Chapter Five.
Her hand was soft in his, her grip tender. They walked along the side of a river, on a bank thinly carpeted with new spring grass that brushed Merric's bare feet as gently as a feather. To his left was a sea of trees alive with birdcalls. He couldn't recognize any, which disconcerted him slightly.
To the right was his companion. Sunlight reflecting off the sluggish water framed her in a white halo, dancing across her marble-like skin and picking up golden highlights in the hair that fell over her face, obscuring it from view. A satiny black dress clung to her figure and Merric couldn't help but run an appreciative gaze over her curves.
Only once he'd looked his fill did he once more turn his attention to his surroundings. As far as the eye could see there were trees. They covered the ground which rolled lazily upward into low hills. The river they were following flowed from a gap between two of the highest knolls, which seemed to be where Merric and the mystery woman were heading.
Their pace was as slow as the river beside them, languid and idle as if they had all the time in the world and no place special to get to in a hurry. It was a nice change from the rigors of marching and guard-duty back at the Fort.
Merric stopped suddenly. The Fort! How did he get here? The last thing he remembered was ... was what? A frown creased his brow as he grappled for memories that didn't seem to be there anymore. They slipped through his fingers like sand, gone before he truly got a look at them. Ghostly, broken images of a galloping horse, the whistle of arrows and a feeling like he was flying were all he could hold onto. It was like looking through a grimy spyglass, the details were hazy.
A tug at his hand interrupted his thoughts. His companion was pulling at his hand, urging him to keep walking. Her grip had tightened from the tender, almost loving grasp it had been before to something more urgent, insistent. Merric looked up, but her face was turned away.
"Where are we going?" he asked, surprised to find his tongue thick and unresponsive. The words came out in a drunken slur. Experimentally he rotated his jaw, but it was reluctant to co-operate. He raised his free hand and touched it; feeling puffy skin like it was swollen. But for some reason it didn't hurt.
The woman didn't answer his question, she only kept tugging. Merric dug his heels in and refused to obey her. Panic was beginning to flare in his chest. Where was he?
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me who you are," he said to her, trying to keep his voice calm.
She stopped trying to get him to move and dropped his hand. Her shoulders hunched and shook like she was crying. Despite his instincts screaming at him to turn and run, run as far away from her as he could get, Merric took a tentative step and touched her elbow.
She whirled. Merric caught a glimpse of icy blue eyes and stumbled backwards, shock coursing through his system. He made to run, but she darted a leg out quick as a striking snake, tripping him. Merric hit the ground on all fours and tried to scramble to the river. If he could leap into the water, he could swim for the other side and escape. But a pair of hands grabbed him and, with inhuman strength, threw him onto his back.
She stood over him, legs splayed on either side of his ribcage. He looked up and saw her framed by sunlight, but it was no longer a halo. Now it was something twisted, something evil. The smirk on her beautiful face only confirmed it.
"Stubborn," she growled, fists bunched. Merric's eyes widened in shock as his memories came slamming back. The wagon, Tom's bleeding throat, the men crushed by poles. Everything.
"No," he breathed.
"You know what's most fun about dealing with stubborn people?" she asked, mocking him with the familiar words.
Merric saw a flash of silver in her hand. She grasped a handful of his tunic in one hand, lifting him absurdly easily. Her eyes came within an inch of his own and he stared into them, seeing his horrified face reflected back.
"Denying them."
He watched the dagger arch through the air in slow motion, then plunge into his chest.
Merric awoke with a yell, sitting up and clutching at his chest. A wave of nausea hit him at the sudden movement, almost slamming him straight back into the hard mattress. He fought it, groping for the place where the knife had gone in, convinced that his fingers would come away sticky and red. They didn't.
He looked down at his chest, head swimming. There was no puncture wound, no blood. A few more moments of frantic inspection assured him that he had dreamed the entire affair. Merric breathed a sigh of relief at this discovery and collapsed back against the pillow.
The room spun like he was on a ship in a high swell. Was he on a ship? Terror gripped Merric's heart once more. Was the highwaywoman going to burst in with a harpoon in her hand? He raked his gaze around the room and recognised it as one of the infirmary rooms of Fort Savar. The relief came back.
He made to run a hand through his hair, a habit of his whenever he was weary, but his fingers encountered a thick wad of fabric. Closer examination revealed that his head was wound with bandages. Gentle pressure applied to his forehead caused a sharp bolt of pain to crash through his skull and Merric gasped out loud.
Of course, he remembered now. The chase had ended when the cart crashed into the cooking building. Merric idly wondered what poor soul Berta was blaming for the mishap; it would take a week or more to repair the splintered boards. He hoped she wouldn't think he was the culprit. Maybe she would blame the highwaywoman ...
Merric sat up abruptly, ignoring the nauseating way the room resumed spinning. The highwaywoman! Had she escaped?
He stumbled from his bed and immediately fell to the wooden floor. With a muttered curse he detangled his feet from the sheet that had ensnared them and stood up. A powerful wave of queasiness hit him but Merric fought it as he found his boots and tugged them on, then stumbled to the door.
Gil Thompson, the camp doctor and a good friend of Merric's, was directly outside.
"Whoa there, captain!" he exclaimed. "Where are you off to in such a hurry? That was a nasty accident you had."
"I have to ..." Merric gulped back the urge to throw up. "I have to see ... the prison guard."
"Nonsense!" Gil scoffed, pushing Merric back into the room. "You have a fractured skull, my boy; you don't have to see anyone until you heal."
"You don't understand," Merric said through gritted teeth as Gil ushered him toward the bed.
"No you don't understand, my b -"
The rest of Gil's sentence was choked off by a yelp as Merric grabbed the doctor by the lapels and threw him into a wall. The resounding THUD shook the window in its frame and Gil slumped to the bed, groaning and cradling his head.
Merric staggered from the room, down the narrow hallway and out into the courtyard. The sun was dying on the horizon, the sky around it blood-red. Darkness fell swiftly in the desert, and already it was cold enough to make Merric's teeth chatter as he tottered unsteadily toward the prison barracks.
Usually the only inmates the two long buildings housed were rowdy guards who needed time to cool off. One building housed the jail cells and the other, much smaller, building was where the prison guards slept. Merric bypassed the small one. He knew that, if she had indeed been caught, the highwaywoman would probably be languishing in a cell.
Visiting hours were long over, but the lone sentry standing sentinel at the barrack doorway didn't protest when Captain Merric Greldor ordered passage. The soldier lit Merric a lamp and then unlocked the heavy door, drawing it aside.
Merric took the man by the arm. "Is there a woman in there?" he asked.
The kid scratched his greasy blonde hair. "Well, yes sah there is. But this ain't no tavern, so don't go tryin' nuffin'."
Merric grimaced. "I can assure you I have no intention of using her for that purpose."
The kid shrugged. "When you spend yer days surrounded by soldiers, you never know, sah. 'Sides, she's a fiery one, likely as not to bite yer if you did try ter do anyfing."
Without another word the sentry led the way into the darkness. He also carried a torch, but it didn't illuminate far into the large building. Merric followed the boy, peering into the empty cells on either side of him. From ahead, outside the weak ring of torchlight, he could hear groaning. The pervasive stench of human urine stung Merric's nostrils.
A loud voice from nearby made his heart leap in surprise. "Oh quit your damn whining, would you? Can't a girl get some sleep anymore? I swear to the gods, prisons just aren't what they used to be."
The soldier ahead of Merric chuckled and stopped at the next cell on the right, holding his torch high so that the light fell onto the huddled form of a woman lying in one of the far corners.
"You gots yerself a visitor, yer highness," he announced.
The woman sat up and Merric saw that it was indeed the highwaywoman. She looked none the worse for wear, at least not covered in blood. It seemed she'd been taken without the need to maim her.
The soldier turned back to Merric. "Like I said, sah, she's not werf the hassle, so don't bovver tryin'."
"Thanks Private," Merric said.
The kid nodded and left. Merric watched the ring of light from his torch bobbing to the end of the barrack, then the private disappeared outside and the door closed with an echoing bang. Silence descended within the darkness.
The highwaywoman remained sitting, hugging her knees to her chest. Those mesmerising eyes, which he had seen in his dream as cold and remorseless, now glared reproachfully at him. When Merric didn't speak, she decided to.
"Nice turban, ship-boy," she said.
Merric chuckled. "You did quite some damage today," he replied.
Her eyes sparkled mischievously, Merric liked her spirit.
"Thankfully nobody died," he continued. "But you did break a few people."
"It's not my fault you're all weaklings," she declared. "King Gavrilo really should choose men for this sort of job."
Merric chuckled again. "What's your name?" he asked, suddenly realising it was a question that had been burning within him since he'd first seen her.
"Kallista," she replied, warily.
"No last name that goes with that, Kallista?"
She shook her head. "Never has been, and I like it that way."
Merric stepped forward and leaned down, fixing her eyes with his own. "Well I think 'Kallista' is a pretty name, it's a pity the bearer of such a name has resorted to being a criminal."
Kallista blushed, both in anger and delight at the compliment. "What's your name then?" she asked.
"I am Captain Merric Greldor," he replied.
"You have a last name," she noted. "You must be important."
She was indeed a curious creature. Merric sensed a sort of arrogance about her, and also a thread of insecurity. It was like she was made of two completely different beings, a balance of traits that would have usually disagreed violently with one another.
"I am," he conceded. "My father was an important man before he died, and I inherited his good name."
Kallista's eyes were back to burning with resistance. Those eyes fascinated Merric; they were like windows to her soul. He could read all her emotions as clearly as if they were written across her forehead.
"You nobles are all the same," she said bitterly. "You enslave the common people; steal food from our mouths and coins from our pockets. And then you wonder why we turn to murdering and stealing to live."
Merric watched her for a few moments. She looked helpless, sitting alone in the gloomy corner of a jail cell. But he knew her to be strong and free-willed and, given half a chance, she would gladly slit his throat to get out of there. It was possible to cage a bird of prey, but in no way did you diminish the proud creature's sense of self-preservation.
"How did you come to being a thief?" Merric asked, breaking the silence between them.
She looked at her knees, taking her time to answer. "My mother," she said finally. "She tried marry me off to a rich baron."
"Was the baron old?"
Kallista snorted. "No, he was quite young and very handsome."
"Then why didn't you want to marry him?" Merric asked, confused.
She fixed those calculating eyes on him. "Why aren't you married? Why are you guarding this dung-heap instead of attending fine parties?" she replied, instead of answering.
"How do you know I'm not married? I could just be enslaved to a shrew and so eager to get away that I enlisted for guard-duty in the middle of nowhere," he said.
Kallista laughed slightly, a lilting sound that was pleasurable to Merric's ears. He couldn't help grinning along with her.
"Actually, I don't like the frilly, delicate, fragile women nobles keep throwing at me," he continued. "I don't want to be married to someone who doesn't excite me."
"Well there's my answer too," Kallista replied. "Those men aren't real men. They just want a pretty wife to show off at balls and galas, not someone with an actual brain. But mother didn't like my ideas, so I ran away. It was either I steal for a living, or sell myself to men. I chose stealing."
Merric leaned his bandaged forehead against the bars of her cell, listening to the bitter way Kallista spoke. She had gone through many hardships and had made decisions no self-respecting young lady should. He wondered if she had killed before, or whether that was just a veneer to make her seem tougher to the victims of her pilfering.
He was about to ask her another question when he heard shouting coming from outside. With a frown, Merric straightened and peered toward where the door was. A horn blast curled on the air, a call that was unfamiliar to him.
"What's going on?"
Merric jumped to find Kallista's face right next to his, pressed against the bars. She had stood and crossed the small cell with the stealthy silence of a hunting cat. Now he found himself peering into those hypnotising eyes at an uncomfortably close range. Their nearness didn't seem to bother her, however as she waited expectantly for an answer.
"I don't know," he replied, frowning. "That's not one of our horns."
The call echoed again through the still night air, followed almost immediately by three short blasts of another trumpet, this time from within in the camp. Merric felt the blood drain from his body.
"Dear gods," he breathed.
"What?" Kallista demanded, voice sharp in alarm.
He looked to her and saw his own wide-eyed expression of horror reflected back at him by her eyes. "That was an alarm call," he replied. "We're under attack."