by Karen MacRae
The caravan stopping for the night gave the couple the excuse to get out of the Captain’s claustrophobic kingdom. They set up camp a short distance upwind from the encircled wagons. Sy set the fire while Anna fetched water and Spider saw to the horses. They ate an extremely uninspiring meal while they waited for the caravan camp to settle and the chance to talk without risk of being overheard.
“Are you all right, Sy?” Spider asked.
“I’m fine, why?”
“Er, it’s just that… well… this is terrible,” Spider told him, letting the contents of his spoon fall back into his bowl.
“Oh, that’s my fault. Sorry. I blocked his nose. I didn’t know I could, to be honest, but he was suffering so badly I thought it worth a try.” Anna reached for Sy’s arm. “I’ll take it off.”
“Don’t you dare!” Sy said, snatching his arm out of her reach.
“The sooner we’re away from here, the better,” Spider grumbled, stirring the tasteless stew with a sigh.
“It’s all right for you. You can help yourself to the Captain’s titbits when you get to spend the rest of the evening with him in his cabin.”
“Don’t remind me,” he moaned.
Sy and Anna grinned at each other.
Spider lowered his voice. “Sy, did you get a chance to look for our friend?”
“He’s not in any of the cages and I heard nothing about an extra passenger, but I noticed one of the water carriers visiting the driver of the Captain’s wagon with an extra mug. The smuggler’s chest slung under the seat is just about large enough to hide a man.”
“So how do we rescue him?” Anna asked.
“You could knock everyone out,” Sy suggested.
“And have an entire army after us when they woke up and passed the word?”
“Oh, yes, sorry,” he blushed.
“Something will turn up,” Spider said optimistically. “I can feel it.”
He left shortly afterwards, warning the others to be vigilant. The warning was moot; they didn’t trust the guards either.
Anna found her eyes constantly moving over to the caged wagons. The wriggling mass of unhappy, unhealthy auras was an anathema. Almost worse was the way the guards viewed and treated their prisoners as lower than the lowest of creatures. She watched as two guards poked and prodded at the misery in one cage, isolating two women. They were terrified. One guard unlocked the door and clambered in, throwing the women out to his partner. No one tried to help them. They were dragged over to the Captain’s wagon by their hair. Part of this evening’s entertainment, no doubt.
She scanned the other guards, looking for someone who might intervene. Many were uncomfortable with what was happening, but none would help. “Sy!” she whispered. “We have to do something.”
“We can’t,” he said sadly.
Raucous laughter spilled from the open door to the Captain’s wagon.
“Damn right, we can!” she snarled, standing up and preparing to attack single-handed if she had to.
Sy grabbed her arm, holding her in place. He tried to calm her. “All right. Let’s think about this. We can’t afford bloodshed.”
“I don’t need to spill blood,” she told him coldly.
He reeled off several sentences in his own language. A few words were becoming familiar. Probably the swear words.
Shortly afterwards, Jennifer stormed towards the Captain’s wagon, a pleading Tomas following her, trying to placate the irate wife of Willem Bethon.
“He’s consorting with whores? My father will kill him. I’ll kill him! You keep your hands off me or I’ll have them removed along with your head. How dare he?” Anna ranted. Sy did a marvellous job of acting like the family retainer who genuinely feared for his life if he didn’t do what his mistress wanted, but equally feared her wrath if she discovered her husband enjoying another woman. The guards pointed and laughed, but none stood in their way. There was no love for the Captain and no end of willingness for his pleasure to be interrupted.
Anna left Sy outside to guard the door and burst into the cabin, her tirade still at full volume. She took the scene in with one glance. The Captain was languishing on his daybed, enjoying the floor show, his aura blood red with lust. Spider sat to his right, a fixed grin on his face, his aura swirling wildly with outrage and frustration at his inability to intervene. Two of the Captain’s trusted Lieutenants were ripping at the filthy rags the two women tried to cover themselves with. The men laughed, knocking away the women’s hands, groping their breasts, fiercely pulling their hair to control them. Their auras mirrored their Captain’s. They would rape these women then toss them back in the cage with the convicted rapists. The irony was lost on them.
“What do you think you are doing with these whores?” Jennifer spat at her husband. “I’ll have this marriage annulled in a heartbeat once we get to Tullen!” She swung round to face the Captain. “And what do you think you’re laughing about? My father is a very good friend of General Strathden. One word from me and you’ll be cleaning out latrines for the rest of your miserable life. And as for you two, you’ll be facing a court martial and execution if you don’t let those women go right this moment!” The four men stood with mouths agape, momentarily taken unawares. Anna knew reason would kick in within a few moments. The Captain would recall that there was no General Strathden and the guards would realise that she was just another woman and a tiny one at that.
Before they could react, she grabbed hold of their auras and pushed, knocking all but Spider out cold.
“Anna! How the hell are we supposed to get away now?” he whispered urgently.
“Argue with me. Loudly.”
While Willem yelled at his upstart of a wife, Anna went to the Captain and carefully inspected his aura. She traced the lust back to its origin and blocked it. He would never feel the urge to lie with a woman, willing or unwilling, again. Next came his lack of empathy. She knew where this should be centred – it was the source of her mother’s Healing. The Captain’s was almost non-existent. She knocked down the barrier he’d built up over the years and opened it up wide. Finally, she recalled where the Captain’s aura had briefly shone when he’d regaled Spider and her with an old story of his first command. It was possibly his one and only brush with true leadership. Anna channelled energy into this tiny nugget, allowing it to flourish.
She sent a verbal barrage of wifely anger towards Spider and threw a couple of bowls across the room. He ducked as shards went flying through the air. “Sorry!” she mouthed. He did a brilliant impersonation of the Captain’s belly laugh and then launched into a loud, long-winded, spousal apology, giving her time to get back to work.
She moved across to the men and women collapsed in the middle of the space. Like the Captain, she blocked the men’s lust and opened their empathy. Anything else would be guesswork so she left well alone. Finally, she eased everyone’s memories. They would have no recollection of what had just happened here.
“We don’t have long. I gave them the gentlest of pushes,” she told Spider.
They left arm in arm, Jennifer’s head resting on Willem’s shoulder. Tomas gave an exaggerated sigh of relief and walked behind them.
“The Captain is to be undisturbed until further notice,” Willem told a nearby guard as they passed. The man smirked at the apparently browbeaten husband but nodded his acceptance of his leader’s command.
There was tangible apprehension in their small camp as they waited. Sy quietly packed up bags and made the horses ready for a quick flight. Spider fretted about how to get the prisoner out of the chest without alerting the guard. Anna was resigned to what might follow, but calmly optimistic. Blocking Sy’s sense of smell had worked. There was no reason to believe that the Shaping of the Captain and his men wouldn’t also take. She was confident she’d worked on the correct areas. The memories, however, she was less sure of.
The inhabitants of the Captain’s den awoke within twenty minutes. The first sign that all was well was the two women
being led back to their cage unmolested. The second sign was the almighty row that broke out when the newly empathetic officers saw the state of the privies and the prisoners. They rounded up the nearest four guards and had them immediately arrange for each cage to be emptied in turn and the prisoners guarded while everything was scrubbed clean. The Captain made an appearance while the guards argued against their orders. He made the loudest complainants take the first shift at scrubbing.
Anna smiled. Things were going to be a bit different around here.
CHAPTER 10
I t was as if they had been magically moved to another world when they awoke in the morning. Food and blankets had been issued to the prisoners, canopies had been hung around clean privies and the wagons’ floors were spotless. Even the horses had been groomed to within an inch of their lives. The guards might have been grumbling, but Anna detected a hint of pride and relief in many an aura. The Captain was walking around the camp, talking to his men, taking a greater interest in operations than he’d done in many a year. No one seemed to be making a link between the matrimonial row and the change in senior personnel. They were too busy doing their jobs properly.
It started to rain as the caravan set off. Spider looked unhappy. “Something’s wrong,” he told the others. “Something’s going to happen.”
Within an hour, the road had turned to mud and the wagons were getting mired. Everyone was soaked through. The Captain ordered a stop, the wagons circled and the horses corralled by the western cliff face. Guards were posted on the open side of camp, facing the forest that edged the eastern side of the mountain pass.
The King’s horses were skittish, snorting and blowing, their eyes wide. Even Blue, Estrell and Rojoch looked uneasy. The rain grew heavier. The light faded. Black clouds amassed overhead and day turned to night. A flash of lightning revealed guards with weapons drawn, their backs to the wagons, their faces taut with expectation. This was no ordinary storm.
The next flash of lightning revealed the enemy. A group of outlaws who outnumbered the King’s troop by at least three to one ran full tilt from the forest, their weapons raised. They screamed over the thunder as they charged, but the Captain and his men stood firm. A third of the outlaws fell as soon as they were within arm’s length. Then metal clanged on metal and men shrieked as blades struck home and the ground drank blood with the pounding rainwater. The storm confused the senses, dampening sounds, sights and smells into a surreal, terrifying nightmare.
The second wave of outlaws arrived before the first had been cut down. Two guards lay dead. The line expanded to cover the gap, but the outlaws began to break through.
“If they free the prisoners, the guards will be overwhelmed,” Sy shouted to Anna.
“I’ll deal with it. Get Kai.”
The Shaper ran for the carts and slid underneath the nearest, joining two of the drivers and the water carriers. She could make out the white, scared faces of the other drivers from beneath the second cart. The hiding men and children made way for the scared bride and she wriggled over by a back wheel where she could see the centre of the caravan’s circle and all four cages.
The next flash of lightning showed four attackers hacking at the cage locks. A knife had been passed inside one cage and a prisoner worked at the lock from the back. Anna knocked out the five and looked for the next. She could make out more men coming into the circle from the right, but the light faded before she could get a grip on their auras. There was no point in crawling through this quagmire though: she wouldn’t be able to cover the ground quickly enough. She waited impatiently for more light, her stomach churning with fear.
Thunder pealed overhead like an angry God roaring directly into their ears. Moments later, an enormous double flash of lightning revealed more men through the guards’ line and the prisoners trying to break free. Anna pushed at every aura she could see where they shouldn’t be and bodies dropped like stones.
She didn’t dare think about what she might see with the next pungent strike of lightning. What would be would be. All she could do was focus on her own task and hope that her friends were safe.
Spider and Sy had split up, Spider heading for Blue while Sy made for the Captain’s wagon. It was slow going. The darkness hid their intent from the guards but made it near impossible to see where to step or whether men they met were friend or foe. They waited for each burst of lightning to correct their route and avoid potential witnesses. They left three silenced, non-uniformed bodies behind them.
Blue was as gallant as ever. He came immediately Spider whistled for him and calmly picked a safe path behind the cages to his imprisoned master. Sy was untangling the chains when they arrived. A single blow from his axe had parted the links. The two opened the chest and pulled the semi-conscious prisoner out, lifting him onto Blue. He could barely hold the reins.
“Go downhill. There’s a copse on the right about ten miles away. Look for a huge, red-leaved tree. Wait there,” Spider shouted into his ear. “Blue, take him where we stopped for water yesterday. Yesterday. Water.” He didn’t know how much the horse might understand, but hopefully between the two they would make it.
The partners headed back to join the guards in their defence of the camp, certain that the pitch black and confusion of battle would have covered the rescue. Before they’d gone even a few yards, they were engaged with the enemy, Sy’s axe whirring around his head and body to take out anyone who came near, Spider’s blades moving as if possessed.
A flash of lightning revealed the Captain in trouble. Spider ran to the man’s aid, his sword almost decapitating the outlaw about to stab the King’s guard in the back. They fought side by side, the Captain screaming directions to the guards.
It seemed an age before the cry of “All clear!” went up around the camp. The sky had finally lightened and the rain eased. Sy and Spider wearily sheathed their weapons and went in search of Anna. They discovered her still under the cart. She stayed in character, not climbing out of the mud until she recognised Sy’s big arms reaching in to pull her out. As she cleared the cart, her eyes anxiously searched for Spider. She sagged with relief when she saw him standing right behind Sy.
He caught her in a tight hug, whispering, “Keep it up. The Captain is watching.”
Anna hadn’t been acting but continued to make like a terrified girl and cling to her brave husband who she could see had taken only minor injuries. Sy was sporting a gash on his inner shoulder. Someone had got too close for comfort.
She looked around the carnage of the camp, seeing bodies everywhere. There were fourteen lying unconscious near the cages and approximately forty more dead including five guards, their auras long gone. The surviving guards all sported injuries; four of which were life-threatening. These four had been lain on a makeshift bed in the second cart. She nudged Spider in their direction and spoke quietly to each man, thanking them for their service. Each time, she eased the black stains towards grey, directing the energy into the crystal around her neck. There would be no miracles, but none would die.
The Captain approached just as Anna was finishing the last Healing. As she turned to greet him, she caught a glimpse of a dark-haired man standing on the edge of the forest. He was staring right at her; staring at her as if he knew what she’d done, what she was. The darkest of the forest shadows seemed to ooze into his aura. It roiled with black clouds: hatred and anger pouring from his soul, straight at her. Then, all of a sudden, he was gone. Anna blinked. Had she imagined him? She shivered at the extent of the malice the man exuded. She doubted her imagination could run to such twisted evil.
She caught the word ‘spy’ in the Captain’s dialogue and tuned back in, the dark man forgotten for the moment. “… transporting him to Tullen. He’s gone. The attack must have been a distraction.”
“I’m sorry, Willem, but this is too much for me. I want to go home. Please? Take me home?” Anna pressed her face into Spider’s chest and wept. There was no need for pretence; her heart overran with sorrow at the lo
ss of life the storm had brought.
The Captain left Willem to console his distraught bride. Anna heard him order the unconscious men added to the cages. They would be tried in Tullen. She heard him ask his Lieutenants how the men came to be knocked out and rumours of black magic begin to circulate among the prisoners. She raised her head to check for worried glances coming her way. There were none.
Her eye was drawn to the aura of a man being thrown into a cage. She had a strange sense of déjà vu. She’d seen it before. She scanned the other unconscious men awaiting dispatch to their temporary metal homes: several of the auras were familiar. She realised that these were men who she’d Shaped before, outlaws they’d encountered before Sienna.
“We need to get out of here before anyone wakes up,” she whispered urgently to Spider.
“Tomas, take your mistress to the horses. We’re leaving,” he said in a firm voice. He strode over to the Captain. “My thanks for your hospitality, but I’m afraid my wife is adamant that she wishes to go home. There is no persuading her that the better option is to stick with your good self. She is quite overwrought and I fear for her health if we continue on.” In an undertone, Anna heard him add, “And her father will cut me off if she tells him I went against her wishes.”
The Captain was effusive in his thanks to Willem for his assistance and extremely apologetic for the loss of their spare mount. His apology to Jennifer for the danger she’d experienced was sincere and respectful. The difference between the Captain of a day ago and the Captain of today was nothing short of miraculous. Anna realised that her Shaping of this man’s personality was precisely the sort of thing that had resulted in the persecution of Shapers, but she couldn’t be sorry. This new man was someone who would do good in the world.
The friends made their way back along the trail in silence. Water ran down the slope, but the sky was clear blue and the sun shone brightly. The air didn’t seem right either, lacking that freshness a storm usually generated.
