Chapter 13
Sneeds turned out to be a short, scrawny, pimply youth about Baron’s same age with buck teeth and a distinct ferrety look about him.
I instantly understood Baron’s frustration.
This boy presented no threat to me at all.
All the rest of that evening, I very much looked forward to the changing of my guard.
Sneeds would be easier to bend to my will, a far simpler target than trying to take down Baron, even a sleep-deprived Baron. Now, which tactic to use?
Night settled in slow and heavy, the air cooling as the last bits of daylight died.
Sneeds shuffled over to our tent, kicking up dust with each step.
Immediately when he arrived, Baron beckoned him over to talk by the fire.
Their voices dipped low, but they weren’t quiet enough that I couldn’t eavesdrop.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Sneeds’s gaze slide toward me again and again. Baron snapped his fingers sharply in front of the other man’s face. “Eyes here. Pay attention.”
Sneeds blinked. “She’s just so pretty,” he muttered, almost dreamily. “I’ve never seen a girl like that before.”
Baron sharply cuffed Sneeds upside the head. The crack of it echoed off the trees. “Pull it together, soldier. I’m not going to tell you again. Don’t let her face fool you. You saw what she did to Dorian. She will run. You drop your guard for one second and you’ll regret it.”
Sneeds’s attention drifted right back to me anyway. Baron grabbed his jaw with one hand, fingers digging into his cheeks, forcing him to look up. Sneeds’s lips puckered under the pressure and his cheeks squished so that he looked like a buck-toothed fish instead of a ferret.
“Focus,” Baron growled. “I’m counting on you.”
He gave Sneeds’s head a small shake. Sneeds bobbed along, eager and clumsy, nodding so hard his shoulders went with him. The moment Baron turned away, Sneeds’s eyes snapped back to me again.
The plan practically wrote itself.
Baron went into the tent and dropped off to sleep while I was required to stay beside the campfire with Sneeds.
Almost instantly, deep snores began issuing from the tent.
It was a good thing that Baron hadn’t actually fallen asleep for very long at any point this last week, or I wouldn’t have been able to handle the racket.
The firepit was close enough to the tent that I had a generous amount of chain to work with. I inconspicuously let the damaged link fall into the fire once more, then turned my attention to Sneeds once I was sure Baron was soundly asleep.
“Good evening, Sir Sneeds,” I said pleasantly, twirling a coil of hair around my finger.
He flinched as though I was brandishing a whip. “I am not a sir,” he said. Even his voice reminded me of a rodent’s squeak.
I pretended to gasp in shock. “Oh, I thought for sure you must be a knight at least. You have such a look of power about you.”
Sneeds’s chest puffed up a little, but he remained vigilant. “I don’t think we’re supposed to talk to each other. They said you may try to escape or trick me.”
I sighed sadly and held up my chain. “How could I escape? There’s no way to break a chain that I know of. I have no way to escape that blundering oaf I’m attached to.”
“Baron isn’t a blundering oaf,” Sneeds said uncertainly. “He’s even higher up than my captain.”
“I wish I had been paired with someone more like you,” I cooed. I glossed over Sneeds’s words and made my voice as sickly sweet as I could. “Someone intelligent and powerful. Baron is nothing but an animal—all muscles and no brains. But I can tell…you are a very intelligent man.”
Sneeds’s eyes darted around, as though he was hoping someone would come and tell him how to talk to girls.
“Well, I…I do know how to read a little,” he admitted shyly.
I made sure my face showed admiration. “Do you? I wish I did. I don’t even know any letters.”
Sneeds smiled proudly. “I know L and R and S…” He began ticking them off on his fingers.
“Can you teach me some? I’ve always wanted to learn.”
Sneeds sat up taller, clearly pleased with all the attention I showered on him. “Take a stick and you draw like this.” He drew an uppercase L in the dirt at my feet. “That is L like in your name.”
I was momentarily surprised that he knew my name, but Baron knew it and it must have made the rounds in camp.
“It’s wonderful! Can you draw another?” I begged.
I kept Sneeds’s attention on the ground, tracing out letters, but allowed my gaze to scan the forest line.
Only a little longer, and Father would come.
He would bring the entire band of his Merry Men and they would all raze this accursed camp to the ground.
I just needed to prevent Sneeds from raising the alarm before he was overpowered.
I kept Sneeds drawing letters and trying to sound out words for an hour, all while I flirted and inched closer to him.
At first, he was cautious, but his trepidation soon gave way under my warm, flattering voice.
I made sure to giggle coquettishly at even his least amusing statements, loud enough for Sneeds to hear, but not so loudly as to wake Baron, who would see through my act in a heartbeat. Sneeds was not nearly as astute.
When it must have been getting on to midnight, I heard Father’s call from the forest. “Did you hear that?” Sneeds asked. He abandoned his attempt to scratch out our names, mine spelt as L-O-R-L, and looked curiously toward the forest.
“It sounded like an owl,” I said, allowing my voice to quiver just a little. I opened my eyes wide and bit my lower lip. “I’m frightened of owls.”
“Now, now, a pretty girl like you doesn’t need to fear owls,” Sneeds said, and awkwardly patted my knee.
“I won’t as long as you are near,” I said sweetly, then caught his hand and squeezed. “I’m sure you could protect me from anything. You look so strong and manly!” It baffled me that any man would be fool enough to believe such sappy statements, but Sneeds was eating them up.
“And you’re very beautiful,” Sneeds said shyly.
I swatted playfully at his knee. “Stop it! You are making me blush!”
“It’s true!” Sneeds seemed encouraged. “Your lips are like…like red roses! And your eyes sparkle like emeralds in the sunshine!” I inwardly cringed at how hard he was trying.
There was some movement at the edge of the forest. Before Sneeds could notice, I pretended to shiver, then batted my eyes at Sneeds. He smelled as though he hadn’t bathed in a year. “It’s very cold tonight,” I hinted.
“It probably feels colder to you because you’re so skinny,” he said in a matter-of-fact way.
I resisted rolling my eyes.
“I wish I had something, or someone to keep me warm.” I stared pointedly at Sneeds.
He gulped. “Maybe I could keep you warm?” he offered nervously.
“I would love that,” I gushed. Sneeds scooted over so our legs touched. I wrapped my arms around his neck and beckoned behind his back to the dark shadows closing the distance between us.
“Sneeds, my lips are cold, too,” I murmured coyly, and leaned forward.
“Can you find a way to warm them up?” Sneeds’s eyes, dilated to their fullest extent, shot down to stare at my mouth.
I was disgusted at the prospect of doing what I knew needed done.
As I leaned in, I reached surreptitiously for one of the rocks I had spotted earlier in the evening, thankfully close enough to where we were sitting for me to grab while he was… distracted.
He tasted dreadful and kissed enthusiastically, but very sloppily. The poor fool never saw the rock coming. I struck him heavily behind his right ear with the stone and he dropped instantly, out cold.
Father stepped into the light cast by the fire as I wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve, cast the rock aside, and spat onto the ground, eager to rid myself of any reminders of Sneeds. “Well, it’s about time you got here,” I hissed.
His bright red hair shone in the firelight. “Honestly, Laurel, I thought you would’ve been able to escape yourself by now. I knew they must’ve found a way to keep you here.” He indicted my metal collar and chain.
“I did get away. Twice, actually, but they have a tracker who, unfortunately, is pretty good. Keep your voice down—he’s in that tent. Here, help me.”
I briefly explained what I was doing and pulled the chain from the fire.
Father proudly inspected my work. “I told everyone there was no reason to worry about you,” he boasted.
Together, we heaved on opposite sides of the chain and finally managed to break apart the heated and weakened link.
It tinkled down on the rocks beside the fire pit.
I still had the collar and six feet of chain attached to me, but I was free at last!
“Who’s your boyfriend here?” Father sniggered, poking Sneeds’s limp form with the toe of his boot.
“Oh, just the latest of the guards they set for me. They’re having a hard time finding men willing. This will be the fifth one I’ve downed. Watch out or I may catch up to your record.”
Father grinned, pleased. “Good to know you’re using your feminine charm for all the right reasons.
” He glanced bemusedly at Sneeds again, whose face and knees were pressed into the dirt, rump raised comically in the air.
“Good thing I never had to kiss any of my guards. It probably wouldn’t have gone over as well. ”
Smothering a laugh at his jest, I whispered, “Let’s get out of here,” thrilled with our success.
“In a minute,” Father said, pulling a throwing knife from his belt and tossing it in the air. It flipped over a few times and he deftly caught it again. “I have an old friend to visit, to repay him for treating my daughter so well during her stay. Goes by the name of Blackwell. You know him?”
“Want me to lead the way?” I asked. A smile spread over my face at the prospect.
Father gestured me on. I pulled two more throwing knives from Father’s belt as I passed him and spun them between my fingers with easy familiarity. Oh, how I’d missed the heavy feel of these weapons in my hands. Suddenly, I no longer felt like a helpless victim, but powerful and in control.