I drive my knee up between the legs. He staggers into the fence, screaming.
Another lunges for me.
Bracing both feet against the snow, my shoulder rams his. His leg swings against mine and we both tumble to the ground. My fingers catch the switchblade’s handle and draw it against my palm, both knees nailing him in the chest before he can pin me. I swing a fist up to knock him away.
A cold rifle barrel against my forehead stops me.
Panting and shivering, I stare up at reinforcements. I slip the blade back into its prison, under the snow and quickly into my pocket before it can be seized. Two other soldiers haul me to my feet.
Tracker hasn’t fared much better. One brown eye catches my attention. He shakes his graying head. Oh, there’s going to be hell to pay later.
The soldiers’ fingers rest on the triggers.
I continue to trade glares with my faceless opponent, silently daring him to remove that helmet and look me in the eyes. He tips the carbine barrel to the left, directing us to the square.
“Move it.” Another rifle jabs between my shoulder blades.
Chapter Six
The K. C. forms a human livestock pen.
They stand shoulder to shoulder, backs to us, elbows touching like the blood-stained wooden gates in Hydra’s slaughter pens. From what I can see from here, they surround the entire square, pressing the jostling crowd tighter together as if they’re little more than terrified cattle to be counted and slaughtered.
Each embroidered bronze hare insignia glares against the rustling forest-green jacket fabric. These are the colors of the Kingdom’s elaborate capital city, Adonis. I’ve gathered as much from the expensive silk banners hanging in Hydra and from the ones we tore down from Rondo’s buildings to make into blankets in an effort to survive the merciless eternal winter the Kingdom lets us suffer through.
The soldier on my left tightens his grip and makes a curt motion to the one in front of us. He turns his invisible eyes on me. Snow sticks to his helmet. The carbine in his hands trembles for a few seconds before he taps the soldier beside him on the shoulder.
I shift my weight and try to work my arms free.
Their fingers dig in deeper. The K. C. in front of me nods and steps aside, creating a break in the human fence. The pressure on my arms slackens.
An elbow bruises my ribs, and a woman’s heel strikes my legs. Their hands tear across my shoulder blades, slamming me against the closest bodies. Wild-eyed villagers crash together, clawing, lashing out. Fear stifles the air. Sweat mixed with earth. Heavy gunpowder. The metallic stench of freshly spilled blood.
Just like trading day in the pens. I struggle to keep the memories of life before Rondo at bay. Crowded together, covered in dirt, clothes tattered, and feet bare. Cracking whips. Barking dogs. Clanging shackles. Herded through cattle chutes, not knowing if we’d survive long enough to be sold to our next masters or left lying in dirty puddles to rot.
The bone roses grind against my hip. Another body slams against mine, jarring me back to the here and now. I shake a clumsy woman off me and struggle to see above the others’ heads for an escape route.
Dogs bark. Soldiers shout.
Get to the front and stay there. It’s the only way not to die. I dodge another collision.
The crowd spooks in four directions at once. Someone grabs my long hair and yanks me off-balance. Cotton fabric slips through my fingers in a futile effort to prevent the fall.
Both hands slam against the frozen ground. Their legs swarm as someone’s leather shoe comes down hard on my fingers. A scream tears from my lips, the sound only seeming to refocus their terror and draw deliberate wrath.
Another plants his foot on my back. My thin, quivering arms buckle. I try to cry out, scream, plead, anything to make them stop, but the words die in my throat with each merciless crash into the slush and stones. Right now I’m not the rustler who risks her life to provide for the town.
I’m Hunter’s “blue-eyed witch.” And they have a chance to kill me.
A bellowing shout overpowers my attackers. Another person tumbles down beside me. I cross my arms and struggle to roll onto my back to shield myself.
The peoples’ stomping legs hesitate as a gloved hand seizes my jacket collar, hauling me upward. A strong arm snakes under mine, supporting me as my legs slide against the icy ground and threaten to fold. Tracker gives the closest people an ugly, withering look and draws me to his side.
They shy back.
He stays silent as he shoulders through the crowd. I limp alongside him; half afraid someone will change their mind on attacking me again.
We break through the living wall and into the square’s center where it’s anything but safe. Snow dances around the stone fountain I tried to put Hunter in. Icicles glint on its three stone tiers. Lukewarm light spills from the iron lantern frozen on its top.
A soldier snarls commands at a large brown-and-black wolf dog twenty feet to the right. Its leash goes taut, suspending the angry animal on its hindquarters. Froth coats its muzzle and dagger teeth. Paws rake the air. A woman lies on the ground, dead.
Horrible wails fill Rondo’s square.
Brisk wind skips through the three core streets that form the three “spokes” of its fractured wagon-wheel design and across the decaying, weathered Victorian-style buildings. If I stare long enough, I can sometimes imagine the banners back in place and see the spark that was once Rondo’s heart.
The tiny flame in the lantern quivers and shrinks.
“Oh my God, what happened?” A small woman with curly caramel hair that falls to her shoulders waddles away from the crowd. Her dark-brown eyes linger on my bloodstained jacket. She stops beside us, woven lavender shawl hugged tight to her shoulders. Her trembling legs shift back and forth, struggling to accommodate her swollen belly.
“We’ll talk later,” Tracker says.
Sadie Williams nods knowing better than to question a rustler’s business. But the worry plays across her dark eyes the closer the dogs and guns get and she places her hands over her belly as though the instinctive effort will protect the child she’s carrying.
“Attention.” The call comes from a crumbling gray, brick Victorian-like building that’s long since lost its wooden tower to the snow on the fountain’s right. Beyond it, the storehouse’s street forms the wagon wheel’s uneven southern spoke.
The K. C. closest to it stiffen, feet together, shoulders erect. One would think that the devil himself just cracked a whip behind them.
On the air drifts a smooth, rhythmic clipping sound. It’s faint, but as the dog handlers rein their beasts in and the people’s anguished wails begin dropping in fearful anticipation, it floods the crowded square.
I stand taller and crane my neck for a better idea of what we’re up against.
Tracker does too, brow furrowed and jaw set. Soldiers shift their positions and the living barricade begins to fold.
A cold breeze hisses through the square.
Sculpted muscles move in perfect sync beneath a rippling coal hide. Strong legs stretch into the wind, long feathers floating around them like obsidian flames. Thick, sharp hooves glide over the ice. It keeps its powerful neck arched, wavy raven mane spilling down past its shoulders with a banner-like, jet-black tail fluttering behind its magnificent body.
I shiver. The black horse from Hydra . . .
The stallion shakes its beautiful, broad head. A curved metal bit jingles in time with a golden hare charm dangling from the polished leather breast strap. He pays little attention to us, only swiveling one sharp ear and a rich brown eye in our direction long enough to scoff at how small and weak we really are.
On his back sits a tall young man who doesn’t look much older than Matthew and me. His flaxen hair is drawn up in a ponytail that hangs down between his shoulder blades. A few strands hang loose against his pale, stony face, and a flawless cinnamon flight jacket cloaks his lean form. On the left breast pocket gleams an embroidery of a ru
nning hare stitched in gold, not bronze like normal K. C. soldiers.
He keeps his heels firmly in iron stirrups and squeezes his long, olive-green cotton-clad legs against the stallion’s sides. It picks its legs up higher. He moves with it, reins loose in gloved hands. His amber eyes stalk the square.
Tracker draws me closer.
The stallion towers above me as he passes. A long-barreled rifle softly bumps against the young man’s back.
My gaze follows it.
The stock is polished to an ebony brilliance with a long black scope mounted on top, unlike the carbines a regular soldier carries. Tiny, ornately carved vines leafed in gold snake across the dark wood to a platinum trigger.
Sniper rifle—a highly customized Damascus model to be exact. With a few adjustments, it could almost pass for the one we have at the farmhouse. Ours isn’t sniper-grade though and has a cherry stock with silver vines, not ebony and gold like his. Tracker once said there were only a limited number of Damascus models ever made, most in the hands of the wealthiest collectors who knew Hyperion personally and a few in the hands of soldiers who either earned them in battle or took them off collectors who turned against the Kingdom.
I don’t know where ours came from. Tracker had it well before I got to Rondo and I always assumed he earned it a long time ago defending Rondo before it was kicked out of the Kingdom, or just outright took it from someone in this settlement. Even so, I’ve never seen one as nice as the one Henny Oreson, the Kingdom’s second-in-command has strapped to his back.
I stab my fingers at my palms. A normal carbine couldn’t have hit Matthew from that distance but a Damascus like his could.
He scrunches his nose and pans the crowd.
Tracker’s heavy hand grasps my shoulder in a silent warning as I continue to stare at the young man, noting the darker spots around his knees from likely kneeling in the snow to take aim and the shimmer of red across his right glove. He killed Matthew. He’s the one responsible for attacking my family. I move my hand toward my pocket, biting back the stinging in my eyes.
Tracker drags me backward.
Henny halts the horse close to the fountain’s lowest tier and rests his gloved hand on the stallion’s rump as he twists his body in our direction. His awful amber eyes move slowly back and forth, passing over Tracker and me before finding Sadie.
She shrinks behind Tracker.
Henny’s brow furrows.
Tracker stands taller, jaw clenched, his eyes meeting Henny’s in a hostile glare.
The young man’s lip curls into the beginnings of a smirk, almost like a deliberate act of defiance to the man. He draws the reins to the left in a sharp, quick motion, and the stallion swings around to face us.
Henny drops the reins and quietly slips the rifle from his shoulder.
I stare back, daring him to shoot.
He doesn’t move, only watches, waiting. His fingers cradle the stock to mock the life it stole.
Tracker’s strong grip doesn’t allow a single step.
Henny’s smirk widens as he cocks the rifle; the sound resonates through the entire square.
“It’s a shame.” His stallion steps forward and halts so close its hot breath touches my face. “For what I heard about the infamous settlement of Rondo, I expected more.”
His haunting eyes continue to bore into mine. “Not even the rumored rustlers that my men speak so fearfully of dared to fight us.”
The people of Rondo’s dagger glares smolder behind me.
“Tell me,” he asks as he shifts in the leather saddle, “why do you run, rustler? Are you really that scared?”
I grit my teeth and suppress a growl.
“I was certain that you would have done something to defend this hellhole. We came expecting rebellious warriors. An impressive, immortalizing final stand from the lucky little settlement handpicked by Hyperion himself to show the other settlements the true meaning of survival. Instead you gave it to us.”
He shakes his head, that damn smirk degrading me to animal status. I clench my fists tighter to keep from reaching up and pulling him off that horse.
“You are fortunate Hyperion is merciful and your struggles have not gone unnoticed to our glorious king. Neither in the entire Northeast Territory or Adonis. I suppose you may thank your rebellious little rustlers for that small mercy. He has a special place for you in his Kingdom.”
Yeah, mutilated and on display in the middle of a settlement I’ve terrorized regularly just trying to keep this one from dying of infections and starving to death. His honey-soft voice bores deep into my soul, cutting and isolating me from the others. My shoulders bristle under those amber eyes.
“Clever bunch you are. But are you worthy to once again fly the colors of the Kingdom on your buildings and accept our generous bounty for your suffering all these years? I would certainly hope you’d be ready to accept forgiveness from our merciful king, but in order for it to be official, we must first examine each of you for the Kingdom’s marks and evaluate your worth and true loyalty.”
His eyes lift from me and he taps his leather boot heels against the stallion’s sides. It parades before the crowd.
He doesn’t look at them as he rides back and forth. To him, they’re simply protocol. No “selected” settlement has ever been welcomed back into the Kingdom; especially one like Rondo.
The stallion turns back to us.
“Those who do not have a mark will be given one. Those of you who already have one—” The stallion halts in front of me and Henny looks down, knowing. “They will be dealt with accordingly.”
The wind chills even colder. There are three marks the Kingdom uses to brand its victims. Unlike the other two, my mark isn’t displayed on my right hand. It’s tattooed on my upper left arm in cold, black ink.
2046-13. The year I’ll turn eighteen and proof that I am legal currency in the Kingdom. I don’t know what the thirteen stands for. No one does. But if Henny sees it and chooses through some small miracle not to execute me for my crimes as a rustler, I’ll be returned to the slave pens, and this time they’ll make damn sure I don’t escape a second time. I try not to tremble at the thought of either fate.
I’d . . . rather be executed than kneel to the Kingdom, my eyes cut to him. I won’t go back.
Tracker glares at Henny. His mark is a death sentence too. If they see the running hare on his right hand, they’ll execute him. I don’t know what branch of the Kingdom Corps he once served in, or how he ended up stationed in Rondo before its exile, but right now he’s thinking about pulling that cocky son of a bitch from that horse himself.
He doesn’t relax his grip on my shoulder. I shift my weight, eager to break free and finish this. I couldn’t prevent Matthew’s death but I sure as hell can keep them from sending Sadie’s unborn child to those pens with a mark like mine and buy Tracker some time.
Henny leans forward, eyes on me again, the rifle balanced across the stallion’s withers.
“Let it be known that should you consider fleeing, Hyperion’s mercy will be withdrawn, and the Kingdom’s full wrath will rain down on everyone in this settlement.”
The villagers look at me. If Hunter had the balls he seemed to have this morning right now, I’d be cast out as a sacrifice to Henny and his men.
No one lays a hand on me. Hunter, wherever he is in the crowd, keeps his mouth shut.
Henny drums his fingers over the Damascus’s stock.
“I expect your presence in the square at dawn.” K. C. rifles click. “Think wisely on your alliances to both your settlement and your rightful king. It will be the most important choice you ever make.”
With a raised hand, he orders his men. They move their rifles; the people shy away but are quickly corralled before they can stampede.
Tracker uses the distraction to haul me away from Henny. A cold, lethal glare prevents me from resisting, but I glance back despite a silent warning not to.
He hasn’t moved from his spot. A smirk plays on his
lips as he raises his right hand, forming a very distinct motion as if firing a pistol.
You’re next, his eerie amber eyes mock.
Challenge accepted, my blue ones reply.
Chapter Seven
“Rags.” Tracker gives me “the look” as we backtrack through Witherwood Lane. The K. C. prowls the lopsided street, slinking close and drawing back like their agitated wolf dogs.
I pretend to ignore him.
Sadie shies close to us. Her delicate, trembling hands intertwine over her swollen belly, eyes darting back and forth from the K. C. to the narrow, almost completely hidden path wedged between a crumbling brick house and a snow-collapsed garage.
Don’t worry, I want to say to her. I’ll figure something out to protect you and your baby.
It’s not only my job as a rustler, but Sadie is the closest thing to a “mom” I’ve ever had. I never knew mine. Crops children don’t have families, only owners, and cruel ones at that.
We’re throwaways from mothers and fathers who didn’t want or couldn’t afford another mouth to feed. But I’ve also heard from Jericho that some of us were stolen by Hyperion from once loving families over back taxes and other punishments from settlements to be used as “Crops” slaves all over the Kingdom.
I don’t know if I was stolen or willingly handed over, but Tracker believes I was a slave from birth.
I can’t tell Sadie her baby won’t suffer the same fate. Truth is I don’t know what I’m going to do about Henny. I know what I’d like to do. A quick look to Tracker sends a frustrated growl through my mind. I could have easily reached up and knocked that bastard from his horse.
He held me back.
Discomfort from almost being trampled to death sears every muscle. I fix my eyes on the little white church close to the street’s end. Not only did Henny track us from Hydra, but he sat up on the South Ridge, settled his cross hairs, and pulled the trigger on Matthew. Now he wants me.
My fingers tingle and clench in the cold. If that’s what he wants, then that’s what he’ll get. He won’t get away with what he did.
The Bone Roses Page 5
