Chapter 46
Daniel watched Carly as she lay resting in the meager shade of what could charitably be called a bush, though a sparse tangle of weeds would have been more accurate, and he cursed the Breken for the hundredth time. The Breken child had said that they would be taken a ways outside the city and dumped. Daniel supposed that was technically what had happened, but clearly, “a ways” was a subjective term.
They had bounced in the back of a dilapidated cart, which felt as though it would fall apart at any moment, for hours. Every bump drew a muffled cry from Carly’s lips, and Daniel thanked Cyrus that the sound of the creaking cart and the loud banter between the four Breken chosen for the gruesome duty had been enough to cover her stifled moans. When they had finally stopped, Daniel prayed the men would simply dump them and leave quickly. Instead, Daniel and Carly were forced to endure several more hours of their vulgar joking while they’d passed a skin of fermented wine between them.
When they had finally been able to emerge from their death shrouds, they found they had no idea where they were. The sun was already sinking in the west, and the temperature had started to cool, which was pleasant enough, but it would not remain so for long. Though Carly’s strength had not yet seemed to have returned to its former vigor, and it had taken her more time than Daniel thought should be normal for her to get the fire going, it was only Carly’s burgeoning skill that had spared them from a most unpleasant night.
They rose before dawn and headed in what they hoped was the general direction of Bandar. Daniel didn’t want to upset Carly, but the only thing he knew for sure was that they were traveling south, and not that they were in any way making their way back to the port city.
When the sun reached its zenith, Carly asked to rest a moment. “I’m just so thirsty,” she said through parched lips.
“I know, dearest. Maybe you could try just once more?”
Carly pushed herself into a sitting position and held her hands before her in a position she often took when trying to use her powers. In this position, she always looked to Daniel like a fragile bird waiting to take flight. Her tiny fingers poised delicately in front of her, she began to chant softly. A wisp of a cloud tried to take form above her head, but before it could grow into something more substantial, a hot desert wind blew to steal the life from it. Carly slumped back to the sand and lost consciousness.
Daniel dropped to his knees and cradled her in his arms. She still breathed steadily, and he hoped that she had merely exhausted the last of her strength, but even if it was due to something more, there wasn’t much he could do about it. Daniel wondered how many more times he would have that thought. He was tired of feeling powerless, as if he had little say or choice in anything he did, always being pushed or pulled down a path they did not wish to travel. The choices they had been given since they’d arrived were not choices at all—always to go on or give up.
With nothing else but frustration and worry to occupy himself, he lay beside her and tried to use his body to provide some shade from the glaring sun and to block the blowing sand that had already chafed her once flawless skin. Eventually, he, too, drifted into a fitful slumber.
***
Daniel awoke hours later to find that darkness had wrapped itself around the Breken landscape. He felt sand everywhere. It was insidious and had crawled inside his boots to rub his skin raw in spots. Even his mouth, it seemed, was not safe, for his tongue felt as if it were coated with a fine layer of gritty dust. Carly remained unnaturally still by his side. If they were going to travel, it should be now, but he doubted they would get far.
Daniel shook Carly, ever so gently. “Carly, dearest? You’ve got to wake up.”
She moaned and swatted at him, which he took as a good sign. Any indication that she might be gaining back some of her lost strength was a relief. Even so, she was going to need water, and soon, if she was to maintain any of that strength. Daniel felt like kicking himself for not asking the Breken child to bring them some to take with them.
Carly moaned again and stirred beside him. She sat up. Her head spun. She couldn’t remember ever being this thirsty! She did a quick, self-assessment and thought she felt all right, all things considered. Her skin felt raw and her throat was on fire, but other than that, everything seemed to be working pretty much as it should.
“Can you walk?” Daniel said, his voice sounding as if he had gargled with rocks.
“I think I can. I need a minute by myself, though. Turn around.”
“Carly, we’re married. I should think that you can pee without—”
“Turn around!”
Daniel turned resolutely and strolled a few paces from her to give his shy bride a moment to herself. The night was still, and the bright stars above them offered more light than Daniel thought possible. A breeze ruffled his hair, carrying on it the dull thump of hoof beats.
Daniel spun in Carly’s direction, wrapped one hand around her waist, and firmly covered her mouth with the other to stifle her yelp of surprise. Then he pushed her to the ground and covered her body with his own in an effort to make them appear as no more than one more shadow in the nighttime landscape.
The pounding thud of the hooves as they hit sand seemed to slow, so Daniel chanced a look around. On a dune, no more than fifty yards distant, stood the unmistakable silhouette of a Breken horse, who appeared to be without a rider. The animal moved closer towards their hiding place, and as it did, Daniel noticed it dragged a length of rope behind it. There seemed to be a largish chunk of wood attached to the rope like a kind of strange anchor. The animal was enormous, bigger than anything he had—
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Daniel said sitting straight up.
“What? What is it?” Carly asked nervously.
Hearing Carly’s voice, Khan pranced the last few yards between them to reach her. He lowered his mighty head until it touched the top of hers and blew his hot breath softly out, nickering a greeting.
“Khan! Oh dear, sweet, wonderful, Khan! Oh, Prince Horse, I am so very glad to see you!” Carly wrapped both arms around his arched neck and giggled when he lifted her to her feet.
“I don’t believe it! I just do not believe it! How could he have found us? How did he even get away?” Daniel stood, and followed the trailing lead rope to its end, where he found what appeared to be a very large piece of what used to be part of a stall. The black brute must have torn it loose in his bid for freedom, and then tracked his mistress through the desert. It was pretty amazing, really, but Daniel would be damned if he would admit it out loud. The insufferable beast was difficult enough to live with, already. Anything that would add to his inflated pride would only magnify his vanity.
“Khan can do anything he sets his mind to, can’t you, my friend? You are the most magnificent of all horses. No other horse is half as clever or as handsome as my Khan,” Carly said, cooing her delight. The arrogant stallion arched his neck even more, obviously pleased with her attention.
“Well, at least one problem’s solved,” Daniel said. “If he can find us, he can find us a way out of here. I’m not looking forward to another two days in this desert, but hopefully your strength will return enough to provide us all with a little water. Once we get back to Bandar, we can find Hugh and William and decide what to do next.”
Daniel was getting ready to hoist Carly onto Khan’s back, but the horse lowered himself gracefully down to allow her to mount, as he always did. Once seated, Carly extended a hand for Daniel to climb up behind her.
Khan tossed his head and turned towards Darak. Carly tried to coax him to turn south to Bandar, but he only snorted and increased his pace back toward the Breken city.
“Fool horse! We’re going the wrong way! Carly, can’t you get him going in the right direction? We need help. We have to go get Hugh and William.”
“I know, Daniel, but he won’t be turned! He’s never done this before. I don’t understand it. Maybe he’s lost? I don’t know.”
But Khan wa
sn’t lost. He knew precisely where the Etrafarians were.
Chapter 47
Darius stood beside his father, neither one acknowledging the other. Darius wore attire as was befitting the occasion, but his bruises were nonetheless evident, and though the ugly steel collar had been removed from around his throat, the proof that it had once rested there was clear. Lord Tigre stared straight ahead, waiting in silence for Lord Falco to appear. Several dozen highborn citizens of Darak were seated in the room, whispering expectantly amongst themselves.
A lone drum began to beat, and those who had been previously seated rose. Lord Falco emerged from behind the heavy, golden drape at the front of the room. Trailing behind him, looking quite miserable, was Jacob, who’d assumed his appointed place to the left of his Breken master. As far as grooms went, he was a sad specimen. He may have been dressed well, but that was about the kindest thing that could be said of his appearance. Both of his eyes had been completely blackened, and his nose was still swollen from where Darius had broken it.
Mili appeared in the doorway clothed in gauzy white that did little to hide her feminine form. Crystals in the shape of teardrops hung from a necklace around her throat. Her braids were twisted and then coiled elaborately on top of her head, and several more crystal-like gems had been placed into her ebony hair.
She approached her father and bowed low before him. When she rose, Falco handed his daughter a beautifully carved casket of rosewood. She turned and walked to where Darius and Lord Tigre waited, lowered herself to the ground before them, and lifted the lid so the crowd that had gathered could see the exquisite jewels that filled the box. Before Mili could be married to Jacob, she had to return the bride price that had been paid by Darius’s family for her hand.
Darius bowed formally and extended his hand to Mili, helping her back to her feet. A servant from his house darted forward to retrieve the casket of jewels and just as quickly, made his retreat from the hall. Darius escorted Mili to her father and bowed again, before he turned to depart the hall. Falco was less than pleased with having to return the large payment he had received for his daughter. Being the most powerful ruler of the city came at a tremendous cost, and those jewels would have gone a long way in the upkeep of his ever-growing army. The more power he acquired, it seemed, the more men he needed to protect his tenuous position. On top of that, his wives had provided him with no heirs, only two miserable daughters. As he had been born into another house, Darius could never have replaced him, but a son born to Mili and Darius might have protected his legacy. True, he had fathered a number of illegitimate children by slaves of his household, but none had lived past their birth year; he had seen to it that no slave brat would ever claim kinship to the great Lord Falco.
Other men might have accepted a child of questionable lineage, but not him. He had been trapped into tolerating that foreign slime, Jacob, as his son-in-law. It was bad enough his daughter’s children would not be pure, there wasn’t anything he could do to prevent that, but it had placed the future of his house in real jeopardy—his eldest daughter had been quite publicly labeled a harlot, and any children she bore by Jacob would be labeled as foreigners. Though they could still claim rights of inheritance, the situation was less than ideal.
He eyed the man to his left and wondered what terrible tragedy might befall the hapless Maj traitor, but that, unfortunately, was a question for another day. For right now, he would have to see this farce through. Finding a suitable replacement husband for his faithless daughter would have to wait.
The Breken priest ambled forward to approach the lord of the house. He was fat. His hair hung in greasy strands. His hands had been permanently stained from the ink he so often worked with to tattoo young warriors. In those hands he held a battered book that he opened to a dog-eared page, and he began to speak a long-winded oration that seemed to last forever. When, at last, he closed the book, his audience was more than ready to have done with it and get to the feast they had been waiting for.
“Jacob of Maj, do you take this woman as your banu?” The priest asked loudly.
Jacob answered as he had been instructed to: “For the greater glory of Darak, the Breken people, and house Falco, I accept this woman.”
“Then I proclaim you joined. May you sire many sons and increase the strength of our people.”
Mili was asked no question; her acceptance of the situation was irrelevant. Her job was to bear as many sons as possible and do as she was told, or at least appear to do so.
Now that the protracted ceremony was at an end, the guests could get to the part they had come for—the food and more wine than they could ever hope to drink.
Chapter 48
Zusia had had enough of waiting. She had seen the foreign men with the strange Etrafarians, and she knew well enough who they must be. Men of the desert tribes would have at least had sense enough to keep their fool heads down when they walked, rather than stare about themselves like gawking idiots. One of these men had to be Phillip’s father, probably the one who sauntered about as if he’d owned the place.
Stupid, arrogant man. Still, if he was here with the Etrafarians, that meant that they were more than likely working together, and that was a lucky break. Nobody messed with the Etrafarians! Fairies were too damned unpredictable. They could pretend to be all holier than thou all they wanted, they weren’t fooling her.
Phillip had been watched pretty closely up until that point. But with everyone filling up on anything they could find to stuff into their greedy faces and the wine pouring freely, Zusia knew this would be her only chance for them to escape unnoticed. It was also a safe bet that no one had yet to discover the absence of the Maj weapons master and his fairy half-breed. If they had, she knew security would have been tightened to a stranglehold. She also knew Lord Falco was far too confident for his own good and that was his weakness.
Zusia slunk through the halls and made her way to Mili’s room where Phillip had been chained, like a dog, while he awaited the pleasure of his Breken captors. She silently approached the huddled form of her friend and touched a gentle hand to his shoulder before leaping back, knowing what to expect.
Phillip sprang awake and lashed out with his small fists swinging wildly. They had beaten him, whipped him, and starved him since his sister’s arrival, all pretense of keeping him safe until his family could retrieve him having been abandoned, but the boy had still not been defeated. Every whip wield had only strengthened his resolve, and though his defiance would invariably bring retribution, he still refused to break.
Zusia smiled, pleased that he still had strength to fight his tormentors’ attempts to wear him down. “Be still!” she told him. “It’s just me!”
Phillip settled almost at once, though his eyes scanned the room to make sure they were truly alone before they met her gaze.
Phillip’s questions came out in a rush. “What’s going on? Has something happened? Is Dearra ok?”
“She’s fine, Phillip. I came to tell you we’re getting out of here.”
“Father? He came?” Phillip said a little too loudly; Zusia cast a wary glance over her shoulder to the door.
“No. Well…sorta. I think he’s here, but we can’t wait anymore for whatever he has planned. We have to leave. Now!”
“What about Dearra? I can’t leave her here!”
“Would you shut up?” Zusia hissed. “The Breken have a lot of faults, but being deaf isn’t one of them.
“Look, I know you care about her, though it’s beyond me why, but we can’t help her, at least not yet. If that really is your father with the Etrafarians, then you’ll have to trust him to get her out.”
“I won’t leave my sister!” Phillip spoke the words more quietly but with no less vehemence.
“Be reasonable. I can’t get to her. And even if I could, they would stop us before we got her more than ten feet from them. But if you and I can get free, we can help your father to get her out. Don’t you think it will be easier for him if he only h
as to worry about one of you instead of two?”
Phillip hung his head, trying desperately to see another way. A silent minute passed, and then another, and he had to admit he could see no other option. He nodded weakly, in agreement to Zusia’s assessment of the situation.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“For right now I want you to hold real, real still.” Zusia took hold of the chain attached to the collar Phillip wore and held it out level. From inside her stained tunic she withdrew a vial of orange liquid and gingerly removed the cap. “Don’t move,” she warned again, and she poured the contents slowly over the links of the chain.
An ominous cloud of noxious gas wafted around them, and then a hissing sound filled his ears. The metal dripped grotesquely to the floor where it continued to hiss and bubble. Faster than Phillip thought possible, the chain had disintegrated leaving only the collar at his neck behind.
“Wow! Neat!” he said.
“Yeah, it’s real neat when it’s thrown in your face too.” Zusia told him. “Come on. We gotta go.”
Phillip donned the ragged cloak that would hide what was left of his restraints, and followed Zusia from the room. Sitting outside the door were two stone jars brimming with wine, and Zusia pushed one into Phillip’s hands.
“Keep your head down and your mouth shut.” Zusia led him through deserted corridors, and the sound of laughter and music grew louder.
They entered a large, round room, stuffed with Breken in varying states of drunkenness, awash with coarse laughter and crude jokes. At the head table sat Lord Falco, Mili and Jacob. Unlike the guests, they did not smile, nor did they appear to be drunk. Falco simply glared, not looking at anything in particular, while Mili and Jacob sat picking at the food before them.
“Wine! More wine here!” roared an especially tipsy Breken who had, at some point, managed to spill olive oil down the front of his shirt, to which clung bits of bread and cake crumbs.
The Destiny Series Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 54
