Chapter 28 #2
“I’m not looking to get married to anyone right now, Sergeant, and I’d prefer to ride back alone.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to get out of those wet clothes and warm up? It’s dozens of miles to town, and we…” His eyelids drooped as he considered her. “I’ve ensured we won’t be disturbed.”
More than lust, his expression held calculation and a fantasy about some future in which his son would be heir to the throne.
“It’s strange, I know, but sitting as a prisoner in a cold metal box doesn’t get me excited about being with a man.” Syla looked him in the eyes, so he couldn’t mistake her rejection. “I am not going to marry your father or have sex with you, Sergeant Tunnok.”
The horrible thought that, if he forced the matter, she possibly could conceive a child came to mind.
Back home, she had access to all the medicinal herbs that one could desire, including contraceptives.
But here? Did she have yerathma root in her first-aid kit?
She thought she might. That could help if she needed to handle the matter after the fact, but she would prefer not to need to worry about that.
Uneasy for multiple reasons, Syla willed the sergeant to leave and for this to go no further. Surely, if she yelled, some of his men would come to check on her, to help her. Or was that a surety? He’d said they wouldn’t be disturbed. Was that under any circumstances?
Had her mother and siblings been alive, Syla would have been positive someone like this wouldn’t bother her, someone with a good name and lands that could be taken by the crown, but now…
Now, she didn’t have her family. And she’d sent away her bodyguard.
She couldn’t even call out to Wreylith for help, not with the shield up around the island.
Of course, the red dragon hadn’t implied she would come again if Syla did reach out through the figurine.
“We need not have sex right now,” Tunnok said, “but I suggest you do consider what I’ve laid out.
There may be other offers as time passes and events unfold, but I think you’ll find this one better than most. Others will simply want to kill you so that you need not be factored into the equation.
As I said, there’s already speculation. It won’t be that safe for you in Hazel Harbor or even back in your own capital. Not without powerful allies.”
“I will keep your warning in mind.”
“Good.” His gaze drooped to her chest again, then to the tie that held the robe closed. “Before I go, why don’t you let me see what exactly you can offer besides your name and your moon-mark. So I can tell my father, of course.”
“No.” Her heart pounded. What would she do if he tried to force the issue?
“My men are loyal to me,” Tunnok said softly. It sounded like a threat. “They can protect you from what comes, should you choose to ally with my family, but they won’t interfere with the questioning of a prisoner.”
“Do you try to get all of your prisoners out of their robes for questioning?”
“Only if there’s a chance that I might need to service them in bed later.” His eyelids drooped. “Or now. Is this your fertile time, perchance?”
Her fingers tightened into a fist. By all the deranged storm god’s creations, did he think he was going to impregnate her by raping her? That such a child would be a legitimate heir?
“Given the stress I’ve endured lately, including this exceedingly appalling discussion with you, I doubt I’ll be fertile all year.” Syla stood as much as she could in the carriage, her head brushing the ceiling, and thrust her finger toward the door. “Get out.”
Tunnok laughed shortly before his arm snaked out, and he yanked her down into his lap. He was hard through his trousers, and fear blasted into her, fear that he might be able to make his horrible plan come to fruition.
“I’m not going back out into the rain when there’s a warm woman inside.” Tunnok reached for the flap of her robe.
Syla grabbed his wrist but wasn’t strong enough to push him away. Fury blazed within her, and she willed her power into him, sending a tendril of magic shooting toward his groin.
Always before, she’d used her gods-gift to heal injuries, but she knew everything kingdom healers had learned over the centuries about human anatomy and used her power to squeeze the veins running into his penis to cut off circulation.
Thanks to her fear, she must have squeezed more than she’d intended because Tunnok gasped in pain.
With a lurch, he pitched her to the floor and rolled to the side, grasping his groin.
Afraid he would still be able to lash out at her, Syla reached up and touched his side, then sent more power into him.
It curled around his heart, tightening just enough that he would feel it.
Tunnok’s eyes grew round as he scrambled away from her to break the link—or try.
Her birthmark glowed brightly with the light of the moon, and, for the first time she could remember, a visible silver tendril hung taut in the air from the back of her hand to his chest, linking them.
With a tightening of her power around his heart, she might kill him.
The realization that she knew exactly how to do that sank in, the clarity startling as it came to her.
“I said get out, Sergeant,” Syla said, a tremor in her voice.
She was scared, whether for herself or for Tunnok, she didn’t know. It had never occurred to her that she could use the same magic that healed people to hurt them. She’d never wanted to discover that.
“Sergeant!” a rider called from the road ahead. “There’s someone out here. An arrow—”
“Shit, Boszik!”
Hand clutched to his heart, Tunnok lunged for the door.
Syla lowered her own hand, willing her power to release him. Feeding on her emotions, it almost had a mind of its own, and several long seconds passed before the silver tendril disappeared and her moon-mark stopped glowing. Finally, Tunnok was able to open the door and stumble out of the carriage.
It had stopped moving. Outside, horses neighed in terror. Tunnok straightened and looked around, but before he stepped away from the door, someone shouted a warning. It came too late. A white arrow whizzed out of the gloom and lodged in his eye.
With new terror swarming her, Syla lunged to the far side of the carriage, putting her back against the wall and hoping the metal would protect her. The legs of another enforcer flopped into view, someone else downed by an arrow. A gargoyle-bone arrow.
“Vorik?” she wondered, but he hadn’t managed to keep his bow when he’d fallen into the ocean. Only his sword. It had been in the scabbard strapped to his back.
Shouts outside accompanied the twang-thwumps of crossbows firing.
Scared equine screeches and snorts drowned out the calls of the men, and Syla expected the horses harnessed to the carriage to take off running.
But it didn’t move, even when thundering hooves announced at least some horses departing.
Maybe arrows had sliced through the harnesses? Or someone had cut them?
“Take cover behind the carriage!” a man yelled.
“She’s up there!”
She?
That couldn’t be Vorik.
More crossbows fired, but the enemy archer was far deadlier than the enforcers. A crossbow quarrel went astray, hit the door, and ricocheted into the carriage. Syla jumped as it clipped the wall inches from her head.
She might die at the hands of her own people. Not that she was sure these enforcers counted as that. She looked grimly at Tunnok’s body. He wasn’t moving, and she suspected that had been a mortal wound. Whatever he’d been, it hadn’t been an ally, and she struggled to feel remorse for his passing.
She crept toward the door, thinking to close it as some measure of protection. Too bad she didn’t have the key. As she pulled it shut, she glimpsed the enemy and paused, gaping. She’d seen that woman before.
It was the rider captain who’d attacked Wreylith, who’d wanted Syla.
Silver hair pulled back in a severe braid, she leaped, somersaulted, and attacked the men, some firing at her and some rushing up into the rocky terrain toward her with swords.
None of them came close to hitting her. Like other riders, she wore black gloves that hid her hand and whether or not she was tattooed.
But within seconds of watching her fight, Syla knew she was like Vorik, bonded to a dragon and flush with its power.
And, when the woman’s cool gaze skimmed across Syla, her blue eyes lighting with triumph, Syla knew the captain still planned to kill her.
It grew quiet outside the armored carriage, and Syla feared her escorts—no, they’d ultimately been her captors—had all been killed. All by one woman.
One dragon-rider woman who was as strong a fighter as Vorik. As strong and as deadly.
Having no delusions about the captain being part of a friendly faction or here to help her in any way, Syla rooted through her pack, seeking something she could use to defend herself.
She’d just learned she could use her power for more than healing, but she doubted that would be enough against the magically-enhanced rider woman.
Syla lifted one of the big green Candles of Serenity but snorted.
There was no way this enemy would allow herself to be locked in a space with no ventilation.
The carriage would have worked wonderfully for knocking someone out, but it wasn’t as if the rider captain would look at Syla and think thoughts similar to those of that ambitious sergeant.
“Maybe I can club her with it.”
Syla thought of her aunt’s belief that she might do that to Vorik and would have smiled, but she was too worried. She hoped Fel and Tibby were far away, that the rider hadn’t chanced upon them first.
After returning the candle to her pack, Syla poked around, rejecting the food and water she’d brought. Her knuckles brushed against the wings of the dragon figurine, and she pulled it out.