Until Dawn

by Laura Taylor

  Whisper was the next to come in, cautious and patient in a way that made Dusk respect him even more than she already did. He was a difficult, tempestuous and unpredictable man, but right now, he was taking the time to let the women get used to his presence before he gave in to what must have been a powerful urge to rush to Willow’s side.

  “They took the children!” was the first thing Willow blurted out, as soon as she saw him, and with a quick glance around, Dusk realised it was true, her heart sinking. Mikey and Julia weren’t beside her. “There were slavers who bought them. They took them north. We have to go and get them back!” Dusk felt sick as Willow rambled on. She’d been relieved beyond measure to see that all of her friends were still here, but it hadn’t even occurred to her that the slavers would have bought the children.

  “We’ve got them,” Whisper interrupted Willow, then had to repeat it when she didn’t hear him through her own urgent pleas. He took her by the shoulders, and even shook her a little to make her listen. “We rescued them. They’re fine. They’re in hiding, and they’re safe.”

  Willow’s face turned pale. “They’re safe? Really?”

  “We got them back from the slavers. I promise you, they’re fine.” He hugged her, a brief and desperate embrace, then glanced around, the women gathering their wits as Dream finished unlocking the last of them. “We need to get out of here.”

  “Where’s Jamal?” Mist asked, standing up once her shackles were off. She didn’t bother trying to disguise the worry in her voice.

  “Back at the village,” Aidan told her. “He was injured in the initial raid. He’ll be fine,” he added, at Mist’s alarmed look. “He’ll recover. He’s just not able to fight at the moment.”

  “Where’s Hawk?” Dusk turned around to see Flame standing in the doorway, Mei-Lien supporting her, and she looked at Aidan for an answer.

  The silence that followed was telling. “Hawk’s dead,” Aidan said, jaw clenched, hands curled into fists. Dusk watched as the news settled in Flame’s eyes, and then she placed a bruised hand against her own stomach. Fucking hell, she’d been pregnant before they’d been captured. Had the baby…?

  “Yes,” Flame agreed, her voice thin. “He is.” She turned and shuffled out of the tent without another word, and the rest of them followed, grief-stricken and not sure what to say next.

  “Are you ready to get out of here?” Aidan asked, once all the women had filed outside. The camp was a wreck, hardly a tent left intact, the fighting continuing further to the south. The ground was littered with bodies, and Dusk felt another wave of rage and grief at the realisation that not all of them were slavers. She remembered her quota of men that needed to be killed, thirteen by her last count. But none of the women standing around them were in any condition to fight, and given the number of slavers who had already been slaughtered today, Dusk decided not to quibble about the details.

  But just as she opened her mouth to speak, someone else beat her to it. “No.” The harsh whisper was heard clearly, that one, small word shocking everyone. It was Flame who had spoken.

  “Are you mad?” Torrent asked, looking anxious. He was no doubt eager to have Mei-Lien far away from here.

  Flame drew herself up, leaning heavily on Mei-Lien to support herself. “I’m not going anywhere until I choke the life from that mangy dog who runs this hellhole.”

  Aidan shook his head. “He’s surrounded by guards. It’s too great a risk. We need to get out of here.”

  Logic was on his side. But experience was on theirs. Aidan hadn’t witnessed the things that had been done over the last forty-eight hours, hadn’t seen the scars and the terrified looks in the women’s eyes every time a guard had come into the tents. He hadn’t ever experienced what it was like to be held down and to have your body violated, your humanity stripped away, and your dignity left in tatters.

  “No,” Dusk replied, perfectly understanding Flame’s need for justice, for closure. “The fury of hell is owed one more life today. We’re killing the God-damned Wolf.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Dusk glanced around at the women, all of them staring back at her with a mix of fear and admiration. Every single one of them would rejoice in the death of The Wolf, and yet she understood their fear of actually having to kill him.

  Fortunately, that wasn’t going to be their problem. “Whisper, take Willow and the rest of the women to safety,” she ordered, quickly taking stock of the situation. The Wolf was easy to spot, marching up and down on his platform while guards held their attackers at bay on the ground around him. Fucking coward wasn’t even joining in the fight. “Any of the men who are injured, go with him. This won’t take us long. The rest of you, you know the drill. Don’t let them outnumber you. Stay in pairs. We attack along the edges until we wear their numbers down enough to get to The Wolf. Does everybody have weapons?”

  A few people spoke up, saying they didn’t, and a handful of men quickly scouted about, looting various blades from the bodies lying around them. Once everyone was ready, they set off in two different directions, Whisper taking the majority of the women north, into the forest above the camp, and the rest of them heading south, ready to join the fray in the lower part of the valley.

  As she jogged along, Dusk spotted a short sword lying in the grass, and bent down to scoop it up. The sword Aidan had given her was straight, rather than curved, like her original Japanese set, but it was well balanced, a familiar and comforting weight in her hand. And now her left hand held the second one, and a sense of rightness came over her that was so powerful it sent a shiver down her spine. She was perfectly capable of fighting with one sword, and had done so plenty of times since she’d had to start fighting for her right to keep breathing.

  But her early training had been thorough, her practice sessions diligent, and the flow of the two swords in perfect harmony, the two halves of her body working in unison, was like fitting the final piece of a puzzle into place.

  The men and women fighting the slavers had adopted a strategy of harass and retreat, the archers in particular doing a fine job of forcing the men to stay in what cover was available, rather than confronting them outright. It was a battle of attrition, the deaths coming too slowly for either side to win the fight, but it also served its purpose excellently – it kept the slavers from interfering with the efforts to free the captive women.

  Now, though, their strategy would need to change. Dusk did a quick headcount, as well as could be managed with all the obstacles in the way, calculating not only how many slavers were left, but how many fighters on their own side as well. Fifty slavers, give or take, and forty warriors. There were still more of them, and she knew Aidan didn’t like heading into battle when those were the odds, but if they didn’t finish this now, this tribe would just regroup, maybe merge with another tribe, and come after them all over again. Besides, it shouldn’t take long to even the score.

  Weaving from tent to tent, taking cover behind hay bales and wood piles, she made her way over to Faith, with Aidan, Flame and Torrent following her path behind her. “I need ten of these assholes out of action,” she said, nodding to the tight huddle of men. Wary of the arrows, they’d now armed themselves with makeshift shields – the metal lids of rubbish bins, bits of corrugated iron, even a frying pan in one instance. “They don’t necessarily have to be dead, just out of the battle for a minute or two.”

  “We can do it,” Faith replied, “but we’ll be out of arrows by the end of it.”

  “That’s fine,” Dusk told her. “We just need to break their line of defence, then we can get in close and finish this.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Flame fiddling with something on the ground. She put whatever it was in her pocket, and Dusk made a mental note to ask her about it later. In truth, she was more than a little worried about the woman, not just physically, but mentally. No matter how strong a person was, they could only endure so much before they broke…

  With a nod, Faith darted over to the next little cl
uster of women. Dusk watched as they had a muted conversation, with plenty of pointing and gesturing, then each of the women drew their bows. They loosed their arrows – eight of them at once – and a man went down, one arrow lodged in his neck, another in his head. They repeated the feat several more times, multiple arrows aimed at the same target, increasing the odds that at least one of them would find its mark. Contrary to what the movies had led much of the world to believe, what they were achieving was actually extremely difficult – shooting a small and moving target, from forty metres away, using recurve bows and an instinctive shooting methodology. After a couple of minutes, the quota of injured men had been filled, and Dusk turned to Aidan.

  “Our numbers are pretty much even. Think we can take them?”

  Aidan glanced up and down the battlefield. Now that he was here, and there was clearly a plan in the making, the rest of the men were watching them eagerly. Faith and her group of archers now had their blades out, waiting with anticipation for him to signal their charge.

  A macabre grin settled on his face, and he rose to his feet, machete held ready. “I think today is a good day to die,” he said boldly. Around the battlefield, everyone else stood up, weapons ready, many of them already stained red, and a war cry rose up, an echoing declaration of freedom and vengeance, of rebellion against the threat they had lived under for so long.

  And then it was on. A short dash forward was met with harsh resistance, and the familiar clang of metal against metal rang out across the battlefield. Flame held back, knowing she was not in fit fighting form, but she’d told Dusk on the way here that if at all possible, she wanted – needed – to be the one to kill The Wolf. And Dusk had promised her that she would make sure she got the chance, unless there really was no other option.

  The platform The Wolf had taken refuge on was fifty metres away. It was about five metres long and three metres wide, and presumably was used for announcements of various sorts, or perhaps even performances, if they had anyone in the tribe who was musically inclined. For the moment, it was acting as a refuge for The Wolf, a long sword in his hands that he used to beat back any attack – an easy feat when you were a good metre higher than everyone else.

  As she waded into the fray, Dusk quickly realised that though she’d got a reasonable estimate of the slavers’ numbers, that didn’t even out the battle as much as she would have liked. They weren’t spread evenly around the platform, and while in some places, the warriors on her side were gaining the upper hand, she suddenly found herself surrounded by five slavers, Aidan and Torrent both somehow cut off from her, and forced to defend their own lives for the time being.

  But that was not going to stop her. She had two swords in her hands and a fire in her belly that would not be quenched until these bastards lay on the ground with their guts spilt out to be food for the crows.

  “Come on, Pretties,” she mocked the men as they surrounded her. “Come and play.”

  She was in motion a split second later, both blades put to good use. It was a familiar routine, a dance, almost, that relied upon never staying still long enough for her opponent to anticipate her next move. Turn, duck, slice, jump, stab, spin… A cut to a man’s arm. Another across a thigh. She sliced through one man’s wrist, none of the wounds bad enough to kill, but more than enough to slow down her attackers and make their own efforts to kill her far less effective. And then, when they were all bleeding and cursing, she got to the real work. Her sword wasn’t as sharp as she would have liked, but it cut through the flabby meat of a man’s neck well enough. Blood sprayed in a wide arc. She hamstringed the next man, then sent her smaller weapon deep into his chest. Block, spin, slice, duck… move your feet, girl! she scolded herself when she nearly tripped over one of the fallen bodies. “Right here,” a voice told her, and she neatly spun around to put her back towards Aidan, who had finally managed to cut a path to her, and it took less than a minute to finish off the rest of them.

  But though Dusk had killed her own collection of men – seven of them, if the count still mattered – there were plenty more battles still going on across the paddock. Dusk rushed over to one of Faith’s women, struggling to hold her own against two much larger men, and she and Aidan each stabbed their weapons into the men’s backs, moving on before the bodies had even hit the ground.

  And suddenly, there it was – a clear path between Dusk and The Wolf. “Flame!” she hissed. “Let’s go.”

  Huddled beside a collapsed tent, Flame pushed herself to her feet and was at Dusk’s side in an instant. Adrenaline was lending her strength at this point – though Dusk was sure she would suffer for her efforts later – and they ran together across the thirty-metre gap. The Wolf was facing the other way for the moment, as another warrior tried to climb onto the platform from the other side. It was the work of a mere moment for Dusk to boost Flame up onto the wooden planks, then she ducked beneath the platform, a split second before The Wolf felt the jarring vibration of Flame’s weight landing and turned around.

  His reaction was entirely predictable. “Hello Pretty,” he crooned, raising his weighty sword. “You’ve come to play?”

  Flame raised her weapon as if she had every intention of using it. She locked her eyes onto The Wolf’s, taking a slow step to the right, getting the measure of the man…

  A sword stabbed up through the planks, directly into The Wolf’s foot. He screamed and leapt out of the way, eyes seeking out the enemy in the darkness below him – but he quickly realised that he couldn’t watch the ground and Flame at the same time. The sword stabbed upwards again as he tried to limp away, sword held out to keep Flame at bay, slicing into his ankle on his opposite leg. “Argh, fuck!” He stumbled and fell, neither leg now sufficient to keep him upright.

  Once he was down, Dusk shuffled hurriedly backwards in the cramped space beneath the platform. She lined up her attack, then thrust the sword upwards, straight through The Wolf’s back so the blade emerged from his belly. It wasn’t enough to kill him – not quickly, at least – but it would stop him going anywhere in a hurry. Job done, she scrambled out from beneath the platform, ready to defend Flame in case anyone decided to get in her way.

  Up top, Flame seemed to be almost enjoying herself. She stalked slowly towards The Wolf, and when he tried to strike at her with the sword he’d somehow managed to hold onto, she slammed her own sword down into the wood to block the blow, then stomped her foot down over his wrist, pinning it to the floor. When he refused to let go of the weapon, she stabbed him through the hand instead, then tossed his sword away, now that his hand was no longer able to keep its grip.

  Coming around to his head, she reached into her pocket and drew out the length of cord she’d collected on the way here. It was from one of the tents, a strong but lightweight nylon rope that had, up until that morning, kept the humble dwelling fixed firmly to the earth. Now, she wrapped it lazily around The Wolf’s neck, ignoring the ongoing battle around her as she trusted Dusk implicitly to keep her safe.

  The Wolf tried to bat her away with his one good hand, though he was growing weaker from blood loss and distracted by his pain. “You’re nothing!” he told her roughly, even as she overpowered him. “You’re scum! Three dozen of my men shoved their cocks up into your flabby cunt and you could do nothing to stop us!”

  The cord was now wrapped twice around his neck, firm pressure gradually tightening the noose, and Flame bent down so that her mouth was right beside his ear. “I am the mist that rises at dawn. I am the shadow beneath the moon. I told you I would be the cord that choked the breath from your lungs,” she murmured to him as he struggled for air. “My name is Flame. Remember me.” She tightened the cord further. The Wolf’s face turned red, then purple, a hideous, gurgling, choking sound emerging as he died. Blood spurted from his nose. And then he finally lay still, his violent reign at an end.

  On the northern edge of the stockyard, Rochelle’s lungs were burning as she gasped for air. The slaver trying to kill her was huge, over six feet ta
ll, arms thick with muscle, and as relentless as the tide. A handful of the brutes had tried to make a run for it, and she and four other women had gone after them, not willing to let such evil just walk away, even if their fate might have been a slow death by starvation in the wilderness.

  But the men had been more difficult to kill than they’d anticipated. One of her comrades was already dead, another two caught up fending off a man whose skill with the sword was truly terrifying, and she was left here, while a thug with a hammer tried to bash her skull in. Maybe hammer was an understatement, she reflected dimly, as she diverted the blow with her machete and felt her arms vibrate from the force of it. Mallet, maybe? Sledgehammer, perhaps? It was small enough to be manoeuvrable, yet heavy enough to do some serious damage when it finally found its mark. And it would find its mark, Rochelle knew. She was tiring rapidly, giving ground… Fucking hell, she had nowhere left to go. He’d backed her up against the wall of the stockyard, and his next blow cut to the side, ripping the blade right out of her hands.

  But he wasn’t going to beat her to death and be done with it. Instead, he punched her in the face, then tossed the hammer aside, taking advantage of her momentary disorientation to grab her by the hair and force her to the ground. He landed on top of her, and by the time she got her bearings, he already had her pinned down, half his weight pressing on the back of her neck via a meaty hand, while the tell-tale fumbling at waist-level told her he was undoing his pants. “You fucking women think you’re all that, right? You think you’re better than men? Well, I’ll show you how good you are when you’ve taken a nice, thick cock up your ass.”