Until Dawn

by Laura Taylor

  “I don’t know anything for certain,” Dusk said, dismayed at the cold truth of that statement.

  “But you know something as a maybe.”

  It wasn’t a question, and Dusk wondered how she should answer. And on the heels of that, she wondered what she actually had the right to believe in the first place. Aidan had refused to rescue Steve’s wife. Over the past day, depending on her mood and on how much courage she was able to summon at any given time, she swung from absolute certainty that Aidan would come for them, to the cold acceptance that they were on their own.

  But the brutal truth was that either way, her life was going to depend on Aidan. Either he rescued them soon, or Dusk was going to end up dead. There was no way in hell she was going to submit to the whims of these pigs, and sooner or later, they’d kill her for her insubordination. A disobedient slave couldn’t be sold, and if they kept beating her often enough, she’d end up with an infection in her wounds that would eventually kill her.

  Heavy footsteps outside the tent stalled her answer to Savage’s bold statement, and all the women fell silent, waiting for one of the guards to come in and drag one of them off somewhere for the men’s entertainment. Sure enough, a moment later the flap was pulled aside and two guards strode in… but there were four other men behind them, and Dusk immediately noticed they didn’t have the usual medusa-head tattoos of the Gully slavers on their wrists. And then another man came in, and Dusk recognised him as one of the guards who’d been in The Wolf’s tent on the first day.

  “Take your time, gentlemen,” he told the newcomers with a smarmy grin. “We have two other tents, so if you don’t find what you’re looking for here, we have plenty of other options.”

  The men wandered slowly up the row, looking over the women, occasionally reaching down to force one of them to look up at him. They muttered comments among themselves – “Too old. Too short. This one’s too ugly…” – as they assessed each one like they were animals at a stockyard. But then they got to Dusk and saw her glaring up at them, instead of looking meekly at the ground like the rest of them.

  The first of the newcomers grinned down at her. “What about this one?”

  “She’s not for sale,” the lead guard said. “Newly arrived, hasn’t been broken in yet. She’d cause you more trouble than she’s worth.”

  “I like one with a bit of fight,” another man said, and that wasn’t an unusual thing to hear. Some men got off on violence and force, and the more a woman fought them, the better they liked it. “Let’s get her up. See what she’s got in her.”

  What? They wanted to buy her?

  The guard came forward, unlocking the chain connected to the pole, but leaving the shackles around her wrists. He hauled her to her feet and the newcomer looked her over with a leer that made Dusk want to punch him in the face.

  But his words had been telling – he wanted a fighter, not a submissive slave, and was waiting for Dusk to prove she was that very thing. And then she would be sold, she realised with a fresh new terror, and they’d take her away from here, heading north, and Aidan would never find her. There had been dozens of towns up the east coast before the collapse, bountiful farmland, and no doubt there were now dozens, if not hundreds of places she could end up if they took her away from here.

  Strangely, it was only when she was forced to realise how badly she needed Aidan to come for her that she realised she actually believed he would. Buried within her own subconscious, all her plans and goals for fighting these men were based on the idea that the women would rebel when a good opportunity came along. And a good opportunity, of course, would be when her tribe launched an attack on the camp.

  But in order to take advantage of that opportunity, she still had to be here when it happened. Submit, submit, submit, she repeated like a mantra, fighting back her own powerful instinct to fight, forcing her body to remain relaxed and pliant when the man came forward and groped her breasts. Then he slid a provocative hand down inside her pants to feel between her legs. She stared at the ground, keeping a vivid image in her mind of the waterwheel back at her village. Around and around and around, it just kept marking time, the cool lap of the water against rough-hewn wood…

  The hand was withdrawn from her pants, and the slaver wiped his fingers on his shirt sleeve. “Unbroken, you say?” he asked the guard mockingly. “She’s as lively as an eighty-year-old on Valium. I’ll take this one, though,” he said, pointing to the woman beside Dusk. “And a couple more like her, if you’ve got them. We want breeding stock; young, healthy, fertile.”

  “Come look in the next tent,” the guard said, waving one of the other men forward to unlock the woman’s chains, and to secure Dusk again at the same time. She kept her head down, docile and compliant. “We’ve got a couple of eighteen-year-olds in good condition. One of them in particular, I think you’ll like.” The group headed for the exit, a look of stark terror on the young woman’s face as she trailed along behind them.

  Dusk waited until they’d left and the tent flap had fallen shut before she let out the breath she’d been holding. Fucking hell, that had been close. Even now, she was working hard to rein in her rage. Patience, she counselled herself. Revenge requires patience…

  But before she could enjoy her relief too much, another dark thought occurred to her. What if the slavers bought one of the other women from her tribe? By the comments she’d just heard, Willow and Flame might both be dismissed as too old, but either Mei-Lien or Mist might attract their attention. Then again, if the slavers had found out that Flame was pregnant… In that moment, Dusk swore to herself that if any of them were taken, she wouldn’t rest until she found them again. Whether or not Aidan ever agreed to such an impossible quest, she would keep searching for her friends until she either found them and freed them, or died in the attempt.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “How many arrows do we have?” Aidan asked, worrying that the thirty women of Faith’s tribe were being spread too thin around the battle field in their current plan. Even though a handful of his own men now had bows, they weren’t anything like skilled enough at using them to make a difference in the fight. He glanced at the sky, calculating how much longer they had to finalise their plans. Another two hours and it would be getting dark.

  “We had about a thousand stockpiled,” Faith replied. “How many arrive here for the fight depends on whether the women run into any trouble on the way.” The riders of the horses were travelling fully armed, of course, as there was a very real risk of them being attacked on the way here. “That means there’ll be about thirty arrows for each archer, and more than enough for every single one of these dirt-bags.”

  “The horses! They’re here!” A woman came rushing over, blurting out the news before rushing off again, and everyone abandoned the map for the moment, hurrying over to where the first of the long line of riders were easing into the camp.

  “The gods smiled on us today,” the woman at the head of the column told them as she swung her leg over the saddle and landed lightly on the ground. “The worst trouble we ran into was a horse being spooked by a goanna.”

  “You made good time,” Aidan said, taking the reins of the horse while Faith offered the woman a canteen of water. “We weren’t expecting you until later this evening.”

  The rider didn’t get the chance to reply, though, as a sudden shout got their attention. “Aidan! Faith! Shit, let me through…” A man came rushing into the camp, shoving people out of the way and making far more noise than was suitable for their precarious situation. Aidan glared at him, ready to give the guy an ear-bashing for not being more discreet about -

  “They’ve taken the children!” he blurted out, the moment he saw Aidan.

  Whisper was at his side in an instant. “What? Who?”

  The runner tried to get the story out and catch his breath at the same time. “The group of slavers who arrived earlier. They’re not part of the Gully tribe. They came to buy women. They’re leaving, up the road nor
th as we speak. They’ve got Mikey and Julia with them.”

  “Where’s Willow?” Whisper snapped.

  The runner shook his head. “Not with them.”

  “How many are there?” Aidan asked. There had been ten when the group arrived, but that didn’t mean there would still be -

  “Ten. Plus four women and the two kids.”

  “Easy,” he declared, already putting a rapid plan together. “Get twenty men. We’ll wait until they get a few k’s up the road, then attack -”

  “No,” Whisper said sharply.

  Aidan gaped at him, while Faith watched on silently, so far having said nothing about this sudden and disturbing development. “What do you mean, no? You’re not going to just abandon them?”

  “Of course I’m not fucking abandoning them, you brainless turd,” Whisper snapped at him, and given the circumstances, Aidan took no offence whatsoever to the insult. “But if we go in there with guns blazing, we’re just as likely to get the kids killed. I’ve already lost one family to these bastards. I am not losing another one! But that means we do it the smart way this time.”

  Aidan looked at him blankly. “Which is?”

  “We buy them back. Peaceful negotiation, everybody stays calm, no one gets hurt. These guys aren’t from around here. They’re heading north, we have no gripe with them -”

  “No gripe with them?” Faith interrupted suddenly. “They’ve just bought human beings like property. And now you want to trade with these assholes?”

  “I’m not trading with them!” Whisper yelled, then immediately lowered his voice again. “Fuck. I’m not supporting their fucking slave trade, I’m trying to get my fucking children back without getting them killed! For God’s sake, keep the context in mind, yeah?”

  “We can’t save everyone,” Aidan added, looking sharply at Faith. “I don’t approve of what they’re doing any more than you do, but the slave trade is alive and well all up and down the coast. We can’t stop every tribe involved in it.”

  “Your disapproval is noted,” she snarled at him.

  “If we start a battle, no matter if we’re miles up the road, we risk the Gully getting wind of it, and then -”

  “I get it,” Faith snapped at him, then added, more to herself than to anyone else, “Fuck, I hate this world.” She paced away a short distance, then came back again. “Fine. We get the kids and leave the women to rot. Great bloody plan.” For all her sarcasm, it seemed she was actually agreeing.

  “Fine. So, we buy Mikey and Julia back again.” Aidan looked around the camp, a new sense of dismay hitting him. “What do we have that we can trade for them? We didn’t exactly come here prepared for this sort of situation.”

  “Were they on foot?” Faith asked, addressing the runner, who was still hovering nervously nearby.

  “Yes,” he replied simply.

  “Then it’s easy. We give them a horse.”

  Aidan was not the only one startled by her suggestion. A number of the men – and a couple of the women – watching the conversation wore expressions of surprise and bafflement. Faith had emphasised repeatedly how valuable their horses were, and the deal they’d made with her to trade for them had been the result of prolonged and intense negotiations. “You’d give up one of your horses? Just like that?”

  His shock must have made an impression, because she marched towards him, stopping scarcely a foot away from him. “I’m not quick to trust, and yes, I’m inclined to make deals that benefit my tribe, but I’m not going to stand by and let two children be taken away by slavers because I was too worried about how much I had to pay.”

  Aidan stood boldly in the centre of the road, holding a pole with a strip of white cloth tied to the end. There was a mild breeze that made the cloth flutter in a rather half-hearted way, but it was as close to a white flag as they were likely to get out here.

  Beside him, Whisper stood rigidly, and Aidan could actually hear him grinding his teeth. It must be killing the man to know his family was currently in the hands of slavers. Aidan was finding it to be no picnic either, but he also knew that Dusk was a fighter, and that she was tough enough to look after herself, at least for the couple of days it took them to mount an attack. Mikey and Julia, on the other hand…

  The slavers rounded the nearest corner of the road, a good hundred metres away as they’d wanted to give them plenty of space to avoid accidentally starting a fight. Predictably, they stopped, taking their time to measure this unexpected obstruction to their path. Aidan had another eighteen men spread out across the road, all of them armed, but at the same time, they’d all been instructed to keep their weapons sheathed unless the slavers presented a genuine threat. This was supposed to be a peaceful negotiation.

  At the same time, Aidan hadn’t brought any women with him. Though Faith and a number of her tribe had offered to come and help, he’d turned them down. Slavers were used to men being in charge, and he didn’t want to give them any reason to doubt the trade he was going to try and make. Having armed women standing around would only raise questions that he didn’t want to answer at the moment.

  Aidan took the opportunity to return the frank assessment. Mikey was walking, for the time being, but Julia was being carried. It wasn’t so much a question of distance, as both children were more than capable of walking for hours, but rather of speed. Their short legs would slow the slavers down, no matter how cooperative the children were trying to be. The pair of them looked scared, but uninjured, and Aidan was once again profoundly grateful that Willow had put so much effort into training them in how to survive dangerous situations. Both children had seen them, and had no doubt recognised them, but neither of them made a fuss. Revealing that they knew his men, or worse, letting it slip that Whisper was their father, would send their price through the roof.

  After a few long minutes of contemplation, and some quiet discussion amongst themselves, the slavers eventually proceeded up the road towards them. When they got about thirty metres away, the bulk of them stopped again, and two men came forward, tough and sun-baked with an air of wary distrust.

  “What of it?” the taller of the two said.

  “We won’t keep you long,” Aidan said, as eager to be gone from here as they clearly were. “We wanted to talk to you about a trade.”

  The tall man sneered at him. “We’re done trading. You see these fine fillies, here?” he asked, pointing to the four women, bound and leashed. “That’s what we bought. That’s all we need. So if you’d kindly step aside, we’ll be on our way.”

  “I can see you’re in a hurry,” Aidan said, with deliberate politeness, but with a tone of underlying steel in his voice. “But you really should hear us out. Because we’d like to buy something that you own.”

  The leader of this group was no idiot. He looked Aidan up and down, and lazily perused the group spread out beside him. The slavers were outnumbered, and he knew it. “What are you looking to buy?” he asked simply.

  “The two children. And before you start worrying about their price, we’re offering a horse to pay for them. I think you’d have to agree it’s a fair deal.”

  He had the man’s interest now, and Aidan suspected he’d have considered the trade even if he hadn’t been backed up against a wall.

  “What horse?” he asked. Right on cue, one of Aidan’s men led a mare out from the undergrowth beside the road. They’d kept her out of the way, not wanting to risk her being harmed if the slavers decided to do something stupid right off the bat. She was as fine an animal as Faith owned, five years old, well trained and without any health issues.

  The leader came forward, his lackey keeping an eye on Aidan in case he did anything unexpected. He took his time looking the mare over, and Aidan suspected that aside from a genuine interest in the quality of the animal, he was also stalling for time while he thought the deal over. It was perfectly obvious that Aidan and his men had more than the normal interest in children around these parts – after the initial frenzy of trying to secure lan
d, grow food and fend off rivals, it was now becoming more and more obvious to everyone that children and the continuation of the human race had to be their next major priority. But Aidan, and particularly Whisper, were counting on the fact that for a tribe still forced to travel mainly on foot, a horse was prize enough to make them overlook the unusual nature of the deal.

  Back at the group of slavers, one of the men suddenly cuffed one of the women over the head, and Aidan realised he hadn’t been paying enough attention to the group. It was a well-known rule in the type of guerrilla warfare that they practised that the man standing in front of you with a knife wasn’t necessarily the biggest threat. The real troubles were caused by the man who was sneaking up behind you, and who you only saw out of the corner of your eye before he stabbed you in the back.

  The woman who’d been hit was young, maybe only eighteen years old, with short blonde hair and a hostile look in her eye. As he watched her, she looked up and her eyes met his. A flash of recognition crossed her face, and Aidan felt himself tense. Shit. She knew who they were.

  That shouldn’t have surprised him, and he could have kicked himself for his own lack of foresight, too caught up in trying to ensure Mikey and Julia were brought to safety to really consider all the complications that could crop up. It went without saying that their own women, locked back in the Gully, would have started trying to build alliances and plot methods of escape. And it should have occurred to him that the women who’d just been bought might have known they had men on the outside waiting for an opportunity to rescue them.

  Their interest in the children would be as obvious as a blazing neon sign. The slavers wouldn’t care who they were, just so long as they got a reasonable bargain out of the deal. But this woman had clearly worked out that they were Mikey and Julia’s family, and would be looking to them to free her as well.

  Aidan sent her a look that tried to acknowledge her and tell her to be patient, at the same time as trying to make it look like he was ignoring her, lest the other slavers notice the direction of his attention. If he could make the woman assume that the deal was ‘all part of a bigger plan’, then she wouldn’t cause a scene until the trade was complete and the children out of harm’s way. After that, whatever she said or did wasn’t Aidan’s concern.