He was just about to retreat when the father released his family and approached him, a harsh limp noticeable for the first time.
“Sir. I can never thank you enough for your aid.”
Lyolf nodded to him.
“May we have the name of the man to whom we are eternally indebted,” asked the wife as she dragged her sons up to her husband’s side.
Lyolf hesitated a second before speaking: “Lyolf Eberhand.”
“My l-lord,” stammered the husband as he fell to his knee. His wife and children were quick to follow.
“No, no. None of that. As you will soon learn, I have abdicated my title. It is just Sir Eberhand now. No need for that,” he added when they didn’t immediately return to their feet. “You have some skill, sir. You were in the army?”
“Yes, my lor… sir.”
“You fought for the king?”
“Aye, sir. In the Battle of Rouen and a few lesser known skirmishes.”
“And where do you go now?”
“Nava, sir. We heard there might be work there.”
Lyolf hesitated a moment, before a spurt of laughter erupted from his lips. He couldn’t help it. If he believed in things like fate and gods, he might have thought they were planning his path for him.
The little family stared at him as his mirth wound down, eyes wide. As Lyolf wiped laugh tears from his eyes, he saw the mother pull her two sons to her side, as if she thought him moon mad. Lyolf forced himself to calm down.
“My apologies. It seems as though ‘fate’ has brought us together. I am also traveling to Nava. Would you be willing to travel together? We would all be safer and, to be frank, I would be grateful for the company.”
The husband and wife huddled together and whispered, their two small sons trying to crane their heads so as to hear the secretes being shared. From what he could tell, the wife did not favor the alliance while the husband did. He heard a few words and the wife kept gesturing back to the wagon. The argument was reaching a heightened pitch, and Lyolf was just about to bow out, when the bundles in the wagon began to shift and a young woman climbed out from under a thick blanket.
Lyolf didn’t mean to stare, but he had never seen a Lurren before. He couldn’t help but stare at her unusually tan skin and her white hair. Her features were very long, as though her body was built for height rather than weight. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, but when she climbed out of the wagon, she stood as tall as the husband.
“Athelyna!” cried the wife. “What are you doing?”
The wife ran to Athelyna and blocked her from view with her body, glaring up at Lyolf as though she expected him to kill her on sight. The husband rubbed his forehead as though it ached.
“Sir Lyolf, we have done nothing illegal.”
Lyolf dismounted his horse, a sigh of frustration escaping his lips. What had he gotten himself into?
“I never thought you had, but you better tell me what’s going on all the same.”
“Don’t, Cred,” ordered the wife.
Cred, the husband, glared at her for a second before turning back to Lyolf. “Athelyna is a runaway slave.”
“No!” cried the wife and the slave at the same moment.
Lyolf raised his hands, trying to calm everyone down. “I don’t care about runaway slaves. I won’t turn her in, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
It felt as though the very trees breathed a sigh of relief.
“Athleyna, is it? Come here.”
The girl hesitated, and Lyolf tried very hard not to think about just how pretty her long mouth was, or how bright her eyes were. Finally, she stepped around the wife and marched up to him, her long fingers balled up into tight fists.
“Who did you work for?”
Athleyna swallowed. “Lord Tethys,” she said, her speech accented in a way that made Lyolf’s bones melt.
Lyolf swallowed too, before letting out a little laugh. “Tethys’ a bastard. Your secret is safe with me. How did you end up with these people?”
“They found me in the forest and offered to get me as far as Nava.”
Lyolf nodded before looking at the others. “My offer still stands. I’ll help keep you all safe, if you will provide me the pleasure of your company on the long road.”
Cred let out a gusty sigh. “We would be honored to share the road with you. My name is Cred. This is my wife, Brid, and my sons Nigel and Fithir.”
Lyolf nodded with each name, storing them away. “I left my other horse on a different road. Continue down the road and I’ll catch up with you before night fall,” he ordered before swinging back up into the saddle.
He rode back to the other road as quickly as he could and found his warhorse right where he had left it. The large beast looked ridiculous with the trunks and bundles strapped to its back as it slowly grazed around the edge of the road. Lyolf leaned down and snatched up the lead.
It took him another two hours to catch up with the family and their little friend. Lyolf tried not to stare and failed miserably.
Bethany screamed, thrashing about against the weight that pinned her to the bed. Sweat beaded on her forehead and dribbled down, mixing with her already damp hair. She pushed and shoved with all her might, but the more she fought, the more he hurt her. She screamed again, part of her mind waiting for someone to save her, but no one came. Tears began to mix with the sweat. With the last of her failing strength, Bethany screamed one last time.
She woke with a start, gasping for breath and glancing around their small camp site. The knight quickly removed his hand from her shoulder. He had been shaking her. Bethany blinked the tears and sweat from her eyes, her body still shaking with the remainder of the dream.
Erin didn’t say anything, but one look at his face and Bethany realized he knew what she had been dreaming about.
“We better get going,” he said softly, for once not getting after her for making such a racket.
Bethany nodded as she forced herself off the unforgiving ground. She didn’t mind sleeping in the dirt. It was so much like her slave days that in many ways it felt better than the soft mattress in King Wolfric’s castle. Bethany wiped the dust off her leather trousers and wound the belt to her waist before tugging it down over her hips. The weight of the short sword was beginning to feel familiar.
While Erin worked on saddling Éimhin, Bethany mixed the remaining embers with dirt and tossed their meager possessions back into the burlaps sacks. She glanced at the little donkey, a blush spreading across her face. What would her family think seeing her ride in on that old thing?
Then again, what animal she rode was of little concern in comparison to the deeds she had done while in Tolad. Would her mother even be able to look at her when she learned that Bethany had committed murder?
Bethany blinked the fresh moisture from her eyes and forced herself to think on the here and now, a trick she had learned during her slave days. The future would just have to take care of itself. Besides, even working as a servant in her own home would be better than being a slave in Tolad.
The sun was just peeking over the horizon and through the sparse trees when Bethany finally moved to mount the donkey.
“You should name him,” said Erin out of nowhere.
“How ‘bout Pain In My Ass?”
Erin chuckled, as he swung gracefully up into the saddle. “Little long.” He paused as he settled the reigns in his strong hands. “Got a childhood pet you could name it after?”
“Not really. How ‘bout I name it Dinner.”
Erin laughed again. “Why that?”
“’Cause when I get to Dothan I’m gonna feed it to my brother’s dogs,” Bethany grumbled.
The words had barely escaped her lips when the nearby bushes shook, and a pack of five wolves burst into view. Dinner, the stupid little donkey, let out a riotous bray and charged toward the nearest wolf, taking Bethany with it. The wolves returned the little donkey’s challenge and sprung into motion. Bethany thoug
ht about ditching the suicidal donkey, but decided she was safer on it than on the ground. Bethany clenched her legs around the donkey’s belly and drew her sword.
From behind her, Bethany heard the mighty clomp-clomp of Éimhin’s hooves against the dry, packed earth. She wasn’t alone! For a moment, the fear left her, but then she saw the first wolf crouch down for a spring; with those powerful legs, the animal would take her clean off her donkey. Bethany raised her small sword just in time, the sharpened blade slicing into the animal’s chest as it tried to latch onto her face.
At the same instance, the donkey snapped with its large teeth and kicked with its legs. Bethany heard a yelp from behind her and knew the little animal had struck. Out of the corner of her eye, Bethany saw Erin take a third wolf out, while Éimhin swung his backend around just in time to keep a wolf from biting him in the leg. She wanted to stop to watch the mighty pair work together, but before she could realize her mistake of being distracted, a wolf snuck up on her and latched its teeth onto her forearm.
Bethany screamed and dropped her sword. She struggled against the pain and the tears to draw her dagger from her boot as the wolf tried to pull her from the donkey’s back. Dinner turned his stumpy head toward the wolf and snapped at it, drawing the animal’s attention away from her arm. The wolf released her, giving her a chance to retrieve her dagger and slice it across the wolf’s back. The animal let out a yelp of pain before running toward the underbrush.
Before Bethany could look for the last wolf, Erin was off his horse and at her side. She spotted the dead animal on the ground beside the mighty warhorse. Erin grabbed her arm, just above the wound and squeezed, cutting off the flow of blood.
Dinner held perfectly still while Erin pulled its halter off and used the rope as a tourniquet on her arm. For a split second, the flow resumed until Erin pulled the rope tight and the pressure returned. He gently placed her injured arm around his neck and lifted her off Dinner’s back.
Bethany watched through wet, glazy eyes as Erin lowered her to the ground and rested her arm well above her head in the prickly branches of a nearby bush. He then turned and brought their fire back to life. The rest was a haze to Bethany as he bandaged her arm and slowly released the tourniquet. Within seconds, red liquid soaked through the makeshift bandage. He cursed and retied the tourniquet.
Somewhere in the process, Bethany passed out.
Bethany woke to a gentle shake. She blinked her eyes, momentarily wondering why she felt as though someone had drained all the life out of her. She gave a great jerk as the memories returned, but Erin’s restraining hand kept her from doing any damage. Bethany looked up at her arm, still resting in the bushes. The bandage was completely soaked through and her hand looked pale.
“I can’t stop the bleeding,” Erin said, once she had stopped staring at her numb limb.
She didn’t say anything.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said after a long pause.
“Yes, you do, Erin. You know exactly what you have to do.”
The scarred knight opened his mouth as if to say something, but thought better of it.
“Bethany,” he finally said. “I can’t do that to you.”
“You’d rather let me die?” she asked, trying to lighten the depressing mood. Her eyes flickered to the crackling fire. “You lit the fire. You knew from the beginning what needed to happen.”
Bethany handed him her dagger, which she still grasped in the fingers of her uninjured arm. Erin ground his teeth together for a moment before taking the dagger to the fire and burying the blade in the embers. They waited in silence. Bethany felt too tired to talk, or even consider the torturous pain coming her way.
Finally, when Bethany was about to drift off to sleep, Erin pulled her arm out of the supporting bush and unwound the bandaging. There were teeth marks on both sides of her forearm, halfway between her wrist and her elbow. It would require him to press the smoldering blade to her skin more than once. Bethany turned away, determined to watch Éimhin nuzzled the brave little donkey instead of what the knight was doing.
She felt him lay her arm down on the ground, the wet bandaging between her skin and the dirt.
Bethany took the stick he offered and bit down on it, tears of fear and anticipation stinging her eyes. The knight didn’t linger about the task. One second she was afraid, the next she was in agony. In one swift movement, the knight placed a knee on her arm to hold it steady and applied the dagger to her wound. The hot metal seared her flesh, sending a noxious smell into the air. Bethany shrieked, her voice raw from her previous screams. The stick kept her from biting down on her tongue, but it didn’t dull the pain.
Erin removed the dagger and returned it to the coals to regain the heat it had lost. It only took a second to reheat. During that time the knight dabbed her damp forehead and repositioned her arm. Once again he didn’t wait for her to tense, but quickly administered the treatment on the backside of her arm.
Bethany jerked, another cry of pain tearing through her throat, but Erin kept her from jerking her arm away from the dagger. When the flesh was thoroughly sealed, the knight tossed the dagger into the dirt, as though its very touch offended him. He waited a moment before releasing the tourniquet. As they both expected, the wound did little more than weep.
The princess waited until she thought she could speak clearly before saying, “We need to move.”
“You can’t ride like this,” he growled through his teeth.
“Erin,” she sighed, feeling as though she might pass out at any second. “Be honest. We need to get away from the blood. Besides… I made… a lot…of noise.”
She watched him grind his teeth. She recognized it for the bad habit it was and almost felt a smile pull on her dried lips. In a flash, Erin began to move. He gathered up the supplies, cooled the dagger in their water, used the lukewarm water to wash her face, bundled her arm up in fresh rags, and lifted her onto Éimhin’s back. Bethany swayed on her perch for a second before gripping the horse’s bulk with her thighs and grasping the pommel of the saddle with her good hand. Erin didn’t waste any time mounting, and before she could pass out and fall to the ground, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pushed Éimhin into a gentle walk.
“Dinner?” she murmured.
“What? It’s morning.”
“The donkey.”
She felt, rather than saw, Erin turn to look over his shoulder. “He’s following.”
With the knowledge that her brave but dumb donkey was following, Bethany lounged into Erin’s back and slipped into unconsciousness.
Chapter Nineteen
Pelor pulled his little mare to a stop and watched the locals slowly take notice of his presence. The bedraggled group of men and women were busy working on the bleeding, skinning, and dressing of five enormous wolves. Though the humans outnumbered the wolves, he couldn’t see how such a small group could take down a pack of grown wolves without sustaining a single casualty. Pelor did another sweep, not finding anyone injured in the slightest.
Two wolf carcasses hung from trees, still bleeding out; two were in the process of being skinned, and one was dressed and turning over a large fire.
Pelor turned up his nose at the smell of the whole task. Wolf was not exactly the best meat for eating. He’d seen farmers kill wolves to protect their sheep and cattle. The meat was usually given to the farmer’s dogs. It took a desperate man to eat it.
The desperate men and women looked up at him, their hands, arms, and faces smeared in the blood and grime of the task. After an uncomfortable pause, the nearest man stood and wiped his hands on his trousers.
“Sir,” he said, giving a little half bow.
“You kill all these beasts?” Pelor asked.
“No, sir. We found ‘em this morning, still steaming. Whoever killed ‘em just lef’ ‘em, like they don’t want ‘em no more.”
“Still warm, you said?”
“Aye.”
“And… you’re going to eat it?”
“Food’s food, sir.”
“I suppose it is.”
“We found the remains of a fire, and a bit o’ blood… far away from the wolves.”
“Any tracks?” asked Pelor as he glanced around the small clearing. The ground was trampled with so many footprints he couldn’t tell what was from the original fight and what was the result of the scavengers.
“I think I saw some hoof prints when we first showed up. But I ain’t sure.”
Pelor nodded and nudged his horse toward the group. He kept the animal to a slow walk, looking down at the soft ground. In the midst of foot prints, he spotted one or two hoof prints. He proceeded to the other side of the clearing and found sharper tracks and just what he was hoping to find—two sets of tracks, one large with long strides, one small with short strides.
He was close. Very close.
Pelor rode for hours, following the tracks until the land turned hard and rocky, and he lost the trail. The land was transitioning into the wastelands, and the rolling green slops of Domhain were turning to the harsher, jagged hills familiar to the Zemê people.
He rode in circles for another hour before he had to admit he had lost the trail.
Finally, Pelor stopped to give the horse a rest and to think through his options. Where would they be heading? Wolfric had hinted that they might hope to reach Dothan. If that was the case, they would need Zemê guides to cross the Central Wastelands. He would just have to find them before they made the crossing. The northern sides of the wastelands were just too close to his old home for his preference.
If the trail led him into the lands of his previous employer, he would turn back. He couldn’t face those familiar landscapes. Dothan had been his much-beloved home, and he couldn’t enter them as he was now—a sellsword. His very presence would tarnish their beauty.
If his prey made it passed the boundaries of Wolfric’s lands, Pelor would go back and say that he had lost them. Or maybe he could find a way to “prove” that they were dead, just as he had done with the runaway slave.
The Dothan Chronicles: The Complete Trilogy Page 45
