Hers to Choose (16 page)

Eric
choked out, “Sophi, run,” then fell headlong from his horse. He landed heavily in a motionless sprawl. A puddle of his lifeblood slowly spread beneath him to stain the earth. His thickly lashed, green eyes closed and then Eric went limp.

In seconds, all five men lay on the ground
, ominously silent and unmoving.

“
Nooo!” she screamed. “No! No!” She tried to dismount but men sprang from the forest growth and converged on her, grabbing her horse, pinning her legs to its sides. A man wearing a captain’s insignia rode up to her and bound her hands behind her. He stuffed a rag in her mouth and cinched it tight with another, gagging her.

“M’Lady
.” He nodded. “You are coming with us.”

Sophi screamed
and sobbed into her gag. “Eric! Eric!”
I can’t leave Eric!
With a cry of “No!” she attempted to throw herself from her horse as their attackers began to lead her away.
Don’t be dead. Please, don’t be dead!

The man
jerked her upright on her horse’s back as if she were no more than a rag doll then shook her violently.

“
Ride upright on your horse or belly-down on mine.”

She nodded her head
but could not speak through her sobs. He released her collar.

“I have been told not to kill you, but
you can arrive in any condition I choose. Do you understand me?” The flatness of his tone convinced her beyond doubt the man meant what he said.

She nodded miserably through
the shattering of her heart.

The captain addressed one of his men. “Make sure
the escort is dead.”

Stunned,
Sophi watched as the soldier went from body to body, looking for life. With a final vicious kick at Eric, he pronounced, “Dead. They are all dead, sir.”

Her heart broke further as all hope disappeared.
Sophi slumped over her saddle, sobbing into her gag.
I love you, Eric.

She didn’t know how long they rode
—long enough that she had no more tears to cry. A heavy dullness settled in and she swayed on her horse, uncaring. The cessation of movement brought her to awareness of her surroundings; a military camp—an elaborate tent and a cloaked figure.

“
DeLorion’ss ssisster. Pretty. Lookss like him.” The dark, cowled figure examined her. Sophi fought not to shudder when she glimpsed the glow emitted by the creature’s artificial eyes. Some guards on the Haarb slave ship had been similarly enhanced, but she had never become used to the phosphorescent glow.

“
Ssend a rider to Krakoll. Tell him to meet uss near Amboy Crater. Tell him I have the woman.”

One day followed the next. Sophi close
d down her traumatized mind and sealed off her devastated heart. She rode when commanded to ride. She sat where they told her to sit. When they noticed she didn’t eat or drink, someone forced food and water down her throat. When it rained, her body shook from the wet cold but she had withdrawn so far into her mind the tremors didn’t register. Someone threw a blanket over her but she made no attempt to prevent it from falling off. She simply existed.

“Bring the woman to the front
of the line.”

Someone led her horse
up beside the captain. He reached over and hauled her onto his saddle before him. Pulling a knife from his belt, he held the blade across her neck. He kicked his horse forward.

“Hello, the garrison.” His shout rang across the road. “Open the gates.”

A flurry of motion and spate of shouting could be heard within the Silver Grove garrison. After a few minutes, the gate swung open and Sergeant Trecchio rode out, halting a few feet from Sophi’s captor.

He choked out a horrified, “Lady
DeLorion!”

“Good,” responded the captain. “You recognize her. We are riding through this gate.
Fire on us and the woman dies. Approach us, she dies. Raise a hand or speak a word, and she dies. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

The captain’s cold steel stayed at her throat until every single man in his squadron had cleared the Silver Grove gate. When the final figure, Allegra Contradina, had vanished through the shimmering energy field, he kicked his horse forward. “You cannot injure me severely enough to prevent my killing her first.”

With that, he spurred his horse into a gallop and passed through the
parting in the energy field.

S
ophi returned to the wastelands of the
Oshtesh
. Her captors unwittingly took her to the one place on the Planet of Verdantia where she felt whole and strong, the one place where the land itself offered solace. The desert whispered of survival
.
The wastelands comforted her at night with a message of belonging and wholeness.

As the captain
marched them further and further into the desert wastelands, that message washed her mind-numbing emptiness away, to be replaced by fierce grief and a cold anger that grew with every step of her horse.
I am a woman of the Oshtesh, a warrior and desert hunter. I am strong. I am resilient.
She would watch and she would wait. She didn’t know how or when. But they would pay for Petrina and
Sh’r Un Kree
...and Eric.

They traveled by night on the road to
Sh’r Un Kree.
Verdantia’s two moons, now full, lit their way. The captain led them at a merciless pace, uncaring as horse after horse dropped from beneath their riders. The now horseless soldiers doubled up or were left behind. By day, they rested, Contradina in her luxurious accommodations, the men and their captive in whatever shade they could find.

S
he judged it had been five days since her capture. The soldier charged as her nursemaid chafed at his role.

“Sir, must we keep the woman bound? If we free her hands
, she can manage her own care, direct her horse, feed herself.” The soldier glanced at her and then back to his captain. “She ain’t said a word since we took her. She’s given up. Look at her. I don’t think she even hears us.” Sophi remained limp, swaying listlessly in her horse’s saddle though all had stopped.

The captain’s cruel eyes examined her minutely. Sophi made herself appear
witless, mute, lacking the will to live.
Say yes, Captain, say yes.

The
captain leaned over and flashed a deadly knife. The cords binding her wrists fell away. Sophi’s arms hung, still nerveless, from her shoulders. She gave no outward sign she noticed the change.

“Get back to your men, Sergeant.
I’ll lead her horse.”

The soldier turned his horse and rode back down the column to rejoin his platoon. With his eyes fixed forward
, the captain growled, “I am not taken in by your act, woman. Give me any trouble and I will tie your hands and drag you behind my horse by the cord that binds you.”

Sophi did not acknowledge she had heard him.

They rode ever closer to the rendezvous point with Krakoll. That final morning as they made camp, she overheard the captain speaking with Allegra Contradina. The captain had chained Sophi to a stake in the ground just outside Allegra’s opulent tent. The captain and his mistress stood in the canopied shade at the tent’s entrance and their voices carried well. Sophi listened closely, though to look at her she was an emotionally devoid sack of flesh.

“We will be at
Amboy Crater tomorrow. Turn the woman over to Krakoll and then we ride for
Ssh’r Un Kree
. The Haarb occupy the village. Watch your backss. The
Osshtessh
are sstriking back with hit-and-run raidss. Take your men and sscour the dessssert for the
Osshtesh
Primuss and hiss wife. Sseize them. Losing their leaders will gut the
Osshtesh
ressisstance.”

“As you wish
.” The captain inclined his head, his face and voice an emotionless null. “What does Krakoll plan for the woman?”

Allegra made a sound of pleasure. “
Sshe is the ssurety he esscapess this planetary ssysstem with a fortune in
csinnagin
. Asss long ass he hass her, the
Tetriarch
dare not move againsst uss.”

“
Will Krakoll relinquish the lady to her family after he is safely away from this godforsaken rock?”

A laughing hiss was Allegra’s response. “He
leavess her with me. I will return her to the
Tetriarch
—body part by body part. I care nothing for wealth. It cannot resstore thiss.” Allegra flipped her hood back, fully revealing the horror of her face. Intermittent grey stubs of broken teeth lay scattered behind Allegra’s lipless smile. Two black holes served for her nose. The skin of her face hung in rotting swags from brittle cheekbones—and then there was the phosphorescent glow of her artificial eyes.

Sophi saw
revulsion flit across the impervious captain’s face, but he firmed his stance. Allegra hissed bitterly. “Yesss. Thiss iss what a Trill egg hosst lookss like after four yearss of sslavery. The
Tetriarch
will know my pain. I want them to get piecess of her and know they can do nothing about it. I sshall enssure sshe livess a long, long time.”

She flipped her hood back up and walked away.

His emotionless, stony face betrayed no emotion. The captain’s cold eyes lingered on Sophi for long moments. He pulled the stake from the ground. “Over there.” He pointed to a scraggly tree sitting off by itself near a cluster of rocks. “Sit at the base.”

He lock
ed a length of the chain used to fetter her around the tree trunk. He wrapped her ankle with chain and ran a lock through the links. He did not close the hasp. He held her eyes in a heartless, unfeeling stare. “This chain has a defective lock.”

His hands went to a scabbard on his belt.
As he stood, his knife fell onto the dirt at his feet. “If I find you, woman, I will cut out your tongue.”

She forced a hoarse rasp out of her mouth. “Wait!”

He stopped, then slowly turned and held her in a cold stare.

“Your name. What is your name?” She needed to know who he was.
His expression became so forbidding she didn’t think he would answer.

“
I used to be Ramsey DeKieran. Now I am no one.” He walked away without a backward glance.

A nobleman!
Dumbfounded, Sophi watched his long strides take him toward the military camp. Her heart pounded as it climbed into her throat. Dry rasps of breath marked the rapid rise and fall of her ribcage. No one looked her way. Men fed and watered picketed horses. Sentries positioned around the perimeter of the camp, stood, eyes turned outward. Men found whatever shade they could, ate their field rations and settled down to sleep.

An incredulous, fierce
determination swept her. She must not waste Ramsey DeKieran’s gift to her—a knife, a blind eye to her escape, a chance at freedom.

Time became an instrument of torture.
Wait.
You have only one chance. Don’t waste it.
She crept her hand down her leg to the open lock then froze in horror. Her “nursemaid” for the last few days was walking toward her. She edged forward, slowly covering the incriminating lock and the knife itself with her skirts.

“I brought you water and bread.” The soldier tossed a water
skin and some dry rolls in her lap. She schooled her face to remain expressionless, her eyes dull and unseeing. Shaking his head at her, he muttered, “A waste of water and food, if you ask me.” He turned and walked back to camp.

She soaked the stale
pumice stone masquerading as rolls in enough water to make them palatable and choked the gooey mass down.
Who knows when I’ll eat again?
An eternity stretched in front of her as she waited for all activity to quiet. Finally, hanging her head to allow dirty, lank clumps of hair to obscure her face, she peered intently toward the military camp while her trembling fingers worked fervidly to slip the lock from the chain. Grit scraped against bare skin as Sophi slipped her foot from the links tethering her to the tree base.
Free!
Motion in the camp arrested her actions. A figure approached her. A slight whimper escaped her throat.
Oh, great Goddess, please!
She could have been made of stone. Every muscle froze in place. She forgot to breathe.

It was
him
, the captain.
Still peering through hanks of hair, she caught his direct stare and held it for an interminable split-second.
Please
. He gave an imperceptible nod and turned his back on her, effectively screening her from the camp. Snatching the knife and the water skin, Sophi scrambled into the rocks. Once hidden from sight, she ran as if the banshees from the seventh hell chased her soul. She struck out toward the low foothills, turning purple in the late afternoon.

She ran
until grey spots clouded her vision. She ran until tortured lungs could no longer suck sufficient air. And still she ran. Numb fingers hung from hands unnaturally heavy. Unfeeling feet on leaden legs stumbled and she sprawled headlong into the sharp scrabble of the desert floor. Desperate to put distance between her and her captors, she rose and ran until her body no longer obeyed her mind and she lay gasping air, face down in the jagged rocks and dirt. Grit coated her mouth. The metallic smell of earth filled her nostrils. Abrasions on her cheeks, hands and knees throbbed dully. She pressed her palms painfully in the dust and attempted to rise, merely to fall limply back into the grime. A strong hand grasped her upper arm.