He asked a few questions that Bryn couldn’t hear, and the two of them discussed quietly.
“Now!” Valenden said.
He spurred his horse into action. The startled beast took off, bunching its muscles. Bryn’s horse was slower on the uptake,kicking into a gallop with more reluctance. Valenden tugged on the reins hard, trying to navigate the mare.
Bryn grabbed the base of the mare’s mane with all her strength, squeezing her legs and praying she could hold on. The horses lurched forward awkwardly, one fast and one slow, tethered together by the reins.
The instant Valenden had spurred on the horses, the bandits swarmed them with knives and swords raised. But Valenden had a good start and was just about to tear past the bandit leader when the woman speaking with him raised the rifle skyward and fired.
Even though the rifle wasn’t aimed at them, the crack of the rifle made her horse rear up, spooked. Before she knew it, Bryn tumbled off the back of the horse, fingers slipping out of the mane.
She fell hard on her backside, wincing as pain shot through her hip. She’d broken the fall with her ankle and now worried she might have broken or sprained a bone.
“Gods,” Valenden cursed under his breath. He pulled his horse around in a tight circle back to where Bryn lay. Her horse spooked again and tried to bolt, but one of the bandits grabbed its reins.
Valenden placed his horse between Bryn and the bandits and drew his sword.
For a moment, tension crackled in the air.
Valenden wasn’t as highly trained a soldier as Trei or Rangar, but Bryn had seen him practice and knew he was more than capable of fighting. There were lithe muscles beneath those clothes of his and a body that could snap into action if needed.
Still, it was Valenden against over a dozen bandits—the odds weren’t in their favor.
Raising his sword, Valenden said, “There must be something else you want. We’re quite resourceful. Whatever you want, we can get it for you if you let us go.”
The gray-haired bandit leader ran a hand over his chin, appraising them.
“Sorry, friend,” he said, “but what we want is yourwife.”
Bryn and Valendenhad no choice but to let themselves be captured. Though Valenden had been ready to fight off a dozen bandits to protect her, Bryn had yelled for him to lower his sword and dismount before he got himself killed.
Once the bandits saw how she’d twisted her ankle in the fall, they allowed her back on her horse, while the female bandit rode on Valenden’s gelding, leading her mare by the reins. The masked woman threw back glances at Bryn every once in a while. Even with the black mask and her hair tucked up, there was something familiar about the elegant way the woman held herself.
They had bound Valenden’s hands and taken away his sword, so he had to walk next to Bryn’s horse, tethered by a rope. He tossed his hair back and cursed every few steps, struggling to walk with the rope threatening to pull him off balance.
“What do you think they want with me?” Bryn whispered down to him.
He gave her a long look that didn’t inspire much confidence. “If our hosts were all men, I’d fear more for your safety. But I can’t imagine a group of bandits that is half female would allow a woman to be harmed; then again, I’ve learned there is much I don’t understand about women.”
The bandits soon broke from the road onto a trail that Bryn would never have even noticed. They moved gracefully through the underbrush, making almost no noise. It was a beautiful forest; not even Bryn’s fears could distract her from that fact. The forest in Vil-Kevi had been monstrous and nearly sentient; the woods in the northern part of the Baersladen were sparse and shrubby wind-twisted pines. But the forest here, near the border with the Wollin, was more like Saint’s Forest back home. There were deciduous trees with broad leaves, changing color now into vibrant yellows and reds and oranges. The fallen leaves crumpled under her horse’s hooves. She’d never seen such a rainbow of colors before.
After about an hour through the woods, the leader slowed to a stop, then raised his hand to signal for the others to halt as well. Bryn’s heart kicked up. Her eyes searched the trees, looking for any sign of danger.
The bandit leader gave a sharp whistle. It echoed through the underbrush, and in another second, a whistle answered from deeper in the forest.
There are more of them.
Bryn looked to Valenden for direction and found his body tense, his attention keenly centered on a place ahead and to their right.
“Look,” he whispered, jerking his chin.
She stared at the trees, shaking her head. “What? I don’t see anything.”
“Look harder.”
She tried to pick out shapes among the trees; to her surprise, her eyes snagged on a rope ladder that was the same color as a tree trunk. She followed it upward, where she found a dark shadow amid the trees. She wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but now she looked closer and noticed how despite the leaves cleverly concealing it, it appeared to be a structure.
The leader whistled three times now, and many whistles answered from throughout the forest.
