“Our Loclon likes a bit of fisticuffs,” Sunny told her knowingly. “You ask any of the girls in the Houses back at the Citadel. He pays good, but he likes to feel like a big man. Know what I mean?”
“He likes to hit people?” R’shiel suggested, not entirely sure she understood Sunny’s odd turn of phrase.
“He likes to hit women,” Sunny corrected. “Give’s him a real hard-on. I bet he isn’t near as brave fighting men.”
Hurly found them before R’shiel could answer.
It was late that night before R’shiel finally got a chance to speak to Tarja. After a meal of thin gruel she lay awake in the darkness, listening to the creaking of the boat, the soft rasping of swinging hammocks, and the nasal snores of her fellow prisoners. She waited for a long time, until she was certain they were all asleep, before slipping out of her hammock. Feeling her way in the absolute darkness, she relied only on her memory of where she thought Tarja might be sleeping to find him, trying not to bump into the others as she felt her way through the hold. The boat had anchored for the night, and the sound of the river gently slapping against the wooden hull seemed unnaturally loud.
“Tarja?” she whispered, reaching out to touch his face. A vicelike grip snatched at her wrist, and she had to force herself not to cry out with the sudden pain. “It’s me!” she hissed.
The pain eased as he released her. “What’s wrong?” he said, so softly she had to lean forward until she could feel his breath on her face.
“Can we talk?”
She felt rather than saw him nod in the darkness and stood back as he swung out of the hammock. He took her hand and led her toward the aft end of the hold. A glimmer of light trickled in from a loose board high on the bulkhead. Tarja sank down onto the hard deck and pulled R’shiel, shivering in her thin shift, down beside him. He put his arm around her, and she leaned into the solid warmth of his chest.
“What happened? Why didn’t they hang you?” she whispered. Although the sleeping prisoners were on the other side of the hold, it was not a large boat and even normal voices would probably wake them. “Everyone says you betrayed the rebels.”
“This is Joyhinia’s idea of revenge. She’s hoping the rebels will kill me for her.”
“But if you explained to them—”
She could feel him shaking his head in the darkness. “You know them as well as I, R’shiel. I doubt I’ll be given the chance. But we’re still alive, that’s something. Maybe I can find a way out of this yet.”
“You can rescue me any time you want, Tarja. Anywhere between here and the Grimfield will do just nicely. I’ll die if I have to spend an hour as a
“Is that what Harith sentenced you to?”
She nodded. A part of her wanted him to explode with fury and kick a hole in the bulkhead so that they could swim to freedom. Another part of her knew that he was as helpless as she was.
“Well,” she sighed. “Whatever happens, I’m glad Joyhinia didn’t hang you.”
“Does this mean I’m forgiven?”
“For what?”
“You tell me.”
“Oh! At the Citadel, you mean? I was just surprised, that’s all. Everyone was saying you’d been tortured.” He did not confirm or deny the rumor. He just held her close. She could hear the steady beat of his heart against her ear. “You should have listened to me, you know. I warned you the meeting in Testra was a trap.”
“You also suggested we ambush Draco and kill every Defender in the town,” he reminded her.
“We wouldn’t be here now, if we had,” she retorted, but her rhetoric had lost the passion that once consumed her.
“We’ll survive.”
“Is that your idea of encouragement? I wish I could die!”
Tarja reached down and lifted her chin with his finger. His eyes glittered in the thin light from the cracked board.
“Don’t say that!” he hissed. “Don’t even think it! Founders! I think I preferred you when you wanted to take on the whole world! If you want to get even with Joyhinia, then survive this. No. Not just survive. Damned well flourish. Don’t let them defeat you, R’shiel. Don’t let anybody, ever, defeat you!”
R’shiel was startled by his vehemence. “But I’m scared, Tarja.”
“You’re not afraid of anything, R’shiel.”
She looked up at him. He might think her fearless, but there was one thing she was afraid of. She was terrified he would look at her again, the way he had the night she left the vineyard.
chapter 32
They reached the Cliffwall four days later. Over the eons, the wide, meandering Glass River had worn a deep ravine through the rift between the high and central plateaus, and it was here that the Defenders were ordered on full alert. Loclon was convinced that the cliffs hemming in the river were an ideal place for an ambush. The riverboat captain obviously considered that a very optimistic opinion. Even at its narrowest, the river was still half a league wide, but he obediently kept to the center. They were traveling with the current, and their progress was swift. The day had begun cloudy, but the unseasonal warmth had burned off the last remaining clouds by midmorning, which not even the vast expanse of the river seemed to affect. It was odd, this sudden warm spell, but then R’shiel was further south now than she had been since arriving at the Citadel as a babe in arms.
“How long before we reach Juliern?”
Loclon was standing behind the captain, his tunic unbuttoned and rumpled. His scar was pale against his windburned face. The sun was beginning to set, and the cool of the evening was settling with alarming speed. Cooling sweat turned chill in seconds. The prisoners were just below them on the main deck. The riverboat captain insisted that they clean up after the horses, and the men were on their hands and knees, swabbing the boards. The women were spared the task and for the most part were laying about, too lethargic to do anything else, particularly wearing leg irons. R’shiel cautiously moved a little closer, to better concentrate on the discussion.
“Tomorrow morning sometime, I suppose,” the riverboat captain replied. “Is that where you want to land?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Are you planning to dock the boat yourself?”
“Of course not! But I don’t want your men to know. Or the prisoners.”
“As you wish.”
“And once we’ve offloaded, you’re to head straight back to Brodenvale.”
The captain frowned. “That wasn’t part of the deal. I’m heading downriver.”
“That’s too bad, because if you don’t dock in Brodenvale two weeks from tomorrow, the Brodenvale Garrison Commander has orders to declare you and your whole damned crew outlaws.”
R’shiel heard the sailor curse softly as Loclon walked away.
Juliern was a small village slumped between the Glass River and the barren central plateau. It had little to offer in trade and was not a regular port of call. It consisted of little more than a rickety wooden dock, a tavern, a blacksmith, and a few mean houses.
The village appeared almost deserted when the
Loclon watched as the horses were led off the boat. Then the prisoners were marched off, stumbling
