My heart thumped loud in the all-enveloping darkness, a counterpoint to the roughness of my breathing. I backed along the floor until I was right up against the wall, knowing I was trapped with a sureness that turned my muscles to water. Those creatures would come closer and closer, testing my defenses, growing bolder with every successful encroachment, until they leapt upon me, biting and tearing in a frenzy of eating. The trembling I hadn’t been aware of grew more violent as I stared about in the pitch blackness, seeing more clearly in my enforced blindness than an untalented person would in full daylight. They were coming for me, those six small minds motivated by hunger, closing slowly but surely, their lines of advance lit by their life-traces blazing in the dark. I twisted to the wall with a sob and a clink of chain, shaking with fear, closing my eyes and shield tight as I put my hands over my ears to stop the sounds of tiny scrapings. They would have me no matter what I did, and I couldn’t bear to see or hear it coming.
I tried desperately, though terrified, to understand what happened next. One minute I was cringing against the wall, fighting to keep from screaming, and the next I was being pulled against a broad, warm chest, held in arms that circled me with protection and lent me strength. I shook terribly in those large, strong arms and they tightened immediately to hold me closer yet, soothing sounds coming from the throat above them. I didn’t understand what was happening and tried to say so, but the words refused to come past the tightness in my throat.
“Hush,” Tammad said, moving one big hand to stroke my hair. “I thought I would find myself able to do this to you, but I find instead that I would rather return to this place myself than abandon you here. You have earned punishment many times over, yet this will not be it. Come, let us leave this place.”
He paused to open the collar he had put around my throat, then urged me to my feet and out the cell door. It wasn’t until he took the torch from the sconce on the wall that I realized there was light again, but there are things to have more precious than light. I clung to his body and presence as we walked, and slowly let my shield fade away, admitting the true sounds of the world again. The small creatures were well behind me, and Tammad’s mind hummed with a contentment I hadn’t felt in quite some time. Calm dominated his mind as usual, but the contentment was too obvious to miss. It was difficult knowing what he could be content about, but there was no mistaking the emotion.
We had climbed almost to the top of the stairs before I heard the crying, but by the time we were back in the room I already knew exactly what was happening. Tammad left me in the middle of the floor while he returned the torch to its original place by the door, and from that position I could see directly into the small room that had probably been used by the guardsmen when they took their pleasure. Cinnan had evidently found the strap he had been searching for; he sat cross-legged on the carpet fur of the room with Aesnil draped over his lap, the skirt of her once-pretty red gown thrown back to her shoulders. The strap in his hand struck Aesnil’s bottom with a terrible, even rhythm, punishing her as though she were a child, bringing tears pouring from her eyes and wailing screams from her throat as she kicked and struggled uselessly. I could feel her deep humiliation as well as the awful blaze of pain given by the strap, and turned quickly away as I closed my shield again. I didn’t need to share her punishment to know what pain and humiliation were like.
“Perhaps that should be your punishment as well,” Tammad mused, seeing bow I felt as he stared down at me. “Cinnan has deduced that his capture was somehow due to your efforts, and would be pleased to see you done the same. It will soon be his word which rules this country; his good will would not be without benefit.”
“Then by all means give him his pleasure,” I said, turning away from the blue eyes staring down at me. “What else is a wenda for, than to give pleasure to a man?”
“Terril, you will speak to me,” he growled, grabbing my arms to turn me back to him. “I will know all that goes through that head of yours, and we will settle each point now, before further time passes. This has too long been . . . .”
He was interrupted by the heavy door to the courtyard bursting open, but before he did more than jerk toward the sword he had tossed to the floor, he discovered defense was unnecessary.
“Tammad, you are here and safe.” Loddar smiled, striding in with others of the barbarian’s l’lendaa behind him. They all carried bloody swords in their fists, including Garth who walked to the back of the group. Len came right behind Garth, trying not to look haggard, but I could imagine what he’d gone through being in the middle of a battle where men died one after the other. He didn’t have a sword of his own, but I wasn’t sure he’d be able to use it. He and Garth both wore haddinn instead of red leather pants, and both looked happier for the change.
“I see you have Terry,” Garth said, coming forward with Len to stand beside Tammad. “That makes me feel considerably better. I was afraid something would happen to her in that war we just went through.”
“Where do you come from?” Tammad demanded, frowning at Loddar and the rest. “Where do all of you come from? The last I knew, my l’lendaa were left encamped with orders to await my return, and my new brothers were being taken to a captivity different from mine. How is it you are all now here, armed and aware of what difficulty I faced?”
“Our new allies were much involved in that.” Len grinned, speaking so that Loddar and the others were able to understand him. That left Garth out of the conversation, but Tammad’s question, in Rimilian, had already done that.
“We were approached when we came to storm the vendra ralle,” Len continued. “A force much larger than ours already waited here, and their leaders convinced us that we would do well to wait with them. They came to free one of their own number, a denday named Cinnan, who bad been declared vendra just the previous day. They awaited the time when all vendraa were removed from their cells and chained to posts in anticipation of their turn upon the sands. We immediately saw the wisdom in this course of action and joined them, only later to discover with them what was planned for you and Cinnan. We thought it best to await the time weapons would be available to the two of you, yet nearly misjudged the time. The guardsmen fought well and bravely, delaying us all in our advance until it was nearly too late. That we came when we did was fortuitous indeed.”
“Cinnan and I remarked upon the very same thing.” Tammad grinned, clapping Loddar on the shoulder as he looked at his men in approval. “That his people also saw to the guardsmen set to keep us from scaling the wall to the stands was of equal good fortune. The sands are not a pleasant place to be in the heat of the day.”
All the men laughed heartily at that and Tammad laughed with them, relief making the comment more amusing for them than it would normally have been. The barbarian had had his back to me as he had spoken to the others, so I had taken the opportunity of moving slowly but steadily away toward the door to the corridor. When the laughter began I turned and walked the rest of the way, intending to go through and lose myself in the confusion of battle’s end, but just as I opened the door the first crack, a hand came over my right shoulder to push it shut again.