Wanderling (Spirit Seeker Book 1) (5 page)

Usually,
on the rare occasion when an intruder ventured into the valley, Tobin had his
bow ready. But at that moment it rested on a boulder farther in the valley with
his bag, not fifty feet away. He drew his knife, ready to spring into action if
the intruder should discover his bow. However, the stranger walked right past,
coming within a couple of paces of Tobin’s bow and not noticing it because of
the thick brush. He breathed a sigh of relief, and then tensed up as the boy
passed right by him, so close he could reach him in only a few steps.

As
the figure safely passed his hiding place, Tobin rose from his crouched
position and signaled Trigg up on the hill. Trigg nodded and threw a rock to
the right, causing a diversion.

It
worked. The intruder stopped in his tracks, turning towards the noise. Tobin
took the opportunity and sprang forward, seizing the stranger’s arm and
wrenching it into an arm lock, poking his blade at his ribs to let him know it
was there.

“Careful
now,” Tobin said, not wanting a fight, “I’ll stab you if you move.”

Trigg
scrambled out from behind his boulder halfway up the hill in front of them.
“Good one, Tobin,” he hollered. “Why don’t you see what he’s got in that bag.”

The
intruder cursed softly, but Tobin tightened his grip on the boy’s arm and stuck
his knife back in its sheath so he could reach around his captive for the
satchel’s strap, which hung across the stranger’s chest. He groped blindly,
intending to pull the satchel off of the boy for loot, but was shocked to
realize as he grabbed the strap that he was gripping it against the breast of a
woman, not the flat chest of a boy.

He
jolted backwards in surprise, releasing the strap and loosening his grip on his
captive’s arm in surprise.

Just
like that, the woman leapt into action like a coiled cat. She twisted to the
left, wrenching her arm away from him and drawing a wide knife from a sheath at
her belt.

“Get
him!” Trigg shouted, unaware of Tobin’s groping revelation about their
intruder.

Tobin
stared in shock at the wild woman before him for just a second. Her boy’s
clothes were dusty and haggard from the trip, and he could see dried blood on
her sleeve and even in her hair. She twitched her head to knock a strand of
dark, stringy hair away from her dirty face, eyes never leaving him. Nothing
caught his attention more than her eyes though; stark blue and wide with the
fear and desperation of a cornered animal.

He
stepped in to grab her arm again, but she struck like a viper and grabbed his
arm with her left hand, dancing around him and twisting him into a painful
bind. Now
his
arm was in a lock with
her
blade pressed against
his throat.

He
cringed as she screamed over his shoulder in a high-pitch, panicked voice,
“Stop right there, or your friend with the eager hands is dead!”

Adala gripped her knife firmly
against her captive’s throat, struggling to keep her hand steady. She had run
out of water earlier that day and was beginning to feel the effects of
dehydration. But now fear pumped adrenaline into her veins, and she held fast
to the young man’s arm with her knife to his throat, stepping on her toes to
peer over his shoulder. The other youth, now paces away, froze. He had just
picked up a bow from the ground.

“Drop the bow,” she said, trying
to maintain a commanding voice, “and the arrow sling. And that knife you’re
ready to grab behind your belt. Toss it away.”

The youth did as she said, his
weapons dropping to the ground next to tattered leather wraps instead of shoes.
His eyes were round with confusion.

“Did any men on horseback come by
here?” she demanded.

“You expect us to tell you
anything?” asked her captive, the darker one. He had browned skin and curly
dark hair that stuck out behind his ears. He remained very still at her knife
point, but there was an edge to his voice.

“My problem is not with you,” she
said. “I’m looking for three large men with a young boy nine years old. He has
sandy colored hair. He’s a quiet kid and he eats a lot. About chest height.”
She stopped as her voice cracked on the last word. She quivered at the thought
of Shem in captivity these past few days.

The stunned youth in front of her
finally blurted, “But you’re a girl!”

“Just tell me where the horsemen went—”
A stirring of rocks from behind her cut Adala off. As quickly as she heard the
noise, she felt the prick of a blade against her lower spine.

“Drop the knife now,” said a voice
behind her. “You’re in well over your head, girl.”

Adala shivered at the lethal
positioning of the weapon and stifled a whimper. Could her weak, quivering
muscles sustain a fight against three attackers?

In her moment’s hesitation, a
jarring blow struck the back of her head. A rock. The sharp pain shattered her
thoughts. A curse escaped her mouth and the hillside reeled before her. She
staggered backwards into the arms of an unseen attacker. Vision fuzzy, she
wriggled to escape his grip. A calloused hand pried her knife away.

“Get away!” she screamed. She
elbowed the one holding her, but he caught hold of her arms and held them
together behind her back. She kicked the darker one in the gut. “Let me go!”
she hollered at the top of her voice. “You filthy criminals, leave me alone!”

She dropped mostly to the ground
as quickly as she could, suspended only by the iron grip of the man behind her.
She felt him stagger at her sudden movement and she elbowed his knee as hard as
she could. The man screamed and stepped back, but another one rushed forward
and pushed her to the ground.

Adala’s face met the dirt. One of
her attackers sat on her back. The weight crushed her against the satchel,
which was still strung over her shoulder. She saw nothing, but heard the
scuffling of boots and hasty communication between her attackers. “Get the leather--
bind her legs.” “You get her arms.” “Don’t let her get away now!”

She wiggled and cried out,
fighting the panic that threatened to consume her. She used the full force of
her sailor’s vocabulary, cursing them, their children, their families.

The work on her legs was finally
finished, and the figures in her peripheral vision backed away to see what she
would do. With the weight removed from her rib cage and her limbs restricted
with bindings, Adala’s urge to scream turned into an urge to cry.
All this
way, just to be captured by a band of teenagers in the hills,
she thought
bitterly.
Don’t show any weakness. Not to these vagabonds. Get up, Adala
.
She rolled onto her side and curled into a sitting position, legs beneath her.

She sat in the dirt and surveyed
her attackers. Four of them, in all. None resembled the build of her mother’s
murderers. They were barely men, one of them perhaps younger than herself.
Their skin was browned by the sun and their clothes faded. The oldest appeared
to be the darker one, and he looked to be of Diggerish ancestry perhaps. Maybe
farther south. He had the curly hair and rounded features similar to sailors
from that region. He also appeared to be the leader of this confused bunch, as
he was the first to break away from his puzzled gaze.

“Trigg,” he said, addressing the
smallest companion, “go tell Jarod that we need men to take her back to the
village. Tell him to send a couple at least.”

Adala listened with more interest.
If these young men were lookouts for a village, she may be on the right track
after all.

The one with dark features
continued giving commands. “Boggs, go collect your weapons; this is ridiculous.
Hal, see if she’s got anything good in her supplies.”

A boy with a missing front tooth
stepped forward. He must have been the one with the knife, or the one who hit
her head with the rock. Either way she did not like him.

“Oi, Tobin,” he called, poking her
bag. “I can’t get her bag off of her because we tied her hands around the
strap.”

Tobin sighed. “Just cut it. That’s
easier than tying her up again.”

The toothless one took a blade to
the strap of her satchel.

“That’s my weapon, you pig,” she
muttered, anger flaring in her chest.

“Ain’t it fine?” he said. His grin
made her sick. “A knife like this is hard to come by out here, unless you know
the right people.”

“Unless you ambush the right
people, more like.”

He tossed a skirt out of her bag,
saying, “At least we know you dress like a lady sometimes. Ah, here we have the
good stuff.” He gnawed on the last of her dried meat. “This is why I love being
a lookout, Tobin,” he called. “You want some?”

“This one’s all yours.” Tobin
squatted an arm’s length from Adala and studied her as she watched her supplies
spill onto the ground with growing anger.

“You said you’re after a boy,” he
said. “Your brother, I assume. Why do you think he was taken away from you? Do
you have any relatives who have been banished to the outskirts?”

“The waterskin isn’t bad—not dried
out yet, either,” said the voice of his companion.

“Shut it, Hal,” said Tobin.

Adala looked away from the
scrutinizing eyes of her captor. She yearned to slide her hands up to the
binding strap and feel the type of knot that restrained her. She wanted to take
back her knife and her things and leave these foolish boys in the dust. But
Tobin’s eyes watched her like a hawk, and his questions persisted.

“Why was your brother taken away?”
he said. “And what made you come after him alone?”

She stiffened in defense,
thinking,
I shouldn’t have come alone. This was a mistake.
The insult of
his words stung, though his expression was not malicious. “My father was away,”
she said hesitantly. Another thought came to her mind, and she blurted it
without thinking. “I’m promised to the master of arms in Gerstadt. He will come
for me and he won’t be alone. You would be well advised not to harm me.”

Tobin chuckled, “Master of arms?
Sure
you’re promised to him.”

Her face grew hot with
embarrassment and indignation. “I am,” she insisted, somehow upset by his
disbelief.

His eyes scanned over her dusty
sailor apparel and ratty hair, even the bandage on her right arm, brown with
old blood. “Oh no, I believe you,” he said with false reassurance, as if
speaking to a child with an overactive imagination. “I’m sure your fiancé will
be uprooting his army and charging through the valley any minute now.”

This insult was not disguised.
Adala cringed, not because he noted her haggard appearance, but because of his
insinuation that John would not come. An honorable man like John would not let
her disappearance go forgotten, she knew. He held much affection and respect
for her and her family. However, she hadn’t left any sign of her whereabouts in
town. Maybe he would never realize that the kidnappers went by land instead of
sea.

“No one knows where you are, do
they?” Tobin murmured solemnly, sounding more like a statement than a question.

“I left a note,” she lied, raising
her chin.

“Fancy,” he said to his companion,
his eyebrows raised. “This one claims to know how to read. Burano will want to
see her right away.”

The other boy, Hal, smacked his
lips. “I ate all the meat, Tobin. Hope you don’t mind.”

“That’s fine, but I’m taking the
boots. If I don’t grab them, someone else will.”

“You won’t fit in them,” said Hal.

Adala scowled in disgust to hear
these two boys bickering about who gets what from her belongings.

“Don’t be greedy,” Tobin murmured
to his companion. “Sorry,” he said, gently pulling out her bound ankles from
her curled sitting position and fiddling with the buckle on her boot. Without
hesitation she drove her coveted boots straight into his face.

“Damn,” Tobin cursed as he jerked
back, out of range of her feet.

Serves you right,
Adala
thought to herself, gritting her teeth.

Hal, next to her, threw a reckless
punch to the side of her head, causing her ear to ring. “I got her legs, Tobin;
just grab the boots and let’s be done with the wench.”

The force of Hal’s weight pinched
Adala’s legs to the dirt. The pain was enough that she barely noticed her boots
coming off.

“All right, just let off of her,”
Tobin said. “I’ve got the boots; let’s leave her until Jarod’s men arrive.” He
touched his nose, traces of blood coming away with his finger, and cursed
again.

At last Adala was left alone,
curled up on the hard earth. As their footsteps dispersed, she slid a finger
over her leather bindings. The knot was quite simple, elementary even. It
wouldn’t hold under pressure. While her young captors horse-played on the hill,
she began loosening the leather, sliding her wrists against each other. It was
far too easy. She knew she could be free in less than a minute if she tugged at
the primitive binding. If she waited for them to take her into this village
that Tobin spoke of, however, she had a chance to get supplies and information
about her brother’s kidnappers.

She had never heard of villages in
the wastelands. Tales of life beyond her home valley included rabid beasts,
barbaric outcasts, and evil desert savages—never organized settlements. There
was sure to be water and food at the very least, and the best way of finding
this village was to remain captive for perhaps a few more hours.

Adala didn’t have to wait a few
more hours, however. Within the half-hour, heavy footsteps approached from atop
the incline, and she turned to see a middle-aged man with an untrimmed beard
coming with Tobin’s young messenger. The man’s skin was wrinkled and tan, like
old leather, but his arms were thick with strength. Unlike the boys, this man
was equipped with a sword and sturdy, worn boots.

Tobin rose to address the
newcomer. “Ollie, we’ve detained her by that rock.”

“I can see that much,” the scruffy
one grunted, “why doesn’t she have a dress on?”

“Damned if I know,” Tobin said.
Adala curled her legs under her, conscious of the stranger’s gaze.

The older man approached her and
noticed the discarded skirt lying nearby. “You boys can’t even cover her up
after you’ve taken your spoils?” He mumbled and cursed, pulling her roughly to
a standing position. In a moment, her feet were free and he had stuffed her
skirt between her bound arms behind her. “Get-a-moving,” he said. “Up the hill.
If you try to run off, I’ll run an arrow into your back without a moment’s
regret.”

Adala peered at the corner of a
crossbow strapped to his back. She hadn’t seen many bows up close, but they
seemed commonplace with this band of renegades. The man, Ollie, brushed away
his sweat-soaked forelock, and Adala froze. A pale, textured scar in the shape
of a capital T rested above his right eyebrow. T for thievery. It was the brand
mark of an outcast from Gerstadt. She shivered.

Her stare did not go unnoticed.
The man grinned, baring a mouthful of ill-kept teeth. “Pretty, isn’t it? I
murdered three men and raped a dozen women for this badge.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Tobin said.
“Only the gods know what he stole to come here, but he won’t hurt you unless
you try to get away.”

“That’s comforting,” she said,
still staring at his brand.

“Ollie, I’ll come with you,” said
Tobin, slinging a long bow over his shoulder. “You may need an extra hand with
her.”

The man’s pale eyes danced toward
the heavens as he laughed. “I think I can handle a woman! Come along though, if
you’d like. You might learn a thing or two, boy.”

Within a few moments they were
trekking up the incline, Adala carefully leading the way on her bare feet with
Tobin and Ollie right behind. Ollie did not cease his chatter for a minute.
Since Adala had taken note of his brand, he told tales of stealing the
emperor’s scepter from the castle at Narshton, taking the virtue of countless
priestesses, and commandeering a shipment of Diggerish gold off the coast of
Iviannah.

Tobin ignored their companion’s
monologues and simply directed Adala in their journey, telling her to go a
little more to the left or right, or to travel around the next hill instead of
over it.

“Where are we going?” she dared to
ask.

“The village,” said Tobin.

“Yes, but what village? Who lives
on this side of the mountains?” she asked in a low voice. Behind them, Ollie
was wholly engaged in a graphic story of identical Sabrian triplets he once
encountered in Hugerford.

“Most of us are outcasts from your
seaside city, Gerstadt,” said Tobin.

“But you carry no brand,” she
said. “Surely there aren’t enough criminals to populate an entire village.”