Ember of a New World (18 page)

As she
walked
away from the high bank and approached the water, she heard a noise not three lengths of a man behind her and above. She paused and closed her eyes with regret. How could she have been so stupid as to forget her own species tendency for hunting from above? Just as deer and rabbits never seemed to look up, Ember had fallen to the same simple device.

They must have run too...
, she thought as she began to turn and look up, towards the men she knew were standing behind her on the high bank. All was stopped as
blackness
fell over her eyes like night and millions of stars exploded in her head. Ember tried to speak and slowly stepped
forwards
, but she couldn't hear her own words. She was vaguely aware of an arrow
lying
beside her. In her daze, she thought the arrow head looked oddly shaped, being simple thin leather, the type used for soft breechcloths, and filled with tiny pebbles, wrapped and tied with a leather thong. Ember had seen men use these to hunt rabbits, shooting them in the head and stunning them. Perhaps it had worked by hitting her temple, or perhaps she had become a rabbit... her thoughts were becoming a blur. Ember didn't notice that she let her shirt fall to the ground as she felt her body falling into the darkness. Ember sank to her
knees and then to the ground.

Ember became aware again. Her head hurt and her left temple stung. She couldn't manage to open her eyes, so she tried to rub them. Her arms failed to respond; no wait, they were trying but they were unable. Instantly she became aware that she was bound from behind! Panic filled her veins as she realized her predicament; Ember was sitting on the ground, hands and arms pulled behind her and wrapped around a small tree, bound at the wrist! She opened her eyes slowly and was greeted by a burst of light from the bright sun. She was sitting on her butt leaning against a tree in an awkward position indeed. Her butt had fallen asleep and her legs h
urt with a tingly numbness.

When
Ember examined her surroundings
,
she noticed that her obsidian dagger and doe skin shirt were nowhere to be seen. Could the men have merely left t
hem where she had fallen?
Ember hoped not. Turning her head to the right Ember saw the three men. It was evening and they were preparing a camp.

It has been all day!?
she thought in panic. Ember's stomach was sore and the ribs on her right side hurt. This told her that she had probably been slung over one of their shoulders and carried. Fear and panic took hold of Ember and she started to pull at the ropes. What would the men do with her, she wondered? The blonde haired man turned and took note of her consciousness. He spoke to the other men and each turned
to regard the now awake woman.

It wasn't until she saw them staring at her that she
begun
to notice how naked she felt with no shirt. Ember, though a woman now, was young and particularly beautiful by the standards of her tribe. Did these men seek her for themselves or would they take her as a prize to trade at another village? Such acts were not uncommon and Ember had heard the stories of entire trade groups being massacred for their loot, animals, and woman. She had even come across such a looted village! The images of the bodies were still too fresh in her mind. Suddenly Ember wished she had her shirt to cover her upper body or she had at least been covered in a little more
paint
. Their eyes were boring holes in her mind that she couldn't stand. She looked away from the men and started tugging more and more frantically at her bonds. Her hands hurt and she began to panic! She pulled furiously as tears started to roll down her face. After a short time, Ember relaxed and slumped limply against the tree and her bindings. She drifted into another short sleep. Her body was still exhausted from running and her new and aggravat
ed injuries.

After a while
,
one of the men walked over and squatted in front of Ember. He poked her in the stomach twice waking her from a dreamless sleep. She looked up at him with a mixture of fear and hate. He wore a soft leather shirt belted as a tunic with the bottom of a leather breechcloth barely peeking from the bottom of the tunic. He also wore a large flint knife from his belt, leather-wrap boots, and leather leggings. The man was a few harvests older than Ember but obviously the youngest in the party. He leveled his soft gaze into Ember's eyes and she was taken
aback
by his bright blue stare. He didn't look evil or wicked in any way, but there he stood as she remained bound. Ember was embarrassed at her captivity and the presence of the young hunter made this worse. Ember found herself looking down to avoid his eyes. Suddenly, fear and hate filled her again. How could he just watch her? W
hy didn't he try and help her?

He stared at Ember for a long moment before he began speaking. The words which came out sounded strange to Ember but she understood a few of the words as being in common with her own language. Ember picked the words for “food” and “do” from what he said. The man gestured to a fresh
ly killed
rabbit tied to a pole in the ground and some tools.

How ironic
, she thought mirthlessly,
two “rabbits” caught in the same day...
Suddenly
,
he produced her doe skin shirt. She had
dropped
it by the bank when she had decided to hide in the water. A really
foolish
move for whi
ch Ember scolded herself.

Apparently the men had found the shirt
and kept it, or at least this one had. Maybe they had kept the dagger too. The man, nearly a boy still, tossed the shirt across Ember's bare upper body affording her a little cover. He then
produced
a small flint knife and showed it to
,
Ember handle first, giving her a nod. Ember understood clearly what she would be doing now; domestic work, for these lazy men. Well, at least their current ambitions were founded in their stomachs and nowhere else. She hoped that they would fall asleep after they ate, as many men did, and stop staring at her. She swallowed and looked the hunter in the face as she gave him a curt nod of understanding. His weak smile in r
eturn made her feel disgusted.

The young hunter walked behind her to untie the thong which held her hands bound. Ember slowly moved her hurt arms forward to a normal angle and held her wrists for a few moments, rubbing them to ease the pain of
having been
bound. The hunter had unbound her completely
and now stood over her waiting for Ember to finish rubbing her sore wrists
. He looked at her for a moment and indicated the large dagger on his waist and the bow across his back. Ember nodded once more showing that she understood the consequences of running. The man looked slightly uncomfortable as he handed Ember the small knife, and did so blade first, so she could not immediatel
y run him through, she guessed.

The man indicated the rabbit again, and Ember slowly rolled over and started to work her way up to a standing position using the little tree she had been bound to as a crutch. Her legs hurt, throbbing furiously, and her butt tingled from sitting on hard ground for so long. After a moment, she found that she could again stand, and she walked slowly past him, very much aware that his eyes followed her as she went. Ember quickly pulled her shirt over her head and checked to make sure her breechcloth and skirt were secure. She might have to work for these men, but she wouldn't give them a show.

For the remainder of the first day, Ember was made to cook rabbit and porridge for the men as they joked and talked. She went about her tasks with her head down and her heart filled with fear and dread.
When
the night came
,
Ember was again bound to the tree, a bit more loosely than before, by the same younger man. She would not look him in the face, ignoring his attempt to hand her some food. Ember quietly cried herself to sleep. Perhaps tomorro
w her head would stop hurting.

The next day, Ember was awakened shortly after dawn and bid to cook some fish for breakfast. Fish were most active in the early morning and the late evening, the best times to catch them. The blonde haired man had caught the fish just before Ember had
awaked
and now he sat there with the older man laughing and eating. The two made light of Ember several times. Their gestures and comments, she knew, were directed at her though she knew not what they said. After breakfast, the blonde haired man came to Ember and grabbed her arms. She gave a token resistance, but she couldn't help but be bound again. The man moved through the motions mechanically without much indication of his disposition. Her hands were tied with
a
thick leather thong behind her back. Ember wondered if he had a mate. If so, what would she think of this being done to Ember? What might s
he think of what he was doing?

The Blonde man removed his large leather satchel and placed the strap over her shoulder. So she would be a beast of burden? Perhaps they would simply work her to death. She had still not eaten.

The youngest man had tried to feed
you
;
the voice in her head reminded her. It had been nearly two days since last she ate, and she was growing weak. She would either need to eat soon or let her body fail. Allowing herself to pass away went against every fiber of her being, but she felt that she could accept it, should all hope run out. She had to be strong until she had no other options.

Ember had always been a resilient girl. The fall of her father Winterborn had taught her to be strong in the face of adversity, but this was a more frightening experience. In her village, she had her family and friends, but here she was at the mercy of three
cunning
, resourceful, and
physically
strong men, each trained to track and kill animals about Ember's size. Slowly
,
hate began to fill the place in her heart where fear had been so strong. It occurred to Ember that her
realization
and acceptance of her fate and possible death had opened a path in her mind she had never before explored.
Acceptance began to remove the fear which had initially bound her.
Slowly
,
the rabbit would become a fox. The tiny fire of innovation and determination lit in her as she started considering how she might escape. She would wait, patiently, and use cunning to escape. So f
ar, this was her main thought.

Ember pondered many things while she walked along behind the three men as they made their way north west. Onward the quartet walked, over open fields, beside a large forest, and always following the Great River. The walking was tiring, and Ember was very hungry. She tripped a few times but never fell, which was probably best as she couldn't have stopped herself if she had fallen. The men were only occasionally keeping an eye on her, so if she had fallen, it would have been a short time before they noticed. The thought of falling and hiding had occurred to Ember, but she was not convinced this would work, and if it failed she would give her motives away. Though the pace was hard, the men took breaks every now and then allowing her to rest. The walking gave Ember time to plot. For now
,
she continued to app
ear as frightened as possible.

The second day of walking had caused Ember's feet to blister and swell with hurts. Seeing Ember limp, the younger man called for a break, or so it had seemed to Ember. The group stopped by the river's edge. The men let her cool her feet in the river while they situated themselves and constructed a new camp for that evening. The younger man was by far the most compassionate of the three. Ember had taken note of each man's behavior and attitude. The key to escape
might
be in manipulating each of the men. Ember's confidence in her ability to find a way out of this mess had started to rise, but also a growing fear. The older man had now twice given Ember a hungry glance, the kind men made when they gazed upon something they wanted. She would have to do something about this before the older man, or the blonde haired man for that matter, decided to take out the frustrations of a long journey
on Ember.

The blonde haired man seemed to be collected and calculating, very difficult to read. He was the unknown element to Ember. She knew the old man would react negatively to her, but if she could figure out the blonde haired man, she would feel much more secure. Somehow Ember didn't fear the youngest man. He had been the only one of the group to offer her food, which she had started eating out of need. He had also given her back her shirt, and with it a degree of her
self-respect
and dignity.

The quartet had made quite a good trek so far, traveling beyond the high cliffs and into a flatter part of the land where the river was nearly the same height as the land, though still lower. The thick forests had given way to thinner pine trees and small hills, and Ember could see large forests in every direction. The world just seemed to continue on the same way, in eve
ry direction!

The night of her fourth full day in captivity Ember was
left
tied, but allowed to lie on the ground. Her hands were bound behind her and then to a small tree, but she could lie on her side and not against the tree if she wanted. It was a small concession on the part of the younger man, which earned him a few dirty looks from the other two. That night
,
Ember sat waiting for the men to fall asleep. The oldest man kept his eyes on her, thoroughly annoying Ember.