag to settle the horse.

It was full dark before Royce found the slaver's wagon. He lay on his stomach on the ridge, surveying the scene below. A number of girls, chained wrist to wrist, were seated on a fallen tree, huddled together. He suspected this was more for comfort than for warmth, as the night was mild and a large fire burned in the center of the makeshift camp.

Tiadaria was there, and Royce sighed with relief. Her arms were pulled up over her head, new shackles looped over a branch that kept all but her toes from touching the ground. Her face was drawn and haggard. Dried blood caked her lips and her left eye was hidden in a swollen mass of black and purple bruises. Her torment pained him, but the fact that the slaver was taking sadistic pleasure in drawing out her torture had given him time to come to her rescue.

“Hang in there, little one,” he whispered to himself. “Just a little while longer.”

In the clearing, Tiadaria turned her head ever so slightly, as if she had heard him. Then her chin fell to her chest and she went slack against her shackles, her arms pulled up at a grotesque angle.