Teleporter (a Hyllis family story #2) (22 page)

Peters nodded, hungry eyes still on the girl hanging over Waxman’s shoulder. “Johnson
says
we’re just regrouping while we figure out what’s going on. But,
I
think he’s hoping that it was some of the caravaners that attacked us last night and that if they can’t find us, they’ll move on down the road. We’ve still got enough men to control the farms around here and tax the
next
caravan, but nobody wants to get near this caravan again.”

Waxman turned to his right and started walking in the direction of Yates farm. It lay farther from the highway.

***

Once out of the cornfield and into the woods, they could no longer follow the passage of whoever had taken Daussie. Tarc took the lead again, working his way through the animal trails and small meadows like only he could.

Reaching the other side, they stopped to study the raiders’ farm. A feeling of dread came over Tarc. No smoke rose from the chimney. The tents were gone.

They’d made good time and Tarc had hoped to catch up to whoever had Daussie before they got to the farm. Dealing with the small party that had her would have been a lot easier than trying to extract her from the main group. Now it looked like they’d not only lost whoever had Daussie, they might have lost track of
all
of the raiders. He’d hoped that Arco would have sent more of the guards than just Lizeth with them and that a few of the caravaners would have come too—it didn’t look like they were going to get help from that quarter either.

While Tarc stood, his mind gibbering at his perception of the insurmountable obstacles confronting them, Daum turned to Lizeth, “What’s the plan?”

Tarc turned to her as well, hoping that with her experience she’d have a strategy for their situation. She frowned out at the farm, “I’m not sure,” she said slowly. “From the looks of things, the raiders left last night. Either the group  who’s got your daughter are a lot farther ahead of us than I expected, or they knew where the main group were going and turned off somewhere back there in the woods.” She paused and looked around, “Without dogs, following them is going to be hard.”

“You can’t track them?”

Lizeth snorted, “Tracking is a lot harder than people make it out to be, and I’m not particularly good at it. But maybe we’ll be able to follow the big group of raiders.” She hitched her sword and stepped out of the woods toward the farm.

***

Daussie woke with a pounding headache. She found herself hanging upside down, her head bumping against someone’s back as he strode steadily along with her over his shoulder. The last thing she remembered was talking to Tarc about why he’d shot arrows back at the man attacking the caravan last night. She felt nauseated.

What had happened?
she wondered.
Was the caravan attacked, and I was injured? Could this man be taking me somewhere for help?
His clothing didn’t look familiar, which aroused a sense of unease in addition to her nausea.

Daussie heard another man speak, “I can’t believe you found that hot chick from the tavern. Do you think she was hiding out as a boy the whole time?”

Gut-wrenching fear flashed through Daussie.

She threw up on the man’s back.

With a curse, he tossed her to the ground. She landed on her back, hard, a pain shooting through the back of her head at the impact. She lifted her hand and felt a large soft bruise on the back of her skull! Her wrists were bound to one another!

“You little bitch!” The man said, picking up a wad of duff from the forest floor and using it to wipe off his butt and the back of his thigh.

When Daussie tried to scramble to her feet and run, she realized that her ankles were bound too. Wide-eyed, she stared up at the two men. The one who’d been carrying her had a stocky powerful build. No wonder he’d been carrying her so effortlessly.

He looked dirty with wild hair, several black teeth and a couple of large knives. The second man had a slight build, stooped posture and eyes that ran over her body in a disturbingly eager fashion. He turned to the heavyset man, “Can we do her now?”

Daussie’s stomach cramped in horrified disgust. She threw up again. Tugging violently at her bonds, she rolled to her stomach and tried to push herself to her feet. The ropes chafed her wrists when she tried to jerk loose, but they were unyielding. Daussie had risen to her hands and feet preparatory to standing. She pictured herself trying to hop away, knowing that escape was hopeless. The stocky man stepped closer, lifted his boot, and kicked her in the hip knocking her over onto her side.

The man dropped to one knee and brought his face closer to hers. “I’m gonna untie your ankles ‘cause I’m
tired
of carrying your sorry ass.”

Daussie jerked back, the man’s breath was foul. He closed the distance to her again, “Then I’m gonna put a leash on you. But,” he leered at her, “if you try to run again, when we catch you I’m gonna let Peters here ‘do you’ like he so desperately wants to. You understand me?” he said in a harsh tone.

“Why not now Waxman?” the smaller man asked querulously.

“‘Cause I said so,” Waxman barked.

Peters jerked back in fear.

Waxman grinned at Peters. “Also,” he glanced back at Daussie, “‘cause the mere thought of you trying to get into her pants is gonna keep her from running away. Right Girly?”

Daussie swallowed and jerked a nod.

Waxman picked up Daussie’s feet and untied and unwound the rope binding her ankles. Grasping her arm, he pulled her to her feet without evident effort. A minute later, he had tied the rope from her ankles to the one around her wrist and fashioned a loop on the other end of it that he could hold onto. Before they started walking, he said, “Peters, why don’t you feel her up a little, give her some idea what’s going to happen if she tries to run.”

Daussie’s eyes widened in horror and she cringed as Peters stepped close and began to grope her. She collapsed to the ground trying to escape his hands, but he followed her down.

Waxman said, “Okay, that’s enough. Let her go.” He bent and jerked Daussie back to her feet, pulling her close and saying in a low, ugly tone, “Now, I know you didn’t like that, but it’ll be a lot worse if I turn him loose, understand?”

Daussie nodded, cowering away from both of them.

Waxman turned and started off through the forest, snarling at Daussie’s tears and jerking her rope when she didn’t keep up.

***

Lizeth, Tarc, and Daum searched the raiders’ farm for clues as to where they had gone. They found no one, and Tarc could tell that no one had stayed behind in hiding either. They found a large area of disturbed earth at the corner of the nearest field. Tarc immediately sensed the rows of dead bodies in the shallow mass grave. Not just the men who’d died the night before, but two women as well. With a sick feeling, he suspected that the raiders had gotten rid of a couple of women who’d been problematic or undesirable.

Daum stepped closer to Tarc and said quietly in a horrified tone, “I think they buried a bunch of people here!”

Tarc didn’t want to tell his father how he knew who’d been buried there so he merely nodded affirmation. He glanced at Lizeth and saw that she also suspected what lay under the disturbed earth, though certainly not that a couple of the women had been buried as well.

A couple of circuits of the farm buildings were sufficient to convince them that the raiders had not left across the soft ground in the adjoining fields. If they had, the tracks would have been visible. Therefore, they must have left on the hard dirt road.

Unfortunately, there was a crossroad of sorts right beside the farm. One road went to the main highway, others went to adjacent farms. They spent some time studying the junction in hopes that they could tell which direction the raiders had gone but were unable to do so. Daum said, “Dammit, if I’d rode my horse over here I’d be able to check all four directions a lot quicker!”

Lizeth narrowed her eyes at the main road, “Unless they’d ambushed you as you came this way. That’s probably the most likely location for them to have gone. I’ll bet they’ve set up to ambush the caravan as it leaves.”

Daum frowned, “Why did they take the women with them if that’s where they went?”

Lizeth chewed her lip, “I don’t know. You’re right, it doesn’t make much sense.” She looked the other direction, “it’s hard for me to believe that they’ve pulled up stakes and run off down the main highway the other direction either.”

Tarc said, “Maybe something spooked them and they’ve moved their operations to a different farm?”

Lizeth shrugged, “Maybe. If so, they probably went down one of these three roads. We could split up and each of us check one of the roads, but the chances would be a lot higher that their rearguard would take out a singleton.”

“We’ve got to do it,” Tarc said. “We can’t leave Daussie with them any longer than we absolutely have to.”

Daum’s eyes widened, Tarc could tell he was torn between leaving Daussie in the raiders’ hands a little longer and risking Tarc on the road by himself. Before he said anything though, Lizeth said, “Three of us finding them at the same time isn’t going to get her out of their hands any sooner. It’s not like we can take on the entire group of raiders all by ourselves you know. Two of us will have to stay and keep watch while the other one tries to go back to the caravan to scare up some reinforcements.” Taking charge, she said, “Our best strategy is for us to split up and each of us take one of these roads. Be extremely careful. They’ll likely have left a rearguard. We’ll meet back here in an hour which should be long enough for us to check each of the nearest farms. Then we’ll decide what to do next.” Without waiting for any discussion she turned and started down the middle of the three roads. After glancing at one another, Tarc took the one on the right and Daum the one on the left.

***

For a while, Daussie stumbled along in Waxman’s wake, terrified and hopeless. Walking barefoot was hard on her feet but Waxman had recognized the problem and had tied some soft leather patches he had with him around her feet. She prayed that Lieutenant Arco would come to her rescue, and wondered if her father and brother might be coming as well.

At first, Peters walked behind her and she hardly noticed him. When the trail widened however, he trotted a few steps to come up on her left side. A glance showed her that he was sweeping her with his eyes, something she found disgusting. Although his slight physique kept him from appearing as dangerous as Waxman, something about his unclean interest in her turned her stomach. When he reached out for her, she lunged to the side, stumbling at the end of Waxman’s rope.

Waxman looked back at the disturbance and grunted, “Leave her alone Peters. You’ll get your turn when we get back to camp.”

At first relieved to have Peters called off, when Daussie processed the rest of Waxman’s sentence she felt even more horrified. “Turn?!” Her heart pounded and her breath came in short gasps as her stomach roiled. These men were sick, they had her, she couldn’t get away, and terrible things were about to happen.

Daussie stumbled over a root and fell hard when Waxman’s leash kept her from catching herself on her hands. Oblivious to the tears which kept her from seeing the root, Waxman kicked her several times while ordering her back to her feet.

They resumed walking and Daussie thought back to how she had felt this same way when the men had started to attack her in the stable back at the tavern. Memory of that incident brought back the calm she had felt after Tarc had killed the two men attacking her. Recognizing that her terrorized panic served her poorly, she straightened her posture, took several deep breaths and resolved to try to
act
calmly in the hopes that it would restore her composure. After all, her mother had frequently told depressed patients to smile because forcing your face into a smile was known to improve your spirits.

Thinking back to the serenity she felt after Tarc rescued her, she realized that, though they remained in terrible danger, the fact that he seemed able to do something about it—that she no longer felt they were helpless—had been very important. If only she had Tarc’s talent! She could use it to protect herself like Tarc had.

She smiled tremulously as she thought about the possibilities granted by her own talent. Maybe these men had gallstones, and she could threaten to remove them. She imagined them trembling in fear at her power to help them.

She tilted her head. What if one of them
did
have gallstones—and she offered to remove them in return for mercy? She sent her ghost out into Waxman’s body. To her surprise, he did have a number of stones in his gallbladder!

Mentally, Daussie tried to compose an offer to remove Waxman’s gallstones. Unfortunately, she didn’t know if Waxman had ever had a gallstone attack. If he hadn’t, she’d be offering to help them with something he didn’t see as a problem. However, it seemed unlikely that he would respond to questions from her about whether he’d ever had abdominal pain.

If only she had some way to bring
on
an attack, then it seemed much more likely that he would respond favorably to her help.