4
When Riann next awoke, he was strapped to the back of the horse again. The scent of sweat and horsehair filled his nose as he sucked in a deep breath…and felt nopain.
“What the deuce?” he muttered, shifting around on the saddle as best as he could manage. He expected to feel a stabbing sensation in his abdomen, but though his ribs still smarted, and his head still ached where Wellion had hit him during the fight, the overall agony in his body had reduced to a dullthrob.
“Ah, you’re awake.” Wellion’s voice distracted him, and the bandit captain stared at him. “I was wondering if you would sleep through the entireride.”
“What the bloody hell did you do to me?” Riann’s throat felt like sandpaper, and he desperately wished for a drink of water. “When you grabbed myneck…”
“Pressure point.” Wellion flexed his fingers. “Contrary to popular opinion, it is possible to knock a man unconscious without giving him a headinjury.”
“It would have been nice if that’s what you’d done to me the first time,” Riann muttered, looking away. This was the second time the bandit had felled him, and he was beginning to grow tired of it. On the other hand, he did feel much improved, and he wondered if the forced sleep had allowed his body to heal. Of course, he would still have to pretend that he was injured, or the bandits would expect something was amiss. But the increased mobility would make it much easier to escape, if the opportunity evercame.
They rode through the wooded hills in silence, sticking to the winding path. On the journey, they passed by several farms and villages, and even a small manor, but Wellion did not stop to terrorize them, and no one seemed to pay the bandits anymind.
“How is it that your band rides so openly in these lands?” Riann demanded. “Are there no lawmen who care about the welfare of thesepeople?”
One of the bandits laughed. “Lord Traizeownsthese lands,” he said. “His word is the law aroundhere.”
Riann shivered. A lawless province? He had heard that Carliss was more progressive than Fjordland, but this was taking it too far. If the lord who was supposed to protect these people allowed…no,encouraged, bandits to roam these lands, then who did they have to turn to when they neededhelp?
After riding through the hills for some time, they came to the edge of another forest, this one of towering pines. One of the bandits bound a black cloth around Riann’s eyes, and though having his sight robbed was disconcerting, it gave Riann hope that perhaps he wouldn’t be executed. If they were going to kill him, they likely wouldn’t care if he saw the location of theirstronghold.
For the next several hours, they rode in relative silence, the bandits cracking jokes here and there in their native language that Riann could not understand. Riann could feel the horse beneath him going uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill, each ascent and descent growing steeper and steeper. One particular ascent was so long, he wondered if they were climbing to the top of amountain.
“You there!” a voice barked, breaking the thick silence that had descended upon them in the last hour or so. “What are you doing in theseparts?”
“P-please,” the reedy, thin voice of a man begged. He sounded frightened out of his wits. “I just came into these woods to pick berries for mywife.”
“Hand the basket over,” Wellion commanded, “and you may go on your way. It is forbidden to take anything from these woods. You know thelaw.”
There was a moment of hesitation. “If Imight—”
The sound of a sword driving through flesh and bone cut off the man’s words, and Riann recoiled at the choking sound that filled the air. “We don’t negotiate with peasants,” Baldrich, the bandit who had taunted him before, sneered. Riann heard him withdraw the blade, followed by the sound of a body thudding to the ground. ‘That’llteach—”
Riann heard a pair of boots thud to the ground, and suddenly Baldrich was the one making chokingsounds.
“Did I give you permission to kill that peasant?” Wellion hissed, his normally icy voice filled with a surprising amount ofvenom.
“He…he was about to…refuse…” the man choked. Riann strained his ears to make out the words, wishing that he could yank his blindfold down to watch the exchange. But his hands were firmly bound behind his back, and he didn’t want to give his hand away by breaking his bonds now. He might be stronger than the average man, but he was still vastlyoutnumbered.
“If he had, I would have dealt with him myself,” Wellion said. There was a crashing sound, as if he had slammed the bandit into a tree. “You’ll learn your place one of these days, Baldrich. Five lashes when we returnhome.”
A deathly silence descended upon the group as the two bandits mounted up, and Riann could sense that some of the other bandits were not thrilled about their captain’s decision. But none openly objected, and Riann could practically taste their fear in the air. He had to give it to Wellion; the man ruled his band with an ironfist.
There was justice of sorts amongst the bandits, though the wife of the man they had killed likely would not see it that way. Riann felt a pang of heartsickness for the unknown woman, and he wondered if she would ever find her husband’s body, or if she would live out the rest of her days never knowing what had happened tohim.
They rode for another hour before stopping again, and this time, the bandits removed the blindfold. Craning his neck, Riann took in their surroundings as best as he could from his prone position. They were standing within the walls of an old, half-dilapidated keep, and through one of the crumbling stone defenses, he could see they were in a deep valley surrounded by forest. The babble of a brook came from somewhere beyond, faintly audible. He had no clue which direction they came from to get here, but focusing on the bond, he could feel that Tariel was somewhereeast.
The bandits dismounted first, handing their horses off to a couple of dirty-faced stable boys. Riann was eventually untied from the back of the horse, but though his legs were freed, his hands remained firmly bound. Still, he could break the rope easily enough, and if he could just get hold of aweapon…
“Wellion!” A woman in a dark green dress rushed down the stone steps. She was petite of frame, with thick chestnut hair that flowed to her waist and thick-lashed eyes the exact same shade as the bandit captain’s. She looked so much like him, Riann surmised they must be twins. “We were expecting you back this morning. What keptyou?”
“This.” Wellion shoved Riann between his shoulder blades, sending him stumbling toward the woman. “Found him wandering near the caves just inside ourborders.”
“Oooh.” The woman’s generous lips curved, her eyes lighting as she surveyed Riann as though he were a particularly fine cut of meat. “He’s quite a specimen,” she purred, running a hand down Riann’s bicep. “I think I’ll keephim.”
“That’s for Father to decide.” Wellion smacked his sister’s hand away. “If he has any sense at all, he’ll execute him. Don’t be fooled by a pretty face, Sallara—he’s a foreigner, and not to betrusted.”
