By Force (9 page)

I had to tell them to leave. Tell them not to worry and that I would be home soon. But would they go? No, they would not. I wouldn’t have if our roles were reversed.

I quietly rose to my feet, removed my leather shoes, and tiptoed, quiet as a mouse, around the dying fire. It was suicide, but my family would never leave without me. I paused and bit my lip as Otis stirred. Every snap and crackle that came from beneath my feet seemed to ring out through the land and bounce back off the distant mountains.

A blue-horned owl hooted in a nearby tree, and I wordlessly cursed the blasted creature before attempting to shoo it with a flick of my wrists. It clearly did not understand the gesture because it continued louder than it had before. A brown bird, similar to one from weeks before, dipped in front of me before settling in a tree several feet away.

I paused countless times as I crept forward, watching each of the savages for signs of consciousness. I half expected each of them to snap to and inflict fear and pain on us. My dad and brother signaled for me to hurry it up, but I ignored them. Instead, I kept moving, barely breathing for fear the savages would hear that too. Just when I thought I was in the clear, I met with resistance. James’s rough hands encircled one of my ankles. He yanked me toward him. I fell face forward, almost slicing through my tongue with my teeth as my chin bounced off the ground.

“Get them!” The savages hopped to their feet as if their bodies were on tethered ropes. They glowered at me but then stilled, their ears lifting unnaturally as they tried to make sense of the noises in the woods. Branches snapped as hurrying feet repeatedly crunched against the forest floor. The savage men charged after my papa and brother with the ferociousness of a pack of timber wolves. Otis and Remmie skimmed across the water as if they were skipping stones.

“Don’t hurt them!” I cried after them, “Please!” Fear coursed through me so completely that I almost drowned in it. My father and brother and Henry too would be killed and I would probably be whipped or beaten. And I would welcome it. I would beg for death if the savages ended their lives.

“So it looks like it’s just the two of us.” James’s voice was low, sinister. “How shall we occupy our time, then?” He rolled me over and covered my body with his. I could barely breathe with the weight of him on my chest. He was denser than a boulder and probably twice as heavy.

“Please just kill me,” I pleaded.

“Oh, I have much bigger plans for you. And we don’t have much time so I’m afraid I will just have to condense them a little bit.” He fisted my hair and inhaled deeply. Smiling at me, he licked the entire side of my face. His tongue was rougher than sand. Nothing mattered anymore if my father and brother were murdered trying to save me. Not even my virtue.

“Sweet and salty,” he whispered in my ear. “Now, let’s see what your blood tastes like.”

My blood?

I swept the ground with my hands, desperately searching for a sharp rock or a stick, but found nothing. Slapping at his back and pushing my fingers into his eyes did zero damage to him. My clothes ripped as we fought. James punched me in the stomach, forcing up blood and bile. I coughed, choking on the vomit. He raised his hands over his head. The firelight danced off the metal of the dagger he gripped tightly in his hand.

I covered my face with my arms as the blade sliced through the skin under my breastbone. He lowered his face to my chest and noisily slurped my blood. I looked down, letting him drink—as if I had much choice. I continued searching for a weapon. High above my head I found a jagged rock about the size of my palm. I clutched it in my hand and drove it into his back as far as it would go. He didn’t even wince or cry in pain! How would I overcome him? These men were practically superhuman. Unfazed, he continued drinking with more enthusiasm than before. Was this normal? Drinking the blood of their victims? Were they really this barbaric and primitive? I stabbed him again and again until my hands were wet with his blood and it dripped down my hands and arms.

Just when I thought I would pass out, someone picked him up off me and flung him across the clearing, sending him smashing into a tree. The wood splintered and pieces of bark snapped off and hurled in every direction. I coughed and gasped for air. My mouth still tasted of blood and bile.

Roland stepped in front of me, obstructing my view. I wrapped my arms around his thick, muscular legs and peered around them to see James collect himself and flip to his feet. I wished he had been hurt much worse. I wished he was dead. And I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt about it.

“You’re going to regret that, old man.”

Roland crouched down to speak to me, never once removing his eyes from James. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I whispered, clutching the wound in my chest.

“This is bad, Isame. Very bad.” First, I wondered if he was talking about James or about my family, but when he continued, there was no doubt. “I have no idea how Nole will respond. Prepare yourself for the worst.” He shook his head. “What were you thinking?”

“I…didn’t…I…” I sobbed, gasping for air. Roland reached his arm backward to rest his hand on my back. “They’re…my…family. “Of course…they would…try and rescue me…I was going…to tell them to leave…I didn’t want them hurt…but I knew they wouldn’t go…”

Roland and James remained in ready stances until the others arrived. Their battle was postponed, not forgotten. James sharpened his dagger on a boulder at his side. The grating sound of metal on rock went right through me. He stared at Roland with controlled fury. Roland refused to leave my side as I crawled along the ground to lie beside a tree, where I sobbed for my family.

When the others returned, they were slick with sweat. Nole and Remmie had splatters of blood on their chest and faces. This amplified the stabbing pain in my chest and I couldn’t stop myself from screaming at them. “Cowards! They’re half your size, you bastards!”

The men didn’t respond with words. Remmie and Nole walked over to where I lay and glowered down at me. Remmie was closest to me and I pounded on his legs. I hated them. All of them. I would make them pay.

“You killed them!”

“Let this be a lesson to you,” Nole said.

Given confirmation of their deaths, the world spun and my stomach became ripe with nausea before the world went black and I lost consciousness.

* * *

When I came to, I was disoriented and confused. It took me a moment to remember what had happened earlier that morning. I wanted to cry, but quickly realized I had nothing left. Instead, I vomited. And again, again, and again, until my throat was raw and there was nothing else to release.

They’d moved camp while I slept and I had no idea where they’d taken me. There was a small lake to my left, edged with a rocky shore. The trees overhead hung low and full. I could smell the sap in the trees and the smoke from the fire. The men looked almost as if they felt some stabbing guilt over their actions. So they should have. Though my papa and my brother and Henry were by no means weak, they would have been in comparison to the Daentarry. They were bigger and stronger. It wouldn’t have been a fair fight. Cowards. Only cowards preyed on the weak.

Deep down, I wished that James had been the one to hurt my papa and brother. I could have easily hated James, but I didn’t want to hate the others, but that’s exactly what I needed to do. It saddened me that I could never forgive them and that the newly blossoming, yet unconventional, friendship between the savages and me would never be realized. Yes, they had worked their magic on me too, without ever intending to.

Nole, Remmie, or Otis, alone or in combination, had done something terrible to my family, and I could never forgive them for it.

As the sun fell behind the curtain of trees, the men stoked the fire as Remmie disappeared into the woods. Roland, who sat beside me, stretched and announced he’d returned. I sat propped up against a cool tree with my cape draped around me, covering my torn dress. I assumed Roland had given me the blanket.

Roland looked tortured as he ran his hands down over his face before he rose and paced by the fire. I stared straight ahead, oblivious to my surroundings, wondering how my father, brother, and Henry had died.

“Isame.” Remmie shook me lightly. I must have fallen asleep, or passed out again. I turned my face to meet his.

Neither of us spoke. I had nothing to say and although he opened his mouth and closed it several times he ended up saying nothing.

“Did you kill them?” I finally asked.

He lowered his head for a brief moment and sighed with such force that I wondered if it came from the pit of his stomach. Lifting his head back up, he said, “Here, take this. You need to eat.”

I shook my head. “If you don’t kill me now, I will kill myself so there is no point in my eating, is there?” My words were emotionless and even. Dead. Maybe even a little crazed—which I most definitely felt.

He growled and then scanned the clearing. “You played a role in this. Did you think that they stood the smallest chance against us?”

I didn’t even have the energy to strike him though I wanted to. I turned my gaze back to the fire. It crackled and sputtered, and I stared, mesmerized, by the iridescent blue haze that bordered the flames.

“Bind her hands. She may make good on her threat,” Nole said as he pointed a finger at me.

“She can barely move,” Remmie said, scowling. “I don’t see her doing anything to herself just yet.”

“Bind her wrists, or I will,” Nole snapped.

“Was it quick? Did you at least give them that?” I asked quietly, keeping my eyes on the fire for fear I might crack if my eyes met his.

“They’re not dead, Isame,” he said, sounding almost frustrated.

I dared to meet his eyes, forgetting the power he seemed to hold over me momentarily. “They’re alive?”

He offered a single, slow nod. I sprang to life and wrapped my arms around his neck. He tensed and his arms hung in the air out to the sides. He did not wrap them around me, but I thought I heard him sniff my hair. Slowly, I let go and leaned away from him, remembering our situation.

“The king will be angered by your mercy.” James spat loudly at the ground. “You showed weakness and I will make sure he knows it.”

“Shut it, James. No one wants to hear what you have to say,” Remmie barked at him.

“I would have torn them to pieces if I’d been in the woods.”

“But you weren’t, were you? No, instead you were taking advantage of the situation, trying to do gods know what with Isame,” Roland spat back at him.

Remmie’s stormy eyes ignited and I saw flashes of red in them. He yanked the cape off me and I folded my arms across my chest to hide the ripped neckline of my sheath and the already healing stab wound. I assumed the others knew, but it was blatantly obvious now that Roland had not volunteered this information.

It happened so quickly that I didn’t see Remmie leap across the fire and land on top of James. The other men reacted quickly and separated them with great difficulty. When hands held them back, James resorted to taunting Remmie. “I told the king you would fail him! You’re every bit as weak as your father—maybe more.”

Remmie’s blurry body darted by me, leaves rustled on the ground, and the firelight briefly swayed in the direction of his movement; he reappeared nose to nose with James. It should have been impossible for him to move so quickly and yet he’d done it. It was as if he disappeared in one place and reappeared in another. Roland dragged Remmie back to the border of the clearing.

“I’ll give you the same advice I once gave your father. Sleep with one eye open, my friend.” James raised his brows and flashed a smile that hinted he might have had a hand in Remmie’s father’s death. Remmie hadn’t missed the suggestion, because a second later an arrow whizzed by me, headed straight for James’s heart.

Chapter Nine

Remmie had amazing aim. The arrow passed straight through James’s heart and broke through his back. The driving force propelled him backward until the arrowhead connected with a tree covered in dripping lines of sap. A small gurgle escaped his lips and a trickle of blood fell from the corners. His eyes rolled back into his head before his body fell limp. His weight pulled the arrow free from the tree so that he fell to the ground with a thud and he lay still in a pool of his rich, red blood.

My mouth opened and my breath caught, unsure of what to do or say. James was dead and Remmie had killed him. How would his death affect him and his group? I couldn’t say I felt sorry for James. Not in the slightest. If anything, he had it coming.

Remmie’s face had turned beet red as he looked on in anticipation, his bow still raised to eye level, ready to free another arrow if James twitched as much as a finger. The others stood with their mouths agape, their eyes on the dead savage.

“What have you done?” Nole shook his head.

“Good riddance.” Otis scowled at James’s lifeless body. “Miserable bugger.”

Roland laid a sympathetic hand on Remmie’s shoulder.

I felt a strange pull toward Remmie, like my body needed to be near his, to soothe him. It was as vital to me as the air that filled my chest. It was all I could do not to wrap my arms around him.

Nole ran his hands through the loose mass of hair atop his head and began pacing around the fire. “This is your fault!” He pointed at me. “Look at the spell she has you all under!”

I wondered how I could possibly be blamed for what had just happened. Nole had somehow missed that James implied he was involved in the death of Remmie’s father.

“But—” I began.

Nole silenced me with a look so dangerous it could have easily stopped my heart. “Not another word, fairy. Or I shall kill you myself.”

“Fairy?” Surely, that was some kind of insult. I was no more a fairy than the savages were.

“He killed Remmie’s father and he attacked Isame,” Otis said with obvious disgust. “Ask me, he deserved that and more. I’d have aimed lower.”

“No one talks to her again.” Nole made eye contact with each of his men. With that, he stalked off into the woods, the ground trembling under the weight of his stomping feet.