by Lily Thomas
Daerrin gave a hearty laugh. “Not likely, but good try.”
Roxanne grumped a bit, but at least she had tried. She still thought she had some sound ideas. The only way to know if her father was responsible would be to ask him, and she couldn’t do that if he didn’t let her go.
The excitement of the day had worn on her, and the loll of the horse had her eyelids drooping.
As Roxanne woke, she was surprised to find them entering another camp of fire giants. When would the torment end? It was just one camp of fire giants after the next.
“I thought we were going to the castle?” Roxanne looked around at the camp of giants and frowned.
“We will be heading there. First, I need to report back about what happened in the village, and see if there is anything else that needs to be done on the border.”
Roxanne’s shoulders drooped. She was ready for a real meal and bed. She wasn’t a soldier, and she didn’t know how much longer she could last. All of her body parts were sore from so much traveling. She’d never willingly ride a horse again.
A fire giant strode up to their horse and began speaking with Daerrin. All their growling was starting to sound normal, which disturbed her a bit.
Roxanne prayed that there wouldn’t be anything else for Daerrin to do on the border. She needed some restful sleep and a good meal if she were going to make another attempt at an escape.
“What did he want?” Roxanne asked the moment the other fire giant walked away from them.
“He told me I have another stop before we can travel to the fire giant castle.”
At least he didn’t sound too thrilled about their delay because she wasn’t. Now there was, even more, traveling in her future.
“I’m not sure my butt can handle all this traveling.”
Daerrin leaned in next to her ear. “If you’d like me to massage the soreness out of your muscles, all you have to do is ask.”
“Pfft… like that would ever happen. I just want to soak in a tub of warm water the moment we get to the castle. That will work wonders for my sore muscles without having to endure your touch.” She shifted her bottom.
He snorted. “So far you’ve begged for my touch.”
She scowled because it was true. “What exactly do you have to do next?” She was done talking about her inability to keep her thighs closed.
“Patience is a virtue.”
“I hope you realize how much it annoys me that you won’t tell me anything.”
“I know, but don’t care.”
She grumbled under her breath. He could be so annoying sometimes.
For the rest of the day they traveled, and Roxanne had no idea where they were. They had changed too many directions since Daerrin caught her. Even if she ever escaped him again, she’d have no idea in which direction she should flee.
Once more she decided to press him for answers. “Where are we headed?”
“To a human village.”
“Why?”
When he didn’t answer, her heart rate spiked. “Why are we heading to a human village?” She prayed he wouldn’t say they were about to attack a human village.
“We’ve been ordered to attack the human village,” Daerrin confirmed her worst fear.
Her eyes bugged. “How can you do that?”
“I don’t understand.” He sounded truly bewildered.
“After what you just showed me at that fire giant village, and now you will return the same favor? I thought that kind of destruction and killing of innocents appalled you.” Roxanne twisted around in the saddle to glare up at him.
“I see.” Daerrin chuckled. “It will relieve you to know there are no innocent people in that village, just soldiers. The human village was abandoned quite some time ago and is now being used by human forces as a campsite.”
When she was quiet, he explained some more to her. “They signed up for a war, Roxanne. No fire giant here wanted to fight with the humans. The rock giants started this war. We were just dragged into it.”
Roxanne still didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much she could do. “You’re right. It does relieve me a bit that the village is full of soldiers who can defend themselves.”
Images from the fire giant village flashed through her mind.
It appalled her that something so gruesome could happen and under her father’s watch. Daerrin didn’t know her father though. If her father had known, he would’ve stopped the soldiers from killing the defenseless women and children. He would have. She just knew it in her heart. She couldn’t believe otherwise, or it would make her father the evil man.
“There is the village.” Daerrin pointed over the hill to a village that she hadn’t even noticed them approaching. “I’m leaving you here with a guard. Don’t get in the way.” He warned her sternly.
She feigned innocence. “Me? Get in the way? Never.”
“Yes, you. Don’t go running into the village. I don’t need you coming to any harm or ruining anything. Someone could mistake you for a threat and kill you.”
“I’m not about to go running into a battle… especially without a weapon to defend myself.” At least, not at this moment. Supposedly, there were no innocents in there that she had to worry about so she could sit still and wait for one of the sides to win.
“Don’t make me punish you,” Daerrin warned her as he dropped her to the ground.
She knew exactly what he meant if that gleam in his crimson eyes meant anything. Her punishment would have something to do with bed play, and she liked the idea. He was damn good in bed. She would give him that.
“I’m sure you would.” Roxanne sent him a wink.
Daerrin cast her a smile, right before he gathered his men, threw on his helmet, and galloped towards the village.
The poor human soldiers had no idea what was riding their way. They were going to be caught with their pants down. It would be a slaughter fest, but she hoped Daerrin would have mercy and let some go alive.
A fire giant stepped up beside her, and Roxanne leaned back to eye him, but he kept his eyes on the village and the attack before them. But she wasn’t a fool. The fire giant warrior was stilling watching her as well. He was just doing it out of the side of his eyes, not directly.
Daerrin had been right to set a guard to her. It would have been easy for her to steal a horse and make an escape attempt in such chaos, although she felt uncertain about escaping.
What if she got back to her father and found out Daerrin had been right about him? She hated to admit it, but Daerrin had planted a seed of doubt in her heart, and it worried her.
The sound of swords clashing reached her ears. The fire giant warriors had arrived at the village.
She had a good view from up on the slight hill. Roxanne watched some of the fighting, and she was able to make out details even if it was from a distance. The human soldiers were better at getting their gear in order for an unexpected attack than she’d expected.
But she was still certain the strength and surprise of the fire giant warriors would win out in the end. There was no doubt in her mind Daerrin would lead his men to victory. She wouldn’t be rescued by these human soldiers.
The battle seemed to take forever, but the sun had barely moved by the time it was over. She was glad for the distance but also felt her nerves fray a bit. From such a range, she had a hard time seeing all that went on.
“Can we go forward?” She asked her guard. “The fighting appears to be over.” She hadn’t seen or heard anything for a few minutes, and she was desperate to go forward and see what was happening.
“We can go… but slowly.” Her guard pinned her with a pointed gaze, as he followed her to the village.
Chapter 12
Roxanne felt her nerves make her hands shake as she took each step towards the village. She had just seen a lot of bodies strewn about in a fire giant village, and she worried she might have the same experience in this village.
Slowly, she entered the outskirts of the village, and he
r breath caught in her chest. This was as close to her people she had been in more than a week. The architecture of the homes caused her to long for her old life. She felt like she was one step closer to being home, but it was all in her head.
If Daerrin had his way, she would never see her father again. He’d only release her once her father was dead, assuming he ever did release her. The pain he’d been dealt was still burning brightly inside him.
At least she wasn’t greeted with the sight of heaps of slain bodies like in the last village. A few human soldiers were lying on the ground with mortal wounds, but it gave her hope that Daerrin had taken a majority of them as hostages or that they had escaped into the surrounding forest.
Rounding the corner of a building she was greeted by human soldiers who’d been tied, gagged, and forced onto their knees in the dirt.
She smiled. Roxanne wasn’t happy, so many had been caught, but she was glad they were still alive. Maybe there was a heart somewhere within Daerrin after all.
Looking around the area, she couldn’t seem to catch sight of Daerrin.
“Where is Daerrin?”
Her guard shrugged. “Tending to other things?”
“Can’t we find him?” She both hoped for and dreaded his death. His death would mean no one would be using her for revenge, but it also meant that the fire giants might just get rid of her.
“I’m sure he will come to this area at some point.”
This fire giant wouldn’t be any help, so Roxanne settled down to wait for Daerrin’s return. Her eyes fell on the captured soldiers, and she watched a human soldier struggle past his gag, pucker his lips, and let out an enormous glob of spit.
Her horror-filled eyes followed it as it sailed through the air and landed on the armored chest of a fire giant standing nearby. The fire giant glanced down at the glob of spit that was now tracking a wet trail down his chest armor. His eyes glossed over as rage contorted his face into a fierce mask. He reached for his sword, and Roxanne knew he would kill the soldier for such an insult.
Without thinking, she leaped into action. Sprinting forward she launched herself towards the unfolding situation.
Roxanne clasped her arms around the human soldier and looked up to see the fire giant’s sword descending in an arch towards them.
She was going to die. Now Daerrin could leave her lifeless body at the edge of the border for her father to find. Then he would get the ultimate revenge on her father. Nothing could beat a father finding his daughter’s body.
As the sword descended towards her head, she could see the recognition on the fire giant’s face as he saw who had stepped into his line of fire. There was nothing he could do about the momentum of his sword though, and she forgave him for what he was about to do.
It was all her choice and fault, after all.
Some large object shot across her vision, and she watched in relief and amazement as the other fire giant was thrown to the ground, his sharp sword spinning away from her.
Glancing down she saw Daerrin roll off the other fire giant before leaping back up to stand in front of her.
“Thank you.” She smiled up at him with relief, but it faded as soon as she saw the stormy expression on his face.
“Move out of the way, Roxanne!” Daerrin barked down at her.
“Never! He has no right to kill this man.” Roxanne made sure she covered the man as much as she could with her body. If there was one thing she knew, it was that Daerrin wouldn’t harm her. At least, that was what she hoped.
“Move, or I will drag you away by force.”
When she kept her arms tight around the man, Daerrin took a step forward to try to intimidate her, but she wasn’t about to back down.
She knew she was trying his thin patience, but there was nothing she could do about that. If she left the soldier to be killed, she would never be able to live with herself.
Letting out a chest-rumbling growl Daerrin marched over to her, grabbed a fist full of her hair, and pulled her head back. Leaning in, he growled down at her, “Let go… of him… now.”
Shivers raced up and down her spine, and she winced a bit as he pulled with a little more strength, but never hard enough to cause her any actual pain, just discomfort.
“Let go, Roxanne. I won’t be asking again.”
“He is going to kill this man!”
“He was going to use the flat of his sword to beat the soldier, not kill him.”
“Is that any better than killing him?” Roxanne cried out. Daerrin acted like a beating with a sword was nothing, when it could still crack bones.
Roxanne was her stubborn self again, and Daerrin wondered why he ever felt any attraction towards her. She was the type of woman who would drive a man to an early grave.
A sharp pain flowed through his arm, and he stared down in amazement. Roxanne had managed to turn her head and sink her teeth into his arm where there was a gap in his armor.
This was the reason he liked having her around. She always surprised him with a spunky spirit that never seemed to fade no matter the odds. It matched his stubbornness.
Growling down at her, he attempted to shake her loose, but her little white teeth wouldn’t loosen their grip on his flesh. Letting go of her hair he finally shook her teeth free, and then grabbed both of her arms and yanked her away from the human soldier.
The other fire giant warrior stepped forward with his sword and gave a whack to the human soldier’s side.
“Stop him!”
Daerrin grabbed her face and turned her to look at him. “This is war, Roxanne. I’m sorry you have to see all of this on the border, but I can’t protect you from it. You need to face what happens here before you get yourself killed by your foolish actions.”
“He doesn’t need to be beat.”
“He doesn’t have a bright future ahead of him anyways. They hold information about human troop movements and most of them won’t be going home to see their families.” He whispered down to her harshly.
Roxanne’s gaping mouth made him feel sick to his stomach, but this was the war they were living through. There was nothing more he could do. She was going to have to live through it. He was a general fighting a war, which he was supposed to end before it killed too many fire giants, and he was going to do just that.
The fire giants hadn’t started this war, but they weren’t going to lie down and die when war was brought to their front doors. All the humans had to do was go back to their land and leave the fire giants alone, and the war would end in all probability, at least with the fire giants.
The rock giants, on the other hand, had enough of their human neighbors. Only the destruction of the humans or the rock giants would end that side of the war.
A yell drew their attention back to the group of human soldiers and fire giant warriors.
A human soldier sprinted into the group swinging a sword at the nearest fire giant.
Roxanne tried to leap forward, but Daerrin was quick to grab hold of her arm and yank her back against his side. He wasn’t about to let her jump into the middle of another dangerous situation.
The fire giant closest managed to dodge the swing at his head, took a few steps back, unsheathed his sword, and took a swing.
Daerrin heard a horrified gasp escape Roxanne’s lips when the fire giant’s sword connected with the human’s neck. His head sailed through the air as his body sank to the ground in a lifeless lump blood gushing out from his severed arteries.
Roxanne turned away and buried her face into his side, so he released her arm. Then she walked away.
He watched as she briskly marched to the edge of the forest, bent over, and gagged a few times. Sometimes he forgot about her position. She must sit in a comfortable castle, the war miles away and out of her mind for the most part.
She’d only been with her father for company, not to participate in the war.
This all was a rude awakening of what really happened on the border. She got the edited versions when she was told
about the war, he was sure. The human males treated their women like delicate little items to be coddled. Maybe this would help to clear the blissful fog her people had placed in her mind.
Looking up from where she was bent over she cast him a disgusted look. “You all are despicable. You think humans are horrible, but you haven’t taken a good look at yourselves!”
He smiled. She could throw insults at him all day, but it wasn’t about to faze him. At least, he wasn’t the one slaughtering whole villages. No. He was just killing the soldiers and letting anyone else go running for the hills.
“Don’t act high and mighty. Even you bore witness to what happened in one of our villages. You can stand there and tote how good your kind is, but we all know the truth. Both sides are too similar and neither wants to admit it.” Daerrin lectured her a bit. She couldn’t deny the truth in his words, and he dared her to try.
Still, she just glared at him, and here he thought her opinions might’ve been changed about fire giants. Alas, it seemed as though he’d gotten nowhere with her after all she’d seen and all the time they’d spent together.
“Be careful what you do, Roxanne. You almost lost your head earlier. I can’t, and I won’t always be there to protect you. You’ve been lucky so far that I’ve been near when you needed me.”
“I had to stand up for those men. No one else here will.”
“No, you don’t. They are soldiers. They knew what they signed up for. It’s their duty to win or die trying.”
“It all seems so pointless.” She whispered to herself, and he knew he wasn’t supposed to have heard her.
“I couldn’t agree more.” He said under his breath so that she couldn’t hear him. He might be a general, but it didn’t mean he enjoyed the violence of his life. He had a duty to protect his people by any means necessary.
Daerrin glanced down in front of him. He and Roxanne had been riding in silence, and it made him feel uneasy.
“I apologize for being so rough with you earlier.”
He thought she might give him the cold shoulder, but then her pleasant voice rushed over him. “Both sides of this war have done things they shouldn’t be proud of, but you shouldn’t have let the fire giant kill the human soldier.”
