by L. Danvers
He rolled the compass along his meaty fingers, a crease forming on his brow as he saw which way the arrow pointed. He grunted and flipped it shut, then he stuffed it in the satchel draped across his torso.
Daphne fumed.
That was the one thing that could lead her to Phillip, and she wasn’t about to give up without a fight.
“Give that back,” she asserted. She sounded confident in her words, but she was trembling, and she prayed he couldn’t see that as he stomped toward her.
She slid her hand to her side, securing it around the ruby-encrusted grip of Light of Vengeance.
She felt like a child as she stood there in his shadow, face to face with his protruding gut.
His rough, fleshy fingers stroked her cheek. He grabbed her chin and lifted it so she was looking him straight in the eye.
She spat at him before jerking away.
“Please,” Lillian begged. “Her father is very rich—rich beyond your wildest imagination. Let us go, and we will see to it that you are handsomely rewarded.”
Lillian, what are you doing?
“It isn’t up to me,” he said, his lips curving up into a snarl. He clenched his meaty hands into fists, and before Daphne had time to register the thud against her skull, everything went black.
OVER THE POUNDING OF her head and ringing in her ears, Daphne recognized that same gruff voice. “I have something I think you’d like to see, Gregory.”
Her head was resting against something, though she didn’t know what.
Everything was hazy when she opened her eyes, and she waited for the room to stop spinning. When it finally did, she realized they were in a tent at the bandit’s camp.
Her heart raced.
She wanted to flee, but she was afraid to move. Moving wouldn’t do any good anyway. Her wrists were tied together.
The two men, their captor and whoever this Gregory was, stood a few feet away, and she didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that she was awake. Plus, she wasn’t about to leave Lillian, who was tied up beside her.
“Borin,” Gregory said in a raspy voice, “these are just girls.” He turned his head toward where Daphne and Lillian sat, and the princess squeezed her eyes shut. She heard footsteps creep toward her as the boys’ voices grew louder.
“Rich girls,” Borin said. “Told me themselves. This is everything they had on ‘em.”
Their footsteps trailed in the opposite direction, and Daphne heard her belongings being dumped out onto the table. She opened her eyes again, watching as Gregory examined her sword. “Feisty little things aren’t they? Let’s see what else we have here.” He picked up the compass and rubbed his fingers along the eye etched on the lid. He flipped it open and drew his eyebrows together. “Huh.”
“What is it?” Borin asked.
Gregory paced back and forth, his stormy blue eyes focused intently on the arrow. “It’s rubbish.”
“Rubbish?”
“It’s not even pointing north. It appears to be following me.”
He gave it a couple knocks against the wooden table, and the glass shattered.
Daphne bit her lip to keep from screaming.
That fool had just destroyed the one connection she had to Phillip.
How would she ever find her brother now?
He tossed the broken compass into a pile of trinkets. She could only assume they had stolen them. He planted his hands on his hips. “That’s enough of that. So, Borin, you managed to catch two girls, but no food.”
Borin dropped his head. His mud-tipped beard brushed against his thighs.
“Now, I may be an outlaw,” Gregory continued, “but I haven’t resorted to cannibalism just yet. So, for the last time, leave and don’t come back until you’ve caught a boar. Got it?”
“Yes, Gregory,” Borin said, the fabric tent door flapping behind him as he left.
Daphne wasn’t sure what to do. She wondered if she should confront this Gregory character, or if she should wait for Lillian to wake up.
Perhaps Gregory would leave the tent at some point, and she and Lillian could come up with a plan...
She wondered whether it was better to make a move sooner than later or wait until morning when they were well rested and would have the energy to fight.
They weren’t in immediate danger, at least.
If the outlaws intended to hurt them, they would have done so by now.
Her thoughts were interrupted by roars of laughter and foul swearing coming from just outside the tent. There had to be ten or more men out there, though their voices were all so gravely it was hard to distinguish them from one another.
Every once in a while, she could make out the crackling of a campfire.
She turned her attention back to Gregory, who was filling a tankard with bitter-smelling ale. He pressed his pillowy lips to the rim and sipped, then he leaned his back against his chair as if savoring the taste.
His eyes widened at the flapping of the tent door, and then they relaxed again upon seeing two young men enter. They didn’t look much older than Daphne. One was tall and lanky with dimpled cheeks, and the other was short with messy brown hair and a mischievous expression on his face.
“Go ahead, Merek,” he said to the lanky one, waving him over. “You, too, Thomas. Pour yourselves a drink and join me, will you?”
They obliged and sat on either side of the leader of the group of outlaws.
Thomas gripped his fingers around the edge of the table, and he leaned back in his seat as he craned his neck to get a look at the captured girls.
Daphne pressed her lids together so that her eyes were just slits, barely able to make out the boys’ silhouettes through her thick lashes.
“What are you going to do with ‘em?” Thomas asked.
“I say we keep them,” the lanky one said with a silly grin. “We could use some girls around here.”
The lanky one didn’t fit in with the other outlaws. There was a goofy innocence about him, and Daphne wondered how he ended up with such an unsavory lot.
“What we could use,” Gregory said, “is the money.”
The three of them gulped down their ale and slammed their tankards against the table simultaneously.
Thomas reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife. He traced the edge of the blade with his fingertip, then he flipped it and stabbed it into the tabletop. “Money,” he huffed. “We’ve done alright without it so far, haven’t we? We just take what we need.”
“But with money,” Gregory said, “you can have more than just what you need. You can have what you want. Anything at all.”
Daphne lost track of how many cups of ale they drank, but it wasn’t long before their words began slurring together. They found whatever it was they were saying to one another—she could no longer decipher their nonsense—hilarious, as evidenced by their drunken laughter. They hiccupped and belched and laughed some more.
There was movement out of the corner of her eye, and Daphne turned and saw Lillian pressing her fingers to her head. Pale and disoriented, she lifted her gaze to Daphne.
The princess mouthed Shhh and gave a slight nod in the direction of the three young outlaws.
Lillian’s face sunk, and she went still.
By now, the messy-haired Thomas was slumped over on the table snoring, while Gregory and Merek waved their arms in the air and sang an off-key tavern song.
Thieves we are who plot and steal. Anything to get a warm meal.
Villages we'll plow and maidens we'll kiss. That's one thing of the old life we miss.
Gregory and Merek clinked their tankards together, sending ale sloshing to the floor, and they carried on singing out of tune.
Thieves are we who never fail. Oh, what we'll do for a sip of ale.
Shops ransacked and homes destroyed. All should fear the outlaw boys.
Daphne couldn’t take it anymore.
Against all better judgment, she stood to her feet—an awkward sight, being as her wrists were tied.
She shook her head, wild wisps of chestnut hair escaping from the tight braids, until the hood of her cloak fell off. The princess wiped the side of her face, still covered with mud, with her shoulder.
Meanwhile, Lillian stood there beside her, trying to look brave.
Daphne cleared her throat. Ahem.
The young men’s faces turned scarlet upon realizing the girls had heard their little song, as if they were wondering how long the girls had been listening to their drunken performance.
They sat there with wide eyes glossy from intoxication.
Daphne wanted to say something clever.
Something unexpected.
Something that would knock these vagrants right off their seats.
But all that came out was a pitiful, “We’ll be on our way now,” which was a rather stupid thing to say.
They jumped up and closed in on her and Lillian.
“So I was right,” Gregory said with a cocked eyebrow, those stormy eyes of his staring intently into hers. “You are feisty.”
“I will not stand here and be insulted by lawless men.”
“Lawless? And what laws do you suggest I uphold? The one that decrees the hand be cut off of a beggar who, out of desperation, steals a bite of food? Or the one that says those suspected of possessing magical powers be tied and thrown underwater, with death being the only way their innocence is proven?” Gregory spat on the ground. “The king can shove those laws right—”
“How dare you speak of her fa—her, um...” Lillian said.
“Her what?”
Lillian and Daphne exchanged uneasy glances. Why had she let that slip? Daphne felt as if she herself had been submerged underwater, fighting for a breath of air. Gregory took another step toward them, and Daphne could smell the bitterness of the ale on his breath. His gaze lingered on her, and she could feel him taking every inch of her in until he finally grabbed her hand. Her breath caught as he twisted it around, revealing the royal seal etched on her ring.
His face was overcome with intrigue. “Looks like we caught ourselves a princess, Merek.” His attention shifted to Lillian. “And who is this? Your sister, I suppose?”
“Her maidservant,” her voice cracked.
“Her maidservant?” He laughed. “Oh, this is too much.”
Daphne wasn’t about to let him laugh at Lillian’s expense.
She raised her arms to cross them, but she remembered her wrists were still tied, so she whipped them back down in frustration. “That maidservant happens to be my most loyal friend.”
He wet his lips as if he could taste all the ale he’d be able to afford when he collected a ransom from the royal treasury of Vires.
He didn’t say anything.
He just gave a wry smile.
There was no use in running. Daphne didn’t know what she was thinking by confronting them in the first place. Even if she and Lillian could untie themselves and fight off Gregory and Merek—Thomas was still snoring—there was still a group of ten or more men waiting by the campfire outside the tent. Her only option was to plead with their captor, to try to negotiate.
Trying her best not to sound defeated, she said, “Anything you want, I’ll see to it that you get. Just let us go, and I give you my word you will be rewarded.”
Merek shrugged and cocked his head toward Gregory. “Sounds like a good enough deal to me. What do you think?”
“I think...” he paused, pressing his finger to his lips. “I think we’ll get more if we hold them for ransom as planned. I imagine the king would pay handsomely to have his daughter returned unharmed.”
Knowing her father, Daphne wasn’t so sure. But she wasn’t going to get into all that.
She was about to try reasoning with him when she was caught off guard by an offensive odor.
She had never smelled such a vile thing before, and she didn’t have the words to describe how revolting it was. All she knew was that it reeked.
Borin stomped inside the tent and plopped the lifeless body of a wild boar on the ground.
“What, are you stupid?” Merek scoffed. “Not in here, Borin. Take it to the fire pit.”
Borin grunted and heaved the beast over his shoulder, leaving a small pool of blood in the grass where it had been.
“We’ll finish this later,” Gregory said. “Now, we eat. Merek, wake up Thomas. How did he sleep through all that, anyway?”
Merek shrugged. “He can sleep through anything.”
Gregory shifted his focus back to the girls. “Hold out your hands.” Daphne drew them in closer to her body, afraid of what he was going to do with them. “Give me your hands. I’m going to cut you out of that rope. Borin’s knots are impossible to untie.”
“You’re letting us go?” she asked.
“I didn’t say that. I said I was untying you. You are a princess, after all. And something tells me you’re clever enough to know not to run.”
Daphne rubbed her raw, blistering wrists while she waited for him to cut Lillian free.
Lillian winced as he sliced through the rope, but was relieved to find her hands were still attached to her arms when he finished. She had always been squeamish.
The girls followed Gregory to the campfire.
The chants and curses from the men turned to muffled whispers. The whites of their eyes shone through the night, their shadowy faces illuminated by the dancing flames.
It was as if they’d never seen women before.
Daphne had never been so uncomfortable in her life.
She followed Gregory to a log situated near the fire.
“Sit,” he said. She and Lillian did as they were told.
For the first time since being captured, Daphne felt the tension within her release. Not because she felt any safer—in fact, the dropped jaws of the men surrounding them were more than unsettling—but because the warmth of the fire was so soothing.
She rubbed her hands together, watching the crackling flames. Gregory used a long stick to poke around at the glowing embers while Borin prepared the boar for roasting.
Lillian, who sat beside her, folded her arms and let out a sigh. Daphne turned to her. Between her disheveled hair and mud-stained flesh, Lillian looked like she’d aged a good ten years. Fighting back tears, the maidservant said, “I’m sorry, my princess. This is all my fault.”
“You do not need to apologize for defending your king.” Daphne took Lillian’s chilled hand in hers. “I am sure Father will pay them whatever ransom they ask.”
Daphne could tell by the look in her eyes that Lillian wasn’t convinced of that, either.
She expected Lillian to argue, but instead, she just looked at her with those big doe eyes of hers and said, “But what about Prince Phillip?”
Daphne had been so caught up worrying about their wellbeing that she’d forgotten about that of her brother. There was no way she and Lillian could slip out of the camp unnoticed. There were far too many eyes on them, watching their every move.
Daphne propped her elbow on her knee and rubbed her temple while going over their options. She and Lillian did manage to sneak out of the castle once before. Perhaps, once returned there, they could sneak out again—going around the silver forest next time, of course. They’d lose time, but what else were they to do? Sit around and wait for news of Phillip’s death? No, they needed to stick to the plan and rescue him. She wasn’t about to let a little delay stop them. She just hoped they wouldn’t be too late.
There was a sizzle as droplets of blood trickled down from the carved meat and into the flames. Merek, still a little drunk himself, stumbled over to where the girls sat, ale sloshing from the two tankards he carried. As intoxicated as he was, Daphne assumed they were both for him. But he surprised her by handing the cups to them and, with a goofy grin, telling them to drink.
This wasn’t an ordinary way to treat captives. Daphne wondered if they were being careful to treat her well so as not to suffer a harsh fate from King Edgar’s wrath when she returned
home. Or maybe they were too drunk to even know what they were doing.
Either way, being that their mouths were dry as sand, Daphne and Lillian were glad to accept the drinks. Daphne had never been a fan of ale, but she savored every bitter sip, enjoying once again being able to swallow with ease.
She watched in amazement as the outlaws practically devoured the meat the second it finished roasting. She wondered whether they hadn’t eaten a proper meal in a long time, or if this was how they ate every night.
“Here,” Gregory said, emerging from the group huddled around the fire. He handed them a wooden bowl filled with scraps of meat. Daphne was hesitant to eat it, remembering the revolting smell of the animal from inside the tent. And by the scrunching of Lillian’s nose, Daphne could see she was unsure, too. But they were starving, and it was food.
So, they picked up the scrapings and bit into the lean meat.
The flavor took her by surprise. It was less gamey than she had expected, though it had a musky aftertaste that lingered too long for her liking.
She wiped her lips with the back of her sleeve and rubbed her fingers against her thighs in attempt to get the juices off.
Gregory remained towering over them.
“When do you intend to send word to the castle?” Daphne asked.
A flame jumped behind him, the fire sizzling as it consumed more drippings. His stormy eyes flashed like lightning. “I’ll send one of my men in the morning.”
Merek came stumbling behind him and offered them more ale.
The girls accepted, and they drank until they felt woozy.
Chapter Five
There was a flash. Daphne’s eyes popped open. She jumped at the thunderous clap that followed. Her knuckles turned white from clutching the blanket so tight. Rain pounded against the tent. She looked up, expecting the roof to collapse any moment.
At the next flash, she saw Lillian was awake, too. But they were blanketed in darkness once again.
Another flash. Gregory’s drenched head popped through the tent door. “Are you alright?”
Daphne was terrified, but she wasn’t about to let him know that. “Why wouldn’t we be?”