Chapter 14
Our journey to Avivia was meant to be one of peace, filled with a week of goodwill tours, handshakes, and gift-giving.
Aria had been the one to suggest the opportunity to appease the unrest simmering along the border.
She was determined to prove herself ready for the throne and wanted to show her people she cared for their hunger, their fears, their future.
Father had suggested a tour of the kingdom during which Aria and Islandrians together showed a unified front and gave out supplies to the villages.
It was a common practice in our country, usually undertaken by Curtis.
It was one of the primary reasons that he was so popular.
When we arrived in Avivia, the wagons were piled high and our hopes higher still. Curtis, Aria, and I traveled at the front of the caravan, with Father, several delegates, and another translator bringing up the rear. Guards trailed far behind us so as not to seem threatening.
The first few days went smoothly enough.
There were smiling fishermen, polite conversations, and grateful mothers tucking new blankets under their arms. Children always clustered around Curtis.
His dreadful Avivian grammar coupled with his heavy Islandrian accent kept the youth in the crowd laughing, giggling about his pronunciation and trying to get him to say complicated words.
Curtis, ever the good sport, would slap himself on the forehead each time they squealed in delight and told him he had used the wrong word.
But the further north we went, the closer to the border, the smiles thinned.
Eyes lingered on our fair Islandrian skin as fists clenched and hostile words were muttered in undertones.
The laughter of earlier days faded, replaced by a taut silence that clung to us even after we’d ridden on.
Not even Curtis’s sunny attitude could permeate the gloom seeping in.
The closer to the Islandrian border we got, the less receptive the locals were to us being there.
Aria and the other members of the Avivian Council had to head up the procession to prevent us Islandrians being completely turned away or a skirmish breaking out.
By the sixth day, my stomach was in a constant knot.
Only one more day, I told myself, over and over again.
Then we’d be back in Islandria, back where I could breathe and feel safe.
The attack came early on the last morning.
Men burst from the trees like wolves from cover, their faces twisted with rage and weapons flashing.
Clubs fell, torches were waved, and swords were brandished.
They fell upon the wagons, dragging drivers to the ground, ripping supplies from the carts, setting others ablaze.
Flames licked upward, black smoke boiling into the dawn.
Curtis reined in sharply, already reaching for his sword. “Go!” he shouted at me when he saw me rooted to my saddle, paralyzed by fear. “Go get the guards!”
I wheeled my horse about, but more men poured from the trees behind us. We were boxed in. Where were the guards? We had brought them for our protection, so where were they?
Screams echoed around me, human and animal alike, and it was impossible to tell the difference.
Had the guards been attacked as well? Were we entirely on our own?
My pulse hammered in my throat. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.
Curtis needed me. Father needed me. I reached down and pulled up my bow and arrows, the ones I thought I would never need to use.
“Stay back!” I shouted in Avivian. My voice sounded thin and shrill against the chaos. The men didn’t stop. I called once more, praying they would obey, but to no avail. I squeezed my eyes shut, hating what I knew I had to do.
I loosed my first arrow. It struck. Another. A miss. Two more hits. The attackers didn’t slow. I barely had time to nock my last arrow before a torch swung toward my horse’s flank. Storm screamed and reared violently and I hit the ground hard enough to drive the breath from my body.
A hand fisted in my hair, jerking my head back so hard my vision swam.
“Islandrian scum,” a voice growled in my ear.
The man’s face loomed into view, a jagged scar running down his face.
He slammed me back against a tree. Stars popped in front of my eyes as I blinked furiously to clear my head.
Rough bark bit into my shoulders as he tied a rope around my hands so tightly they went numb.
I tried fiercely to break free of the man’s grasp, but he was far stronger than I was.
My efforts did no more than amuse him as he lashed me to a tree.
I forced my gaze past him then immediately wished I hadn’t.
A wagon driver lay sprawled in the dirt, three arrows in his immobile chest, blood pooling around him.
I screwed my eyes shut, trying to block out the scarring image, then wretched as my insides heaved their contents forward, spattering the scarred man’s boots.
He leapt back in disgust, snatching a torch from one of his companions. “Let’s teach this Islandrian a lesson, boys!” he called to the group at large.
The cheer that followed curdled my blood.
I screamed until my throat tore—not just for myself, but for Father, for Curtis, for anyone to intervene. A harsh, strong slap rocked my head sideways, white-hot pain blooming across my cheek.
“Nobody’s coming to save you, lassie,” the scarred man hissed, voice thick with satisfaction. “They’ll all be dead soon. You too.”
It was only a matter of time before they killed me, just like they had killed the wagon train driver. Would they torture me first? Would Father and Curtis hear my dying screams?
“Guards! Over here!” I screamed out, hoping my voice would lead the guards, someone, anyone, to me.
I wanted something to scare my attackers, anything.
Why? Why hadn’t we kept the guards right with us?
Why had we been stupid enough to think that not having guards would make us seem more friendly?
Of course it would put a target onto us.
The scarred man slapped me again, even harder than before. Blood began trickling from my mouth, and the bark of the tree I was tied to scratched the side of my head as I was hit.
“Got a feisty one?” another man, squat with a droopy eyelid, came loping over from the group.
The squat man grinned evilly, revealing a mouth full of teeth as graying and jagged as broken gravestones.
“She is a pretty one, this lass!” he leered at me.
He was too close. I could smell his putrid breath. “Got a kiss for me, sweet?”
I spat in his face.
Laughter erupted around us, ugly and eager. “Alright, boys,” the scarred man called. “Who wants to have some fun?”
Weapons lifted. My scream tore out again, shredded by terror. Someone yanked my hair from behind so hard I couldn’t even turn my head. Somewhere in the madness, I heard Curtis’s voice, tense with panic. “Truly!”
“Curtis!” I screamed back, unable to see anything but the mass of foul-smelling bodies pressing forward.
The squat man chuckled softly and said, “No help is coming missy. Is that your boyfriend? We will take care of him in just a minute. Just after we take care of you.” Then I saw the scarred man approaching, bringing with him the burning torch.
Nearer and nearer he came, leering as he tauntingly waved the flaming branch in front of my face and a sickening roar of approval came up from the men gathered around. I could feel the suffocating heat from the torch and knew exactly what my captor planned to do.
“Shame that your boyfriend won’t have a pretty face to look at anymore,” he leered, indicating the torch’s dancing light.
I pulled against my unyielding bonds as much as I could, desperate to get away from the insufferable heat. As much I was trying to hold them back, tears began to slowly leak out of my eyes. My head was filled with a high-pitched whine of panic as I began to hyperventilate.
I knew it was coming, but that didn’t help at all. It made it worse. Time seemed to slow down.
The scarred man held the hungry flame against my face.
The agony was indescribable.
Pain exploded through me in raw, searing, consuming waves.
My eyes watered, smoke choked at my lungs, and I screamed as I had never screamed before in my life.
The smell of burning hair filled my nostrils.
I thrashed, gagging, choking on smoke, but the bonds held fast. The men roared approval.
A club slammed against my arm and I felt the bone crack.
I thrashed about wildly, eyes rolling madly, screaming endlessly, trying to relieve any of the all-consuming pain.
Then new shouts came, urgent and angry. The guards had caught up at last!
The torch fell and the mob scattered. Through my tear-blurred vision, shapes broke into the clearing—Islandrian guards, steel flashing in the daylight.
Curtis was ahead of them all, bleeding but sprinting toward me.
He was on me in an instant, smothering the flames and cutting me from the tree.
His hands were shaking, his face ghost-pale.
Darkness surged up, cool and merciful, swallowing the pain. The last thing I felt was his arms catching me as I fell forward.