Binding Spell (Tales of the Latter Kingdoms)

T
his is a work of fiction
. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

BINDING SPELL

Copyright © 2013 by Christine Pope

Published by Dark Valentine Press

Cover art by Nadica Boskovska. Cover design and ebook formatting by
Indie Author Services

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems — except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews — without permission in writing from its publisher,
Dark Valentine Press
. Permission is given to make one backup copy for archival purposes.

Please contact the author through the form on her website at
www.christinepope.com
if you experience any formatting or readability issues with this book.

O
f all the
ways I might have imagined my day ending, assuredly none of them involved being stolen from one of the guest suites at my Aunt Laranel’s estate, and then thrown across the saddle of a stranger’s horse and spirited away in the middle of the night. While I do have my powers, carefully guarded and spoken of to no one beyond my immediate family, the gift of the Sight is one denied me. Because of this, I had no idea of what awaited me when I blithely bade goodnight to my aunt and my brother and looked forward to a restful night in the luxurious rooms that should have been occupied by someone of far greater rank than I — Lyarris, Crown Princess of Sirlende. But as the princess had taken ill at the last minute and could not travel forth to witness the investiture of the latest Duke of Marric’s Rest, my aunt had decided that I, as the sister of the honoree, might as well enjoy the comforts of the suite.

What precisely woke me, I cannot say. Sleep had come to me easily that night, though I slept in a strange bed. True, I had spent far too many weeks on the road, first traveling from my homeland of South Eredor to the estate of Lord Senric Torrival, Duke of Gahm, where my brother Thani had spent the last seven years training at arms. From there, the Duke and Thani and I — and some forty-odd retainers and men-at-arms — had continued on to Marric’s Rest, my Aunt Laranel’s estate. Well, to be precise, the estate she had been keeping in trust for my brother, who rode forth to claim it as his own, now that he had turned twenty-five and reached his majority. At any rate, by the time I had tumbled into that heavenly feather bed, I had been on the road for the greater part of three weeks, and was more than happy to lose myself in sleep almost the moment my head touched the pillow.

For some reason my eyes opened in the deepest watches of the night, and I lay there in the dark for a long while, listening to the quiet of the house. The place was quite full, actually, what with all the men in Lord Senric’s train in addition to my aunt’s usual complement of servants. The house would have been even more crowded than that if Princess Lyarris had come to bear witness to Thani’s investiture. Even so, the enormous building — in my eyes, even grander than the palace of King Vandor back in my hometown of Marestal — seemed full to bursting.

Although I had somehow awakened despite my weariness, I heard nothing save the long, mournful call of an owl from a tree outside my window, followed by silence once more. I closed my eyes then, telling myself I must go back to sleep, that a good deal of unfamiliar ceremony awaited me on the morrow. Easier said than done, however, for there came the faintest rustle from across the room, and I stirred, whispering, “Aunt Laranel?” Perhaps she had come to make sure that I rested easy in my strange bed.

But that rustle became movement, and a dark figure rushed across the room and clapped a hand across my mouth, then began to drag me from the bed. A scream rose in my throat, but the rough hand across my lips held in all sound save a muffled squeak. The first wave of shock passing, I recovered myself enough to squirm in his grip, then bite down on one of the fingers pressed against my mouth.

I was rewarded with the prick of a dagger in my side. My assailant whispered in Sirlendian, “Don’t try that again.”

His accent was strange and unfamiliar, as if Sirlendian was not his native tongue. True, it was not mine, either, but I knew it almost as well as the common tongue, well enough that I could tell if someone was unaccustomed to speaking it.

I could not see the intruder at all in the darkness, but I did not need my eyes to know that the arms which held me were brutally strong. Besides, even if I somehow managed to pull myself from his grasp, he would still be able to drive the dagger through my ribs before I got very far.

He then dragged me to the door, dagger tip still pressing into my flesh, and herded me down the long corridor and into the stairwell at its far end. At its base I saw two of my aunt’s guardsmen slumped as if dead or asleep, but my captor gave me no chance to inspect them closely enough to know for certain whether they yet breathed.

The sight of those still forms sent an icy wave of dread through me, and I writhed in my captor’s grip, thinking perhaps a knee to the groin might loosen that iron grasp on my arm. The dagger only pushed against me once more, this time with enough force that I felt rather than heard it penetrate the linen of my nightdress, the steel cold against my bare skin.

I sucked in a breath and went still, knowing I did not have the strength within to resist further, not when he could so easily run me through and leave me lying dead as he fled the building. How I wished then that I had command of those spells from the days gone before, when a mage could have turned such an attacker to dust with a few words. But such powers were far beyond me and the few meager skills I did possess.

We emerged through a small back door into the cold night air, which bit cruelly through my nightgown. I barely had time to note two more slumped forms just outside the doorway before my captor pulled me through the gardens and into a small pine wood.

“What do you want?” I gasped. I could only hope his sole motive was a handsome ransom.

His voice was a low, menacing whisper. “Quiet, girl, if you know what’s good for you.”

Whatever happened, I knew then that I must do what he told me if I wished to survive. It had to be a ransom. Otherwise, I would most likely be dead already. My aunt, I was sure, would pay anything to get me back safely.

I held onto that faintly comforting thought as my captor dragged me to a horse he had tethered in the wood and pulled me up into the saddle before him, my face pressed against his broad chest.

“Hold on,” he instructed me in a rough mutter, and I was forced to cling to the coarse wool of his tunic as he spurred his horse to a gallop. We tore out of the wood in a scatter of pale leaves, and moved across open fields beneath the wan light of two half moons.

I hazarded a glance upward at the man who had kidnapped me and saw the dim moonlight catch in his golden eyes. I had never seen such eyes before, and wondered at first whether he was a true man or some evil spirit from a time now mostly forgotten. However, if one discounted those ochre-tinted eyes, he seemed human enough, although there was something wolfish in his aspect, in the lean weathered face and cruel set of his mouth. His left arm gripped me tightly, and I saw the glint of steel where he still held the dagger in that hand. Not that I would have considered jumping down — the best I could hope for after making such a leap would be a broken leg, or worse.

The miles flashed behind us as the night wore on, but I had no idea how long we rode, nor what time of night it had been when he seized me from my borrowed bed. As the sun rose, he guided the horse to a sheltered little dell where a pair of willows guarded a small pond.

My captor dragged me off his horse and pulled me over to one of the willow trees. He pointed at it, apparently indicating that I should take a seat at its base. Swallowing in trepidation, I did as he indicated. At once he produced a slender rope from his saddlebag and proceeded to bind me to the tree trunk.

Of course I struggled, but even I knew my wild flailings were more for show than anything else. Within the minute I was firmly anchored in place.

“You won’t get away with this!” I cried out. “Once my family learns what you’ve done, they’ll be after me for sure. And when they catch you — ”

He shook his head at me, then pulled a somewhat grimy length of linen out of the saddlebag. “Quiet, or…” And he let the words trail off while he held up the dirty piece of cloth.

I knew it was going to end up covering my mouth if I didn’t leave off. That prospect did not appeal at all, so I fell silent. Besides, there didn’t seem to be another human soul in evidence. My cries of help would most likely go unheard, save by my kidnapper.

He nodded, as if satisfied that I appeared to be cooperative, and turned back to his horse, which he began to walk about the dell while murmuring low words in a language I’d never heard before. Somehow that rough monotone worked as a soporific, and I felt my head nod downward before I lifted it again with a jerk. Sleep? Was I mad?

Apparently I was, for after I struggled a minute or so more, my chin dropped to my chest, and my captor, his horse, and the willow trees faded into darkness.

H
ow much time had passed
, I couldn’t be sure, but the sun was definitely high in the sky when the stranger woke me and offered me a few sips of stale water out of the skin he wore at his hip. Then he knelt and untied me.

When I stood, my legs trembled and shook. I stumbled, and my captor grasped me by the arm. It was not solicitude, however; he only hauled me back to the horse and pulled me up into the saddle once more. Then we rode again, this time at a fast canter and not the wild gallop of the night before. He shunned the roads, and instead guided his mount across fields and meadows, occasionally slowing to a walk when we entered a wood.

Clearly he was doing everything in his power to remain unnoticed, and with a sinking heart I realized he most likely would succeed. We might as well have been the only two people in the world. Clearly he intended to cover a great deal of ground in a short amount of time, or he would have waited for darkness to shield our progress.

Night came again, and still we rode on. From time to time he offered me a sip from his water skin, but no food seemed to be forthcoming. Just as well. Whether from worry and fear or merely the constant motion of the horse, the sour taste of nausea had risen in the back of my throat, and no doubt anything I tried to force down would only have found its way back up again.

After what felt like an eternity, we descended into a deep valley that cut through a series of rough hills. A stream wandered along the valley floor, while dark trees leaned over the water. Through those trees I saw the gleam of a few isolated lights, which came from a pair of torches standing duty outside a low stone building, apparently some sort of hunting lodge.

By that time I had settled into a sort of numb misery — I no longer even had the strength to invent interesting ways for my brother or my aunt to bring my captor to justice. The tears were long dry on my cheeks when the stranger pulled me out of the saddle and dragged me toward the flickering light of the torches. The dew-heavy grass dripped on my bare feet, and I began to shiver once more. During the ride I had not been so cold, since my kidnapper had shown me the rudimentary kindness of pulling his cloak across my shoulders, but now I had no such protection from the night’s chill.

As we approached the lodge, a man came and stood in the doorway. For a second he turned to glance back over his shoulder, and the reddish firelight from within caught a golden gleam in those same strange ochre eyes. That, however, was the only real similarity between the two men; this new stranger was much younger, about my brother’s age of five-and-twenty, perhaps a few years more, and his features were finer, sharp-drawn and handsome. The rich riding leathers he wore creaked faintly as he stepped toward us.

“
M’arynás, tellnoor s’braďyen
?” he said in the rising inflection of a question, and the man holding me replied in the same equally unintelligible tongue. Despite myself, I frowned. My father had introduced me to the dominant languages of the continent, but this was one I had never heard before. Not that this apparent gap in my scholarship was something that should have concerned me. I had far more important things to worry about.

My captor pushed me past the younger man, who stepped out of the way as I moved into the lodge’s main room. A glorious fire burned in the hearth, and I stepped closer toward it, since neither one of them seemed inclined to stop me. After another brief exchange in the same incomprehensible language, the man who had stolen me from my aunt’s house disappeared back outside, shutting the door behind him. Then the strange young man turned and looked over at me with a smile, which, while friendly enough on the surface, had something about it that made the skin along the back of my neck prickle.

“Welcome,” he said, in perfectly accented Sirlendian, “and accept my apologies for whatever discomfort you may have suffered, your Highness.”

Your Highness?
I thought.
Who does he think…?

The thought broke off. Cold inched its way down my back, despite the room’s relative warmth, as I began to understand. The Crown Princess Lyarris and I were around the same age and of the same general description: dark-haired, tall, slender. And I had been sleeping in the apartments in my aunt’s home that should have housed the princess. Whoever these men were, I realized then that they played a game whose stakes were almost unimaginably high.

I swallowed, thinking,
I don’t want to be around when they discover their net has caught the wrong fish…

The stranger regarded me with watchful golden eyes that seemed to reflect the fire’s warm glow. He obviously expected a reply. Something about those eyes tickled at the back of my mind, some snippet of memory that I knew was probably important, but it escaped me at the moment. No matter. It would come to me in time.

I spoke then. I had to hope my voice was as steady and cool as I imagined a princess’ should be, no matter what the situation. “My journey was hardly comfortable. I demand to know why you have brought me here.”

“I don’t think you are in a position to demand anything, your Highness,” he replied, those golden eyes narrowing slightly as he looked me up and down. I could not help but be aware of how thin the linen of my nightdress was, or of how wretched I must look, what with the dried tears on my cheeks and my hair snarled and knotted by the ride into a mass of witch-tails. “Still,” he went on, “let me attempt to make amends.”

He indicated a low upholstered divan that fronted the hearth, and I sat. Despite my perilous circumstances, it felt wonderful just to sit down, to feel soft cushions beneath my abused muscles. The heat from the fire began to work its own magic on my numb hands and feet.