The savage, he repeated silently. Man somehow did not quantify them. He was deeply offended by Clara's lack of hesitation in a Wedded Joining with one of them. Could she not see the clear aberration from humankind that they were?
With as blank of an expression as he could manage, he handed the binoculars over with a slap into Matthew's waiting palm.
Matthew stared at him until his eyes dropped.
Matthew adjusted the straps and saddled the awkward unit upon his head, setting his sights on Clara's lips. He watched silently for several minutes, motionless, keeping the field of vision squarely before the twin magnifiers. Then he removed the contraption gratefully, his eyes strained and dry in their sockets.
“How far, do you estimate?” Bracus asked.
“Mayhap ninety horse lengths,” Matthew responded after a moment of internal calculation.
“What is Clara about?” Bracus asked.
“She speculates that we wait and tells the others to be ready,” Matthew replied with a troubled expression.
“What say you?” Joseph asked, noting his grim face.
“It is their plan for her that may necessitate the acceleration of our rescue.”
They stared at him and he repeated what he had seen Prince Frederic say, “They said they would attack her later. While she slumbers.”
Bracus' fists clenched. He had contemplated the possibility, but to know with certainty it was discussed, planned felt unbearable. He turned a murderous expression to Matthew and found the mirror of his own embedded in the planes of his Bandmate's face.
“How do you know this? You have paranormal hearing?” Clarence scoffed.
“No man! He reads lips,” Philip explained.
Bracus moved his palm back and forth. “What is the count?”
“Forty-three,” Matthew responded.
Joseph exhaled loudly. The four stared at each other for a lingering time.
Clarence could feel something indefinable build in the air, the subtle pressure mimicking the sultry storm that approached.
The men lifted their fist in the air then laid them on their hearts.
“For Clara,” Matthew said.
“For Sarah,” Philip said.
Clarence glared at him.
“For Anna,” Joseph repeated.
“To protect at all costs, to ourselves. To all,” Bracus finished.
The pressure burst about them like a bubble popped and Clarence rubbed the gooseflesh which rode his arms in a fine blanket. A promise had been made.
The Band would keep it.
CHAPTER 11
Clara knew, without need of a looking glass, that her gills had retracted against her flesh.
Surely Sarah would have commented upon their existence had they not.
Why did they not remain like the other of the Band? Why, in the name of the Guardian, was she not savage at all times? Where was the benefit of being of savage blood if she could not count on any of the abilities that were renown with the Band? Of course it mattered not. Even if she had their physical stealth and prowess, she would lack the basic understanding of the execution of such.
In an oyster shell, she simply did not know the skills.
Battle skills.
She lamented her ridiculous physical attributes. Her small size was not a benefit.
No one knew her secret except the fragment and the Prince.
Charles did not know. Clara imagined their relationship was of little concern in the face of their imprisonment. However, she realized this would widen the chasm they found themselves in.
It explained much about her status as select. Obviously, her lineage had much to do with it.
The guards approached their now silent group and the women stood. One was the guard she recognized as Robert. “Time to eat. Follow us.”
Evelyn hung back, no doubt remembering him as the one that had fondled her head with anticipation. Clara clasped her hand and Evelyn looked at her gratefully.
Her anchor in the storm.
*
Clara lay atop her bedroll, an elbow her pillow. She gazed up at the wonderful blanket of stars and was filled with gratefulness to be alive. Her circumstances were dire, but she embraced what she could. As she focused on the positive, she felt Evelyn's hand creep out to hold her arm which lay by her side.
She turned her face to look at the girl. Pale moonlight illuminated her and they stared at each other for a time. No need for words. The girl should sleep but Clara was as anxious as she had ever been.
Mayhap she had been premature in her vehement confidence in the Band?
She watched Evelyn's eyes grow heavy, then finally close.
Thoughts of Charles and Prince Frederic crowded her mind. Frederic had been absent from the spartan provisions that had been provided for their nourishment. As was Charles.
Not knowing whether or not her childhood friend lived, whether he fared well? She could not dwell on it. Regardless of their most recent strife, Clara cared deeply for Charles.
She loved him, truth be told. But it was not the flavor of love that he craved. That she could not give.
She sighed and turned away from Evelyn when she heard her breaths deepen, laying once again on her back. Anna and Sarah lay but a horse length from her position. Their group was a small distance from the main group of fragment soldiers, Daniel amongst them.
He had been most odd at supper. His eyes following her everywhere she went, watching the smallest of her movements as the falcon. She was uncomfortable with his scrutiny but mayhap there would be something to gain? He was different than the others. She knew not how but he reminded her somewhat of the Band.
Clara pressed her eyes tightly closed, allowing herself the deepest part of the night to shelter her tears. She cried for Charles, she cried for the women and Evelyn, whom she could not protect.
She cried for a future she may never know or satisfy. She floated along that slim edge which separates sleep and wakefulness, the twilight of consciousness wrapping her like a cloak.
She heard a small noise and her eyes sprang open.
Rough hands grabbed her shoulders and startling, she slung her arms up in a protective stance immediately.
She saw the face of Tucker upside down and swung her palm into the nose that loomed above her. She had a moment of supreme triumph upon hearing a crunch, having struck an accurate jab. She rolled and swept her nightdress aside as she stood. Facing him, she crouched down as she had seen the Band do. He covered his nose with fingers which seeped blood like oil from an oyster.
Clara backed up and collided with a solid chest and was grabbed from behind. She knew it was Prince Frederic.
His smell preceded him.
“Get that bitch over there,” Tucker hissed quietly, stalking toward her.
Clara began to struggle in earnest, frantically looking around at Sarah and Anna. They slept peacefully through her flailing. A familiar heat began to crawl along her neck like fingers of fire wrapping themselves like vines around her throat.
The Prince hauled her to the forest's edge and threw her to the ground in a heap, her nightdress riding immodestly to mid-thigh. The Prince gazed upon the bare expanse of her legs and she jerked the gown down to her ankles.
“It seems that I have recovered sufficiently enough from your ministrations to perform. In all truth, it took very little persuasion from my good companion, Tucker, to see keeping you in hand is a two-man affair.”
Tucker grabbed her wrists and jerked her upright. Her head the height of his shoulder, her arms high enough that the sockets threatened to detach.
“They return,” Frederic said flatly.
“Huh? Ah yes, what do we have here?” Tucker said, as he jabbed a finger into the delicate gill membranes that had erupted on Clara's neck and she screamed in agony. It felt very much like someone was digging around the inside of her mouth with a dull knife.
In this case it was a blunt finger.
“You are as vile as them, Clara. It is
time you are treated in a way that is worthy of your new station,” the Prince said, moving forward.
Tucker had tired of the ruination of her new body part that throbbed from the assault, blood trickling down between her breasts from the abuse.
The Prince latched onto her bosom with both hands and she lost all hope. Tucker behind, keeping her arms taut while the Prince assaulted from the front. He mauled her viciously and she cried out, her chest a searing blanket of fire.
Her eyes had been tightly shut, her feet near dangling from the awkward hold that Tucker used. When she opened her eyes she thought they lied.
Matthew.
His eyes captured hers and she saw the men's death in them.
He slid behind the Prince and aligned the blade at his neck. Clara's gills widened unmercifully, reacting to her fright and shock like a swimmer when drowning.
He ran the blade across the Prince's throat and a gap like a second mouth appeared, arterial blood spray blanketing Clara's face and splattering the gills that were open to the night. She began choking, her lungs constricted by the hold and her new slits filled with the Prince's blood.
Tucker dumped her to the ground as Matthew let the Prince slide to his feet and charged Matthew.
Clara watched from the ground, gasping for air and feeling her vision waver. All around her the sounds of battle raged. She saw Clarence in the distance stabbing the hateful Robert and Bracus taking four of the fragment by himself.
The two men above her fought with bare fists and Clara saw the dagger used on the Prince lay a few feet away from Matthew as he pounded his fists into the face of Tucker. Tucker was on his knees, hanging onto the edge of Matthew's tunic. A final pummel and he fell to the side, his head a beaten and bloody egg against the grass.
Clara watched as three of the fragment advanced behind Matthew and raised a shaky hand in warning, her gasping breaths slowing.
She was drowning. Her nose had shut down and breathing out of her mouth was now an impossibility. The gills were utterly useless and would mean her death. If she had not been so panicked about her demise she would have laughed at the absurdity of it all.
She clawed at her throat as Matthew fought the three that approached. Two attempted to hold him as one beat him, but he tore one arm free and grabbed the nearest head, bashing it into the one who beat him. His powerful arms cracked the two together over and over again. Then bending at the waist, he scooped up his fallen dirk, the hook at its end backlit by the moonlight and drove it into the third as he rose, stabbing him soundly in the lower belly. He punctured the belly of the fragment in a final upward arc, dragging it to his sternum. The skin split and steaming entrails fell out like tangled and bloodied ropes.
Clara closed her eyes, the crashing and fighting a background symphony as her heart slowed its rhythm, her tenuous hold on consciousness slipping away.
Suddenly, a gentle hand held her head up, and she used every ounce of strength left to open her eyes as Matthew's face swam into view.
His startled face beheld her gills. “Clara...”
She tried to speak, “I... I... drown...”
His eyes widened and he shouted for Evelyn. Clara watched as an elf with silver hair skipped between lumps that lay in the field.
“Oh no! What is wrong with Clara?” Clara watched recognition form on Evelyn's face. “She is Band...” she said, her eyes wide in her face.
“Grab my rucksack. Now! Be about it!”
Clara watched her run between the bodies, her hair glittering in the starlight and closed her eyes again. She was so tired, she must rest.
Matthew scooped her tight against him. “Do not die, Clara. Do not die!” he yelled. “I cannot lose you as well, I cannot,” his voice breaking on the last word.
His grip was painfully tight as Clara breathed in his clean scent.
And breathed no more.
“No!” Matthew bellowed. “Evelyn!”
The next thing Clara knew, liquid was splashing on her neck and a hiccup of oxygen entered her. She gasped, struggling anew, trying to get more. Her heart rate climbed in a system bereft of air.
“More! Poor it into her throat slits!” Bracus bellowed.
More deliciously cool liquid entered her gills and the hiccup grew into breath, releasing the stranglehold of suffocation that had nearly robbed her life.
Gentle hands pressed against her sternum rhythmically and she opened her eyes to see Anna pressing on her chest, her hands in the shape of a cross, tears staining her face and trembling at her jaw before falling between Clara's breasts and drenching the spot. Carefully, Anna removed her hands from Clara's chest.
Sarah wiped the hair off Clara's sweaty brow and Bracus and Matthew had either of her hands. Clara took a deep breath, her breastbone aching as she did so, a cough erupting out of her mouth.
Sarah pulled her head onto her lap, the men moving to stay near her. “Dear Guardian, we thought we had lost you,” a tear escaped her eye and rolled over the lump on her cheekbone, distended from the abuse of Tucker.
Clara said nothing for a moment, absorbing the scene around her, silently looking for the people that she felt responsible for.
Charles was absent.
“Where...” her voice rasped and she cleared it, trying again, “where may Charles be?”
Bracus and Matthew looked at each other. Clara nodded. “I know what state he is in. Where is he now?” Her eyes moved between the two men.
“He is safe,” Clarence said on his approach. Clara saw him staring as if mesmerized by the sight of her gills. She fought embarrassment. He had thought her royal and now she was clearly in another category.
Other.
Clarence seemed to shake something off. “How fare you, Queen Clara?”
She nodded. “I fare well as the Band was near at hand.” Clara's gaze roamed the tight group that were gathered.
Evelyn came forward. “It is what we do when the Band rides away from the clan.”
Clara's brows rose.
Bracus said, “The salted water calms the throat slits when there is a foreign body...”
“Blood,” Matthew said with regret. “The throat slits cannot have anything but air and the salted water inside.” He gestured to his own, flaring slightly as he spoke.
Clara looked at him with her heart in her eyes and a small sliver of happiness took residence in his face as she said, “It is because of you that I live. Prince Frederic meant my death.”
Clarence nodded. “From all accounts, he is not wont to stop.”
Sarah looked a question at him.
He sighed. “This may be too tender for feminine ears,” he said significantly.
Evelyn huffed. “Tell us, Clarence. It matters not what gender we find ourselves in.” She glowered at him and his brows shot down above his eyes.
As Clara saw him preparing to chastise Evelyn she preempted it, “I think, dear Clarence, that pertinent information may be more important than our feminine sensibilities.” Clara did tire of the endless circular speak when there was mixed company.
“Speak plainly, Clarence,” Sarah encouraged.
He looked at their faces and said, “There were rumors that the Prince had indulged himself with females of his sphere. That he had mayhap gone too far with one and King Otto moved heaven and sphere to quiet it.”
There was silence for a time and Clara noticed the sky had lightened, losing the depth of true night.
Bracus saw her looking and said, “Dawn approaches.”
Clara lifted her torso off Sarah and sat up, looking at Clarence.
“Whatever the Prince may have been, it matters not. His lifeblood covered me in his death. He will no longer be able to abuse females.” Uttering the words a relief she could taste.
Joseph and Philip walked up, each one with Charles' arms around their necks, his height dwarfed by theirs. He slumped and stumbled intermittently between them.
Clara tried to stand and Bracus and Matthew helped her to her feet. Her han
d immediately went to her chest where it throbbed painfully.
“Look!” Evelyn said, pointing to Clara.
All eyes turned to her.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Your throat slits are no more,” Matthew said, wrapping his hand around her throat, his thumb stroking the center of it, settling in the hollow between the bones. Her heart sped under his touch. Their gazes locked and she stepped away from him, his hand falling away.
She turned and walked slowly to where Charles hung between the two Band. Her heart ached at the sight of his face. It was a swollen mess.
She came before him and he watched her out of the slit of one of his eyes. She pulled his face to her and pressed her forehead against the only uninjured spot that remained.
“How fare you?” she whispered against his neck, her breath easing around him like a cocoon of heat.
He nodded, taking one arm from around the neck of Joseph and pulling her against him. “I fare well, now that you are within my sight, my grasp.”
Tears rolled down Clara's face and Charles rubbed them away with the pad of his thumb. “Cry not, Clara. I shall live to see another day.”
“Why did they beat you?”
He shrugged and winced. “For sport.”
“I loathe them,” she said fiercely.
“And I,” he agreed.
Clara pulled away and faced the group. “Where are the fragment?” She looked about her, bodies lying everywhere. “We know their number as forty men...?”
“Forty-three,” Matthew clarified.
She stared and Bracus responded. “We have dispatched over twenty...”
“There is bad news, Queen Clara,” Philip said.
What more could there be?
“Some of the bodies are missing.”
Terror pierced her heart and it began to beat wildly, her arm automatically reaching out to grasp Charles for support. She was instantly ashamed of her fear. But her body remembered everything for her and its response she was helpless to control. “Whose?”
The Band looked at one another.
The SAVAGE Series, Books 1-3: The Pearl Savage, The Savage Blood and The Savage Principle Page 36
