Silverlight (21 page)

I
can’t begin to describe the strange things that
happened in my heart when I saw Magnus cradling that little girl in his lap. As
I drew closer, I could see he was feeding her, tearing bite-sized pieces of
bread from the heel and popping them into her mouth as he sang a lullaby.

She dutifully opened her mouth every time, like
a famished baby bird. I laughed aloud when she reached up to feel the stubble
on his jaw, ending her exploration by sticking her finger into his left
nostril.

Everyone had gathered around the fire to listen
to Magnus sing. They sat quietly, holding each other for extra warmth and a bit
of courage.

If I’d been ambivalent before, I wasn’t now. I
loved this man. Loved him with everything I was and would ever be. As soon as
the dust settled on our lives, I would marry him.

I stopped Lady Gray behind the circle of girls
facing the fire. “Who’s thirsty?” All eyes turned toward me as I loosened a
water skin from the saddle. “One or two swallows apiece is all for now, until
day breaks and I can take you to the spring I found.”

“Line up.” Malina rose and began to sort the
girls out. “Youngest first. Remember, only a swallow or two, enough to wet your
throat.”

I handed the water skin to her. “Will you do
this for me?”

“Thank you, mistress.” She took the water skin
from me. “I will.”

I unloaded a second skin and headed for Magnus
sitting against a tree on the far side of the fire. The child cuddling in his
lap surely needed more than a swallow or two. Even from this distance, I could
see she was emaciated and pale, as I’d been when Magnus rescued me from certain
death all those months ago.

 “Will you introduce me to your friends?” I
crouched beside the older girl leaning against him and ruffled her hair.

Magnus nodded. “This is Tori.” He smiled at the
little tidbit in his lap. “And this is her sister, Mia.”

 “Pleased to meet you both,” I said. “Would you
like a drink?”

Tori sat up. “Yes, please.”

I heard Magnus grunt as I helped Tori hold the
spout to her lips. “Something wrong?” I asked.

He shot me a look of disgust and shifted the
baby in his lap, extending her hand out to me. “Look what they did to this poor
child.”

That little hand was so bruised, it looked
black in the firelight. A few of her fingers stuck out at an odd angle. I bit
my lip and questioned him with my eyes.

“You want to know if it’s broken?” he said in a
tone that was both weary and irate. “I’d be shocked if it wasn’t.”

“What happened?”

“Tori said one of the slavers stomped on her,
trying to break her grip on her father.” Magnus’s eyes glittered with tears. “And
again, I feel as though I have to apologize to you.”

“For what?”

“For what I did to you back at Seacrest. I’ll
never know exactly how you feel, or what you went through, but seeing this –
how these girls were handled – gives me a bit of understanding. We are going to
stop this wherever we find it.” He pressed a kiss to Mia’s cheek, eliciting a
short giggle from the child. “If no one claims Mia and Tori, I’ll take them.
Seacrest certainly has enough bedrooms, and I’ve always thought it would be a
wonderful place to raise children. If we’re ever lucky enough to have our own .
. . well, they’ll already have two big sisters.”

I’d always known it, but my big man, my man of
few words, had just proved there was a lot going on in that heart of his. “You
wish to be their father, and I think that’s a fine idea. If you’re asking if
I’ll be their mother, the answer is yes.” I gave him a long look. “Do you want
to go home then?”

“No.” Magnus shook his head. “We’ll go home
when you have Silverlight strapped to your back, and not a moment sooner. In
truth, my thoughts have gotten ahead of me. They may already have family waiting
for them at the Yasri village. If not, maybe they’ll keep them until we come
back.”

“If you’re speaking of Mia and Tori,” Malina had
walked up behind me with an empty water skin, “They have no family left.
Neither at the ruined village nor, I think, with the larger tribe. I’ll make
sure they’re looked after, sir.” She smiled at me. “Mistress. Until you return
for them.”

Two? Just two? I wanted to take them
all
home
with us.

N
o one got much sleep
that night. I’d never had to comfort a camp full of crying, frightened females
before.

Magnus and I did our best to guide them off the
mountain at first light, with Malina and another girl named Tiseana driving the
slavers’ cart. We decided to set the other horses free, as it would’ve been
difficult to keep them fed and watered. I hoped we didn’t come to regret it.

The horse and cart were a boon though, as it
allowed the very young and injured to ride. There were whip marks, cuts,
bruises, and blisters from walking barefoot, but none of them had been hurt
quite like little Mia.

She spent a fitful night cradled against
Magnus’s chest, at times sobbing so hard I thought she’d stop breathing. He’d
rubbed her back and crooned to her, but it didn’t help much. She needed a
healer’s attention.

As I watched him and the delicate child
throughout the night, I thought of my own injury. Those first three or four
days in Pentorus had seen me writhing on the floor of his dungeon, trying to
convince myself my hand belonged to someone else, that it didn’t really hurt as
much as I imagined. Alone in the belly of Garai’s castle, I screamed until my
throat was raw. Each minute was an hour, each day a year. My mind finally shut
down. I spent the next week or two nearly unconscious, doing my best to die.

I was sure Mia’s hand hurt just like that. She
didn’t understand what had happened to her. Just that she wanted to – and
couldn’t – escape the pain.

Magnus had seated the sisters on his horse and
led us all down the trail, his head bent, shoulders tight. I almost wished he
hadn’t seen this, yet it was good that he had.

 The depths of human depravity went deep. My tales
of Pentorus were simply words in his ears. There is nothing quite like seeing,
or experiencing, that kind of evil for one’s self.

We reached the base of the mountain near
mid-day. Tori pointed the way to their former home, on the other side.

A half-rotted body was our first clue that we
were nearing the Yasri village. From this distance, it looked like a woman.

I quickly dismounted and pulled Lady Gray up
beside Fitz, trying to block the bodies. Mia and Tori, still mounted on
Magnus’s horse, had a bird’s eye view of the dead woman though. Mia didn’t
understand, but Tori clearly did. She stared ahead, pale, gently pressing her
sister’s face against her chest.

Magnus turned to me, his lips tight. “Find
Malina. We’re leaving them all here until we can take a closer look. I don’t
want . . . They’re too young to see this.”

“You’re right about that.” I called for Malina.
 

Smiling, she pushed through the group. Her
smile melted away when she noticed the body. “Yes, mistress?”

“Stay with them. Magnus and I are going on
ahead. Don’t move until we come back. Do you understand?”

“Yes, mistress. Be careful, won’t you?” Her
eyes widened. “Please come back. I don’t know what we’ll do if you don’t.”

“Not to worry.” I gave her hand a reassuring
squeeze. “We’ll be back.”

J
ust as Malina had said,
the village was ruined.

In fact, “ruined” does not even begin to
describe what I saw as we rode along the edge of the forest to the other side
of the mountain. Bodies lay scattered, rotting in the sun. Crows and other
carrion birds called the alarm as we followed that macabre trail.

Most of the dead were women. Some had knives
and crude cudgels still clutched in their bloated, stiff hands. Ineffective
weapons against the men who had attacked them, but they’d made an effort to
save their daughters and paid with their lives.

 The trail of carnage told the story. The goat
herders had given chase as the slavers herded their children toward the road
cut into the mountain, desperately trying to retrieve them before they were
gone forever.

I pulled Lady Gray up short as we rounded the
last curve and the village came into view. What was left of it, anyway.

 The wattle and daub huts had been burnt to ground,
though they’d long since stopped smoking. Household goods – pots, clothing,
baking racks – were strewn within the blackened rubble. Goats ran loose,
bleating, looking to us for food before darting off again.

The girls we’d saved had been born in this
place, raised here. How would I tell them it was all gone? Gone, because a
small band of slavers had decided the female children of this village had a value
that lay beyond the family circle.

I wanted to kill those men all over again.
“Magnus,” I croaked.

“I know,” he said. “I can’t stop thinking of
Mia.”

I couldn’t stop thinking of Tori and Malina. They’d
watched this happen. They were older and would remember. Nightmares would haunt
them. Would they ever be able to trust again?

“I wonder if anyone survived,” Magnus murmured,
more to himself than me.

“I don’t know.” I gently prodded Lady Gray with
my heels. “Let’s take a closer look. There’s no point in bringing the girls
here if there’s no one left.”

Bodies. So many. The smell was atrocious. Some
of the women had been stripped bare. It took great effort to keep the contents
of my stomach intact. “I will never understand why we do this to each other.”

 “The strong have always preyed upon the weak
for profit,” Magnus answered. “It’s not right, but it is common.”

“Unfortunately. And it needs to stop.” I swung
down off my horse. We appeared to be in the center of the village, though it
was hard to tell. The smell of charred wood permeated the air.

“Hello! Is there anyone here?” I heard crows
call deep in the forest. “Please, is there anyone left alive in this village?”

Nothing.

I tried again. “We found your girls. We’d like
to bring them back, if there’s someone here to take them.”

After a moment, I heard the faint rustling of
foliage. Slowly, tentatively, an old woman stepped out of the trees, followed
by an old man and a middling-aged woman. That was it. Three. Just three.

Magnus dismounted and gave voice to my
thoughts. “Three of you? Only three?”

“Mister, I think we’re the only ones left. We
were picking fruit in the forest when those men came. We hid, like cowards, but
we lived to tell the tale,” the old woman said. Thankfully, she spoke in the
common tongue. “This is what they did to a peaceful people.” She swept her
hands toward the burnt huts. “Our families, slaughtered. Our children, taken.
Where are the girls?”

“On the other side of the mountain. Behind us,”
I told them. “We’ll bring them back to you.”

“Why?” the old man asked, his voice heavy with
grief. “There is nothing to come back to.”