Luca snorted. “She fancies herself, doesn’t she? Who said we’re doing it for you?”
He stalked off to saddle up his horse, ready to leave. Taka smiled at me. “Maybe we’re doing it a little bit for you. But it seems like the right thing to do, don’t you think?”
“We can’t pay you,” I replied – they were mercenaries, after all.
For a moment, I thought Taka looked hurt but his normal expression swiftly reasserted itself. “There’ll be money enough for us once we reach Lord Krius – a little later than planned, but he’ll wait. There’s no harm in doing one job for free. As long as we’re going that way anyway.”
Of course, they were only going that way because of me, because they had agreed to take me home rather than picking up their money and moving on to their next job, but I decided not to mention that. I was more grateful than I knew how to say. I looked at Taka with tears rising in my eyes.
“I can’t ever thank you enough for this. I would do anything for you…”
As I laid a hand on Taka’s shoulder, I saw his expression change to that gruffer one that always seemed to appear when there was any suggestion of intimacy between us. He shrugged off my hand.
“Don’t get silly. Come on, we’ve wasted enough time today, we need to get moving.”
The late start that Taka had decided on was to give the guards of the chain gang, the soldiers of Lord Vulpus, time to catch us up. In early afternoon, we saw them, far below us as our horses picked their careful way along a narrow ridge, a sheer drop to our right.
“Do you think they’ve seen us?” I asked.
“Damn well hope so,” said Kai. “That’s the point. They see us now and they know we’re crossing the border into Lord Lullin’s territory, so they’ll call off the hunt and perhaps will never suspect that it had anything to do with Lord Krius. Either way, by now the general should be home and safe.”
“And you’ve earned your reward.”
“Payment,” corrected Luca sharply. “We’re not bounty hunters. We’re professionals doing a job.”
An hour later, Kai told me that we had crossed into Lord Lullin’s territory and were now safe. I couldn’t tell any difference – the land doesn’t know who rules it, the mountains don’t care, they just go on being what they are. And not just the mountains, Kai also told me that my village is also part of Lord Lullin’s territory. I’d never even heard of him. Kai just laughed and explained that the area my village was in had changed hands three times in the last year. Massive battles, thousands dead, and my village and I didn’t even notice.
When we settled down that night, Taka took me to one side. I felt a butterfly flutter in my stomach as he touched my arm to draw me aside. I looked up into his grey eyes and longed for him to take me in his arms and kiss me as he had before. Just being this close to Taka I found almost overwhelming. But then, I felt similar emotions when I was alone with any of the guys, except perhaps Luca.
But my optimistic daydreams remained just that. Once we were alone, Taka kept a safe distance from me – when I took a step forward, he took one back.
“We’ll be arriving at your village tomorrow afternoon,” he began, his words making my heart leap in my chest with pure excitement. “I wanted to make a couple of things clear to you before we arrive. We’re all dedicated to solving your village’s bandit problem – and you don’t owe us a damn thing for that, it’s something we all want to do – but we’re not wandering do-gooders, Keira, we’re mercenaries.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, that once the problem is solved, we’re leaving to take up Lord Krius’s job offer, and we won’t be looking back.”
I had never assumed anything else and yet, when I heard him say it, the bottom seemed to drop out of my stomach. I didn’t want to say goodbye to them. It wasn’t just the sex; they were different to any other men I had ever known, and I thought that they had made me a different woman. One I liked. Had I thought they might stay? Certainly I had hoped for it. And to hear that hope dashed made me feel suddenly despondent.
“We’re fighters,” Taka continued. “And none of us would be anything else. Money and a fight, that’s all we want from life. Nothing else.”
As he spoke those last two words, his eyes suddenly darted to the ground, as if he could not look me in the eye as he said it, though I could not guess why.
As Taka had predicted, we reached my village the following afternoon. For the hour or so before we arrived, I had begun to recognize some of the scenery and landmarks – the mountains are all the same until the ones that look like home, which are somehow completely different and much better.
I wasn’t sure what reaction I would get, riding into my village accompanied by four handsome, but well-armed, men, but in the event, I don’t think anyone from my village even noticed the guys. By lucky chance, it was my friend Bren who was working in the fields outside the village – probably doing penance for some misdeed – who saw me first. He did a hilarious double take as he saw me, and then, as I watched, his eyes and mouth seemed to widen in slow motion. He dropped the fork he had been digging with and leaped in the air, screaming in excitement.
“Keira! Keira! It’s Keira! Keira! Everyone look – it’s Keira!”
He started towards me, then decided that telling the village was more important and rushed back, then changed his mind again and ran back to me. I dropped from my saddle with the elegance of a well-practiced horsewoman, just in time to be folded into Bren’s loving arms. I hugged him back. Between Bren and I, despite some adolescent fumblings, there had always been nothing but friendship, but it was friendship of the sort that is carved from granite – we would be friends till death and after.
“I can’t believe you’re back. We thought we’d never see you again.”
“I thought I’d never see you again.”
“What happened?”
I sighed. “Long story.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Bren smiled, then looked up at the guys. “Who are your friends?”
“Longer story.”
Since I had no wish to tell either story twenty different times to twenty different people, I left it for now and hurried back into town, with Bren beside me, to find my parents. The guys walked behind us, striding confidently along, apparently unaware of the stares they were getting. I was very aware of those stares, especially the ones that came from the young women of the village, whose eyes looked as if they might pop from their skulls at the sight. I felt a sharp twinge of jealousy, and then reminded myself that the guys wouldn’t be interested in them – they weren’t interested in anyone in my village. They were here for the bandits and then they would be gone. Getting attached would be a silly mistake.
I cannot describe the look on my parents’ faces when they first saw me, looks combining disbelief and joy. No more could I describe the feelings in my chest when I saw them, and it would be useless to try. We were in each other’s arms in seconds, the three of us wrapped in one another, tears flowing freely, words spilling forth incoherently as I tried to tell them what had happened and that I had not run away, and them telling me they loved me and I could marry whoever I liked or no one at all, if I wanted. None of it was important – being together again was the only thing that mattered at that moment.
It was later, sitting in my parents’ kitchen with Bren; Ryne, the village headman; and a few other important locals, that I told the basics of my story, including the reason that the guys were here.
“They’re going to help us,” I ended my account. “And they can do it. I’ve seen them.”
Ryne looked up at the guys who stood, solid and silent by the wall. Nothing like them had ever been seen in our little village before, and they were, I guessed, a little intimidating.
“I see.”
My mother was more effusive. “I can’t ever thank you enough for saving our little girl from those horrible men.” My account had, of course, skirted over some details, like spankings and rough
sex in the mountains. “You can stay here with us while you’re in town. We’ll make room. Anything you need, just ask.”
Taka smiled gratefully. I imagined he would be good with parents; the sort of man a girl would be happy to bring home to meet the folks. “Thank you. We will gladly accept your hospitality, but helping your daughter was no trial for us.”
“I find that hard to believe,” my father muttered.
“Dad!”
“Well, you are always making trouble.”
“She’s been very well behaved,” said Taka, without a trace of irony.
“About this… thing with the bandits,” Ryne began nervously. “What exactly are we talking about?”
“Best case scenario,” Taka became all business, “we scare them off and make them believe that your village is protected.”
“You think that’ll work?”
“No. But it’s a good first step. Assuming it fails, as I think it will, then they will attack, and that’s when we’ll really scare them.”
“You want them to attack?” asked Sheba, the village’s unofficial matriarch.
“It may be necessary,” nodded Taka. “People seldom believe what they are told, but always believe what they see. I can tell them to stay clear of Stenheim or I’ll kill them, but it’s more effective if they attack, give it everything they’ve got, and they end up losing a bunch of men. That’s what will scare them. Death is the only language these people understand.”
I saw the uncertain looks pass between the village notables, and I was sure Taka saw them, too.
“You want them to ‘give it everything they’ve got’?”
“That way, they’ll know they can’t beat us.”
“How can you guarantee our people won’t get hurt?” asked Ryne.
“You’ll be nowhere near,” replied Luca. The expression on his face suggested that he did not like the people he was talking to.
“We’ll set up an early warning system so we know when they’re coming,” explained Taka. “You’ll have plenty of time to get out and we’ll deal with them.”
“There are an awful lot of them.”
Taka nodded. “We know. This is what we do.”
“If we pay them, they don’t usually bother us,” pointed out Sheba.
“They take your people.” The contempt in Luca ’s voice was plain to hear.
“Not that often,” Sheba countered. “And, while it is devastating when it happens, this sounds like we could lose far more.”
“Better for a lot of you to die fighting than a handful to be sacrificed,” snapped Luca.
“That’s not what we’re talking about,” said Taka sharply. “Do as we say, and there’ll be no danger to your people. And we’ll rid you of the bandits forever.”
“They took my daughter.” The cracked voice came from Elva, the oldest woman in the village, who had seen it all. “More than fifty summers ago. I still miss her. I don’t want anyone else to go through that.”
Ryne looked back to Taka. “Very well. We are in your hands.”
Chapter 10
If the welcome given the mercenaries by the village notables had been a bit lukewarm, then that of my parents – and particularly my mom - continued to compensate. Turfing my dad out of their room, she made it up for two of the guys, converting mine for the other two. Dad and I made up our own beds in the living room, but we did it without complaint.
“They’re such nice boys,” my mom kept saying as she rushed about, bringing them food and drink, offering to clean this or darn that. “Who’d have thought they were so violent?”
My mom would have described a man-eating lion with a toothache and grudge against the world as ‘nice’ if it had helped me, but the guys were on their best behavior. It had clearly been some years since any of them had been in a family home, and it was fun to see them in that environment. It made me wonder what they might have been like as youngsters.
I was pleased to note that the rest of the village, once Bren had told them what the guys were doing here, sided more with my parents in welcoming the guys as saviors. To the extent that, by evening, a large welcome party was taking shape. A fire was built in the village square to roast goat over, the village’s best musicians set up and a space was cleared for dancing, while all the men and women of the village rooted about for their best clothes. I couldn’t help noticing that the girls seemed particularly excited about the event, and I was reminded that, while the guys wouldn’t be staying long enough to form any relationships, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t take advantage of whatever local entertainment was on offer. They were mercenaries, after all, wasn’t that what they were supposed to do when they descended on a town? Eat, drink, and defile as many women as time permitted. It was hard not to wonder if that was all I had been to them. But hadn’t they made that clear? All three of the guys I had slept with had tried to push me away, knowing that nothing could come of it. I had made my own bed, and I’d had a lot of fun in it, but soon enough, that bed would be empty.
As night fell, the wine began to flow, the smell of the food drifted through the village and the band struck up a lively number that soon had people heading to the dance area. I had always loved the dances in my village, even before I discovered the pleasure of dancing with boys. There was something in the air, the fun, the laughter, the excitement. Just the sound of the music made my heart skip faster. There had been days in my captivity when I had wondered if I would ever dance again, here or anywhere, and to be back here amongst friends and family was a wonder that I was determined to enjoy to the fullest.
First, of course, I danced with my dad, as I had used to when I was little, and I could see from the tears in his eyes that he, too, had wondered if we would ever be able to do this again. Next, I danced with Bren. He was not the most graceful mover in the world, but we always saved a dance for each other.
“Who have you got your eye on?” I asked – these dances were always an opportunity for the young men of Stenheim to make their feelings clear to local girls in a more casual setting.
“Dana’s saving me a dance,” confided Bren – I knew he’d had a thing for her for a while. “I’m hoping to stretch that to more than one.”
“If she’s got any sense, she’ll spend the whole evening with you.”
“I guess I don’t have to ask who you’re looking to dance with. Or, at least, I can narrow it down to four.”
I guess I must have blushed to confirm his suspicion, as he then shrugged and added, “You might have to wait your turn.”
I had been so caught up in the dancing that I hadn’t looked over at the guests of honor to see if they were enjoying themselves, and now I did, I was pretty sure that they were. It seemed as if every single girl between the ages of eighteen and fifty, who was not already on the dance floor, had descended on the guys. They didn’t seem to be keen to dance, but there was no mistaking how much they were enjoying being the center of attention. Taka’s quiet smile had broadened a half-inch – which, for him, was practically a grin. Rex had a girl on each massive knee, and didn’t know which way to look. And Kai was beaming like a hyena as he recounted his adventures to a growing audience of wide-eyed women seated at his feet. Only Luca remained on the outside. A few women came optimistically up to him, but a look and a few snapped words was enough to see them off. Not that many even approached – however handsome and well made a man Luca was, he gave off an aura that kept people away.
“If you’ll excuse me,” said Bren, as the music changed tempo. “I’m going to find Dana before she joins their fan club.”
He hurried off, leaving me staring at the guys in unconcealed jealousy. I’m not proud of it, but the idea that they could even look at other women made me madder than all the hells. If I’d stopped to think about it, I’d have asked myself why they weren’t dancing, why they weren’t taking the girls off for a bit of private time, why Taka gently removed a girl’s hand from his thigh when it was placed there. If I’d stopped to look, I might ha
ve noticed the regular glances in my direction. I might also have noticed that some of the men of Stenheim were almost as mad as me – the younger, at having their options for dance partners seriously reduced, and the older, at the potential corruption of their daughters by these slick newcomers. But I was just mad. Heading for where the bar was set up on a hastily arranged wall of straw bales, I downed a few drinks and looked about me. Thanks to the guys’ monopoly, there was no shortage of potential dance partners for a girl looking to make her men jealous, and my gaze lighted on Cirac, who had always had a bit of a thing for me, which I had never really reciprocated.
I grabbed him by the arm. “Fancy a dance?”
I think he was more surprised than pleased as we hit the floor. I might have been dancing with Cirac but my eyes seldom left the four guys and their gaggle of women.
When the song changed, I said thanks to Cirac, downed another drink, and moved on to Asus – I figured I wasn’t really leading them on as long as I danced just one dance with each. Seeing Rex look over at us from between the women on his knees, I flattened my body shamelessly against Asus, grinding myself against him, and was pleased to note the tightening of Rex’s features. Next up, was Martak, probably the best dancer I knew and the two of us put on quite a show, making Kai lose the thread of his story as he watched, quite disappointing his eager audience. Dore was less of a good dancer, but he was a handsome boy and, while not comparing to the guys, a tall and strong one who many of the village girls had their eye on. I danced close to him, brazenly flirtatious, the alcohol making me act in ways that the sober me would have frowned upon, but at that moment I did not care. I looked across at the guys again. While Rex and Kai were still looking irritable, it was Taka who was now drawing my gaze. He was watching me, but instead of envy, I just saw him smile that little smile of his, and shake his head, as if to tell me that I wasn’t fooling him. Damn him.
I had another couple of drinks and was feeling pretty light-headed and a little heavy footed when I dragged Pieter onto the floor. I was determined to make it look good, to make it look real, to make them feel what I felt when I saw them with all those girls – whether they were interested in them or not. At this point of the evening, I might not have been sober enough to make that happen, but I gave it my best shot and looked across to the guys. I saw Luca staring back at me, his face hard set, his eyes burning.
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