The Fates (Book I) - 2014 Watty Award Winner!

2.1 - The Rider

The man was taking her toward a group at the foot of the hill. A group of men on horseback, and one horse without a rider—a proud stallion of pure black. The man mounted this steed, swinging Clotho up behind him with a swift sweep of his arm.

The fellow nearest to him let out a lewd whistle, raising his brows over impish green eyes. “She naked under there?”

The man did not reply. Looked out upon the sacked town, one last time. Clotho held more closely to his torso, on instinct as the stallion quivered beneath them.

“Did you have to kill her family?” an elder companion asked, in a hushed and almost incredulous voice, nodding toward the house upon the hilltop.

The man shook his head. “Found her in the garden. She claimed to be alone.”

“Any loot from the house?” another inquired. “High on a hill, probably the wealthiest in town—”

“We’re done here,” the man declared, kicking his steed into a gallop and leaving the scene.

Clotho clung to him as the wind was suddenly stripped from her lungs, whipped past her cheek. The bare back of the horse beneath her heaved as steadily as the sea, as sturdily as shifting plates of earth.

The others followed suit, trailing the lead rider, a herd of faithful shadows in his wake. Clotho looked over her shoulder at the town they left behind. Soon enough, she could see only smoke.

After some time—she had very little sense of time, for there had been no such thing in the Cave—they arrived at a camp, in the sparse shade of short scattered trees. A circle of small tents and calmly stoked fires. On all sides of the camp, scorched by a sun nearing its summit in the sky, the grassland here was free from human life.

Men, women, and even a few children came to greet the arriving group. The lead rider reached the center of the camp and dismounted first. It seemed that he did everything first, Clotho mused.

His feet had hardly hit the ground when a pretty damsel popped out from a nearby tent and scampered toward him. She embraced him from behind, just as he reached to help Clotho down after him.

“Rider!” she squealed. “The tent is too cold when you’re gone.”

“It’s hot as hellfire today,” he responded flatly, shrugging off her hug and extending an arm to aid Clotho’s descent.

The girl scowled at this new and very unwelcome guest, full of hate for the fact that the stranger was naked under Rider’s cloak. She tried to brush off the annoyance, pawed at his back with doting hands. “But everything feels cold compared to your heat!”

“Then put more clothes on,” he advised.

Her jaw fell into an appalled, astonished gape. Her flaxen hair started to look like stale hay, set to burst into flames any second beneath the hellish sun.

“So she’s your new bitch, just like that? And now you don’t want more of this?” she gestured hysterically at her scarce-clad figure, as if it were gods’ greatest gift to men.

Clotho found herself astonished, too—that she had spun the thread of such a batty character.

Rider didn’t even bother to look at the indignant blonde. “Pretty sure I’ve had enough.”

She stormed off, sunbaked soil flying beneath her flailing heels. Several of Rider’s followers chased after her, hungry for his sloppy seconds. Clotho had not finished, or even begun, making sense of the episode when she suddenly felt thick cords upon her wrists.

She looked down at her hands. “What—”

“You heard her. You’re my bitch now,” Rider playfully explained. His subtle smile took some of the edge off of the ugly word. As did his honeyed voice, his soft blue eyes… she somehow knew he didn’t mean it. At least not in the same way the batty girl had.

But even so, here he was binding her wrists in rope. Till this moment, she’d thought that nothing could restrain her freedom more severely than the Cave. Seemed she’d been wrong.

“Chrysaor,” Rider called over his green-eyed friend, “take her to my tent.”

The companion gladly obliged, shouldering his heavy sack of looted goods as he hurried over.

“And don’t peek or poke under the cloak,” Rider added, to which Chrysaor’s gladness dimmed somewhat.

Chrysaor led her to the central tent, sat her down on the earthen floor, fastened the ropes at her wrists around one of the tent’s sturdy poles.

She spoke to him throughout the process, pleasantly surprised to find him quite responsive. “So you sack cities? Pillage villages, take women and plunder at your pleasure? That’s your way of life?”

Chrysaor nodded, no real ounce of remorse in his voice. “Sorry that your town had to be one of them.”

“You say that as if it were by necessity.”

“Aren’t all things by necessity? The force that drives the world?”

Clotho thought of her mother. The very goddess of necessity. What would Ananke say, to this? And more importantly by far… what had become of her? She couldn’t stand to think of it. At least not while she was in this fragile mortal form. For now, at least, she had to go on being human—here upon earth for the first time, flesh and blood.

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Thank you so much for reading! What'dya think of the first encounter on earth between Clotho/Cloe and Rider/Ryder? ;)

Next scene, we'll revisit one of the other Fates in the modern day... And if you liked this one, please don't forget to vote! :)