The Last Dragon: Book Three

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Princess Elizabeth

“You cannot treat a princess like this,” I said as I pounded my fist on the pommel of the saddle as if I was a spoiled brat of a princess. It was a demonstration intended for him, to make him think I was weak, so he would relax, and I could escape.

He laughed and tossed me the water flask he’d had to his lips a moment earlier. Despite that, I was thirsty and refused to give him the satisfaction of wiping the mouth of the container before using it. He was baiting me. Trying to get me to react.

That was his error. He believed that because he stood a head taller and was a man, he could force me to do what he wanted. He hadn’t made any sexual advances, and that only told me he’d been ordered not to. But he was allowed to beat me within reason. Not kill me, just beat and torture—as if that was better.

The man was crude, rough, and determined to convince himself he was as good as me. His overconfidence would be his downfall. Not today. He was ready for me to fight back and he was anxious to display his strength, but it wouldn’t happen.

The water tasted warm and flat. The morning heat was drawing moisture from my body already, and I nearly finished the flask before he slapped it from my hands and away from my lips.

“Save some for later,” he snarled.

I watched the rest leak into a dark spot on the sand. It wasn’t water he wanted to save. It was that he wanted control of me. I cried, forcing the tears to fall while I still had them in me. I didn’t say anything, but he saw them and grinned. A crying woman makes a man feel superior. I wanted him to feel that way.

The little horses were rough to ride. Their gaits were uneven and jolting, and if we spent too long in the saddle, we’d be sore for days. He took us out from the city into the empty desert of the Brownlands, almost directly west of Vin. Twice we crossed roads that generally went in the same direction, but we followed no road. Looking behind in the sand showed only a few hollows from the hooves of the horses, and the first breeze would obscure them with blowing sand. We wouldn’t be followed.

He seemed to have a destination and late in the day, a small pile of rocks stood directly ahead after we altered our course slightly. They were boulders, piled two high, with rounded surfaces from the wind and blowing sand. I saw nothing else in sight.

“Dismount and stretch,” he said. “Let any thoughts of running turn into asking yourself what will happen if I have to come and get you. And I was born out here, so I know how to track and survive.”

His explanation revealed a lot in a few words. I climbed from my horse as I considered them. He wanted me to know there was no escape, that he was my superior in every aspect. I said meekly, “I’ve never been in a desert.”

He glanced at me in an odd way, so I didn’t know if he believed my misdirection or thought me more dangerous because of the attempt at seeming a defenseless woman.

The horses were hobbled, and he placed a feed sack on the muzzle of each with far more gentleness that he showed me. He withdrew more hobbles and used them on me, pulling the ropes tight. My feet were lashed behind me, my ankles tied together and pulled to the small of my back with a single piece of rope.

He went to the base of a boulder and smoothed away the sand with his hand. Below the surface was a wooden crate. He removed the lid and inside were jars of water and a large bowl. He watered the horses from the bowl, and when satisfied all was well, the sun was sinking behind a row of far-off mountains, and he allowed me a drink. Already a chill was in the air.

My hands were freed. He handed me dried meat to gnaw, as well as a full jar of water to drink. The meat was dry, salty, and tasteless, the water warm, flat, and welcome to my dehydrated body. He didn’t talk, but he didn’t have to. Our needs were simple, and he communicated well without words. Half a blanket covered me; the other half was my bed. The sand that managed to slip in and chafe was ignored.

We rose with the sun, and instead of continuing west, we turned south. Dagger was our ultimate destination, the pile of boulders just a place to rest for the night and refresh ourselves with the water stored there. I wished I had Damon’s powers to untangle the knots in the ropes that I fought with all night. If I had managed to get free, my captor would have been attacked by a fierce and angry princess intent on killing him. My waking-dreams were filled with the imaginary attack.

“Time to move on,” were his only words as he readied the horses.

I wanted him to talk. “Where are we going today?”

“You’re riding where I go.”

“My father would pay you a fortune if you took me to Dire.”

“Never been there and don’t plan on going.”

“He would send you the gold. Just let me go.”

A snort of derision was my only answer.

We rode during the cool of the morning, then stopped where the rear side of a hill provided a little shade and fitfully slept the afternoon away. My thoughts of revenge grew darker and more intense. Late in the day, we moved again, reaching a wallow where a few trees struggled to survive in the cracked ground where there had been water in the spring. Now there remained a soggy depression in the center. During the night we heard dozens of animals make their way to the murky, green water that gave the area the scent like death.

The following day, we reached the shore of a lake so wide I couldn’t see the far shore. Boats were there on the water. Most fished in one manner or another. Along the shore were farms, most with hand-dug canals for irrigation. Crops grew in the fertile soil. A few hundred steps from the shore, the desert took over again.

The narrow strip of farmland was green and lush, nearly every bit of available land under cultivation. A road wound its way along the shoreline, following the contours. On one side were the farms, and on the other side the Brownlands.

It was the river I’d heard about, and the chain of lakes behind dams. There was a string of them, one of the most impressive things about Kondor and allowed for the large population to exist by raising the food. The lakes provided water for irrigation, of course, but they also held fish for food, water for the transportation of crops, homes, and cabins for the residents where boating and swimming were daily goals. I was both impressed and jealous. The people of Dire had nothing like what lay in front of me.

I knew it was but one of a dozen such artificial lakes, each with a lock that allowed boats to move freely from one to the next. Dagger lay downriver.

We turned in the direction of Dagger at the road, the river or lake spread into the distance on our right. The people we passed noticed my hands tied when I held them up in silent pleas for help, but their eyes always shifted away. Not a single one offered to help questioned my captor or had spoken up for me. I quit drawing attention and rode with my head down, looking defeated for the benefit of my captor. Lulling him worked to my favor or would when I made my break for freedom.

Not that I blamed most of the travelers for their lack of reaction. They were farmers and peaceful people who stood no chance of challenging my captor. They sensed it. I knew it.

We turned off the road and followed a small lane to a hut built on the end of a point of land that jutted out onto the lake. Two boats were tied to a rickety dock a generation or two old. A gnarled man with a bent back emerged and spat in the sand, as he’d probably done countless times as he sized us up.

He said, “The ferry will be here after first-light. You can make camp over there,” his thumb jerked to indicate a bare strip of rock with no soil to till. “Cost you a crown for each, two for the horses to pay for the grass they’ll eat. Don’t leave a mess for me to clean up, hear?”

“Expensive for renting a little piece of dirt for a night,” my captor snarled.

“Should charge you double because of your sour attitude,” the old man growled, not intimidated or backing down despite his age. “Find another place if you like.”

Coins had exchanged hands. It was obvious they knew each other, and half the animosity was due to a long acquaintance. They enjoyed the bickering.

However, my mind was on other things. If we got on the ferry, there would be no way to get off until we reached Dagger, and that was not the way I wanted to reach the city. Being paraded through the streets while being held a prisoner removed any bargaining power I had.

I said, “The offer for my freedom is still good. You can be a rich man.”

“And dead,” he answered as he started unloading our bedrolls. “Hard to spend a fortune when you’re sleeping in a hole under the sand.”

At least he was more talkative. With the ferry arriving in the morning, I had only one option. Tonight, I’d have to escape. I gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m sure you can take care of yourself in an emergency.”

We spread our blankets beside a fire pit overflowing with the remains of previous fires, but there was no wood in sight, and my captor didn’t seem inclined to fetch any. My offer to do it would be refused and perhaps tip my hand, so I ate more salted, dried meat and finished another jar of water as the sun sank beyond the desert.

If it had not been under the circumstances I found myself in, the combination of stars and lantern lights dancing off the calm water would have been enjoyable. The air seemed to pick up moisture from the lake and held it in the air, making it comfortable instead of the dry heat that sucked the sweat from my skin.

My eyes found a rock lining the fire pit the size of my fist. It was near the top edge where I could reach it in the dark. One swing at his head would either knock him out or kill him—I didn’t care which.

The problem was, then what?

I glanced at the obvious answer. The horses. The packs held more water, but the lake also provided more than enough when we needed to refill our bottles. I’d noticed the heavy weight of his purse. That would also leave with me. The shards of broken pottery where I’d placed my blanket had already allowed me to slip three in easy reach, each with a sharp side that would easily cut the ropes.

My biggest fear was not in doing what I must, but of falling asleep while pretending to do so. If that happened, I’d be on that ferry in the morning, and then in Dagger facing whoever paid my captor to take me there. That was a fate I refused to accept.

I breathed deeply, pretending sleep while listening to the man a few steps away. He sat and watched the lake at first, walked around the camp, and later joined a pair of other arrivals with their tales and joined in the laughter. I almost nodded off once and berated myself, but eventually, he returned and checked my bindings before settling in.

In what seemed only an instant, he was snoring, so fast I doubted he was really asleep. I waited. The other men at the next fire pit had quieted, and I assumed they were also asleep. I waited some more.

Finally, I used the edge of a shard and scraped it against the ropes on my wrists awkwardly. I couldn’t make a full cut because of the way the ropes were tied, but my tiny rubs cut a few strands each time, and my hands finally came free.

The ropes on my ankles cut easier. Despite his intentions for me, the next part stalled me. In the starlight, he had placed himself with his head nearest me, a mistake that might cost him his life. Once my hand had the rock in it, a single swing would free me, and I didn’t have to adjust my position to do it. He probably chose to sleep with his head closest to me, so he could hear any of my movements in the dark.

Reaching for the rock was physically not hard. Mentally, it was nearly impossible. It would have been easy to talk myself out of it. My feet were near my captor’s head, so if I made it to my knees and my hand to the rock that I’d memorized its position, my attack should be successful. Killing a sleeping man with a rock in my fist was not easy. If he came at me with his sword, and I held mine, there would be no hesitation in me, but this was different.

He started it, I told myself. And I offered him a reward to let me go.

A slight scuff of warning sound prevented me from moving or reaching for the rock. It had come from behind me, in the darkness, not from my captor. I froze, thankful I had yet to move. The shard was clutched in my fingers as a tiny knife might be, as I heard another wisp of sound like the rubbing of material as a person moved slowly.

Someone was sneaking up on us.