***
She awakened to the glare of the afternoon sun. Her vision began to focus, revealing she was in a camp, a busy camp with men and dogs, horses and pigs, sweat and dirt. She could smell the cook fires and whatever they were roasting. Dogs barked pointlessly at whinnying horses. A pair of knights rode by, armor clanking.
One side of her neck stung and she remembered she had been cut in the skirmish. A strange smelling substance was held against the wound by a white linen bandage. With panic, she realized that her hands were behind her back and tied together.
A tent flap rustled, then a young male voice shouted, but the tent dulled the sound. Someone was shushing the lad to be quiet, then the same voice spoke in a low tone. She tried to twist around to see, but couldn’t. A man’s shadow loomed from behind, then a strong hand gripped the collar of her tunic and dragged her into the tent. It was dark inside and took a moment for her eyes to adjust.
The stranger untied her only to bind her hands around a brace in the middle of the tent. The person was rough, as heartless and callous as Lucan ever was. Janir panicked, realizing that she couldn’t move.
She thrashed wildly in spite of how much it smarted the cut on her neck, trying to catch a glimpse of something, anything that might give even the smallest explanation for all of this. She was afraid to ask what was happening. What if asking only made these people more angry, as it did the Lord Argetallam?
Standing to her right was a man who towered nearly a head above the handful of soldiers in the tent. He was pale and in the dim light his long hair gave off a silvery glow. What surprised her more than almost anything were his ears. Like lilies, they tapered to delicate and subtle points that would have been hard to notice if she hadn’t been watching him so closely.
Her mother had told her stories of elves and their magic, but she had never actually met one. Certainly not like this, having her tied up and glaring at her as if he would like to rip her to ribbons. She thought that strange, in all the stories, the elves were good.
Finally, she dared speak. “Where’s my mother?”
Janir’s heart raced. Her gaze darted from one side of the tent to another, taking in the glowering face of the elf the others addressed simply as “sir” and the several soldiers standing by.
“What is a full retinue of Argetallams doing, so close to Brevia?” the elf demanded, his slight accent adding flourish.
Janir was confused. “Lord Father was sending me and Mother to Sanreal.” She forced herself to speak levelly without stammering.
“And why would you go there?” he pressed.
Janir didn’t understand why he was asking her. She was still too young to be told anything the grown Argetallams weren’t. It was like he thought she’d done something bad and was waiting for her to admit it.
Without warning or reason, a wave of pain swept over Janir. It was as if her heart was being ripped out of her chest by a bear’s claw. The sensation burned, stung, and chilled at once. Her sight blurred and sweat beaded on her forehead. She realized she was screaming. When it was finally over, Janir coughed and let her small head hang.
The elf looked about to say something when a stately man stepped in from outside. His entire appearance spoke of nobility even though he was dressed in the rugged clothes of a soldier. At first glance, Janir thought that he looked similar to her father. She tended to compare all men she met with her father.
But his face was different. It held a warmer and more forgiving glow. This man held himself with an air of dignity, not of controlled hostility.
“Unbind the child, Daric,” the stately one commanded. It seemed to Janir’s child intuition that he had been crying not too long ago, but no one else seemed to have noticed. Immediately, the soldier who had been standing behind her stepped forward.
“Armandius…” the elf protested. “She may be a child, but she is an Argetallam. I’ve seen them kill not much older than this.”
The stately one froze with a pain filled expression, as if those words had pierced his very soul. But again, no one else seemed to notice.
“No one here has enough magic for her to use it against us. Unbind her, Daric,” Armandius numbly repeated. He stared at the soldier and didn’t even look at the elf.
“You cannot trust them.”
Torn between the elf and the overall superior, the soldier hesitated for a moment and then obeyed. Janir hadn’t realized that her wrists had gone numb until the ropes fell away.
This was too much. She had been beaten and cursed countless times at home by Lucan, her father, and even other Argetallam relatives. But she had always known what would set them off and what would abate their rage. Here, it was impossible for her to know anything.
Janir clumsily leapt up and scrambled into the shadows. She ducked under a rough wooden table at the back of the tent, covered in papers and pens. No sooner had she scrunched in a ball between two large trunks, tucking her legs as close to her chin as they would go, than the ringing of swords echoed in the air. She couldn’t help the whimper of fear that escaped her lips. From where she was, Janir had only a view of their boots under the cloth draping the table.
“Put those away!” The stately one sounded irritated.
“But…” the elf began to protest.
“Can’t you see she’s afraid?” demanded Armandius, keeping his voice down.
The elf made an annoyed sound that signified the start of another protest, when the stately one continued.
“If she were capable of doing anything to us, why would she need to hide in the first place?”
There was a reluctant scraping as swords were replaced in their scabbards. A pair of large and weathered boots came closer to where Janir had sought refuge. Armandius knelt before her, his silhouette blocking the light. One hand reached under the tablecloth and grasped the frayed edge. Slowly, he lifted it so they could see each other.
He reached toward her. Janir knew what that meant. She hunched her shoulders in expectation of the blow and squeaked in fear. Then she realized he would strike her for that too, so she should have kept steady. To her surprise, he retracted his hand instead.
“Come here, little one,” he coaxed.
Janir tried to squeeze farther between the chests, but there was no more room to do that. The canvas of the tent was pressing against her back.
“Come, Janir,” Armandius encouraged. “That is your name, isn’t it?”
Janir stared with terror, not speaking, barely moving save for her rapid breathing and unstoppable trembling.
“No one will hurt you,” he promised with a cursory and threatening glance at the guards and the elf. Armandius held out his hand to her again. With as much caution as a hunted animal, Janir let him grasp her hand. Gingerly, he tried to guide her back into the open space.
Glancing at the hateful expressions on the guards’ faces, Janir was suddenly even more afraid. She sprang from under the table and entwined her little arms around the stately one’s neck, clinging to the only source of reassurance in sight.
He seemed surprised, but after a second’s hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her and rose to his feet, letting her cling to him for protection. All the same, her sudden movement had caused the guards to flick out their swords again.
“Stop it!” he snarled. “Leave us.”
Like a toddler just denied a whim, the elf looked about to protest, but when the guards began obediently filing out of the tent, he clamped his mouth shut and stalked after them.
Janir buried her face in the stately one’s shoulder. He smelled of horses, dust, pine trees, and worn leather.
“Did they hurt you?” He seemed concerned, carefully touching the bandage on the side of her neck.
“No.” It seemed rude not to address him by his title, but Janir didn’t know what his was, so she said the first thing that came to mind, “My lord.”
“You needn’t call me that,” he said, almost roughly.
Janir was worried she
had upset him. “What then?” she carefully asked.
There was a scraping sound as he pulled a chair away from one of the tables and eased into it. He sat with Janir in his lap while she continued clutching his neck as if it were a solid place in a storm.
“Who are you?” she mumbled. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“Because I promised your mother that I would look after you.” The stately one hesitated, then gently brushed her sweaty hair behind one of her ears. “You’re safe now,” he halfheartedly added, as if he couldn’t help what he was doing.
Worn out by the pain that had swept over her, Janir only had strength for one more question, hardly able to keep her words from blending into a single noise. “Is Mother alright?”
Uncertain of how to respond, the stately one paused for a moment. “I am sorry, Janir.” His voice became strained, as if he were on the brink of tears. “I too, loved her very much.”
The Key of Amatahns Page 4