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T
he chill night air woke me; I shivered
violently. I rolled toward Kymber, only to discover she was not lying beside
me.

“Now what?” I grumbled as I threw off the
blanket and got to my feet.

The chill-inducing sound of sobbing women and
terrified horses carried to my ears. Evidently, we weren’t the only ones crazy
enough to spend the night clinging to the side of a mountain. What did that
mean, exactly?

An angry male shout cut through the sound of
crying females. I strapped Bloodreign to my side and ran toward the cliff and
the trail cut beneath it.

I got there just in time to see Kymber charging
down the road on a large and muscular horse, Promise a silver streak in the
air, and a long line of bound and naked women stretching out as far as the eye
could see ahead of her.

I blinked then narrowed my eyes, trying to
decide what I saw. I finally settled on female slaves and male slavers, the one
thing guaranteed to make Kymber’s blood boil.

And she was already doing something about it.

I watched several heads part company with their
owners. “Gods, woman, if you were going to do this, you might’ve let me know,”
I muttered as I untangled Fitz’s reins from the tree. I jumped on his back
without benefit of a saddle and spun him toward the head of the line.

Kymber had the situation well in hand, but
there would be more slavers in the lead. If they heard the carnage taking place
behind them, they’d have their swords drawn and ready to engage.

I’d be there to make sure that didn’t happen.

I
moved to the front as fast as I could, trying
to stay next to the road, hidden in shadow. So much harder to do when you’re
head and shoulders above everyone else.

Astonishingly – and bless them for their quick
thinking – the line of captive girls proved to be a potent weapon. They moved
out of my way when necessary, then formed around the horse’s body as I passed,
helping me blend in with my surroundings. At least as much as a woman covered
in blood riding a night-black gelding
can
blend in.

I didn’t care about surprising them anymore.
There were only five slavers left up front. I’d gone up against more men by
myself and lived.

I pressed my knees to the horse’s flanks,
steered it away from the rocky cut, and found myself behind a large cart loaded
with colored cloth. I glanced down at a thin girl with dark hair, one of the
older ones. Perhaps eighteen, nineteen years of age.

She saw the question in my eyes and nodded at
the cart. “Our clothes.”

Gritting my teeth, I pivoted the horse at a
full gallop around the cart, jerking it to an abrupt – and not very graceful – halt
almost immediately. “Magnus! What are you doing here?”

Bodies lay all around him, bleeding into the
dirt. He was as bloody as I was. His eyes shone like diamonds, the perfect
complement to the mischievous “look what I did” grin he wore. “I thought you
might need a hand.”

I returned the grin. “I didn’t, but I
appreciate your efforts. Makes things a little easier for all of us.”

“I saved one for you.” Magnus nodded at a slaver
on the ground, already trussed up like a festival goose. He planted a boot in
the middle of the bound man’s back. “You got something to say to the lady, you
worthless piece of shit?”

The man grunted. “Please. Please don’t kill me.
We meant no harm.”

“No harm?” I shook my head in disbelief. “You
were taking these girls to be sold as slaves.”

“It’s good money. I have a family to feed.”

I sputtered for a moment, unable to think of a
response to his heartless statement. “Do you have daughters?” I finally asked.

“I have three.”

“Perhaps someday they’ll be stripped naked and
forced to walk across a mountain in bare feet when it’s cold. Maybe they’ll be
sold to a man just like you,” Magnus said. “Would you like that?”

The man rubbed his forehead into the dirt, as
though he were trying to scrub that image from his mind.

“See, that’s how it works, Magnus. It’s
perfectly fine to take another man’s daughter, as long as yours are safe at
home.” I delivered a brutal kick to the man’s temple. I then knelt beside him,
twisted my fingers into his braided black hair, and lifted his head. “Where do
these girls come from?”

“A . . . a small village. At the base of the
mountain. Yasri. The goat herders. Their women are beautiful and sturdy. They
make good wives. Have healthy babies.”

 “Wrong answer.” I slammed his head against the
ground two . . . three . . . four times before jerking it up. “Did you sack
their village?”

“Yes.” The man began to weep piteously. “I’m
sorry. We didn’t mean . . . I’m sorry.”

“Sorry.” I snorted. “You’re sorry we caught you.
These girls would’ve disappeared into homes and brothels all over Calari and
you wouldn’t have batted an eye. Make yourself right with whatever gods you
follow, if in fact you follow any. You won’t be doing this again.”

“Please, mistress. Please! My wife –”

I rose and jammed Promise into the man’s back,
severing his spine and cutting off his words. It was a quick death, more mercy
than he deserved, but the night was cold, and Magnus and I had approximately
forty naked and hungry girls to care for.

I
asked Magnus to wait
behind the wagon while I walked among the Yasri girls, cutting their bonds with
a small dagger. “If I’ve freed you, help those beside you,” I instructed. “Then
line up behind the wagon to get your clothes. Make haste! The sooner we’re done
here, the sooner I can get you home.”

“We don’t have a home to go back to,” one of
the girls said. She looked to be no more than ten. Dried blood and filth
covered her face, her brown hair a tangle of knots on her head. “They burned
the village. They killed my parents.”

I stared at her. Gods, I hadn’t thought of
that. They’d probably killed all the Yasri men. I’d be taking them back to
nothing.

This would happen again.

An older girl stepped forward and presented her
bound wrists to me. I cut her loose. “Our village is gone, but there is another
tribe of Yasri not far from the mountain. My da’s mother and several uncles
live with them. They’ll take us in when they hear what happened.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

She nodded. “We are family. They will help us.”

“What’s your name?”

“Malina Blackhorn, mistress.”

“Malina, you’re in charge of these girls until
we get you back to your grandmother. Have everyone line up behind the cart in
an orderly manner. I know it’s cold, but no crowding or pushing. I’ll hand the
garments out to you. Perhaps you’ll help the others dress, especially the
youngest.”

“Yes, mistress.” Malina began to speak in a
language I didn’t understand. I turned to look for Magnus.

I found him crouched on the ground where I’d
left him, absentmindedly carving a small piece of wood with his dagger. “What
are we going to do with them?”

“Not sure. I’d like to take them home, but the
slavers destroyed their village. I imagine they killed all the men, and
probably most of the women. That’s what they do. They slaughter anyone – man or
woman – who tries to protect their loved ones.” I kicked dirt at the dead
bodies along the road. “Anyway, we’ll check for survivors at the burnt village,
but we’ll probably have to take them to another tribe of Yasri goat herders not
far from the mountain. I don’t want this to happen again.”

Magnus glanced up, his eyes bleak. “It will,
Kymber. Maybe not to these girls, but this happens all over Calari. You can’t
save them all.”

I clenched my jaw so tightly I felt something
pop. “No, we can’t, but we can help some of them.” I jerked my thumb over my
shoulder. “We saved these girls. Now they have a future. I’ll do for them what
no one did for me. If you don’t wish to accompany me, we can part ways tonight.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to help you. I just
want you to think about this first. It’s a brutal industry. You were lucky
tonight. These slavers . . . well, they didn’t seem too bright. Most of them
will fight to the death to protect their livelihood. They hold a grudge
forever, and they’ve been known to hunt their rivals.”

“So we shouldn’t try? Because we’re afraid?” I
crossed my arms. “Who are you? Who am I? Who will do it if we don’t?”

He gathered his lip between his teeth. I saw
the exact moment he understood. “I’ll always be on your side. I’ll help any way
I can.” He spun his dagger around, jammed it in the sheath, and rose to his
feet. “This will slow our travel to Pentorus.”

“I am not on a schedule. Right now, we must
help those who cannot help themselves.” I shivered as the frosty night air
penetrated my bones. “Why don’t you start a fire, maybe go hunting for a
dalbuck or something? I know it’s dark, but they’ll be hungry. I’ll help them get
dressed.”

“You’re such an enigma.” Magnus shook his head
and chuckled. “Nothing can stop you now.”

“Meaning?”

“You’re a deadly combination of kind heart and
wicked sword. You’ve conquered your fears, Kymber. Watching you save these
girls was a joy to behold. They don’t know it yet, but they’re the luckiest
girls in Calari.”

 “Get out of here, Tyrix.” I fisted my hands.
“If you make me cry, I’ll kill you.”

I
t took some doing, but I finally convinced
Kymber I couldn’t hunt in the dark. She helped the girls dress while I rummaged
through the slavers’ saddlebags, relieved to find them full of cheese and dried
meat, bread and apples. There wasn’t nearly enough food to feed all the girls
though.

I carried what I’d found to Kymber. “This is
it, and you can bet it was reserved for the men. They obviously didn’t plan on
feeding the girls until they got them to market.”

“Not much, is there?” Kymber scowled. “But it’s
better than nothing. We’ll feed the youngest first.”

“How old is the youngest?”

“Four.”

“Four.” I was unable to stop the chill that
crawled my spine. “What were they going to do with a girl that young?”

“I don’t want to know.” Kymber grimaced and
pushed past me.

I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “How
old is the oldest?”

“Twenty. And there are thirty-four girls total.”
She disengaged her arm and sighed. “Would you mind starting a fire? Right here
in the middle of the trail.”

“It’ll be seen.”

“I’m not sure I care at this point. Those poor
girls are tired and scared, and they’ve walked far enough on empty stomachs.
I’m not going to ask them to climb up to the ridge. I’ll go get Lady Gray and fill
the water skins.” Kymber closed her eyes and ran a hand over her face. Dried
blood flaked off onto her tunic. She was tired and scared too, but she gave
orders as though she were born to do it. “I’ll leave you to feed them.”

She turned and walked away, disappearing into
the darkness.

“Ladies,” I called out. “Gather ‘round and
we’ll eat.”

T
he older girls
graciously agreed to give their meager portions to the younger ones. Every time
I heard a whispered “Thank you, sir,” it put another crack in my heart.

My heart was smashed to dust when a waiflike
blonde with round brown eyes steered a smaller child toward me. The little one
was clutching her hand to her chest and sniffling. Given the tear tracks
through the dirt on her cheeks, she’d been crying quite hard.

“Mister, my name is Tori. This is my little
sister Mia.” Tori’s eyes were dull, no doubt from shock and lack of sleep.

“What’s wrong?” I rose from tending the fire.
“Didn’t Mia get anything to eat?” I hoped she had; there was nothing left.

Tori opened her hand to reveal a filthy piece
of bread. “She did, but her hand got hurt when the men took us. She can’t pull
it apart to eat it, and she won’t let me feed her. Our da could always get her
to eat, but . . . he isn’t here. You’re the closest we got. Thought maybe you
wouldn’t mind giving it a try.”

I stared at little Mia. Her eyes were a much
darker brown than her sister’s. Mia’s nose, a small button in the center of her
round face, was running like a spring stream. This was surely the four-year-old
Kymber had mentioned.

Mia drew in a breath and hiccupped. “Hurts,”
she mumbled as she cradled her arm.

“I’m sure it does. Will you let me see it,
Mia?” I extended a hand and smiled, trying to recall my own father and his
soothing ways. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

The appraising eyes of someone much older
stared back at me. I got the feeling Mia had seen a lot in her four years. Whimpering,
she stepped away from her sister and lifted her arm toward me.

The top of the child’s head barely came to my
knee. I had to kneel for a better look. I took her small hand in mine, gently
guiding her toward the light of the fire.

I immediately wished I hadn’t.

Mia’s hand was a solid blue-purple bruise from
the wrist up, so swollen the folds of her knuckles had smoothed into the skin.
I looked at the tiny hand in my palm and felt the first stirrings of white-hot
rage.

Broken. The bastards had broken the little
girl’s hand.

I caught my breath, trying to squelch the anger.
It wouldn’t do any good, not now, but it was a moment of perfect clarity for me.

No wonder slavery was such a sore spot for
Kymber. She’d lived it. It was easy to think of something like this in the
abstract, but to see it up close was beyond sickening. If this was how she felt
the day she faced my friend and his daughter at Seacrest, we were lucky she
hadn’t killed us all.

I beckoned Tori forward. “How did this happen?”

“Mia hid behind my da when the bad men came.”
Tori gazed into the fire. “They knocked him down. He wouldn’t wake up, but Mia wouldn’t
let go of his tunic, so the man who was after her stomped on her hand. Twice.”

Nausea nearly drove me to my knees. “Your
mother?”

“She died when Mia was born.”

“I see.”

“I didn’t want them to bind her. I tried to
carry her, but she was too heavy for me. I think they might have tied her extra
tight. Mia threw up a couple of times on the trail. She made such a fuss the
bad men wanted to kill her, so we took turns carrying her on our backs.” Tori
gave me a fearful look. “She’s my only sister. I want her to eat something.”

I allowed myself a closer look at the girls.
Tori was no more than twelve, so thin her cheekbones protruded like knife
blades. They both wore feed sacks cut with holes to accommodate their head and
arms.

Just children, babies, dirt poor and hungry to begin
with. The gods had seen fit to give them another kick.

I couldn’t do anything for Mia’s hand, at least
not then, but I was determined to see that the child got something to eat. I
scooped her up in my arms. “Follow me, Tori, and bring the bread. We’ll sit by
the fire together and see if we can’t get something into your sister’s
stomach.”

Tori gave me a heartbreakingly hopeful smile.
“Thank you, sir.”