Green, Sharon - Mind Guest.htm

by Mind Guest

The woodsman returned Fallan's nod as the big mercenary pulled me away

  from him, heading us both toward the door that had been pointed out. I

  struggled against Fallan's hold in the sort of lame way that had long

  since begun to be very frustrating, and got exactly as far as you would

  expect.

  "You may not do this to me!" I hissed at Fallan, seriously wondering if

  I had the patience left to just stand there and let him do as he

  pleased. "I refuse to accept this! I will not accept it!"

  "You will accept all I give and more," Fallan muttered back, not even

  looking at me. "The time has come for a true understanding between us,

  one too long in the coming. I cannot keep you safe without your

  complete cooperation, and this I will have when we return from the

  stables. I am now able to see that this should have been done much the

  sooner, as Grigon recommended."

  Grigon? What the hell did Grigon have to do with this? I glanced at

  Fallan's determined profile as I asked the question silently,

  immediately deciding that I'd ask it again aloud as soon as Fallan and

  I were alone. I couldn't see Grigon telling Fallan to beat me, even if

  the Absari agent hadn't been all that pleased with my obedience

  quotient. It didn't make any sense, not any of it, but we were only

  three steps away from the door that would open on some answers and I

  could afford to wait that long. Fallan reached the door, pulled it open

  to reveal a large, dimly lit stable that was closed tight from the

  inside, and then - "Attack!" shouted one of the mercenaries near a

  front window, peering out at the darkness and what it held. We could

  all hear the sound of swords clashing now, the thud of arrows into the

  house, the cursing of men hard-pressed. Clero's force had finally made

  it, and I couldn't have been happier. If I let them see me, I might be

  able to lure them into the woods after me-and then take care of them

  one or two at a time. They were committed to me now, and that was what

  we'd been trying to accomplish. Bellna and her King's escort would find

  nothing they couldn't handle in their way, and I was all through with

  having to stand around being helpless. I took a half step back toward

  the front door, forgetting all about Fallan which turned out to be a

  mistake.

  "That direction is not for you," he growled, pulling me off balance by

  the hold he had on my arm and pushing hard enough to send me stumbling

  through the doorway. "That is the place for you, wench, and as you

  value your life you will remain there." I opened my mouth to tell him what to do with himself, but the bastard

  slammed the door in my face before I had a single word out. Raving

  furious was a good description of what I felt then, and I moved fast to

  the door to shove on it - only to find that the bolt had been thrown.

  "Cross-eyed, impotent son of a beslimed street stroller!" I snarled,

  pounding on the unmoving door. "Gelded crawler in and eater of offal!

  Open this door, else I shall. . ."

  I was so wild I was ready to break the door, which turned out to be my

  second mistake in as many minutes. Getting mad in a dangerous situation

  is as stupid and potentially fatal as walking blindfolded through

  racing ground traffic. All the shouting I was doing covered whatever

  noise they made coming up behind me, and my ranting was abruptly cut

  off by the presence of a wet cloth pressed fast to my nose and mouth. I

  suddenly knew they'd been hiding in the stable, waiting for the attack

  to start, waiting to do whatever they planned on doing. I tried to stop

  my breathing as I brought an elbow back hard into the ribs of whoever

  was holding that cloth, but before the blow landed his free arm had

  already brought a fist back into my middle with a goodly amount of

  force, causing me to gasp in two complete lungfuls of the flat,

  strangling vapors coming out of the cloth. The cloth-holder did some

  gasping himself as he let me go, but my head was already spinning too

  fast for me to take advantage of the freedom. I tried to move away from

  the door and farther into the stable, to find some place to hole up

  until my head cleared, but it was simply no use. Instead of walking I

  slipped down to the floor, stretched out on my left side and well along

  in floating away.

  "The slut!" said a choked voice from somewhere above me, pain and anger

  clear in the words. "I will have the skin off her in strips for daring

  to strike me!"

  "The Prince means to do other with her than have her life," came

  another voice, a somehow familiar one with a chuckle in it. "She will

  regret having struck at the both of us, more so than if we were to take

  vengeance ourselves. Her life might have been taken easily enough at

  the inn."

  "Aye, and a good thing it was that the Prince had the foresight to

  place you at that inn," said the first voice, grimly pleased. "Had you

  not been there, we might well have taken the wrong wench."

  "This one would be worth the taking in any event," the second answered,

  and a booted foot came to push me flat on my back. The foot belonged to

  the house guard from the last inn, and through billowing clouds of

  dizziness I could see him grinning down at me. "Had she been unspoken

  for, I would have claimed her, to repay some part of the humiliation I

  was forced to accept in uncovering her true identity. Did they think me

  so foolish as to be unable to recognize Fallan, a long-time Captain of

  his Company? Was I to believe that this same Fallan would be concerned

  over the brief use of a mere serving wench? They are the fools, not I."

  "And double the fools for having sent her out here, alone, at the first

  outward sign of our attack," agreed the first man. "It was clear they

  would be unable to reach the next inn at a reasonable time and would

  therefore stop here, yet I doubted when you insisted she would be sent

  into our hands in such a manner as this. Your words have now been

  proven correct, and we are now able to take her to those who wait."

  "As the Prince also anxiously awaits her preparation, we shall do that

  very thing," the ex-house guard said with a grin, slowly going down to

  one knee. "It will, however, be considerably more difficult for her to

  awaken to her predicament; therefore-"

  His words broke off as his arm moved through the clouds with the cloth he'd retrieved, and there was no avoiding it. Two more breaths and I

  was gone fishing.

  Chapter 5

  I awoke to the awareness of a faint headache behind my eyes, a dulled

  pulse that was already beginning to fade away even as I became aware of

  it. I took a deep breath and my senses flowed out to a greater distance

  from my body, no longer wrapped up under a blanket of unconsciousness.

  I could hear the sounds of movement and life a short distance away,

  people going about their business. Closer up there was a clean, faintly

  perfumed smell, feminine without a doubt and some-how dainty and

  delicate. Whatever I lay on was hard and not very comfortable, rough

  and scratchy to my fingertips, somehow adding to the dryness in my

  mouth. My eyes blin
ked open to get a look at it and-Damn! I sat up so

  fast that my stomach twisted with nausea, and thick dizziness swirled

  my eyesight for a minute. I ignored it all and brought my right wrist

  up to get a closer look at the shackle closed around it, all at once

  remembering what had happened just before I'd gone beddy-bye. Fallan

  and I had both been suckered, but he was still back in the woodsman's

  house, at worst feeling foolish, while I had more immediate problems.

  Two of them were the two-inch wide metal cuffs closed around my wrists,

  another the foot-and-a-half length of chain holding those cuffs

  together, the fourth, fifth and sixth the same cuff and chain setup on

  my ankles. I twisted the right wrist cuff around to get a better view

  of the lock that kept it closed, and immediately felt a little better.

  The lock was simple and obvious, one I could have opened in no time as

  soon as I found a pick, so I wasn't quite as securely chained up as

  those who had put me there wanted me to be. Even so, I didn't like the

  looks of the rig I had been closed into, a sentiment shakily echoed by

  the Bellna presence, who peeked nervously out from her favorite corner.

  The torn blouse, green shawl and print skirt I had been wearing were

  all gone, replaced in part by a very short, poncho-like piece of sheer

  white material. The thing went over my head to hang down front and

  back, was completely open at the sides, and was slit wide enough and

  deeply enough in front to reach my waist and then some. Holding it

  tight to my body was a slender belt of chain, delicate-looking but

  locked on as securely as the wrist cuffs, two smallish rings and a

  short metal tongue attached to the front. The chain linking my wrists

  ran through the two rings, but the purpose of the slim metal tongue was

  a mystery, one I had no real interest in poking at. What I did want to

  poke at was a way out, but the place I sat in didn't offer many

  options.

  The room was clearly part of a tent, but floored as it was and as well

  staked down, even an outer wall would have probably been useless. I

  heard a tinkle of chain and looked at the girl who had turned in her

  sleep, a young girl, one of two others who were in the tent room with

  me. Four lamps, one on each wall, let me see around the room, but there

  wasn't much to see; tan tent walls, a hard, scratchy mat of a floor, a

  series of carved wooden chests along the walls, three young, attractive

  females chained and half-dressed in translucent white. Not a hell of a

  lot to work with, and nothing at all to set the mind at ease. I hadn't

  been brought wherever it was for my benefit, and I couldn't afford to

  forget that "the Prince" was "anxiously awaiting" my "preparation." If

  it wasn't Clero they'd been talking about I'd demote myself to cadet

  status, but nothing that drastic would be necessary. Clero was waiting

  for me, all right, and the best thing I could do would be to disappoint him.

  I struggled to my feet with a light tinkling of chain which was

  answered by the movement of the second girl, stirring slightly as the

  first girl had. The first one was dark-haired and slender, the second

  chestnut-haired and smaller, neither one looking older than Bellna's

  fifteen, the brunette possibly younger. Both girls moved a second time,

  fitfully, as though they were beginning to come out of the same

  unconsciousness that had held me, showing me it was more than time to

  move on. Or mince on. The chain stretched between my ankles was too

  short to allow a decent stride, which meant I had to flounce along

  almost on my toes. That, together with the length of the skimpy poncho

  a quarter of an inch less and it would no longer be able to be called a

  "covering" just have made me a sight to behold, but looking foolish

  wasn't my major concern. With my ankles chained, the only kicks I'd be

  able to execute would be two-footed blasts, and I'd never be able to

  land upright after one of them. If I ran into anyone standing in my

  way, I'd have to sneak up on him and use the wrist chain as a strangle

  cord. One-handed. I felt like cursing but sighed instead, knowing it

  could have been a hell of a lot worse. The chains I wore could have

  been bolted to a wall, or there could have been watchdogs posted right

  inside the room. Knowing how lucky I was I turned away from the two

  sleeping girls toward the tan hanging covering the room entrance - just

  as it was pushed aside by the two men coming in.

  The two men were far from small, both dark-haired and dark-eyed,

  dressed in black pants and boots and golden yellow shirts, typical

  heavies and looking the part.. Bellna squeaked inside my head and

  scooted back into her corner, leaving me all alone in the middle of the

  floor, caught in the act, so to speak. It wasn't the first time I'd

  been caught like that, but Bellna's fluster and my own idiot reflexes

  almost did me in. Automatically I started to go into standard attackdefense

  position, which was not meant to be taken when ankle-chained.

  Rather than looking dangerous and ready I managed to trip myself, which

  ended me up on the hard floor covering belly down, looking up at two

  faintly amused men.

  "Where did you think to go, slave?" the one on the left asked, letting

  his eyes move over me. "It was not expected that you would be awake as

  yet."

  "For what reason would I not be awake?" I countered, playing dumb as I

  usually did. Special Agents were harder than normal to put out, and had

  a faster snapback when wake-up time came. Survival is made up of edges

  like that, but it hadn't been too helpful that time. "And I am not a

  slave! I am free, and therefore should not be chained in such a manner!

  I must be released immediately!"

  I knew I was pushing it by making inane demands, but it was the sort of

  thing an innocent like Bellna would have done, and these people should

  have had some idea as to who I was supposed to be. I held my mental

  breath as the two men stared down at me, and then the one who had

  spoken a minute earlier laughed.

  "It has never failed to amuse me to see wenches in chains declare

  themselves free," he said, drawing another smile from the man beside

  him. "Best you prepare yourself, wench, for you will soon learn better.

  Also will you learn to respond quickly and completely to questions put

  to you. Those who brought you here spoke of having given you twice the

  vapors usually given a captured vessel, and yet are you awake before

  those others. For what reason are you awake, and where did you think to

  go?"

  "I am awake from having awakened, and thought to take myself from this tasteless room! " I snapped, cursing his persistence as I began to get

  to my feet. I didn't want him to think there was anything special about

  me, but I wasn't getting much of what I wanted just then. He moved

  forward a fast two steps to bend and get a fistful of my hair, then

  knocked my head into the hard scratchy floor.

  "A slave is not permitted to take such a tone with anyone at all, not

  to speak of a free man, he said in a level voice after I had cried out

&
nbsp; at the double pain of the knock and the grip on my hair. "You will

  remain on the floor, face down, until you have my permission to rise.

  And I will recall this matter of early awakening, and will speak to our

  records keeper of it. It is a thing your future master will need to

  know."

  He waited a few seconds to see if I would have anything else to say,

  but with the damage already done, the effort wasn't worth it. Bellna

  was sending waves of shivering disbelief through me, making my body

  tremble with her fear, and I let it happen to cover the almost-snarl I

  felt in my own right. Big, brave men who abused chained women were a

  special love of mine, and all I wanted to do was get my hands on the

  clown with or without being chained. But I wasn't likely to get my

  hands on him, and even if I did it wasn't likely to do much good with

  the second man there. Survival right then meant being a helpless,

  frightened little girl, and that's what I'd have to be. We'd all

  thought that Clero wanted Bellna's life, but we'd been wrong; if I'd

  known he wanted her as a slave instead, I'd never have gotten involved.

  I'm not what would be considered good slave material, not even under

  the best of circumstances. Right then, with the main attack drawn away

  from its legitimate target, all I wanted was out of there.

  Once my hair was released, my new friend and his companion moved past

  me, and moments later I heard groaning protests in female voices,

  telling me that my two roommates were being roused. I continued to lie

  face down where I'd been left, the chains and rings digging into me, my

  nose on the scratchy surface of the flooring. The part of my mind that

  was me rumbled uselessly with dark thoughts, and the part that was

  Bellna sniffled and blubbered in fright. It was a good opportunity to

  see if I could reach the Bellna presence to calm her, but after ten

  minutes of trying I gave it up. Nothing seemed to reach the Bellna

  presence but spiteful intentions, which could not be considered

  communication of the reliable sort. If I started out with the idea of

  doing some damage, I got either protest or silence, putting me in the

  driver's seat; if I let things ride to see how they would go, Bellna's

  feelings crowded mine aside. It looked as though I was too well

  controlled and Bellna not controlled enough, and that would be an-other