Bones of the Empire (89 page)

“Thought there was a lotta noise back here,” the wagon driver said as several people came into the wagon.

Estin heard Alafa squeak and then the jingle of chains as Feanne was pulled away. Strong hands grabbed him and unfastened his hands from the hook overhead. The moment his hands were free, Estin kicked out, connecting solidly with one of the people. He kicked again with both feet and took a man’s legs out from under him. Before he could try again, others grabbed hold of him and dragged him from the carriage.

The next hour was little more than a blur of pain as Estin was beaten from head to paw with what felt like sticks. Once he could no longer resist, they dragged him by his ankles, letting his head bounce on the ground. He was so dazed and sore that he could not manage to do anything more than lay there as rock after rock tore through his clothes and skin. Minutes after that, he was thrown back into the carriage, dazed and barely conscious as they began rolling again.

Unlike the previous stretch of road, the driver and his colleagues made no attempt to tie Estin down again. Instead, he lay on the floor for hours, until he felt strong enough to pull himself up onto the bench seat he had been on during the first leg of the trip. In doing so, he found Feanne already flopped on the seat. She seemed to be unconscious.

The ride went on for most of that day and well into the next, though at a far slower pace than before. Then the driver stopped the carriage abruptly. Those helping him came in again, grabbed Estin, and dragged him outside.

While two men held him in a kneeling position, a third yanked the bag off his head and shoved a mug of water over his muzzle, forcing him to drink or drown. Once he had choked down a few mouthfuls of water, they stuffed some kind of sweet pastry in his mouth. Then they put the bag over his head and tied it to his neck before he had managed to swallow.

Estin had barely managed to choke down the food when he was shoved up against the rough bark of a tree. A man’s voice near his right ear said, “Urinate now or you’re doin’ it in the wagon. Next stop isn’t for a while. You mess yourself and you won’t even get a pail of water tossed at you for hours.”

Shifting his arms, Estin found the men held him tightly, preventing any real movement. “Give me back my arms or you’re going to have to do this for me,” he said, smirking at the annoyed expressions he had to assume were aimed at him. “If you’re really that interested in me, I’m not going to argue, but a little help is all I’m…”

A fist struck Estin across the jaw, dazing him and taking him off his feet. The next thing he knew, he was lying in the wagon again. His bladder ached, reminding him that causing a scene had probably not been his best choice ever.

“You had to be that way?” Feanne asked as the wagon started rolling again. “If there’s anything the two of us have learned, it’s not to argue when kidnappers are actually being civil. You rather earned that one, my love.”

“You got kidnapped that often?” he inquired, but they just giggled in reply, making him wish he had not asked. Somehow both of them giggling was even worse than hearing Feanne do it.

The wagon reached a steady pace. Hours passed, and the feeding ritual was repeated, though Estin managed to keep his mouth shut this time. The respite was followed by more hours lying on the floor of the carriage. Estin felt broken, too tired to even try to escape, listening to the endless squeaking of the vehicle’s wheels. About the time he was ready to scream out of fear and frustration, the carriage stopped yet again.

This time the men did not rush to pull Estin and the others out. Instead, he heard faint conversation outside. Alafa and Feanne groaned and sat up, though they too seemed to be confused by the lack of rough hands forcing them to eat and drink.

Estin got to his feet to see if he could hear the people outside by putting his ear to the door, but it opened as he did. As before, the men grabbed him and dragged him from the wagon. Instead of stopping a few feet out to feed him or demand he urinate on nearby brush, they continued dragging him across the rough, sandy ground. They threw him down hard, and a moment later, Feanne grunted as she hit the ground nearby, followed by Alafa. If they were all being moved at once with a man on each arm, that told him there were no less than six people with them. Dangerous odds.

Twisting the rope on his wrists, Estin tried to slip his hands free, but the knots were too tight. He pulled until he could feel blood in his fur, though the ropes only loosened a little.

A sudden snarl to Estin’s left warned him that Feanne was reacting to an opportunity to escape. He heard a man yelp in pain and then the pounding of clubs on flesh. Try as he might, Estin could not get the rope off his hands to be able to help her.

Then the area was quiet again. To his relief he heard one of the men mutter, “Got her under control. Help me get her back over with the others.”

Estin stayed where he was for a while, unable to muster the strength to fight for some time. His whole body still hurt from the earlier beatings. He could feel open wounds all over, though the general ache that clouded his thoughts made it difficult to gauge how badly hurt he really was. What he did know was that he was in no shape to fight, assuming the opportunity even presented itself. Still, if fighting meant the difference between the three of them living or dying, he was more than ready.

After a few minutes without hearing anything more than the breathing of the people around him, Estin finally had to find out if the others were all right. “Feanne? Alafa?”

“I’m awake,” said Alafa in her somewhat high-pitched voice. “I think Feanne got hit pretty hard when she bit one of them. She’s next to me and she’s breathing, but she isn’t doing anything else.”

“She’s alive,” replied the same man’s voice as Estin had heard at the carriage. “Bleeding a good bit, but she’s definitely alive. We’ve got a decent enough herbalist at the camp. She’ll be fine, though she’ll be hurting when she wakes. If she bites me again, I’m tying her muzzle shut and cutting her claws. They said alive, and I’m sure muzzled is more alive than she’ll be if she keeps biting me or my men.”

With nothing else he really could do, Estin tried to rest. He listened to the loud wind, coming from almost directly in front of him, and the distant sounds of water. He tried to adjust his weight on his sore knees, only to have the men’s hands come down hard on his shoulders. All he could do was wait and pray Feanne was going to recover.

Kerrelin…
Estin began in a prayer, only to chide himself. There was no such god. There was only the Miharon or Kharali, and neither was likely to be much help. He was on his own without magic, most of his friends, or just about everything else he had learned to depend on. Now he had only himself to count on. He would have to be strong and fast if he was going to get Feanne, Alafa, and himself out of captivity intact. That meant biding his time for the right chance.

The wait went on for hours, interspersed with distant muttering by several men. Estin felt the scorching sun on his skin for quite some time, only to have it fade and the air become chill. Then the air started to warm as the sun slowly heated up the bag over his head again. Throughout the whole journey, he continued to tear his wrists on the rope, slowly loosening it as much as he could.

By what Estin guessed to be midday, he heard muffled conversations between four or five men standing close by. The conversations were quick, but he managed to get the gist of their meaning. They were wondering if whoever had arranged this whole kidnapping was going to meet them anytime soon and take possession of the three wildlings. Like Shortbeard, they were just waiting to be paid.

Estin steadied himself and fought to ignore the pain in his body. He would have to be ready to fight at any moment. There was no time to be hurting or tired, no matter how long it had been since he had last rested or eaten. He needed to be at his best. Tugging that much harder against the ropes, he felt them slide down over his thumbs as the blood and loss of fur gave him some mobility.

He heard one of the men whistle for the others about the same time he heard a horse far ahead of him. A groan from Feanne let him know she was still not in any shape to run, but he could not delay just because she was wounded. Delaying might mean death for all of them, depending on who had come to meet them.

Several sets of boots walked past Estin, headed toward where he had heard the horse. If he were to guess, three or four men had left. Now the odds were far better.

“I’m gonna take the hood off you now so they can see you,” someone told Estin, kneeling beside him. “The others are still tied up, so don’t fight or someone will stab them. Stay still and this will all be over soon.”

Estin nodded, doing his best to make himself look relaxed and keep his hands out of sight behind his back. The man fumbled with the knot of the rope around his neck, and Estin had to struggle not to fight, waiting patiently until that rope came loose. The moment the hood was pulled away, he yanked his hands free of the bloody rope and lashed out even before his eyes had adjusted. He caught the man in what felt like his chest. Estin hurriedly blinked to clear his vision.

Nearby, there was one human man remaining, kneeling beside Feanne. He looked over at Estin in surprise, while Feanne roll onto her side, still bound with the bag over her head. She swept her paws past the man over her, slicing open his chest with her toe-claws, before rolling away from him and pulling cut ropes off her wrists. Yanking the bag off her head, she deftly punched the man in the throat to silence him.

Estin wrestled the remaining man to the ground, clamping a hand over the man’s mouth to keep him from calling for help. Feanne punched the one she was fighting until he stopped fighting back. Once he was down, she pressed the bag that had been over her head to his wounds.

Finally getting a good grip on the man beneath him, Estin drove his elbow into the man’s temple until he fell limply.

“Are we killing or just hurting them?” Alafa asked, sitting nearby with a bag still over her head. The bag turned back and forth. “Feanne?”

“We need to get moving quickly,” Feanne said as she looped rope onto the man’s wrists. From what Estin could see, Feanne had been beaten nearly as badly as he had been. Her face was covered with dried blood. “I’m fine, Estin. We will talk about our feelings later.”

Estin hurried over to Alafa, who impatiently tapped one of her hooves against the packed sand they had been lying on. Unlike Estin and Feanne, she appeared entirely unharmed. He untied the ropes and yanked away the bag on her head, only to have her take a swing at his head. She immediately squeaked and covered her mouth as she whispered an apology.

“Let’s run before they know we’re free,” Estin said, giving her a hand up.

Once Alafa was on her feet, Estin searched the area for a clear path out. Straight ahead, he could see a group of horses near a copse of trees and leafy bushes that seemed to stand out in the otherwise sandy area. To his right, he saw a seemingly endless expanse of sand. Turning, he found they had followed the river in the carriage. It lay no more than a quarter mile away, with green swaths of grass and ferns on either shore. In the remaining direction, Estin saw rocky hills along the river’s sides, blocking his view of anything farther north.

Estin started toward the hills, only to stop a few feet later, realizing he was the only one walking. Looking back, he saw Feanne was standing with her arms crossed near bags the humans had brought while Alafa rummaged around inside of the sacks.

“They’re going to come back!” Estin hissed, pointing toward the oasis where the horses could be seen.

Feanne shook her head and shrugged.

Alafa let out a happy squeal and pulled her oversized hat out of the bags. She pushed it down on her head, letting her ears poke out two slits that had been made in the top.

Shouts from the direction of the oasis made Estin’s stomach tighten. He did not need to look to know the humans were coming back.

“Start running!” Estin said, pointing toward the rocky area.

Alafa ran with a speed Estin could not match, quickly passing Feanne and then Estin. They all ran diagonally toward the river, mostly aiming themselves toward the stone hills in the distance—the only real cover for miles.

Glancing over his shoulder once they reached the shore, Estin saw four humans were running after them. One had dropped back to check on the ones they had left on the ground. Behind the humans out near the oasis, Estin could see silhouettes of several people in cloaks near the horses. He could not make out more at that distance, with the sun casting the shadows of the trees across them. Whoever they were, they were likely the ones who had paid for the kidnapping, or they might know who did.