by Daul, Amanda
“I didn’t fall into your trap. Frankly, I’m surprised you are the first to find me. I thought you would have been too busy stabbing your friend, the almighty General, in the back...Captain Lovett.”
“Watch your tongue. You speak ill of the General and you speak ill of your country. Committing treason may seem like a minor thing to a criminal like you, but trust me, he won’t take it so lightly. You won’t live to see another day.”
Arissa still refused to back down, feeling nothing but loathing and resentment towards the Captain.
“I hate a hypocrite,” Arissa stated, her voice smooth and level. “You stand there accusing me of what you think I did when actually you’re no better than I am. Isn’t that right?”
“You know nothing of what it means to be loyal. You betrayed the one person who you should respect.”
A smile snaked across Arissa’s lips. She should feel trapped and defeated, panicking about what had just happened, but she didn’t. This was the first time since leaving Daer that she had felt so victorious. Now it was too clear that she would win.
“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” she grinned deviously, challenging him. Finally, it seemed that she struck a nerve. The captain roughly shoved her forward onto the trail, motioning for her to walk ahead of him in the direction that the other soldiers had gone.
“Captain Lovett, I wouldn’t be too sure of myself if I were you. Just because I’m here now doesn’t mean you’ve won. I know everything there is to know about you and all your dirty secrets. Don’t think for one moment that if I go down, I’m won’t take you with me.”
His only response was a hard shove with the barrel of his rifle.
Arissa thought fast. She was here. She had found the patrols that were keeping him hostage. There would certainly be a trick, but she had outsmarted the Captain more times than she could count. The thought of his weak plans didn’t worry her.
In the near distance, a glowing fire was easily visible. The red flames licked high into the air, nearly as tall as the men that stood around it, who were all heavily armed. Arissa shook her head. “Greenhorns.”
“What was that?” the Captain questioned from behind her, probably hoping to hear her say something that he could use to incriminate her. She didn’t bother to answer.
The only thing that did worry her was that from where the camp was, Arissa could easily see into one edge of the settlement above them. With such a ridiculous fire, it would only be a matter of minutes before there was a group of thieves on them, looking to steal anything they could find. She could handle four poorly trained soldiers and the Captain, no problem. But an entire army of scavenging convicts was a bit more intimidating when she was by herself.
The group of soldiers turned to face them as they entered, all training their rifles on Arissa. Nobody spoke a word, but she let her eyes swiftly sweep over the makeshift camp, absorbing all the information she could in a few seconds. The four bay horses were tied to trees, all dozing, exhausted. Arissa had just found her way off the mountain.
“Normally I would love to sit back and watch all of you get killed when that city comes down here to rob you all. You’ve sent them the perfect little signal fire here to tell them exactly where you are.”
“Silence, prisoner,” the Captain snapped to her. “The city of Varkland is abandoned. The General himself sent the order to permanently evacuate.”
“You really believe that?” she asked, not nearly as surprised as she should be. The General’s soldiers never had been the smartest people around. “Just because the General said so, you think everybody is going to do what he wants?”
“Anybody would be foolish to disobey the General’s word.”
“You would know.”
The look of frustration in the Captain’s eyes grew. Evidently the secrets that Arissa knew about him were strictly between themselves. The confused faces of the other soldiers confirmed that.
One of the men stepped forward and securely bound a length of stiff rope around her wrists in front of her. They seemed startled by her, but too afraid to question her cooperation.
They obviously were not keeping him hostage in the camp itself, but he was close. Somehow, she could sense it and it made her feel even edgier and more anxious. She was trying to keep an eye on the side of the city wall, as well, praying to the heavens that it remained still and quiet for a little while longer.
He wasn’t in the camp, but she had definitely seen him walk past her earlier while she had been hiding under the bushes. Just then, Arissa suddenly recalled the second gunshot that she had heard. Her heart instantly beat faster. She was still surrounded by the soldiers, but they looked awkward and scared, constantly glancing to the Captain for guidance, who remained deadpan.
“You haven’t won.”
Her sudden statement seemed to startle the amateur soldiers again, but the spark of curiosity in the Captain’s eyes was exactly what Arissa wanted. She had discovered a way out of his trap and had already found a way to lay her own.
She continued. “You haven’t won because you haven’t caught me. And you never will. Do you know why? You may not have noticed, but you just gave me the answer that I need to beat you.”
“Shut your mouth. You’re wasting my time,” the Captain spat out, harshly. Arissa had a feeling he knew what he had done, he just didn’t want his team knowing it.
“The General wants me brought to him alive. That’s what you said. And given his feelings for me, I’m betting that he will do anything to anybody to make that happen,” Arissa smirked to them, and backed away from them, feeling gloriously free with this new aspect. Turning back to them, she saw that they were already beginning to lower their weapons in defeat. They knew where she was going.
“How are you planning on getting me to the General’s? If you think I’ll go willingly, you’re out of your mind. What are you going to do? Shoot me? I’d like to see you explain that to the General!”
Arissa was across the huge fire from the group now. The faces of the soldiers looked to the Captain, as if they didn’t know what to do. The burning glare of intense hatred from the Captain never left Arissa’s gleaming eyes. Everything fell silent.
Suddenly, the fire exploded into a huge cloud of smoke and sparks, knocking everybody off of their feet, Arissa included. Instinctively, she threw up her arms to cover her face, but couldn’t catch her balance with her hands bound. She landed on her shoulder, feeling it crunch under her weight, but adrenaline helped her ignore the pain. She was quickly back on her feet.
The air was completely filled with the thick smoke and another gagging stench that Arissa couldn’t place. It was hard to breathe.
Of course she had not been expecting this to happen, but it made her escape even easier. Through the dense fog she could see the outline of more men that she had not seen before, and immediately knew what had happened.
Thieves from Varkland that had probably been scouting the forests for stray people to rob had found them and had thrown something into the fire to disorient the group of soldiers.
Arissa heard the screams and shouts of killing around her, but she was focused on the nearest horse that was tied to a tree, viciously trying to get freed. She had to leap several times for her bound hands to catch the tethered horse.
One of the horses had already disappeared. The smoke was beginning to clear and Arissa realized that the Captain was absent. Two of the soldiers and one of the strangers lay dead on the ground, the others still struggling for a grip on a rifle or blade from the other. The coward had abandoned his own troop and his prisoners.
Before she could mount the horse, a huge bulk of one of the strange men barrelled toward her. It was pure reflex for her to reach into her boot and pull free the sharp dagger she had hidden there. She gripped it tightly and held it out just as he smashed into her. The blade sunk into his stomach and he fell to the ground beside her.
The horse was galloping away before Arissa had even pulled herself upr
ight. The smoke was nearly gone, as were the other two horses, stolen by the thieves. Only one unarmed soldier remained and he was dreadfully outnumbered. Arissa didn’t stick around to watch.
She did her best to follow the path she had taken with the Captain, but the remaining smoke and the startled horse made that difficult.
It was only after she came into sight of the dead man she had found earlier that she could slow the horse enough to stop. When she dismounted, being careful not to spook the horse, causing it to bolt from her, Arissa couldn’t believe what she saw.
The Captain was dead.
Chapter Eleven
The Captain was dead.
Arissa couldn’t believe it. For a few moments, all she could do was stand and stare at the blank, bloodied face of the Captain. The icy blue eyes were empty, gazing into the air above him, his jaw slack and slightly agape.
She couldn’t lie to herself and think that she was sorry to see him lying on the cold ground, lifeless. Maybe it was her vengeance talking, but she was glad that he could no longer hurt the lives of innocent people. The man had done truly terrible things and she had been beside him the whole time. Secrets strong enough to cripple their weak society were now useless, dead. Arissa was the only one left who knew about them and making it public knowledge about just how crooked and underhanded the Captain had been would only cause riots, drama and catastrophes that she didn’t care to be a part of. It was worth letting people think he was a good man, just to spare herself from the torture that she would be dragged through. At this point, she really didn’t trust herself to be anywhere around the people that she used to work with because at the moment she wanted to murder all of them.
Still, she couldn’t resist roughly nudging his shoulder with the toe of her boot as she stepped around the body. Feeling glee over his death was not something she would normally be proud of, but being hunted for the past several months changed more in herself than she cared to admit.
Breaking out of her series of vindictive thoughts, she quickly focused on the scene, knowing she had to keep moving. Those thieves had to have seen her and a woman alone in the forest would be too much of a temptation for anyone from the Varkland mountains to ignore. They would be trailing her at any moment.
Arissa’s eyes immediately fell to the shredded hole in the Captain’s blue uniform. A large blood stain had already soaked into the fabric over his chest, similar to the first man she had found.
Who had shot the Captain? Everyone from his troop had still been around their camp when she had bolted. It was highly unlikely that any other soldiers were in the mountains. That only left one possibility.
It took everything in her not to scream out his name, hoping he was still within earshot, but knowing that doing so would also attract anyone else in the area.
She mounted the horse again, her brain scrambling rapidly. There were so many questions whirling in her mind, none of them making sense and she had little chance of figuring them out until she found him.
Trying to track was nearly pointless. They were on the same path that a hundred different horses had walked in the recent past and the ground was too hard to depict a clear print anyway. Arissa was positive that she had seen him, struggling to keep up as he walked behind the soldiers’ horses, but when the Captain had caught her and they had joined the group again, he was gone. The Captain had been proud of whatever plan he had had, which must have been circling around behind her, knowing full well that she would see him with them. After they were out of sight, they must have left him somewhere. Still, it didn’t make any sense and she didn’t try to figure it out. It only distracted her.
Growing more frustrated and anxious, Arissa found it more difficult to breathe every second. He had to have shot the Captain, it was the only logical answer. That meant he was armed, so he could defend himself for a while longer. Realizing that she hadn’t even heard the shot that had ended the Captain’s life, Arissa figured it had happened during the attack at the camp, the explosion drowning out the gunshot.
She was nearly about to turn the high-strung horse around and begin tracking back down the mountain, knowing that was where he would be moving to as quickly as possible. Just before she did, her expert tracker eyes caught a sign.
Dismounting the horse yet again, her heart beat faster as she rushed to the smooth, white tree she had seen. Holding her hand up to the stained bark, she had to bite her lip hard to keep her emotions completely at bay.
A vivid bloodstain in the clear shape of a handprint was smeared on the otherwise flawless tree. Quickly surveying the area, it was at the appropriate angle to have successfully shot the Captain, given the way his body sprawled on the forest floor.
Whatever had happened, the two men had exchanged fire and both had been accurate. Arissa found herself literally praying aloud that Captain Lovett would be the only still body she would find and as for far as she could see into the trees, he was.
Now that she was aware, a noticeable blood trail was visible. She found clear drips on leaves and more smudged marks on trees and rocks. There was plenty of broken branches and upset undergrowth. Arissa knew he was better than that to leave such obvious signs. He must he hurt worse than she suspected, only interested in finding cover.
The soldier horse was reluctant to follow Arissa into the thick brush and narrow trees, but her patience and energy were at an all time low and she dragged the horse along with her, fervently wishing she still had Raze. That horse would go anywhere for her and she silently vowed that she would locate him again. She hoped that he was alright.
Suddenly, Arissa stopped to listen around her and she was shocked to hear a loud thrashing sound to her right. Her heart soared for a moment, thinking that she would see him for the first time in months, just on the other side of that thick bush.
Pausing for one moment to untangle her ankle from the thickets she was among, it was all the time it took for a looming hulk to charge from the green growth and clasp Arissa into a tight, gripping lock. In an instant, her arms were locked behind her and she saw another strange man advancing from where she had heard the noise.
In his hand, he gripped a long, curved blade that had very clear signs that it was in recent combat. Nobody spoke a word, none were needed. The second man was already raising his arm to ram the blade forward on her. Her arms were locked even tighter and her foot was still snagged in the root so that she couldn’t even use her feet to defend herself.
Yet another gunshot exploded through the air and the man holding her from behind collapsed, momentarily knocking her off balance with him. The timing could not have been better, as the second man narrowly missed stabbing her. The blade barely grazed the edge of her arm, slicing neatly through her cloak and just touching her skin enough so that she could feel a rush of pain shoot through her.
Arissa attempted to snatch the blade from his hand, but she had already fallen too far off balance to catch it. Before she could right herself, a third man entered her peripheral. She threw her arms out instinctively to block another attack, but she was surprised when the third man held the rifle in his hands high in the air, bringing it down hard into the throat of the man with the knife. With a sickening, choking sound, he collapsed into a writhing heap.
Not bothering to look up or even question what had happened, Arissa struggled to free herself from the thicket where the two men who had attacked her lay. Feeling disoriented and confused, her eyes darted behind her and saw the horse she had been forced to let go of. In an attempt to flee, the horse’s equipment had snagged on a tree limb and now the bay mare stood, stuck and helpless.
Suddenly remembering the third man, Arissa whirled, her dark eyes wide with terror and adrenaline. He stood no more than five paces before her, completely covered in a dark, billowing cloak, the hood drawn low over his eyes. His shoulders heaved, as if winded and didn’t move an inch while Arissa pulled herself to her full height. The binding around her wrists had loosened enough that she simply slipped it off over her h
ands.
Not knowing who the stranger was, she braced herself for another attack, regretfully feeling the small part of her that dared to hope. She shoved it down, under the pain and torture and resentment she felt. Feeling unnerved by the figure’s lack of movement, she suddenly reached down for her knife.
Her knife was gone. She had forgotten that she had used it to kill one of the men at the camp. Now she was totally defenceless.
Finally, he reached up and gripped the edge of his hood. Feeling her heart racing, pounding viciously in her ears, Arissa choked down her air, her muscles bunched and tensed to spring.
The hood fell from his face, completely revealing his identity and immediately, Arissa felt herself crumpling inside. For a moment, she felt everything and nothing at the same time. Neither her mind nor her body could comprehend what was happening, but in the next moment, a smile struck over her dampened face.
His expression seemed to match what she was feeling exactly and when he returned her look of relief and sorrow and joy and defiance, Arissa clapped her hand over her mouth, hardly able to control her emotions.
He took a haggard step toward her and all within a split second, Arissa could tell how different he looked. He looked worn and tired, as if he had literally been to hell and back. Multiple bruises and cuts marred his face, and his hair was a lot longer than she remembered, but it was still him. It was who she had been searching for months to find and he was here now. And he was alive.
“Cayl,” she gasped, raggedly when she met his weak and trembling embrace.
Chapter Twelve
Escaping the Varkland mountains had not been as difficult as it was finding a settlement that lacked security enough for them to sneak through without being recognized. There had been no hesitation in descending the treacherous mountains on the nervous bay horse, but the same feeling of tension and paranoia that Arissa had been feeling for weeks still lingered. She never let go of his hand once during the entire journey to the village they were in now, and she was sure that her heart rate would never again return to a normal pace. Several times she had to close her eyes for a moment and concentrate, thinking hard enough to make sure that she wasn’t just dreaming.
