“Leave us,” the leader of the Chief’s dirty dealers grunted out at them. Adelric turned, allowing me a sideways glance of his lemmings.
“Don’ ya need any help?” The more confused Bainan became, the thicker his funny accent grew.
“If he did, would he be dismissin’ us?” Another smack sounded. Yhem made an unhappy noise in his throat. Lower, he admitted, “Ain’t fittin’. Rather not be party to it meself.”
“Would ye quit hittin’ me?!!”
As if the dark blond beastman hadn’t spoken, Yhem cleared his throat. “Can’t be thinking to have us leave you out here, though,” his hand swung towards me, “with that she-beast and yourself all alone out here.”
A huff puffed out of me. “You’d think you all feared I’d slit your throats in your sleep!”
Bainan, eyes widening, slapped his hand to his throat. Eyes so wide they bulged, ocean blue peepers slid from Yhem to Adelric. “Hear that,” he mumble-whispered, “witch means to murder us in our sleep.”
Yhem, instantly frowning, snorted. His hand lifted and he whacked the smaller male standing next to him on the back yet again, sending him flying head first into the muck miring the landscape. “I merely slapped you, weakling. If I mean to damage you, you’ll know.” A thick finger pointed at his back. “That was hitting, mongrel.”
Bainan made a curdling sound, lifting his face from the mud pit it had slapped into to raise his fist at Yhem. Bubbles formed on his nostrils, the mud caked on drying fast as steam billowed from his thick nose.
“Should’ve hit him harder,” I muttered on a sigh.
Adelric bounced me on his shoulder, the solid slab of muscle beneath me ramming my gut as I popped up to flop right back into place. He was awfully bony for such a... stout being.
“Umph.” Two bulbous, wet orbs for eyeballs practically protruding from my skull, watering profusely, mouth popping open in a silent exclamation, I clacked my clap trap shut as fast as it’d fallen open at the grunt he let loose.
His warning grunt was enough. Shut it or I’ll do it again. Harder, it said.
Yes. Once was good enough for me.
“Take Bainan with you, wait by the grove,” the Enforcer instructed.
Yhem’s lips formed a thin line, thick biceps bunching as he tensed. Yak-man wasn’t happy with the deviation from their chief’s plan. “She is wily.”
“Are you implying I can’t handle a tiny, wingless pixie?” Adelric’s chest started to rumble.
“Ekodar will not be pleased to know you are taking such risks. The order was-”
“How is he to know, Yhem?” Menace laced the dark Tauran’s tone. “Who,” his hand lifted to gesture at the male to our left, “is to tell him? You? Bainan?”
Mud flew everywhere as Bainan’s head began to shake vehemently. “Ont hum hme,” he got out between closed mouthed mumbles.
“What of you?” Adelric was all grumbling rumbles. “Do you doubt my ability to lead?”
Yhem’s teeth clacked noisily. “You know I do not.”
Thick hooves stomped the ground, flinging mud. “Then it is your trust I’ve lost?” the golden-eyed beast asked of whom I assumed was his second.
A long moment passed, a challenge between males.
Yhem made a displeased noise that started in his chest, rumbling up his throat and straight through his nose. “Do not insult me.”
“If she’s feral enough to escape me,” Adelric jerked his massive head at his comrade, “it will be I and no other that takes the blame.”
“As you wish,” the large, soft grey colored male said at last.
Adelric spun, giving them his back, stomping farther towards the center of those switch trees.
I watched from my precarious perch as Yhem grabbed Bainan by the back of his neck, hauling him up, and went to turn, doing as his leader had so wished. Yhem’s eyes met mine then, swirling with liquid silver and deep mustard yellow. There was nothing but pity in his gaze, and was that... regret?
Unable to hold his gaze more than a moment, I looked to the dark blond covered in mud.
Bainan swiped his eyes, peering at me from a mud-soaked face. Staring after Adelric with me in tow, he grimaced. As if he could feel my eyes on him, his chin dipped, masking his expression. The male refused to look at me.
It took them but only a moment to disappear between purple, black, and green, leafy foliage, leaving me feeling all alone with their imposing head guardsman.
“What are you to do with me?” I dared to ask.
About to set me down, dipping to drop me to my feet, Adelric paused. “You will not run. There is no running anymore for you. Understand? It is not I who is to be doing, these are orders. Tis Ekodar’s. The only thing left for you, should you refuse, will likely be death. The Chief is... not himself of late. I would suggest you not test this theory.”
Dread filled my gut like river stones. “Yet you fulfill them, these orders. Your hands are as filthy as his in this.”
No response.
Biting my lip, I swallowed hard. “Why would I wish to run?” I was surprised I almost sounded convincing.
His snort belied that. “Don’t play stupid.”
“Then what is to become of me?” My voice was low, so as not to alert the others. I didn’t want a greater audience than this. This felt intimate, secluded. I got the impression he was doing me a favor by dismissing his men.
He was stalling, it felt like. That was alright. The longer he took, the greater the chance I had of finding something to bludgeon his fat head with. “Adelric?”
Taking a deep breath, he informed me woodenly, “As my chief bids.”
Shit. “Uhm...” Distract him, Riadne! “And that would be?”
Silence again.
“Ah... Did you think about my offer?” Face pinkening, the words had burbled out of me in a blurt.
The Chief’s guardsman grunted, glancing from tree to tall, willowy tree as if trying to decide something. “Do not try to run,” molten gold eyes found mine, “it will only prolong the inevitable and make it worse.”
“Heh. Heh. That’s not an answer.” The second I was steady on my feet I took a step back, leaves and mud squishing between my toes.
“I’d partaken of cider last eve. Your question? Offer?” He shrugged, feigning ignorance. “I can’t recall.”
A lie. A blatant lie.
Pointing to my bare feet, his heavy brow lifted. “You are preparing to flee. Understand, Riadne, there will be no getting out of this.” His voice hardened as if he was actually upset with me, as if I’d had a hand in this taming business.
Another step back. My hands lifted in a placating gesture. “You could always say no.”
His boxy head shook, his horns brushing a few low lying branches. He was a large being, so very large, even if he was shorter than quite a few of the others.
“Kvigor should never have brought you here.” He made no bones about laying it all out there for me, no sparing my feelings or softening the truth of it to ease the sting. “Tavros, Feagmunt, it isn’t the place for your kind. Hasn’t been for many years.”
“He hadn’t meant to take me here at all,” I blurted in a rush. “Not-” And there I went, even now, making excuses for him!
When I suddenly clammed up, lips slamming shut, Adelric made a sound of disgust. His hand lifted and he encompassed the forest around us. “And where would he have taken you? Is that what he told you? Would that have been the way of it? Think he we wouldn’t find him? Foolish... Stupid... He has led you on, little one, whether by design or unintentionally by some... fit, flight of fancy, what have you. I say it again, he never should have brought you here.”
Spotting a branch his horns had knocked loose, I slid closer to it while he ranted. The beastman paused when my hands lifted. Pretending to be compliant, I wiggled my fingers, palms out, at his wary look.
With a huffing chuff, he snapped, “Wingless, you can’t honestly- Let us not waste our breaths. Come. Time passes. My men wi
ll grow wary.”
Lifting a length of rope up, his big head dipping, gesturing me forward, he made an impatient noise in his throat. I took one step, two, wondering if he truly believed me to be this stupid. My hands swung to my sides and I turned. Gripping the branch in both hands, I lifted it and swung, raising it back up to bring it down. It all happened in a split second, even if it felt like it happened in slow motion for me.
I’d have to say what shocked me the most was his eyes lifting towards the forest in the direction Yhem and Bainan had taken their leave. That first swing had struck him over the top of his head, his wild-eyed, nostrils steaming, baleful glare, all Minotaur, but he’d yet to call out, shouting for his men. A hiss, muffled through clenched teeth, was the only sound he made. My second swing went undefended.
Clenching the rope in his hands, it was as if he was allowing me to attack him, freely. This went on until with a wild yell I brought the heavy branch swiping across his manhood, the whip-like branches slicing across his thighs.
Tossing my weapon as he grabbed it, yanking it from my grasp with a clack-toothed snap and a wrench of those massive arms, I took off.
“Ric?” Yhem called. “Has she run? I hear noises.”
I wasn’t two feet before the dark bull shot my legs right out from under me, scooping me up to cover my mouth with his thick, mud encrusted hand.
“Check the perimeter for drodges. They should be out about now. Probably a pair tangling. Should be easy pickings,” Adelric called back.
Yhem chuckled. “Vachel need a new shawl or mittens? You spoil her.”
Adelric glanced down at me, putting a finger to his lips.
Yhem’s quiet hum, a strange noise he’d started to make, slowly faded.
“Not a word,” the dark-furred beast growled into my ear quietly, pinning me down to tie one end of the rope around my left wrist.
Cheek pressed into the ground, throbbing, a bruise was sure to form. I couldn’t tell if I was lucky or not, having smacked into a patch of dry, compact dirt.
Allowing the scratchy, thick rope to dangle by my side, his hand fisted in my braid, where he yanked me to my feet.
My legs kicked as I cried out, but they swung at nothing. My weight was no issue for him, allowing him to drag me towards a rather robust switch-tree. “Nearly cut my dick off,” he snarled at my back. “I’m going to move my hand. If you speak, it’ll be the last thing you do.”
In response, my teeth sank into his palm.
Contradicting himself, he grabbed the hem of my gown, to which I screamed as it lifted, assuming the worst, flailing as my lower half was exposed to the cool air. Ignoring my squealing shrieks, lifting the hem to his mouth, he tore off a length, then proceeded to gag me.
Gag in place, he wrapped my braid around the tree truck, tying the sizable length in a knot, securing my head in place, leaving me a few inches to lift my face. My hands were next, the rope at my wrist coming into play, and once those were secured, tied behind me, he wrapped the rest of the itchy length around my middle.
He was just stepping back, going to his pack to pick it up, when Yhem grew impatient, popping into view. “Surely it does not take this long to tie a defenseless creature to a tree.” For the first time I thought I detected a note of condemnation in the tall male’s voice.
“She is small,” Adelric told him, hiding his hand behind his pack, “had to make sure she couldn’t slip free.”
Yhem’s brow lowered, lips dragging down, his gaze going from his leader to me. “If you are done now, I have things to be doing.”
“Where is Bainan?” his leader queried.
Yhem shrugged his massive shoulders. “In search of drodges, as you instructed.”
As if summoned, the dark blond came stumbling onto the scene. “Thought I heard one,” he shook his shaggy head, “but maybe not, I-” The younger male froze upon spying me. Head cocking to the side, he gestured at my ‘punishment’. “Forgetting something?”
“No,” Adelric replied lazily, something akin to a challenge in his eyes.
“It will be cold this night,” Yhem grumbled churlishly. “Wingless are not made for the elements.”
“But that is not the way of it,” Bainan argued.
“Why must we always do everything Ekodar’s way?!” Yhem burst out. He took a menacing step towards Bainan. “Why can there never be any kind of exception? When did we start punishing our females?”
Bainan blinked. “She is not one of our females, Yhemeshen. She is a wingless.”
Yhem gave Adelric and Bainan dirty looks. “The youth does not remember our chiefs before,” he tapped his chest, “the truth of the old ways, tradition, but I do.” With a snarl the giant of a man-beast turned and stomped off, leaving Bainan staring after him.
Bainan rolled his eyes as if he thought nothing more of Yhem and his sudden outburst than a moody older male. Lifting a round, furry fruit to his lips I had no clue how he’d gotten it or what it was, he took a huge bite, muttering around a mouthful, “Ekodar says tradition is everything. What is to become of us, should we leave the past behind us? Yhem is old, forgetful.” A thick finger pointed at me but he winced. “Examples are to be made. Ekodar said so.”
Ekodar this and Ekodar that.
Uhm, out with the old, in with the new, I thought desperately, fighting my gag. Trying to jerk forward, a shriek ripped from my throat as the tree’s trunk swayed, sending its limbs swinging back to come slapping forward. A thousand tiny stings burned my flesh, whipping across my thighs and forearm.
A shocked gasp had me fighting my gag harder, shaking my head.
“And why is there a bit of cloth in her mouth? Is that not part of the leeching? If she is too loud and attracts larger predators, the All-father’s will be done.”
“Bainan...” Adelric’s eyes were ablaze, hand fisting his pack. He looked like he wanted nothing more than to bloody the younger male but held back.
No! Beat him! Then untie me!
“Phease!” I cried out. Understanding fully dawning on me, I was not above begging. They meant to leave me here, at least overnight, maybe longer, a fact that seemed to make Yhem uncomfortable. “Adewick! Hon’t eave fee!”
Dull, amber eyes, a brassier, deeper, more bronze-like tint filling them than I could recall, drifted towards me slowly.
“Peez! Peeeez!” I begged, sobbing out the muffled words. Yet another branch slapped at me when I wriggled too much, setting it off, and I flinched. Thick welts were already raising along my exposed flesh.
Any time I moved too much the trunk would sway and, thwack, another series of stinging smacks.
Why?! Why this?! And for what?! I wanted to scream. Disobedience? Defiance? Why did they not demand Kvigor take me back were he’d gotten me from? Spare me this misery! Why was he not punished, then, for bringing a wingless back with him?! Why was that sad excuse for a male not strung up alongside me?!
Oh, that’s right, because he was the prince chief thing, and by default more important than the stupid, unholy terror of a human!
“Come,” Adelric ordered, meaning to leave me out here like this.
Bainan hesitated, pointing. “The cloth in her mouth, it-”
“I will take care of it!” Adelric bellowed, then let out a roar, sending Bainan tripping backwards in his shock at the male’s sudden outburst.
Bull men roar like demon bulls from Hell, I noted offhandedly, a bit stunned myself. Maybe they were the demons depicted? Changed so we would actually be afraid of these mythical beings, as opposed to depictions of screaming, mad cows and bulls on vases and tapestries. Cattle from Hell wouldn’t have been enough to stop me from doing a thing or two as a child. Though, I’d admit, my father threatening to find a Minotaur to feed us to if we didn’t behave got me moving.
Afterlife, demons. Present, Minotaurs. Made little sense upon pondering this, and yet I still agreed with my findings.
Bainan was just staring at his leader, a safe distance away, frozen, as if he was wondering i
f the man had lost it or simply grown impatient with him.
“Yhem is waiting for you,” the glowing-eyed elder Tauran told the younger blond.
Bainan’s eyes flicked towards me for a moment and he swallowed, licking his thick lips nervously before glancing away. “Ric... Ekod-”
“Damn you and your precious chief! You’re the reason this has been wrought in the first place, running to court to repeat the silly grumblings of a girl!”
“Vachel is in the unmated females hut now.” Bainan’s eyes slid from brilliant blue to opalescent orange, frosting over as his nostrils flared. “She is hardly-”
“She is young, and lived a softer life than most bastard daughters have ever known. The pitfalls of youth are still hers. Age is but a number.” A thick finger tapped his temple. “She is young and impetuous of the mind, and you are a fool’s fool, trying to please a chief who will never take note of you, a female who will never want you. You are nothing to him. And you will never pair with my sister. I’ll see you gutted by my own hand before she could even think to accept. Best remember that when you go running off to frolic with her.”
“B-b-b-but she was right!” Bainan’s arm flung out and he spat the words angrily, gesturing towards me. “She said-”
“Is but a pawn in a game I do not wish to play. And neither should you.”
I could only watch, literally, as Bainan spout bull droppings from those pale lips of his and Adelric, to my utter surprise, grew angry.
On my behalf? In my defense? But that made no sense! Was it because the younger male dared to question him? It was in his defense. Had to be. I was starting to get the impression Adelric was more of the Chief’s playing piece than he’d like to contemplate.
What would happen then, should he have disobeyed his ruler? Would he have been strung up alongside me? Or worse?
The last straw for the golden-eyed beastman was Bainan’s nostril steaming filled huff, his eyes rolling to prove birds of young, impulsive feathers definitely flocked together, highlighting the fact the male must not value his life dearly.
“Question me again, boy...” The older male rushed the youth, steam surrounding Adelric, thick hands gripping Bainan’s neck to lift him clean off his feet.
By the Horns Page 23