That son of a bitch. Where is he?She craned her head, looking for the man, wanting very much to give her a piece of her mind. Sadly, he was nowhere to be seen. Either he was riding up front in the cockpit, or he’d jumped aboard the other ship. Whatever the case, she would have to wait to unload her ire upon him.
Margot tried to move but found her hands were tightly bound together, and adding insult to injury, they were also secured to a cord wrapped around her waist. Her upper body was pretty well immobilized, she realized. At least her legs were free, but in flight as they were, she wouldn’t be running anywhere.
“I see the bitch is up,” one of the men snarled, his eyes full of hate as they burned into her with an angry stare. “Ain’t gonna be no grabbing anyone’s weapons this time, girlie.”
“Oh, darn. And it was so much fun last time,” she shot back, resorting to sarcasm on instinct alone even though her logical mind knew it wasn’t a wise choice.
“A smart mouth, eh?” he growled, slapping her across the face hard. “You cost us a ship! And some of our friends.”
“And you’re selling people, you fucking slave trader,” she spat back, blood trickling from her mouth.
Little did they know, the tiny split in her lip would probably be healed by the time they landed.
The men looked at each other and laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound.
“And?” another shot back. “We’re not the first to do it. And we sure as hell won’t be the last. There’s good money to be made.”
“It’s wrong.”
“Wrong? It’s a fucking lucrative living is what it is. And I’ll bet we’ll get a good price for the likes of you. Areallygood price. What do you think about that? Any more clever remarks?”
“Shut up, Algur. You know Gromm wants her for himself,” his comrade grumbled. “Much as I’d just as soon give her to the men, this one cost him a lot. Cost him a whole ship, not to mention a few of our friends. And he wants her intact.”
The men grumbled, but no one wanted to cross their leader. Sure, they were warriors, fighters, mercenaries, and slave traders. But Gromm was a whole other matter altogether, and they knew better than to even entertain the faintest hint of double-crossing him. If anyone was so foolish, it would be the last thing they ever did.
Margot rode in silence the rest of the flight. The ship shook and rattled a bit and from what she discerned with her layman’s eyes, it seemed to have sustained minor damage in the fight and was flying quite slowly from what she could tell. She just hoped it wouldn’t drop out of the sky without warning.
As it worked out, the craft might have shuddered and bucked a few times, but it eventually made it back to the landing area beside the much larger base ship, settling down in a cloud of dust.
“C’mon,” the nearest guard grunted, hauling Margot to her feet and shoving her out the open hatch.
It was nearly dusk, she realized. She hadn’t been unconscious nearly as long as she’d initially thought.
“I said move it!”
Margot stumbled at the rough hands on her back but didn’t fall. At least she was spared that indignity. She was, however, paraded through the camp, the woman who caused the death of their friends and, more importantly, cost them one of their scouting ships. From what the men had said during their flight,that loss had forced everyone to work longer shifts to make up for its loss, and they all blamed her for it.
Rightly so, of course. But that didn’t mean she was at all happy about the angry stares confronting her as she was ushered ahead.
“Where are we going?” she asked as they redirected her outside the area she’d come to know, walking her past the outdoor holding cells she’d not been allowed to come near previously.
Are they going to lock me in there?she wondered, counting the many captured men and women waiting to be returned for their bounties, their captor leaving much richer, while they faced almost certain death.
A familiar face caught her eye. “Floxxia!” she called out when she saw the old woman up against the bars.
The Skrizzit’s expression was one of mild shock suddenly replaced with what looked to be an expression of genuine surprise when Margot assumed she caught sight of the changes to the runes she’d only recently applied to the human. Sadly, the guard wasn’t having any of that.
“Shut up. No talking to the prisoners, bitch. Keep your mouth shut and your eyes forward.”
“But you still haven’t told me where?—”
“You’re going to see Gromm, obviously. And he’s going to make you regret what you did.”
“Look, I think that?—”
He smacked her upside her head. It was more of a shock than actually painful, for which she was quite grateful. Gromm wanted her unharmed—for now, at least—and that was her saving grace.
“I said no talking. You’ll see Gromm and that’s gonna be that, so shut up.”
