Escape from Cabriz

by Linda Lael Miller

  Kristin was glad of the darkness; it hid the tears that had brimmed in her eyes at his words. “You’re right,” she said with all the dignity she could summon. “We should never have gotten together in the first place.” She rolled out her sleeping bag, took off her shoes and crawled into bed. She’d wanted to fight it out with Zachary, and she’d gotten her way.

  She hadn’t counted on losing.

  7

  Kristin’s sleep was fitful that night; she missed the warmth and substance of Zachary’s body lying next to hers. Several times she awakened and reached for him, only to remember that another rift had opened between them. And this time there would be no crossing the chasm.

  Morning brought chilly fog and the welcome smell of something frying. Kristin sat up, drawn out of her sleeping bag by the almost-visible aroma. “Umm?” she muttered, hugging herself. “What is that?”

  Zachary spared her a scant smile. “Corned beef mixed with freeze-dried potatoes and powdered eggs,” he answered. “It tastes better than it sounds.”

  Kristin shook her head as he handed her a mug of his special camp-fire coffee. “You really are a marvel. Did they teach you this in secret agent school?”

  Again he smiled, but there was something sad in the response that touched Kristin’s heart like the back of a cold spoon. “I learned it from my grandfather. He had periodic yearnings to return to the land, like his hero.”

  “Who was?” Kristin prompted, taking a cautious sip of the hot, delicious coffee.

  “Henry David Thoreau,” Zachary replied. He wasn’t looking at her then; he was busy dishing up his breakfast concoction. “Eat hearty, princess. I have a feeling today’s going to be a challenge.”

  Kristin felt reasonably contented, except for a distinct case of heartbreak, as she accepted the plate he handed her. She thanked him automatically, but her brow was furrowed as she tried to catch his eye. “Why should this day be any worse than the rest?”

  “Just a hunch,” he answered, his voice low, his eyes scanning the trees that surrounded the cave.

  Because she was hungry and the food smelled so good, Kristin began to eat. “You know,” she said after swallowing, “if you ever get tired of teaching, you could always work as a short-order cook.”

  Zachary chuckled at that, albeit reluctantly. He was pulling his familiar trick of distancing himself from her, and he was all too adept at the technique. “Thanks, princess. I’ll remember that.”

  Kristin was lonely for their old bristly camaraderie, and she tried to fan the flames of the conversation. “Do you like teaching?”

  He shrugged, chewing. “It’s all right,” he said presently.

  “But it isn’t what you really want to do?”

  His eyes linked with hers briefly, then turned away. “Sometimes,” he said in quiet tones, “a man can get his life so screwed up that nothing pleases him, no matter how good it is.” With that cryptic statement, he turned his concentration to his breakfast.

  Kristin cleaned her plate, even though there was a lump in her throat, then got out of the sleeping bag to walk down to the stream and clean up. She yearned for a hot bath, clean clothes and a real bed, surrounded by solid walls, in a country with a stable government.

  “How’s your knee?” Zachary asked when she returned to camp. She’d groomed herself as best she could and washed her plate so it wouldn’t appear that she had to be waited on all the time.

  “It still hurts a little,” Kristin replied honestly. “But I think it’s getting better.”

  He was sipping coffee, and his gaze never quite met hers. “Maybe I’d better examine it.”

  Kristin’s temper flared. “Heaven forbid,” she said. “Then you’d actually have to look at me!”

  His hazel eyes came swiftly to her face, fiery with some emotion Kristin didn’t want to recognize. “Take your jeans off,” he ordered brusquely.

  In spite of all the times they’d made love, Kristin’s cheeks went crimson at the suggestion. “No.”

  Zachary advanced toward her. “I’m going to look at your knee, Kristin, whether you take your jeans off or I do. The choice is yours.”

  Now it was Kristin whose gaze was averted. “I’m fine, really.”

  “Let me see.” He was nearer now; she could feel him towering over her.

  She knew she’d lost. With her teeth digging into her lip, she undid the snap and zipper of her jeans, pushed them toward her knees and sat down on the tree stump. “If anybody sees us,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper, “I’ll never forgive you!”

  “If anybody sees us,” Zachary countered, squatting down on his haunches to lay gentle fingers on her bruised, swollen knee, “we’ll both be in big trouble. This is one time when we don’t want the cavalry riding to the rescue.”

  Kristin winced involuntarily as he touched her knee, and he gave her an angry look.

  “I’m glad it’s better, princess,” he said with cold sarcasm, “because if it were any worse, you’d need to be in a hospital.”

  “It isn’t as bad as it looks,” Kristin insisted, and when Zachary stood she followed suit, quickly pulling up and refastening her jeans.

  He turned and walked away, only to return a few moments later with two pills in his hand. “Here,” he said, holding out his palm. “They’re just aspirin, but that might help.”

  “You’ve got practically everything in that pack of yours,” Kristin said, trying to lighten the moment a little. “I don’t suppose you have this week’s issue of People?”

  Zachary grinned in spite of himself. “Sorry, princess. The aspirin was it. Swallow them while I saddle the horses.”

  Kristin returned to the stream and knelt beside it, scooping up the cold, fresh water in her palms after tossing the aspirin into her mouth. An eerie feeling possessed her as she swallowed; it was as though she was being watched.

  Shivering, she got awkwardly to her feet and looked around. Seeing nothing, she made her way back to camp.

  Zachary helped her into her pack, making her feel a little like a child in a snowsuit with a balky zipper, then hoisted her onto her horse. The day ahead looked long and cold to Kristin, as well as painful, and she didn’t have the heart to ask again how long it would be until they were over the border into Rhaos.

  She knew she wouldn’t like the answer.

  They rode uphill throughout the morning, raising a lather on the patient horses, and the aspirin did little to quiet the persistent ache in Kristin’s knee. It didn’t help that she’d hurt that same joint during a game of tennis the year before, but nothing could have made her complain. She wasn’t the spoiled princess Zachary thought she was, and she was going to prove that if she accomplished nothing else beyond survival.

  During those first few hours Zachary spoke to her only once. He turned as they were about to pass through a narrow opening between two enormous rocks and said, “You’ll be able to see the Rhaotian border in another few minutes.”

  Kristin was elated, though her joy was tinged with a shading of sadness because she knew she and Zachary would soon be parting forever. She wished, for one wild moment, that she could have conceived Zachary’s baby; at least then she wouldn’t have lost him entirely.

  In the next few seconds it seemed that the world was shifting on it axis. One moment Kristin was lamenting the impossibility of pregnancy, the next she was frozen with horror.

  Just as she followed Zachary through the cleft in the rocks, men in shabby trousers and shirts came from every direction, including overhead. They shouted and shrieked, and their faces were twisted with vicious concentration.

  Zachary fought, but he was vastly outnumbered. They wrenched him from the saddle and swarmed over him.

  Through it all she heard him shout, “Run, princess! Get the hell out of here!”

  Kristin couldn’t have left even if she’d wanted to. Her muscles were rigid with fear, her eyes wide. Bile rushed up into her throat as she watched the men beating Zachary.

  Only w
hen he fell unconscious to the ground did she scream.

  She was dragged from her horse only moments later, and she had no reason to expect a fate different from Zachary’s. She braced herself, but the men only shuffled her along between them, their hands strong on her arms.

  She looked back over one shoulder to see Zachary being half propelled and half dragged behind. Don’t hurt him any more, she pleaded silently. Behind her the horses nickered and whinnied in confusion and panic. Kristin’s hands were tied and she was flung unceremoniously into the back of a Jeep.

  A bolt in the floor scraped her cheek, and her knee hurt so badly that she thought she might be sick. For all that, her mind and soul were full of Zachary. Where was he? What had they done to him?

  Kristin squeezed her eyes shut and offered a silent prayer. If one of us has to die, God, let it be me. Zachary was only trying to help.

  The Jeep’s engine roared to life, and the dusty vehicle began to jolt and jostle its way down the mountainside. Kristin wondered whether their captors were rebels or guerrillas fighting on Jascha’s side.

  Either way, she and Zachary were in more trouble than the wildest imagination could have dreamed up.

  Kristin consoled herself with the idea of writing a book about her experiences—should she be fortunate enough to survive. At the moment it looked as if she was bound to die young.

  And probably in intense pain.

  After what seemed like hours, the Jeep finally came to a lurching stop. Once again, strong brown hands lifted her, and she nearly fainted at the protest in her knee when the men set her on her feet.

  “Who are you?” she asked angrily in her halting Cabrizian, and her captors laughed. There must have been a hundred of them, and there were at least twenty Jeeps.

  A group of ramshackle huts stood nearby, their roofs covered with taut animal skins. Curious children and women, in the same trousers and pants as the men, gathered around, staring. Kristin turned her head, searching for Zachary, but there was no sign of him.

  Dear God, Kristin thought, her numb hands still bound behind her, maybe they’d already killed him. Left him lying on the ground…

  Hot tears filled her eyes. Zachary, she called silently.

  She distinctly heard a response, though the sound seemed to come from inside her own head. I told you this was going to be a bad day.

  The words were so distinctly Zachary’s that Kristin actually smiled. He was alive, then. And he was nearby.

  The relief nearly made her sag to the ground; the strangers pulled her roughly back into an upright position.

  It was only later, when she’d been thrown onto a pile of skins in one of the huts, her hands still tied tightly behind her back, that she began to analyze the experience and thus to doubt it. She’d only thought she heard Zachary speak to her; she didn’t have psychic episodes and neither did he.

  Her heart was so heavy that she just lay still for a long time, held down by the weight of her sorrow. If Zachary died because of her silly fantasies about marrying a prince and ruling over a storybook land, she was never going to forgive herself.

  Not that she was likely to live much longer than he did.

  Finally Kristin struggled into a sitting position and looked around. There was no one else in the hut, although she could hear excited voices outside, arguing in rapid Cabrizian. Although she’d forgotten most of the language, she got the gist of the conversation—one faction was in favor of rape, the other wanted to sell her back to the prince.

  She lowered her head. It probably hadn’t been difficult to figure out that she was Jascha’s runaway bride. She and Zachary were without a doubt the only Caucasians in the entire country. What had made them think they could get away?

  Presently a woman came in. She brought a ladle of water and held it to Kristin’s lips. Thinking of typhoid and hepatitis and all the other diseases that flourished in these remote villages, Kristin drank. She was simply too thirsty to refuse.

  “My friend,” she began, grappling with the language. “Is he well?”

  The woman, who wore the prescribed trousers and shirt, did not look at Kristin. Nor did she answer. She just scurried out of the hut and let the crude wooden door fall shut behind her.

  “Excuse me,” Kristin called, lapsing into English in her frustration. “Excuse me, but I need to use the bathroom!”

  There was no answer, and Kristin sat in utter misery, her wrists throbbing where the thongs chafed against her skin, her fingers so numb she couldn’t feel them. Her heart and her knee, however, fairly pulsed with pain, one keeping time with the other.

  After a long time the woman returned and untied Kristin’s hands. She chattered incomprehensibly and shook one finger, then led her captive toward the door.

  Kristin took the indecipherable discourse as a warning and tried to look submissive as she followed her keeper out into the afternoon sunlight. Another look around reinforced the dismal fact that there would be no escaping.

  The woman led her to a pit some distance from the village. Even in the cool, crisp air there were flies, and the stench was enough to curdle Kristin’s stomach.

  Nonetheless, she did what she had to do and allowed herself to be ushered back to camp.

  Again, she searched eagerly for Zachary as she passed among the people. Again, there was no trace of him.

  Inside the hut, the woman tied Kristin’s hands behind her back again, though this time the thongs were not pulled so tightly. She sank down onto the skins, which were considerably cleaner than the ones she and Zachary had slept on in that other hut just a few nights before, and closed her eyes.

  There had to be a way out of this situation, she thought. Perhaps if she told the men her father would pay ransom…

  But that would be difficult. Someone would have to bring the money into Cabriz, and a trade would need to be made. There would be nothing to stop her captors from taking the money and still killing her and Zachary, as well as the messenger. Provided a messenger could be found in the first place.

  Cabriz wasn’t exactly a hot tourist attraction at the moment.

  Kristin’s reflections were interrupted when the door of the hut opened again and one of the men came in, carrying a rifle across one arm. His eyes were quick, black and mean, and they skittered over Kristin’s prone figure like a stone over smooth water.

  Instantly she tensed. “Don’t touch me,” she breathed in English, too frightened to search her mind for the Cabrizian words.

  The man laughed and spoke to her in her own language, though his words were so heavily accented that she could barely make them out. “You cannot afford to give orders, pretty one.”

  Kristin was silent, watching him, waiting.

  He squatted beside her, reached out to sift her hair through grubby fingers. She tried to pull away; he tightened his grasp and gave the lock a painful wrench.

  “The prince will pay much money for you,” he said. “And for your friend.”

  Kristin tried to suppress the shudder that went through her. Jascha would not be forgiving of her actions or of Zachary’s—it was the code of his culture to take vengeance when it was called for. To do anything less would be to lose face. “You are rebels,” she said calmly. “Why would you want to please the prince?” She paused, swallowed. “My father is rich. He’ll give you more money than Jascha would, if you’ll just let us go.”

  The rebel laughed and thumped his chest with one fist. “You think we are fools? The prince will give us more than gold. He will pay in guns and prisoners, and medicine and food.”

  Kristin knew he was probably right. And that Jascha would make her and Zachary wish they’d never been born long before he finally relieved them of their lives. “So you’re turning us over to the prince?”

  Her visitor nodded, black eyes glittering. “Tonight you stay,” he said, and once again his gaze ran the length of her.

  “You’d better not lay a hand on me,” Kristin said, operating on pure bravado as she struggled to sit up. It
was an awkward pursuit, with her hands caught together behind her that way. “I was to be the prince’s wife. He won’t pay if you’ve used me.”

  He gestured toward the door with a slight motion of his dark head. “The other one, he use you. And Jascha will kill him for it.” A slow, insolent grin spread across the man’s face.

  Kristin thought it was probably a good thing she was bound; otherwise, she would have slapped him. “Jascha’s a jealous man. He’ll kill you, too. And all your friends.”

  The rebel gave a shout of laughter at that. “He try. He fail. I do what I want.”

  Kristin’s blood turned cold in her veins, but she kept her chin high and her gaze remained defiant. Not for one moment did she think her opponent was intimidated; his boast had not been an idle one. He could do what he wanted, and Kristin had no real way to protect herself.

  But suddenly an argument erupted outside, just when she thought all was certainly lost, and the man disappeared.

  Although she was nearly faint with relief, Kristin couldn’t allow herself to fold. She scrambled to her feet and sneaked to the door, pressing her ear to the wood. The rebels were still engaged in their earlier debate, one side in favor of savagery and murder, the other leaning toward the money, food and guns Jascha could provide.

  Kristin didn’t find either prospect appealing, but of course she would have chosen being returned to Jascha if they’d offered her an option. That, at least, would give her and Zachary some time to escape.

  When she heard someone approaching the hut, a man talking in a voice as loud and angry as the others, she drew back, eyes wide, wondering if the prisoners’ fate had at last been decided. Whatever happened, Kristin hoped she wouldn’t have to see Zachary suffer.

  The door opened and a man came in. He was older than the first visitor, and he moved with authority. “Hakan,” he said, tapping his chest with one finger. Then he pointed the same digit at Kristin.

  “Kristin Meyers,” she answered.

  He took her arm in a firm but painless grasp and turned her, and Kristin’s cheeks burned. He was assessing her value, just as he might that of a brood mare or a ewe in the marketplace.