MySoultoKeep

by Dianna Hunter

  “Let us see what ya’ brung us, mates,” came a call from the group of rough-looking men not far from where Kayla watched.

  “Yeah! Show us what ya’ got! We wanna see ‘em!” the crowd chanted.

  Suddenly, one of the men darted in, slashing at the canvas covering. Another came from the side, his knife flashing as the crowd closed in.

  The soldiers swung their pikes amongst the crowd, trying to keep them back, but there were too many for the soldiers to stop.

  The shredded canvas dropped away leaving the cargo exposed.

  Huddled in the center of a large metal cage was a half dozen children.

  Kayla watched in stunned silence as a small boy of not more than five or six helped an even younger little girl from the floor and pushed her into the center of the group.

  The crowd began to chant excitedly. “Bear baitin’! Bear baitin’! Tonight the bears eat well!”

  “Hey! Get back now! You’ll have your fun tonight!” shouted the soldiers, kicking and shoving at the crowd until their way was cleared.

  As the cage drew even with Kayla, bringing the captives close enough for her to get a really good look, the little boy stepped away from the group of children and stood bravely, his feet spread to brace him against the bouncing of the cart as his eyes searched for someone, anyone, who might help them.

  Now that they were closer, Kayla could see that the child was not wearing furry clothing as she first thought but that his body was covered with a thin coat of cream-colored fur. A thick mane of darker hair peaked at his forehead and grew down to his thin shoulders and, as he turned his back to her in his search of the crowd, she was able to see the row of sharp spines that protected his backbone and ended in a short, spiked tail that fell nearly to the child’s ankles.

  Suddenly the boy turned and his large amber eyes locked with Kayla’s, and his desperate plea for help sounded as clearly in her mind as if he had used a bullhorn to call to her.

  “No! Not now!” Garth had her arm in his powerful grip. “If you interfere now, there’ll be a riot!” he hissed. “I’ll take care of this when we get to the palace.”

  But Kayla ignored his demand and continued to struggle against his restraining arm. “No! I’ve got to stop them! Do you know what they’re planning to do to those poor children?” She was desperate, for she had opened her mind for a moment to the crowd, and she knew of the “entertainment” planned! She knew of the giant maze where the six little ones would be released to hide and of the bears that would hunt them, the bears that were a close cousin to the were-beast that had attacked her so recently! The bears would be released to hunt the children, killing and eating their small bodies, to feed their insatiable hunger for psychic energy.

  Angrily, she jerked her arm free of Garth’s grip and demanded, “Who would allow such a barbaric thing? What have these helpless children done to be caged and killed like this?”

  “They’re De’Wa young from a neighboring island. The De’Was have been on the verge of open rebellion for years now, and these are obviously captured prizes of some recent battle,” he told her. Standing in his stirrups to scan the slow moving squad of soldiers escorting the wagons, Garth demanded, “Who’s in charge here?”

  A burly sergeant irritably turned his head to track the source of the shouted order. Recognizing the High Warlock, he quickly left his position and drove his rugged mount through the ranks of his men.

  “M’lord!” he came to attention before Garth.

  “Sergeant, what goes on here? Why are these captives being brought to the coliseum?”

  “Sir, the De’Wa underground has escalated their activities. In retaliation, the Emperor has ordered the renegades punished and brought under control. Yesterday our Commander Neyhaus managed to locate and destroy one of their strongholds.”

  “Yes, that’s all fine. I’m sure he taught them a valuable lesson,” Garth growled. “Now tell me why you have these children in custody.”

  “Sir, these children were taken as captives per the Emperor’s new orders which state that the resistance will no longer be tolerated and that the ‘old ways’ of punishing the rebels will be reinstated, Sir!”

  “Thank you, Sergeant, return to your post.”

  “You can’t let this happen,” Kayla hissed urgently.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll speak to Caleis and persuade him to return the children. Unharmed,” he reassured her in a grim voice. Grabbing Misty’s reins in one hand, Garth drove his heels into Firefly’s flanks, dragging Kayla with him as he forced a way through the mass of people and returned them to the main street.

  Kayla put one hand on the hilt of the crystal sword concealed in the pack at the rear of her saddle and looked back, over her shoulder at the soldiers. For a very long moment, she considered the possibility of charging the wagons but she wasn’t really sure she could successfully free the children from the midst of such a large group without causing a large amount of blood to be shed. Reluctantly, she released the sword and allowed herself to be taken toward the palace spires peeking above the rooftops.

  The muddy lane underfoot had become a cobble-stoned avenue and the shops and vendors that had lined the streets since they’d entered the city now began giving way to rows of elegant townhouses surrounded by park-like grounds. Everywhere she looked Kayla saw men and women dressed in gowns and tunics of pastel-colored satin strolling leisurely along walks protected by patrolling guards in blood-red uniforms adorned with rows of brass buttons and gold braid.

  As they approached the expanse of steps leading into the palace, a pair of uniformed and heavily armed guards jerked to attention, but before they could speak, two young cadets garbed in fancy-dress uniforms and armed only with decorative daggers at their waists rushed from the concealment of an alcove at the top of the stairs to take the reins of their mounts.

  “M’lord, M’lady,” they said in unison. Bowing deeply, they held the horses while Garth dismounted and turned to help Kayla to the ground.

  Aware of the covert glances cast their way by the finely groomed passersby, Kayla self-consciously adjusted her torn and dirty clothing.

  “Brice, Allen!” Garth greeted the boys, jovially patting them each on the back. “Take good care of these two for me,” he nodded at the wide-eyed Sasqua, “and see to it that our packs are delivered to my apartments.” He tossed a handful of coins in their direction before taking Kayla’s elbow and beginning their ascent of the stairs.

  When they reached the top, he led her through a massive set of carved doors that had been flung wide at their approach by more of the red–and-gold-garbed guards and drew her down a wide hallway. The sound of their footsteps was muted by the deep, wine-red carpeting covering the floors as they made their way to the foot of an elegant, curved staircase.

  “Come, my quarters are in this wing,” he said. Bounding up a short flight of stairs with her in tow, he threw open another pair of heavy, carved doors.

  “Helene! Sebastion!” he called in a loud, booming voice.

  “Sir,” grumbled an old man as he hobbled into the room.

  “M’lord.” A woman draped in black silently emerged from the shadow of a curtained doorway.

  As the servants moved into the flickering light of the lamps lighting the entry, Kayla saw that the elderly man walked in a permanently hunched position and used a cane to keep his balance as he hurried to greet his master. The woman appeared to be elderly as well, but she did not seem to be as physically impeded by her age as the old retainer was.

  Straightening from a formal bow to her master, the woman turned to stare coldly at the young woman accompanying him.

  Surprised by her boldness, Kayla returned the woman’s appraising stare. One look into those sly, hate-filled eyes glaring at her from the midst of the folds of wattled skin that covered the age-ruined face was enough to drive away any pity she might have had for the woman’s fate.

  “Helene, prepare a bath for the Lady Kayla. She’ll need suitable clothing as wel
l,” Garth ordered curtly as he pushed past his servants and into a large inner room of the apartment.

  “Yes, M’lord,” the old woman answered meekly enough. With the slightest of bows, she disappeared back into the dark of the doorway.

  “Sebastian, you will inform the Emperor of my return, and tell him that I await his summons.”

  “Immediately, M’lord,” the old man mumbled and left the room.

  Restlessly, Garth continued prowling from one room to the next, finally leaving Kayla behind as he disappeared into the depths of the apartment.

  Feeling slightly abandoned and a little overwhelmed, Kayla wandered around the large main room examining its unusual furnishings and wall hangings. She noted that the chairs and tables had been arranged into several small conversational-sized groupings and that each piece of furniture looked to have been formed from a single piece of wood, curved and bent into shape without the use of nails or saw. To soften the coldness of the dark, ebony wood, there were piles of colorful cushions stacked in the corners and thrown across the chairs and couches.

  The thick, woven carpet underfoot muffled her footsteps as she crossed the room to examine one of the many beautiful tapestries adorning the pink marble walls. To her shock, the tapestry represented, in exact detail, the bear hunt she’d only been able to get fleeting images of in the minds of the street mob. Tentatively, Kayla placed her hand on the fabric and immediately felt a tingling in the tips of her fingers as the weave came alive with the remembered passion of the participants, and she clearly heard the terrified screams of the child gripped in the mighty jaws of the giant bear and the excited cheering of the crowd surrounding the maze.

  “Your bath is ready, M’lady.”

  Kayla jumped and the spell of the tapestry broken by the sudden interruption. With a wary backward look at the wall hanging, she wiped the beads of cold sweat from her forehead with one sleeve and followed the servant blindly through a maze of rooms to the bath.

  The room the servant took her to looked more like a garden than a bath. Formed of the same pink marble as the rest of the apartment, it was filled with containers planted with several varieties of bushes and small trees, each covered in white blossoms. In the center was a small pool, which had been filled with an inviting froth of white bubbles.

  Eager to be rid of the sweat and grime of her travels, Kayla pulled off her torn, dirty clothing, dropping it in a careless heap beside a bench of smooth, black stone and stepped into the pool. She’d forgotten that she was not alone until Helene stepped forward holding a bar of fragrant soap and a long handled brush.

  Realizing that the serving woman meant to help her wash, Kayla raised her hands, “No thanks, Helene. I’ve been bathing myself since I was three, and I think I can still manage!” Hastily, she took the soap and brush from the woman’s hesitant hands and lowered herself into the warm bubbles.

  “As you wish, Mistress,” Helene murmured sourly. “I only wished to help you to become pleasing for your Master.”

  “Master!” Kayla repeated with a laugh. “Garth is not my master, nor is any man!”

  Scornfully, the old woman laughed, “Ha! You laugh now, but in time you will learn to call him Master, and the day will come when you will beg for even the meanest scrap of his attention! Why,” she jeered, “already you bear his mark on your body like any common slave!”

  Kayla stared at the nasty old woman in shock. “How dare you insult me like this! Get out of here. Now!”

  Dodging the brush and the hail of soapy water flying at her head, Helene scuttled for the door.

  With an angry hiss, Kayla slid back down into the water. All pleasure in her bath gone. She quickly finished washing the sweat and dust from her hair and body.

  With a towel wrapped turban style about her wet hair and wearing the filmy, blue-silk dressing gown she’d found hanging in the bath, Kayla wandered through an arched doorway and into what had to be the master bedroom.

  Someone had delivered both hers and Garth’s packs and left them lying on a long bench at one end of the room. The big room was dominated by a monstrous canopied bed formed of the same ebony wood that furnished the rest of the apartment. The top of the bed was covered with more piles of the soft pillows and a down comforter, a canopy hung in long, sheer sheets from the four sensuously curving posts. Her attention was drawn away by the silk curtains billowing gently in a breeze blowing between the pair of open French doors.

  Kayla pushed aside the curtains and discovered a balcony and beyond, the panorama of craggy sea cliffs and the vastness of the blue-green sea, breathtakingly beautiful in the light of the full moon. She had almost forgotten that this city was on the coast!

  Taking a deep breath of the tangy salt air, Kayla leaned recklessly far over the stone railing to peer down at the waves crashing and churning over the giant boulders guarding the base of the palace walls and felt her stomach toss and churn with the froth below!

  Quickly pushing away from the rail, she clutched her rebellious stomach, willing it to behave. “That’s strange,” she thought. “I’ve always had a stomach like cast iron and heights have never bothered me before.” Still feeling a little dizzy, she sat on the stone bench and leaned her back against the railing.

  Once her stomach had settled a little, she shook the towel from her hair and began running her fingers through the long, wet strands, holding them out into the breeze to dry.

  Kayla’s queasy stomach was feeling better by the time she returned to the bedroom half an hour later, still tugging at the tangles in her hair. Seating herself at the elegant dressing table she’d noticed earlier, she picked up a silver-handled hair brush and began working it through her long locks.

  She didn’t see Garth until her eyes met his reflection in the mirror. He lay sprawled across the big bed, propped up on a pile of pillows. His arms crossed behind his head, watching her slowly brush her hair.

  “I love that way you have of tilting your delicate head back and shaking it and how the light from the lamp sets those waves of pale silk hair afire,” he crooned in a husky voice.

  Finished with brushing her hair, Kayla left the table and went to him, letting the robe slip from her shoulders and fall to the floor as she walked.

  “And what might you be staring at, Sir,” she asked, sliding into his waiting arms and nuzzling his ear before beginning a trail of kisses down his neck. The hair of his beard tickled her nose, making her giggle as he drew her closer.

  Running his large hands up her bare back, Garth grabbed two handfuls of her thick hair and pulled her head back. “Oh, no you don’t. We have business to take care of first!” He laughed and looked into her mischievous blue eyes. “The Emperor requests my presence and that of my beautiful companion,” he informed her as he rolled her off the side of the bed and onto the floor where she landed with a soft thump.

  “Hey! No fair! Besides, I can’t go anywhere ‘cause I have nothing to wear!” she announced dramatically, doing a pretty pirouette in the middle of the room.

  Throwing his legs off the side of the bed, Garth snatched her discarded bath towel from the floor and snapped it loudly in the direction of her bare bottom, sending her squealing across the room.

  “You do now, my love!” He fetched a bundle from a nearby chair and tossed it on the bed. “Get dressed. I’ll be back for you shortly.

  Ssnapp! He snagged her in the towel, drawing the shrieking, giggling nymph to him and bestowing a long, deep kiss on her lips. “I’ll deal with you later,” he promised.

  MySoultoKeep

  Chapter Eight

  The sight that greeted Garth on his return took his breath away and made him pause in the open door to admire the beauty that awaited him, for the half-wild, teenaged nymph in tattered clothes had been transformed into a regal young woman.

  Striking a pose for him, Kayla did a slow turn for his approval.

  “Do I look okay?” she asked nervously.

  “Okay? Why, you look gorgeous!” he said, unable to tak
e his eyes from the vision dressed in a blue the color of the deepest sea. The sheer, silk gown cascading to the floor in soft folds was secured at each of her shoulders with crystal pins. Kayla’s golden tan flashed along the slit side seam of the dress as she turned, showing off the white sandal strapped to her foot and her long, slender leg all the way to her hip, and he could see just a hint of the darker blue of the high-cut silk panties and halter she wore under it.

  “You look awfully handsome, too,” Kayla said as she slid into his arms.

  Garth had traded in his own grimy traveling clothes for a silk shirt and clean leather pants, and his wide belt was now buckled with an intricately wrought, silver eagle. In place of the crystal sword, he was now armed only with a silver-handled dagger sheathed at his waist.

  Garth kissed her tenderly and held out a black velvet box.

  “I brought this for you,” he said hoarsely.

  “Ohh! I love presents!” Excitedly she opened the box and lifted the glittering silver chain from the velvet interior.

  “It’s beautiful!” she exclaimed as she held it up to the light. “Will you put it on for me?” Glowing with pleasure, she tipped her head and pulled her hair aside to allow him to secure the necklace.

  When she’d shaken her long hair back into place, she smilingly accepted his proffered arm and allowed him to escort her toward the front door, but she made him stop at the big mirror in the entry hall so that she could properly admire her new necklace before they left the room.

  Kayla was very careful to fix in her mind every twist and turn of their journey through the maze of castle passageways for the very thought of becoming lost in this mountain of stone was enough to put every sense she possessed on alert. Already she longed for the carefree days they had spent on the plains!

  They finally reached a tall, cast iron gate guarded by a pair of the crimson-uniformed soldiers. Bowing deeply at their approach, they swung the gate open wide before bowing them into the huge garden beyond.