the tip of it glowed orange.
“Besides,” he said, turning to her. “I prefer to torture you anyway. I get more pleasure from that. The king said you are ours to do with as we wish. And we most certainly shall!”
Gwen’s eyes opened wide in terror as the hot poker came close to her face, so hot it made her sweat even from a foot away. She saw the malicious smile on the man’s face, and knew that in just a moment, her face would be scarred forever.
“Wait!” she screamed out. “I don’t just offer you pleasure! But riches! I am the daughter of a king, lest you forget! I will give you more money than you can ever imagine! Certainly more money than McCloud ever will!”
Her jailers stopped, intrigued for the first time.
“And how much is that exactly?” he asked.
“More than you can carry. Wheelbarrows fill. An entire house full, if you like.”
“And how will you manage that?” the other one asked, stepping forward.
“I will send word to my father. He will ship me whatever I like. Did you not see our wedding? The jewels that I wore?”
The two attackers looked at each other, unsure.
“Your father is dead,” said one.
“But his court lives on,” she said, thinking quick. “My mother still lives. So do my siblings. They will send you any riches you want. if I pen a letter.”
One of them stepped close, holding the blade tighter to her throat.
“Why don’t we just kill you,” he said slowly, “pen the letter in your name, and take the riches anyway?”
“Because you don’t know my penmanship,” she said, thinking faster than ever. “They would never believe it if it were not in my hand! Then you would have nothing! Surely it is worth more to you to have all that gold than to have me dead!”
They looked at each other, debating.
“What’s to stop us from forcing you to pen the letter, then killing you? That way we get the gold, and we get to torture and kill you!”
She looked at them, terrified. She thought quick, and a solution came to her.
“I will do whatever you wish,” she said. “I will put myself at your mercy. But I can’t write with my hands shackled. Unshackle me, and bring me a quill and parchment, and you can choose what to do with me.”
The two men looked at each other, then finally one nodded to the other, licking his lips.
“You are more stupid than I thought,” said one, coming up a few feet behind her and unlocking each of her shackles with a key where they met the stone wall.
“Because now we will take your letter, and then I will reshackle you and rape and torture you all night!”
The two erupted into uproarious laughter.
As soon as the man finished unlocking her second shackle, Luanda burst into action. Each shackle was affixed to the wall by a three foot iron chain, with one shackle on her wrist and the other on the wall. As her jailer unlocked the one on the wall, leaving her wrist still shackled and connected to the chain, she knew she only had one chance at this.
She swung around with her wrist, still bolted to the shackle, swung the heavy iron chain overhead, and brought it down with all her might, aiming for the man’s face as he stepped carelessly back in front of her.
They had underestimated her. They did not expect that she still had the reservoir of strength that she did, that she had the means to use it, that she had the knowledge and cunning of a king’s daughter, one who had been trained her entire life by the King’s best warriors.
And that was their last mistake.
Luanda summoned every skill she had, every ounce of bravery, as she swung the chain around and down for her jailer’s face. She took aim, and her aim was true.
The chain came flying down, with the heavy iron shackle at the end of it, right for her jailer’s nose. It was a perfect hit, and she struck him hard, smashing it across the bridge of his nose and sending him stumbling back several feet, landing on the ground, screaming in agony. He dropped the hot iron poker and reached up to hold his face.
Without hesitating, Luanda swung around with her other hand, and took aim for the other jailer’s throat, as he made the mistake of turning his back on her and looking down at his friend. The chain wrapped itself cleanly around his throat, and she immediately reached up with her other hand, grabbed the other end, and squeezed.
The man bucked wildly, and she grabbed hold with everything she had as he resisted, squeezing harder and harder. He did everything he could to break free, but she strangled him with all her might. He reached up and tried again and again to release the chain from his throat-but her grip was too strong. She was holding on as if her life depended on it. And it did.
The other man was slowly rousing on the ground, slowly getting to his hands and knees, and she hoped and prayed she would have time to finish choking this man to death before the other approached her.
She squeezed harder and harder as the man cried out, gurgling, struggling, bucking like a wild animal. At one point he even reached back and elbowed her in the gut.
It hurt, but she didn’t let go, and she didn’t stop. Too much was at stake.
The other man finally gained his feet, reached up and grabbed the hot iron poker, and charged her. She didn’t have enough time. The other man was still alive, writhing, in her hands. He just would not die.
She could not let go of him to defend herself. She racked her brain for a strategy.
As the other man charged her, hot poker out in front of him, she waited until the last moment, and then dodged him, squirming out of the way, and instead pulled the man she was choking out in front of her, using him as a body shield.
It worked. The man pierced his cohort instead of her, driving the hot poker all the way into his friend’s heart as he shrieked while she choked him. Finally, his body went limp in her hands, the poker lodged in his chest.
The other one stood there, dumbfounded, staring at his friend’s corpse.
Luanda did not wait. She dropped the corpse and in the same motion, reached around, swung her hand high and whacked her other attacker hard across the face with the iron shackle a second time. Her aim, again, was true, and she broke his nose a second time, knocking him flat on his back, moaning in agony.
She took no chances. She reached over, pulled the hot poker from the chest of the dead man, then reached up high, leaned over, and drove it through the chest of the other man.
He sat up, shrieking, blood gurgling from his mouth, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, as if unbelieving.
Then, a moment later, he stiffened and collapsed, dead.
Gwen dropped to her knees, searched the man’s belt, found the key, and unlocked the shackles at her feet, then at her wrists. She rubbed them, more sore than they had ever been, deep bruises left where she had been clasped.
She looked down at her two jailers, dead, a bloody mess. Filled with rage, she spit on them both.
She reached down and grabbed one of their daggers. Where she was about to go, she would need it. For she could not leave this place without her husband. And she would free him, even if it cost her her life.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Thor rode alone across the desert wasteland, galloping west as the first sun began to rise, and his heart welled with a great sense of expectation. He had been riding for hours, feeling a sense of guilt over leaving his brothers behind, but feeling more than ever that he was on a momentous trip, riding into his destiny. After his dream, and his encounter with Argon, he felt some great secret awaiting him in his hometown, and as he rode, he felt a tingling through his body, felt on the precipice of a great discovery.
Thor also felt a sense of dread. He hadn’t seen his father since he had stormed out that fateful day, after their argument, and had never returned. He wondered what his father thought of him now. Would his father be remorseful? Would he regret that he had treated Thor so harshly? Would he regret that he had favored his brothers so much? Did he miss having Thor around? Would he apologize and welcome Thor back? Would he want him to stay? Would he be proud of Thor when he saw the warrior he had become, what he had achieved, against all
