The Battle Lord's Lady

by Linda Mooney

  “What is your mark?”

  Drawing a ragged breath, Atty lifted her long, thick braid. “My hair,” she admitted in a tiny voice.

  “What?”

  “My...hair. My hair is my mark.”

  “What of it?”

  “Its...its color is...unusual.”

  “There are no other marks about you? Nothing physical? Nothing abnormal?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Nothing else. At least, not that I’m aware of.”

  “And your ability with the bow...” It was a question left open. A probing sense of wonder laced through it.

  Atty shrugged. “To me it’s natural. If you want to call it mutant, that’s your prerogative.”

  “Have you had any training? Any schooling? Did you have a teacher?”

  “No. Nothing formal. We have masters that teach our men such skills, but because I was a girl I wasn’t allowed to attend their lessons, so I had to go out in the woods and teach myself. Sometimes my father would give me pointers. It wasn’t until last spring that I applied for membership into the caste of hunters.” She paused, remembering.

  “Go on,” the Battle Lord urged.

  “There was a lot of arguing about my joining. Women weren’t allowed to become part of the caste of hunters.”

  “Why not?”

  She shot him a dark look. “Do you allow your women to become part of your hunting parties?”

  “None of our women have your abilities. Their arms aren’t strong enough to wield a sword, much less master the bow. Although I will admit some have tried. Those who have shown promise are part of our militia who guard our compound against invaders.” The Battle Lord rubbed his hand along his chin where several days’ growth of beard itched. “How strong are you, Mutah?”

  Sighing loudly, she shook her head. “I don’t know. I went into the forest to prove myself, although now I believe they made my indoctrination harder than they did for the others. I slew a wolfen, as instructed, and I brought its head back to the compound.”

  She’d managed to get most of the shredded pieces of rope from out of her wounds, all except for one very tiny section which resisted her efforts, no matter how painfully she tried to dig it out with her bare fingers. She never expected the large hand to grab hers and twist it so he could see it more clearly. Several drops of blood slipped over her arm and landed on the front of his shirt, but he didn’t appear to notice. The dagger reappeared; the blade slid out of its sheath as smoothly as melting butter.

  “This might hurt,” he muttered as he bent over to get the errant shred out.

  Atty closed her eyes and waited for the blade to slice into her flesh. Her whole body was trembling, but not because of her fear or the cold. No, she realized in a dazed, almost disconnected way. The Battle Lord had pressed himself close to her, almost to where his body touched hers. He smelled of sweat and leather and the tang of metal from where his armor had rubbed against his clothes and skin. And there was something else she couldn’t place. Something more virile. More masculine. More threatening.

  When he bent over her wrists his head was turned away from her. She could see that she had been wrong about the color of his hair. It wasn’t orange-ish, but blond with red highlights, a shade she’d once heard referred to as strawberry blond. For a split second, before she could realize how perfectly she could slip a weapon into the back of his neck from this vantage, she wondered if anyone had brushed away the shoulder-length hair and dropped tiny kisses along the well-developed shoulder muscles.

  The shard of pain that lanced up her arm made her gasp, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. The Battle Lord released her arm, almost tossing it back into her lap as he stepped away. She watched as he wiped the blade on his thigh before putting the dagger away.

  “I’ll have our physician doctor those wrists so they don’t become infected.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No. Don’t thank me. If you get sick, all of this will be for naught. I need you well in order to face my men.”

  He turned to leave her when Atty realized something had been left very much out of place. “You’re not...you’re not going to tie me up?” she inquired with disbelief.

  The Battle Lord paused at the door, his hand upon the latch. “I have nearly thirty men at my beck and call this very second. There are two doors to this place, and I have guards at both of them. No. You’re not going to retaliate because you’re going to accept the terms of my conditions. You want to save your compound. However...” He took a moment to give her another painfully crooked smile. “However, I’m not as stupid as you keep trying to make me,” he told her, mocking her earlier words.

  Atty watched as he grabbed her bow and quiver of arrows before letting himself out, leaving her alone and defenseless inside the shop.

  Chapter Eight

  Hesitation

  Yulen walked over to where the physician lay awake in his roll. He threw down the bow and quiver of arrows beside the man’s head, giving him a start.

  “Medicate the prisoner’s wrists before they become infected,” he ordered in a low voice. “The ropes have drawn blood.”

  Silently MaGrath reached for his pouch, then turned and gave the Battle Lord a surprised look. “You haven’t been down long enough to get the sleep you need,” the man berated gently.

  “I have too many things on my mind.”

  MaGrath frowned. “You’re pushing your own limits, do you know that?”

  “I know,” Yulen nodded, suddenly relenting. “When we get back to the compound, I promise to give myself more time.”

  “You won’t heal without the rest,” the physician insisted, pushing his case. Yulen knew the man would keep pestering him, or else the wounds he had suffered a few days ago would never sufficiently heal. Even now it was evident MaGrath was worried he wouldn’t be able to completely get over them.

  Yulen waved a hand, as if to dismiss him. “Just...take care of the Mutah. Her hands are her weapon. If she gets ill or loses her ability to use them, then all of this will be for naught.” That being said, the Battle Lord trudged off in the direction of the compound.

  Pausing beside a tree, Yulen rubbed his eyes, then pressed the heels of his hands along his forehead. The ache in his face centered him, a constant reminder now of his own carelessness and rash behavior.

  Maybe it was the pain that had kept him from destroying the whole Mutah compound, he surmised. Maybe it was because of the weeks he’d spent on horseback, and the exhaustion overtaking them all that had given him a weak moment.

  Or maybe...maybe it was the incredible antithesis in the Mutah prisoner—

  Her name is Atty.

  —he’d found that intrigued him.

  As he’d pulled the rope slivers from her wrist, he’d deliberately exposed his back to her. It had been a dangerous and stupid move on his part, but he’d been prepared for anything. Yet, when nothing had occurred, he had been more surprised knowing she wouldn’t have tried to escape. He knew she wouldn’t hurt him, and that was when the bucket of questions had poured into his brain.

  She was a fascinating puzzle, he kept repeating to himself. Her hands bore the hard calluses from her skill with the bow, yet her face was as open and revealing as the pages of a book. This was not a girl accustomed to deceit and cunning. This warrior, who could slay her enemy as easily as she slew game, was emotionally vulnerable.

  Taking a deep breath, Yulen ran a hand through his hair. His fingers met the knot at the back of his neck, and he jerked the lacing free. It was only a few hours ago when he’d pulled MaGrath away from the fire pit where the last of the badger lay smoking, and asked him one simple and definitely unexpected question.

  “Is she a virgin?”

  Without showing his shock at the question, the physician had nodded. “Without a doubt,” he’d said, then returned to finish his meal.

  And why did he have to know that? Yulen chided himself. Why did he need to know that intimate detail about her? Because
it tells you more about your enemy than a hundred probing questions could, a little voice in the back of his mind whispered.

  But the questions came anyway, preventing him from getting any kind of decent night’s sleep. Whenever he’d closed his eyes, he saw the bloody bodies of his men, most of them with the shaft of a single arrow embedded in some critical area. Despite their body armor, despite the distance that had been between her and his men, despite the early hour and the near darkness, she had found their most vulnerable spots and pierced them without hesitation. Her aim had been impossibly perfect.

  And then, just as quickly, he saw the girl sitting on the counter of the small shop, her face bruised and swollen and bloody, her body beaten, her head hanging in pain, and he’d felt this overwhelming need to touch the full lips with his fingers. To cup her cheek in his equally calloused hand and lift her face so he could see her eyes. Her eyes. What depths to her soul would he find in her eyes?

  Her soul? When it was known Mutah didn’t have a soul?

  My God. He shook his head.

  He’d gone twice more to check on her, peering through the window and watching as she fitfully slept. She shivered from the cold, and a powerful desire to fetch her a blanket or, even worse, to pull her into the warmth of his arms, came unbidden into his mind.

  It was when he saw the streaks of blood running down her arm that he’d relented, using it as his excuse to finally approach her one-on-one, without an audience.

  And then...

  Gritting his teeth, Yulen turned around and headed toward the small grove of lemon trees someone had planted along the dirt walk bordering the shops.

  He stopped.

  Someone had planted these trees. Someone had watered them, and pruned them, and cared for them until they had grown from saplings into fruit bearers.

  He glanced around him. This compound wasn’t one that had been abandoned years ago by normals, only to be moved into by the unnaturals, much like a hermit crab moves into a larger shell. Plus there were too many signs of upkeep. That building’s paint job looked fresh. The curtains in the window...

  Curtains?

  Yulen gasped, his mind reeling.

  A Mutah? Caring for their habitation? Painting it and making curtains?

  A Mutah?

  He hurried to find his Second who was blissfully snoring in his bedroll, his back to the wall of another shop.

  “Karv, get up!” He kicked the man lightly in the backside.

  The trained soldier was instantly awake, short sword in his hand. “Sir!”

  “Step down. I want the men up and ready to leave at first light. See to it.”

  “Are we proceeding on?”

  “No. We’re returning home, back to our own beds.”

  Scowling, the man got up from his bedroll and proceeded to shake the dirt from it as he folded it back up. He was used to the Battle Lord’s demands, but in the past few hours things had changed.

  Knowing Karv would be questioning his every move on their way back home, Yulen went to fetch his own unused bedroll and pack his horse, but not before ordering one of their fallen to be doubled on another animal’s back so that their prisoner could have a ride. That order elicited another protest from the small but powerful Second.

  “She should walk!”

  “It’s a good five days’ journey. I need her to be strong if she is to begin teaching our men upon our return.” Lowering his eyebrows, Yulen added, “Why are you questioning my every move, Karv?”

  “Why have you become so obsessed with this Mutah?” the Second responded.

  “What is so unusual with us taking her prisoner? We’ve plundered many Mutah villages and absconded with untold wealth. Just...think of her as another form of jeweled pin. A pin that is more valuable intact rather than melted down like so much of the other gold and silver we’ve encountered.”

  He trusted Karv’s instincts, although he highly detested the man’s often ill-thought-out actions. It was because of those instincts, especially when they coincided with his own, that their compound had grown as powerful as it had. Which was why he always let the little man have his say at anything, even to contradict, argue, or question his motives whenever he felt it necessary.

  “Yes, but pins have sharp little needle pricks that can draw blood. And if you stick one of those little needle pricks in the right place, it can kill you.”

  “True,” Yulen admitted, then said no more as he turned and left his Second to comply with his orders. He would not let the man know he’d gone into the shop unescorted and untied the Mutah’s hands—

  Her name is Atty.

  —literally freeing her, yet still keeping her safeguarded—

  Safeguarded?

  The Battle Lord fiercely shook his head, hoping to clear the fog sifting through his thoughts. He needed to be clear-headed and prepared for anything on their journey back. The slash on his face throbbed, sending echoing pain behind his eyes. Reaching into his saddle bags, he pulled out the tin of powder once again and took another dose, washing it down from his nearly empty skin of water. He paused to give the medicine a chance to get into his system, then went in search of MaGrath to see if there was something the man could do further.

  More than anything, he needed his wits about him. Karv was right about one thing. He was becoming obsessed with this Mutah, although Yulen tried to convince himself it was because of her incredible abilities. She was more valuable alive, more valuable as a willing prisoner. More valuable as a—

  My...hair. My hair is my sign. Its...its color is...unusual.

  Yulen slapped himself in the side of the face, close to the pulsing wound. The pain that broke over him made him double over in response, but it helped to clear his mind.

  It was five days’ journey back to their home. He would need to keep—

  Atty.

  —a respectable distance away if he was to be of any use to his men during that time.

  Sunrise was not far away, and the Battle Lord’s anger at himself rose when he realized the only reason he couldn’t wait for the first rays of dawn was because he needed to see the girl warrior in the full light of day.

  And see the truth about her difference.

  Like...the color of her hair.

  Chapter Nine

  Compromise

  He had to give his Second credit for his quickness.

  “Sir! The Mutah! She escaped her ropes!” Karv came hurrying up, worry and anger like twin sentries framing his already sweaty face.

  Yulen casually glanced at him. He made the man wait while he finished tightening the girth on his horse before turning around to listen to more of his tirade. “The Mutah didn’t escape. I released the ropes myself.”

  “What?”

  “They were biting into her wrists and making them bleed. So I cut them off of her and had MaGrath medicate them to keep them from becoming infected. Are the men ready to mount?”

  He watched as his Second slowly regained control of his temper and his nerves. “I didn’t believe the little Mutah bitch when she told me,” he began with a caustic edge to his voice.

  That same acid note raised red flags in Yulen’s mind. He lowered his brows at the man. “Karv, did you do anything to hurt her?”

  The expression in the man’s eyes answered him, even before his words. Yulen hurried toward the shop with his Second in tow.

  “I thought she was lying to me. You would never risk any of us by letting a dangerous enemy just roam free...”

  The rest of Karv’s excuse fell on deaf ears as the Battle Lord threw open the door to the little shop. MaGrath said nothing as he glanced up from his patient, but the dark look he threw at Karv was enough to make the little man step back. It was one thing to anger the Battle Lord, but when one’s life depended on the skills of the physician, no one dared to anger MaGrath.

  “How is she?” Yulen demanded. It was hard to tell from the doorway. In three long steps he was at the counter where he could see a fine spray of blood on th
e wall where he knew none had existed an hour ago.

  She seemed so small, curled up in a protective fetal ball.

  “How is she?” Yulen repeated.

  “She’ll be lucky if she isn’t permanently disfigured,” MaGrath spat.

  Without thinking, the Battle Lord turned on his Second and buried his fist in the shorter man’s stomach. The gut punch doubled the soldier over, knocking all the air out of him. The second punch to the side of the man’s head sent him over the edge of consciousness. Yulen watched as the Second dropped like a rock to the hard-packed floor.

  “Mastin!”

  “Sir!” One of the sentries standing nearby stepped forward.

  “Have Karv taken out to his horse and tie him across the saddle. And tell the rest of the men that if anyone touches the prisoner, I will personally bind and gag them with their own entrails.”

  Mastin’s face turned white. “Yes, Sir!” he replied, ordering two more men to help him with the heavy weight.

  Yulen waited for the room to clear, then turned back to MaGrath. “What did he do?” he asked the physician, this time in a softer tone of voice.

  “I think he may have caused some permanent damage. The cheekbone appears broken. Her nose definitely is.”

  “Is she in a lot of pain?”

  MaGrath’s eyes narrowed. Yulen knew this wasn’t like him, this show of concern. In the past, if the enemy got hurt, that was to be expected. Life was cruel, harsh, and unforgiving. People got injured. But this... For the first time he began to wonder if MaGrath believed his interest extended beyond the excuse he was using to cover up his true motive.

  “I’ve given her some drops of sedative, but when she wakes up she’ll be in agony. What provoked Karv to do this? Do you know?”

  “He questioned her as to why she was no longer bound, and she told him the truth. He didn’t believe her and struck her.”

  MaGrath’s expression darkened even further. “Then he’s lying,” he hissed. “Karv saw me coming out of the shop after I had wrapped her wrists like you ordered. He asked me what I’d been doing and I told him. I told him she was free of her bonds, by your orders. I went to fetch her something to keep her warm when I heard the scream, and Paxton came to get me.” The physician watched as Yulen felt the blood-red cloud descended over his face. “What are you going to do?” he asked.