by S H Cooper
“Because I’m not stupid!” Rasha says with a wicked curl of her lips. “With the gold being offered for this lass, I can leave the Faunir. I can have a house and servants in the city. Speaking of,” she holds out an open hand toward the man, “my reward?”
The bag of coins clinks noisily as it’s dropped into her waiting palm.
“It’s all here?” she asks, a greedy edge to her voice.
“Lord Conan is a man of his word,” the man says sharply.
“Then do with them what you will.”
Rasha holds the pouch between both hands against her chest and gives us wide berth on her way back toward the horses. Haroheim begins to reach for her, his hand shaking with angry betrayal, but the ring of steel sliding free from its sheath echoes in the morning air and Conan’s men fan out. With an enraged shout, Haroheim rips his own sword free. Reena grabs me by the collar and thrusts me away.
“Run,” she screams.
“But —”
“We’ll hold them off!”
She whirls away from her, her sword appearing in hand, and she and Haroheim stand shoulder to shoulder in front of me.
“Reena,” I choke.
She doesn’t turn.
“Go!” she and Haroheim yell, and their fury drives me back, until I’m running blindly with the sound of blade slamming against blade chasing after me.
I weave through the trees, my heart hammering and my breath little more than short gasps that cut sharply through my throat. I leave the cleared pathways that have been trodden into the forest floor and crash through the underbrush. Thorns bite at my trouser legs and cloak and tangled weeds try to snare my feet, but I tear myself from their grasp and keep running, even after the sounds of fighting have grown distant.
The further I go, the darker the woods become beneath a thick canopy of leaves that allow only the thinnest slivers of light to penetrate all the way to the ground. The trees are older here, with wide, moss-covered trunks and vines of greenery that reach upward to get lost amongst the branches. It’s stifling and the crunch of twigs and leaves beneath my rushing steps seem muted then swallowed completely by the forest.
I run until my legs give out beneath me, then crawl further still on my hands and knees, until even that is too much and I collapse, facedown, upon the ground. I curl slowly into a ball and try to catch my breath.
The familiar, bitter taste of guilt bubbles beneath my tongue. Had I made the coward’s choice? Should I have stayed and tried to fight beside them? Would I have been able to help? The endless questions and self-doubts clash against each other as noisily as blades and bite as deep, until I’m fighting tears sinking my teeth into my knuckles to keep from screaming out against them.
Frustration, anger, and helplessness roar through me with the force of summer storm, trapped and threatening to tear me apart as they seek release. My free hand finds my hammer, still hanging from my belt, and I yank it free. With every ounce of strength I have, I bring it hurtling down towards the forest floor. I beat it against the ground then the nearest tree and rock, whatever is within reach, pouring all of my fury into the earth until I’m sitting back on my heels, panting and spent.
“Are you quite done?” I ask myself softly, the same question my mother used to pose to me as a child when I was throwing temper tantrums.
She’d allow me to play out my emotions then, stern and gentle in equal measure, she’d ask if I was finished so we could move on with our day.
I’ve let myself have my tantrum. Now it’s time to move on.
I tuck my hammer away again and rise.
“Mary!”
Reena’s voice is faint and far off, but it’s unmistakable. I hold my breath, straining to hear what direction it’s coming from.
“Mary!” Haroheim echoes.
I grasp the Halofain’s necklace beneath my tunic, happy tears springing to my eyes. They’re alright!
I shout in return. “Here! I’m here!”
“Mary!” Reena calls.
They’re getting closer. With a burst of relieved energy, I sprint toward their voices, yelling for them to keep talking. The woods part into a clearing up ahead and I see a slender figure approaching from the opposite direction. It must be Reena!
“Reena! Haroheim! I’m --”
My exclamation turns into a startled gasp as I leap into the clearing.
It’s not Reena who steps out from the shelter of trees, but a man. His clothing is dark, which makes the white of his hair seem all the more bright. Despite its color, he’s young, barely older than my brothers, and he’s regarding me with chilling coldness. He seems to be alone.
“Who are you?” I ask warily, already reaching for my hammer. “Where is Reena?” Without taking my eyes off of him, I shout, “Haroheim?”
Neither my friends nor the man answer me. I slip the hammer from my belt and heft it in my hand.
“Stay back,” I warn him, but it’s a breathless and tired command. “I’m not alone. My friends are looking for me!”
He opens his mouth, but the voice that comes out isn’t his.
“Mary,” he calls in Reena’s voice, and then, in Haroheim’s, “Mary!”
“No.” I shake my head in denial and point the hammer at him to keep him at bay despite the fact that he hasn’t moved. “No! That’s impossible! How?”
“Mimicry is a simple magic. You heard what you wanted to hear,” he says, this time in his own voice. It’s deep and as void of warmth as his gaze. “You’re as simple and gullible as the rest of your family.”
My confusion paints his words into unfamiliar things and I gawk at him, uncomprehending. “My family? How do you know my family?”
“Oh, I’ve known them for a long time.” He speaks with deliberate slowness. “But you, you were kept a secret.”
“Who are you?”
“The good Sir Patrick never mentioned me? What a surprise,” he says.
He pulls one of his leather gloves off with that same deliberate slowness as he speaks. He never stops staring at me. There’s something disquieting about him, a hunter’s stillness. “I suppose it’s true what they say, then. If you want something done right, you do it yourself.”
“Something done right…” I trail off weakly.
And then the realization sets in.
I jerk back, hitting a tree, and press myself against it like I might be able to will myself through it.
“You’re —”
“Meverick Conan,” he finishes for me. “And I’ve been looking for you, Mary McThomas.”
Chapter Twenty-One
A flurry of questions swirl through my mind, all screaming to know why: why had he hurt my father? Why was he after me? But I’m not going to ask while cowering before him. There will be time for questions later, once I find my brothers again and we can make him answer to all three of us.
Right now, I need to get away.
Wearing trousers, I might be fast enough to outrun him, I think. I can lose him somewhere in the forest. I just have to get my legs to cooperate and start moving! If I can surprise him, maybe even push him over as I go by, I’ll earn myself some extra time. He’s not stopped watching me, though. I’m not even sure he’s blinked. His stare, stony and gray, has a hint of smugness to it. He thinks he’s won already.
“What do you want?” I demand harshly. “What did you do with Reena and Haroheim?”
I just need to buy myself a moment, distract him a bit. If I can get him talking long enough, I can figure out what I’m going to do next. I’m careful to keep from looking any one way for too long. Father often cautioned his men that eyes are the first thing to give you away. An enemy can follow your gaze as surely as he can follow your footsteps.
Meverick doesn’t respond.
He’s waiting, I realize, and my pulse quickens. Does he want me to try something? All of Torren’s warnings about how powerful and dangerous he is ring in my ears, but he hardly looks more threatening than any other surly lad dressed all in black. He doesn’t even seem t
o be carrying a weapon. Drake’s bigger than him and I’ve managed to knock him from his feet during our play-fights before, before Father caught us and scolded Drake for teaching me such boyish games.
Just go for the legs and hold on until they’re on their back.
But first, rile them up. The more off balance they are to begin with, the better.
“Are you some kind of coward?” Thoughts of my brother, so large and always so sure of himself, make me a little bolder. I try to imagine what he would say to goad someone into a fight and how he might stand.
I tilt my chin up and do my best to look down my nose at Meverick. I hope it’s enough to mask the prickling fear crawling across the back of my neck. “You have to sneak up on your enemy to attack him? Fire from afar because you know you wouldn’t stand a chance against my father with a sword? And now you’ve got men looking for a wee lass in your place? The likes of Meverick Conan can’t even handle Patrick McThomas’ daughter, much less the man himself!”
Nothing. No response. No movement. Just staring.
I inhale slowly, past the tightness in my throat. “I’ve been warned about you, but it was just a bunch of rubbish, wasn’t it? You’re not powerful. You’re a bully, and you’ve picked the wrong family this time!”
Meverick still hasn’t moved, I’m sure of it, but he’s suddenly standing just in front of me all the same. He seems so much taller this close up, and although his expression hasn’t changed, he’s more menacing. I shout, startled, and stumble back into the tree again. Its bark digs painfully into my skin.
“Oh no, Mary,” he says in a measured voice. “I’ve got the right family.”
With a cry that’s half anger and half fear, I raise my hammer and dive toward him, hoping that, even if I miss, he’ll be caught so off guard I can continue past him. He sidesteps my hurried attack with ease and his ungloved hand catches me by the throat.
His fingers close around my neck and my breath is yanked from my chest by a sudden, fierce coldness, like I’ve been doused in icy water in the middle of winter. My hammer slips from my numb fingers and my teeth chatter uncontrollably. It’s the only movement I’m capable of.
Beneath the cold, there’s something else. A deep, stomach churning wrongness. His very touch is a sickness seeping into my skin and I can’t fight it. The edges of my vision swim with black stars.
“Time to go,” he says.
He pulls me away from the tree and mutters something I can’t understand before pushing his hand outward. The air in front of us shimmers slightly, then ripples like water, and Meverick pushes me into it. Instead of hitting the forest floor, I fall through the haze, and when I land, I’m lying on sand.
Meverick steps through immediately after, and the wavering doorway back to the woods blinks out of existence behind him.
Waves crash hard against a lonely stretch of shore, carried by a howling wind. I push myself to my knees, gasping and gagging, as Meverick steps around me. He spares a glance downward while pulling his glove back on and, once I’ve caught my breath again, he offers his hand.
“Get up.”
I recoil, disgusted and afraid. “What did you do to me?”
“Nothing,” he says, “and I don’t mean to.”
“Where am I? Where have you taken me?”
A castle stands out against the gray sky before us. It looks out over the sea from a rocky cliff top. Other than it, the land is featureless, all stone and sand and cold. I retreat into my cloak, hugging it tight around me.
“Home,” is all he says.
“You can’t keep me here. My brothers will come looking!”
“Let them,” he replies, unconcerned. “I will feed them to the gulls.”
There has to be a way to escape. A nearby village or town, people who can help. But the dunes roll on for as far as I can see into emptiness.
As if he’s read my mind, Meverick scoffs. “Go on then, flee if you'd like. See how far you get.”
His cloak snaps in the wind as he passes me. He doesn’t even look back. He knows I have nowhere to go.
I scream at his back, tears and blown sand stinging my eyes. “Why are you doing this? We haven’t done anything to you!”
Meverick stops just long enough to respond over his shoulder, and his voice is dark with quiet, smoldering fury.
“Your clan took everything from me. Now I mean to do the same, starting with you.”
His words are almost as icy as his touch had been and any response I might have had dries up on my tongue. I sit back on my heels and look helplessly around. Meverick simply leaves me there.
I stare after him, wondering if this is some kind of trick. He disappears through the front gate of the castle and, when he doesn’t reappear, I spring up and run as fast as I can away from him and his home. Trick or not, I’m not going to waste an opportunity to try and escape.
But the sand goes on. And on. And on. An endless, rolling tide of it as far as I can see. It doesn’t matter which direction I go in or how many dunes I climb, it’s all just more of the same: a windswept field of grey loomed over by a distant castle.
After struggling up so many sandy hills leading to nowhere, I walk slowly back to the water’s edge. I fall to my knees and bury my face in my hands and I scream as loud and as long as I can, until my voice is hoarse.
Despair settles over me first and I crumple to the ground, beating my fists against the sand. My sobs are ragged and feel like fire in my raw throat.
Slowly, as I begin to tire and the feeling fades, emptiness replaces it. I push myself up again and sit with my knees hugged against my chest, gazing listlessly out to sea. I don’t want to admit to myself that this could be defeat. We’d barely begun. How can I continue on now, though? I don’t know where I am or where my brothers are. Torren, my only hope of finding the Dreamweavers, is also lost to me. Without her, I’ll never be able to get to the cure.
I stay where I am for a long time. The chill from the sea seeps into my skin until I’m shivering, but I don’t move. The sun begins to set in streaks of orange and pink, but I don’t move. I’m sore, uncomfortable, heartsick, but still, I don’t move.
Even when Meverick sends one of his guardsmen out to bring me in. His armor is smoky grey and clanks heavily as he trudges across the beach. He’s grumbling unhappily under his labored breath.
“The lord would have you come inside, my lady,” he says between pants.
At the sight of him, a childish stubbornness bursts from the emptiness and I ignore him.
“My lady,” he says again.
I continue to stare out over the water.
“The lord --”
“Your lord,” I snap. “He’s no lord of mine.”
“You are in his realm, you will show him due respect!”
I snort, which only makes him madder. “He dragged me here against my will. All I’d like to show him is what a good punch to that smug face of his feels like!”
I can practically hear the guard’s teeth grinding and I allow myself a small smirk. If I can’t get to Meverick directly, then I’ll have to settle for being a thorn in everyone else’s side. Maybe I can convince them I’m too much trouble to keep around and they’ll ship me home so they don’t have to deal with me.
“If you don’t come with me…” He trails off on a threatening note.
Clearly he’s not aware that I have brothers because I’m well used to that very tone. Of course, I had always been secure in knowing neither Drake nor Joseph would actually hurt me. The sword on this guard’s hip, and the way he keeps stopping himself from reaching for it, leaves me unsure. Meverick did say he didn’t mean to do anything to me, but did that apply to his men as well?
I look at him from the corner of my eye. “If I don’t come with you, you’ll what?”
It’s a risky move to bait him so, but what do I have to lose?
He scowls and fingers twitch against the hilt of his sword again, but he still doesn’t draw it. I’m safe for now, it would se
em.
“Do you mean to sit out here forever?” he demands.
“Do you have to wait with me until I go inside?”
He doesn’t answer, but the way his nose wrinkles tells me that’s exactly what he has to do.
I straighten my shoulders and stare at the sea again. “Well, I hope that armor is comfortable then.”
While the guard hisses curses under his breath, I gather my thoughts. Feeling sorry for myself won’t get me anywhere. I need to think. What would Father do? This is one lesson I never got to overhear. As I drag my fingers idly through the sand, I’m reminded of the map I drew, and an idea hits me. It seems obvious now that it’s occurred to me. I stand and adopt a shy, apologetic posture with my head bowed and hands clasped at my waist. I can feel the guard eyeing me suspiciously and have to fight the urge to make a face at him.
For this to work, I need him to believe that I really am just a lost, scared wee lass.
“I’m sorry,” I say as sheepishly as I can manage. “I’m upset at your lord. I shouldn’t take it out on you and make you stand here like this. If you’d be so kind as to lead us inside.”
He exhales, both in frustration and relief, and gestures for me to go ahead of him.
“Just head toward the gate,” he says. “I’ll be right behind you, so you’d better not try to run.”
“Where would I go?” I respond with grudging resignation.
With the guard clanking along behind me, I begin to cross the beach toward Meverick’s castle. Father can’t help me right now, but Mother can. I keep repeating the instructions she had been giving me since I was old enough to walk.
Back straight, eyes down, hands folded together, keep your steps even and small. Your smile should be polite, welcoming. No, Mary, don’t bare your teeth! You’re not a dog, you are a lady!
People trust ladies. They don’t expect much of them except to sit in corners and look pretty when they’re not doing chores. Ladies are overlooked as long as they behave.
I can’t use a knight’s approach here.
If I want to be given the freedom I need to find a map and figure out where I am, I need to act every bit the lady my mother has taught me to be.