Chapter 7
Most regretfully, the sheriff had been right.
Dorian was much more observant than my first three guards.
He tracked my movements with an unblinking intensity that would have made anyone uncomfortable.
He was a man somewhere past his prime, though no weaker for it.
Gray speckled his dark hair and beard, shadowing a pointed, swarthy face.
His medium frame was wiry and hardened, with the kind of muscle that had been earned through years of use.
But it was his eyes that unsettled me the most. They were cold, black, and empty of any compassion or feeling. This was a man who had misplaced his humanity long ago and never once missed it.
He made a small game of cruelty throughout the day.
Without warning, he would give sudden jerks on the rope binding my wrists so a flare of pain ripped through my shoulders each time.
My joints ached as though the sockets themselves were crying out, begging him to stop.
Dorian never laughed, but I could tell he was entertained.
How I hated him.
I made sure to whimper and tear up as he expected me to each time he injured me, but also made sure he saw fear in my eyes between each incident.
Each time I let out a noise of pain, his lip curled in satisfaction, and a little extra time would pass before he yanked on the ropes again.
All I needed was to buy a little bit of time to create a new plan.
I couldn’t use sophor berries again; he had been warned of that and had been inspecting and sniffing each bite of food as thoroughly as a suspicious wolf. He prided himself on his caution and superiority, and pride was a trait I was familiar enough with to know how to exploit.
But hunger had begun to slow me. Two days without food I could tolerate, not cheerfully, but I would manage to endure.
But thirst…my leathery tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and my thoughts thickened.
I dared not drink or eat anything offered here; I wouldn’t put it past the sheriff to triumph by my quiet death before Father arrived.
So at dusk, I forced the matter.
“I need to wash,” I told Dorian, pitching my voice to pitiful sweetness. “Please—the brook. I can’t go on like this.”
He snorted derisively. “Your hair isn’t smoothed to perfection?”
“Tisn’t my hair that needs washing,” I said, blinking up at him with wide eyes.
“Then what?”
I hesitated. “Well, you see… It’s…my time of the month. And unless you can find some soft moss—”
“All right! All right! Enough!” Suddenly squeamish, color drained from his face and he jumped to his feet, not even bothering to jerk on my ropes again. “Womenfolk,” he muttered under his breath, shuddering. “Disgusting.”
I nearly smiled. It never failed to amuse me that men like Dorian, so prone to act with a great deal of bravado and manliness, would fall apart at the mention of feminine needs. These types of men would fold instantly rather than hear one word about it at all.
As we made our way past the tents, curious faces peeked out. Dorian waved them off with a jerk of his head and an expression that suggested he would rather fight a bear than explain.
Dorian led me to the stream, where the water rushed past clear and cold and glorious. He stood a few paces away, back turned, muttering the words disgusting and nasty and told me to hurry up.
I deftly stepped backwards through my arms so that my bound hands were now in front of me then knelt with my back to my captor, clasped my hands together, and gulped mouthful after mouthful of clear water.
I drank desperately, each swallow bringing clarity back to my fogged mind.
The cold numbed my lips and chin, but I didn’t care. I felt alive again.
Once my thirst was quenched, I plunged my hands into the water, searching for something, anything, that could help me. This may be the best chance I would get to escape. At first, I only felt smooth stones and silt, but then my fingertips touched sharp edges.
A rock.
I gripped it between my teeth and began to saw the rope with slow, careful strokes. But the rope was thick and hardened, and progress was much too slow. There was no chance my efforts would escape Dorian’s notice.
I needed more time when Dorian wasn’t watching, so I tucked the stone into my waistband, washed quickly—just enough to be convincing—and rose to my feet.
For now, I would have to wait, but I had water in my veins again.
“Done yet, lassie?” called Dorian from behind me. He sounded bored and irritable.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw that he had settled himself on the far side of a broad stump, leaning back with the rope stretched loosely between us. My bindings were still secure at my wrists, but the length connecting me to him was slack as it dragged across the ground.
A plan sparked to life in my mind.
“Almost!” I chirped. “This water is so cold!”
He grunted in reply. Good. Disinterested and unworried—exactly as I needed him.
I moved quietly, each step deliberate, gathering the rope into my hands inch by careful inch. My breath slowed.
Closer and closer I crept, making sure to move so even my shadows wouldn’t alert him to my presence.
The stump came up to my waist, shielding me from his line of sight and I stopped directly behind him.
He finally noticed.
His head twitched—not fully turning, just sensing the absence of the clumsy splashing I’d made before. I couldn’t afford hesitation.
In one swift motion, I flung the coiled rope over his head and wrenched it back hard, bracing my feet in the earth. The rope bit into his throat. His gasp was soft, more a choked snarl than a shout, and his fingers scrabbled uselessly at the line cutting off his air.
I let out a grunt of exertion as I struggled to keep a hold on the rope. I had no desire to kill him, but I did need to incapacitate him, and soon.
His boots dug trenches in the damp earth as he fought, but I had too much leverage and desperation to lose. I continued to pull against Dorian’s fruitless efforts to free himself from the rope cutting off his air until, finally, his movements grew fainter and fainter until he fell unconscious.
When he sagged, unaware, I eased the tension and slipped the rope free. His body slumped sideways against the stump with a dull thud. I crouched quickly, slid his dagger free from his boot, and cut through my bindings.
Once free, I used the rope that he had kept such a tight hold of to secure him—arms pinned, chest bound tight to the stump. His head lolled forward, tongue hanging in a way that was almost comical if I ignored the bruising already forming along his neck.
“That’s the price of tying up innocent girls, Dorian,” I murmured, though I was anything but innocent.
The memory of the rope jerked hard against my shoulders surged hot and furious through me. So I took his boots and pitched them into the stream. They disappeared instantly beneath the current.
Let him walk barefoot back to camp…if he got free.
For good measure, I tore a strip from his filthy tunic and gagged him with it. I allowed myself only a breath—just one—to admire the scene. The sheriff wanted to play games. Fine. Let this be his first lesson on how the House of Locksley played.
Then I ran.
I splashed upstream in the shallows, water kicking up in silver sprays, my stride long and sure. The icy current numbed my feet, but at least there would be no footprints, no scent trail, no easy tracking.
“Try and follow me now, Baron,” I thought savagely, my breath fogging in the cooling dusk air.
As I ran, I pictured the sheriff’s expression when they found Dorian trussed and gagged by the very girl he had sneered at. The satisfaction warmed me far more than the sun, sinking now behind the treetops.
Half an hour later, my feet were numb blocks of ice. I climbed back onto solid ground, breathing hard, pulled off my soaked boots, and slung them across my shoulder. My leggings clung up to my thighs, wet and freezing, and my teeth chattered.
Autumn was sinking deeper every day. And night—my greatest ally—was falling fast.
I turned north. The mountains rose faintly in the distance, familiar shapes but still far off. I didn’t know exactly how long I’d been unconscious before waking in the sheriff’s camp. Hours? A day?
I drew a slow breath, bracing myself.
It would be a long walk home, but I was free, and that was enough.