Janice Hardy - Blue Fire

Most likely I’d be dead or sharing a prison cell with both men. I had a feeling either was better than what the Duke had planned for me.

Chapter Six

The trunk opened again, maybe two days later, but I wasn’t sure. The sky was grey tinged in red this time. Sunset.

“What’s wrong with him?” Resik asked, looking both mad and scared.

“Wha?” I squeaked, my mouth too dry to talk.

“Uncle won’t wake up. I know you did this, so heal him.”

I said nothing.

“Tell me or you won’t get any more water.”

“Yo— won—” I coughed and my lips cracked.

Resik ran a hand through his hair and looked around. He yanked a much bigger water flask out of his pocket and dropped it on me. “Drink, then tell me.”

I sucked down the water, warm, but good. My head stopped pounding, but the rest of me still hurt. I handed Resik the flask. “You won’t get paid if I die.”

He groaned in frustration and walked away, leaving the lid open. I revelled in the cool, fresh air. Much too soon he was back.

“Heal him and I’ll let you out of the trunk. We’ll keep you inside the carriage with us.”

“If I heal him, it’ll kill me instead and you won’t get any money.”

He swore. “You’re lying.”

“You need pynvium to heal and you don’t have any.” Not that it would do me any good if he did, but he didn’t know that. “You can have five thousand oppas or your uncle’s life. Your choice.”

He banged his fist on the trunk and walked away again, muttering, pacing. Then he was back once more.

“You can shift it into someone else though, right? That’s why the Duke wants you so badly?” He glanced away and brushed a hand across his upper lip. “Someone like—”

Fieso yanked him away from the trunk. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing! Just giving her some water.”

“Stay away from her.”

“I will.”

“I mean it.”

“I heard you the first time.” Resik reached over and shut the lid, but not before I caught the hateful look he shot at Fieso.

The lid opened again and pale sunlight poured in. The air tasted damp and clean. The sword pointed at my face shone bright.

“You’re going to get up, get out of the trunk, and heal my uncle.” Resik kept his gaze on me, but it jerked, like he really wanted to look somewhere else.

“Where’s Fieso?”

“Don’t worry about him, just do what I said.”

I sat up, muscles burning and tingling as blood rushed into them. My head spun and I gulped in air until it steadied.

“Hurry up!”

“I’ve been folded in a trunk for days,” I said, gripping the side with my bound hands. “Moving isn’t easy.”

Standing would be even less so, though that worked to my advantage. I wouldn’t have to fake tumbling out of the trunk. I hauled myself to my feet and pitched over the side, the trunk toppling after me. I landed hard at Resik’s feet.

His bare feet.

I guess that’s how he’d sneaked away from Fieso.

I seized his ankle with both hands and pushed , sending all my aches and pains into him. He cried out and dropped on the trunk, cracking the side and breaking it into pieces. His legs no longer worked, and he ripped the lid off its hinge while struggling to get up.

My legs suddenly worked just fine again. I couldn’t shift hunger or thirst, so things were still a little swirly, but the pain was gone.

I grabbed the sword and braced it between my knees, blade edge up, and started sawing away at my binds.

“It hurts,” Resik moaned, curled into a ball.

I didn’t look at him, but it didn’t stop the guilt. He wanted to kill me, same as his uncle. Why should I care if either died?

I shoved prickly thought away as the ropes snapped free. We were stopped on the side of the road, with nothing but rolling fields as far as I could see. No canals to dive into, no alley to cut through, not even a tree to hide behind.

“Resik?” said Fieso.

I jumped. Faint smoke curled up into the sky on the other side of the carriage. A campfire. If they were camped, the carriage and driver’s bench were probably empty.

“You’d better not be messing with that girl again.”

I rose, sword out, and circled around the carriage. I glanced towards the driver’s bench and frowned. It was empty, but the horses grazed fifteen feet away, tethered to a post in the ground. So much for stealing the carriage. How hard were horses to ride? Maybe I could steal one of them. I didn’t see a bridle, though, just loose ropes around their necks.

“Resik? Answer me.”

Fieso was closer now, and the only thing between me and freedom. My hands shook and the sword tip quivered. I’d only get one chance to catch him by surprise. I kept all Danello’s fencing lessons firmly in my mind. Thrust, parry, lunge.

“Are you— ah, hell.” Metal scraped – a sword sliding out of a scabbard. “Where’d she go?”

Resik moaned and mumbled something I couldn’t catch.

I gripped the sword tighter and readied myself to lunge.

Fieso’s shadow appeared first, bending around the edge of the carriage, then—

Crack!

Sharp pain flared behind my knee and I toppled forward, dropping the sword. It fell point first into the grass and wobbled.

“Good hit,” Fieso said, yanking the sword out of the ground.

I rolled over. Another man stood behind me, a three-foot reed rod casually resting on his shoulder. The carriage driver?

“Tie her back up,” Fieso said.

“Me? I’m not touching her.”

“We can’t leave her loose.”

“Force her into the trunk again.”

“Can’t. Resik broke it, the idiot.”

“Fine.” The driver stomped off and rooted around in the carriage. He came out with a coiled length of rope. “If she does that shifty thing, I’m gonna make sure you feel it worse.”

Fieso stepped closer and put the blade against my throat. “You won’t do anything, will you?”

“No.” I lay motionless while the driver retied my hands.

“We’ll be in Baseer in a few hours. I’ll put her in the carriage and keep an eye on her till then.”

The driver shook himself as if the very idea gave him shiverfeet, but he opened the carriage anyway. Uncle was slumped inside, his face pale and sweaty. Fieso climbed into the carriage and shoved Uncle out. He moaned as he tumbled to the grass. Ashen skin, sunken eyes. I’d guess he didn’t have much longer.

“You should take him to a Healer.”

“Why? More reward for us.” Fieso turned to the driver again. “Get those horses. I’ll watch our girl.”

He frowned but did as ordered. Resik was probably still lying in the grass behind the carriage. For a heartbeat I wondered if anyone would stop and pick them up.

Fieso waved the sword at me and swung it towards the open carriage door. I climbed inside and sat. Fieso came in after, the sword never wavering.

“Now then,” Fieso said, leaning against the padded seat. “Let’s discuss the rules. You speak, I’ll kill you. You try to escape, I’ll kill you. You move at all, I’ll kill you. You do what I say, or I’ll kill you. Nod if you got it.”

I nodded.

“Good. Rules start now.”

I followed the rules all the way to Baseer. The landscape outside the window never changed, just green fields and farms stretching forever. I couldn’t even imagine how many people all those fields must feed.

The afternoon sun hovered over us by the time we reached the city walls. Golden stone disappeared into the distance, higher than most buildings in Geveg, maybe thirty or forty feet. Every few hundred yards, a tower loomed.

On the right, between the city and the river, was some kind of military fort. Rectangular, with a wide ditch around it. Barracks in neat rows. Armed soldiers posted around fortified walls, and towers at all four corners.