Chapter 10 The Hellion
Celise followed the horse to a small iron gate in the curtain wall.
If the soldier hadn’t led her there directly, she never would have found it.
It was only about twice the size of a standard door—not very large for a castle’s entrance.
The gate stood ajar. It looked like someone had passed this way not long ago.
The black Hellion charged through the doorway without breaking pace.
The woodland on the other side was dense with ferns and towering trees.
A forest of ancient pine and manawood crowded the south side of the castle.
The soldier dismounted in one smooth movement and threw the horse’s reins over a swinging pine bough. Then he dashed off into the woods.
“Wait!” Celise called as she darted across the pine needles. She struggled to catch her breath. She was too far away—the man didn’t hear her. “Wait, there are others!”
She reached the side of the horse, her lungs burning. Sweat poured from her brow. She almost collapsed.
She placed her hand on the steed’s neck. “Whoa now,” she gasped. “Give me some of your stamina, hm, boy?”
The horse regarded her with a suspicious eye. Then he snorted.
Celise paused for a moment to gaze into the depths of the woods, stunned by their soft beauty.
The violet glow of the ghost blade was visible through a maze of mossy tree trunks.
The white bark of the manawood trees pulsed gently under the starlit night.
A canopy of cerulean leaves rustled above her, casting an ethereal glow across the forest floor.
Black pine trees interrupted the mystical sight.
Manawood was plentiful in the kingdom of Forsynthia, but this ancient grove was older than anything on the Dhastel estate. The air around the trees was charged with a palpable energy. She could feel it, a gentle tingling on her skin, a warmth that seemed to seep into her very bones.
Courage, she thought.
She patted the Hellion’s strong withers, sucked in a deep breath, and continued into the woods. She didn’t dare wander too far from Gravenmere—she didn’t want to get lost outside the grounds. But she could see the ghost sword’s soft amethyst light ahead of her, and she wanted to see it in action.
Now she truly had to wonder—what am I doing? But it was too late for that.
A cry in the darkness led her to the soldier.
He stood between two towering manawood trees, their white blossoms glowing faintly like stars in the darkness. Celise hung back, gazing onward with wide eyes.
Illuminated by the ghost sword’s purple glow, the soldier stood over one of the thieves.
The man cowered on the ground in his threadbare jacket, his fake livery torn and spattered with mud.
She thought she remembered the thief’s name—Corwin.
The bag of stolen weapons was split open, its contents scattered through the undergrowth.
It looked like the bag had ripped by accident while the thief was leaving the castle, and he had been frantically trying to pick up his fallen loot when the soldier arrived.
Now the thief cowered on the ground with the soldier hovering over him, the purple ghost sword raised high.
“Caught you, you nasty hookleech,” the soldier cursed. “Thought you’d make off with half my treasury, hm? Not tonight.”
“Please, sir, it wasn’t me—I was paid to do it!”
“By whom?”
“I . . . I can’t . . . he’ll kill me . . . .”
“No matter. I’m sure you’ll tell me everything as I remove each finger from your thieving hand.”
“N-n-no! Wait!”
Celise turned away from the confrontation, horrified. Was the thief about to lose a finger? Obviously, her presence was not needed. The soldier seemed to have the situation well in hand.
Her moment of courage had been foolish indeed.
Now, how did she get back to the castle?
“Got you!” a voice grunted. A bulky shadow loomed out from behind a tree trunk. Without warning, a hand clamped over her mouth.
She tasted dirt. Ugh!
“Do you remember me, sweetheart?”
Celise gasped, but the man’s fat palm was suffocating. Yes, she remembered him, though it took her a moment to recall his name from their brief encounter in the gardens. Farvi?
After years of enduring her stepmother’s abuse, her body didn’t know how to react.
Her arms stiffened up as her legs went watery.
Unable to fight or flee, she went still as a corpse.
I am not brave, she thought, disappointed in herself.
Her body went cold with terror, and her courage vanished like smoke on the wind.
Then the forest started moving. Shadows shifted back and forth against the grove of glowing manawood. At an unknown signal, a band of men emerged from the ferns and swaying pine branches to encircle the soldier.
The soldier looked up. He stiffened. He must have seen her—the woods were lit by a soft glow from the mana trees.
But he didn’t acknowledge her. He turned in a slow circle, his sword held out before him like a blazing torch, observing the bandits that surrounded him.
He was greatly outnumbered, at least a dozen to one.
Celise trembled. She couldn’t move. Could hardly breathe.
Farvi called to the soldier, “Oi, dustlicker! Let go of me mate!”
“And why should I do that?” the soldier said, kicking the man to the ground.
Farvi carried her forward. She sensed the strength in his big arms. He could snap her neck without trying, she had no doubt.
“Everything you do to him, we’ll do to her!” Farvi threatened in a guttural tone. “Now let him go!”
A slight whimper escaped Celise’s lips.
The soldier reassessed the situation and finally kicked the sad man toward his fellows. Corwin groaned pitifully as he staggered to his feet. Two other bandits came to his side to drag him up from the ground. They gathered the shined ghost swords and ran off into the woods.
“Release the girl,” the soldier called in a dark, raspy voice.
“Not in a star’s breath!” Farvi guffawed. “The girl comes with me. If you want us to spare her life, do the lass a favor and don’t follow us.”
Then Farvi flipped Celise over his shoulder as easily as lifting a sack of potatoes. She shrieked, her mouth finally freed of his grimy hand.
“Help!” she tried to scream, though her throat was frozen with fear. The words came out in a hoarse whisper. “Please, help!”
Farvi followed the group of bandits through the grove of manawood trees.
His grip was tight and unyielding around her waist as he took off into the woods.
Celise was horrified. Paralyzing fear overcame her.
She wanted to kick and scream, but she couldn’t draw breath.
What did these men intend to do to her? Would they abduct her? Or kill her?
“Let me go!” she demanded, but her words were barely a gasp in her throat. Her fear had stolen her voice. She felt utterly useless. I am a coward, she thought. She was completely overwhelmed—and she hated herself for it.
She looked for the soldier with the ghost sword, but she didn’t see any purple light behind her. She heard no thunder of hooves or distant jingle of a harness. No sign that he was in pursuit.
Of course he wouldn’t chase after me, she thought. Who was she to anyone? He was probably returning to the castle for reinforcements.
Why had she followed him outside the castle walls?
She was foolish beyond belief!
A hot tear slipped down her cheek. Celise tried not to cry.
Dead leaves and twigs crunched under the men’s feet.
They left the manawood grove behind and climbed down a steep hill into a gully, where a narrow brook wended its way through the wilderness.
Rocky hills covered in ferns and old bramble enclosed them on all sides.
The men barely uttered a handful of words between their heavy, panting breaths.
They seemed eager to put as much distance between themselves and the castle as they could.
In the near total darkness, Celise recalled the terrain around Gravenmere with some vague detail.
The road leading to Gravenmere’s front gates, which cut through miles of empty, spacious fields, would be located somewhere behind them.
The thieves seemed to be headed deeper into the woods, which meant they were traveling farther into the mountains beyond the castle.
Farther into the rugged wilderness, where she would never be found.
Farvi’s hands around her waist were cruel and strong.
His grip brought back terrible memories.
Like the sting of Marcella’s rod on her back, too many times to count. The suffocating darkness of the root cellar when Marcella had locked her away for days as a young girl. She would starve, trapped underground, until the staff found her.
Then the snowstorm. The stables. She didn’t remember that night Marcella locked her out of the house, but Mr. Talisworth and Mordwen spoke of it often.
They had found her in the morning, sleeping next to the fiercest stallion in the herd.
After that, she went mute. Talisworth put her to work mucking stalls, but she wouldn’t say a word.
She had spent the next two years completely silent.
Celise didn’t recall those years at all.
Mordwen had brewed all sorts of concoctions trying to cure her mutism, but nothing worked.
She thought of those as her ghost years, lost to time and memory.
The horses had brought her back to herself.
She remembered the first time Mr. Talisworth had put her on the back of an old mare when she was thirteen years old.
She remembered the laugh that had fought its way up her throat like a mountain spring bubbling up from the earth.
She remembered the freedom she had felt.
She couldn’t often feel her own emotions—but she could feel them with the horses.
She thought of that laughter now, of the pure bliss of riding bareback across the Dhastel estate, the sun on her hair and an unbroken gelding beneath her.
Stay strong, Celise, she thought, returning to this new nightmare.