Browynn had given up tracing their pattern of flight, for patterns were anathema to Admon Faye, and he followed none. They rode northeast one day and due west the next, stopping one day at noon, the next at dusk, and the next not until long after midnight. Wherever they stopped, however, she could be sure of three things: a campsite would appear out of nowhere; she would be ordered to build a fire; then for the rest of the night she would be the butt of a torrent of abusive jokes. Admon Faye roared with the rest of them at their nightly critiques of her slender anatomy, adding his own lewd comments to those of his band. But he let no one touch her. Only one man had tried, and he now wore his arm in a sling. The chief slaver did not rule this band by guile or smiles or charisma. He ruled it by force, powered by simple, raw cruelty.
Bronwynn had come to realize that it was that cruelty which insured his protection of her. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to be abused. It was rather that she was his private preserve no one could torment her but him.
And torment her he did. A slap here a boot in the backside there an insidious pinch just as she was dropping off to sleep these were daily occurrences. And try as she might, she couldn’t force herself to grow accustomed to such humiliation. Sometimes she screamed, sometimes she cursed, but always with the same result. Admon Faye laughed.
“Get used to it, girl. You surely can’t believe things will be any different when you’re the Queen, and I’m your Prime Minister.” Then his eyes would freeze, and his face would twist still further as he’d mutter, “I pulled you out of that hole, little girl. Your life belongs to me. Forget that, and you can forget your next breath as well, for I’ll garrote you myself.” His threats never failed to terrorize her.
His frigid eyes and loathsome face plagued her dreams each night.
But the wind and the flying snow and the cracking brush had washed out of her mind all thoughts not directly tied to the moment She couldn’t tell how far they’d come since dawn, nor what direction they travelled.
She only knew that she was riding expertly with a troop of experts, and was thrilled by that recognition. The smells of horse and of new leather filled her with a strange sense of power. A masculine feeling?
she’d wondered briefly, then quickly discarded the idea. She was no less a woman because she rode with brigands through the snow and cold.
Perhaps, indeed, she was more of one. And certainly Ligne herself had proved that a hunger for power was not a masculine preserve. Bronwynn admitted to herself a growing compulsion within. She was starting to want to be Queen.
A cry went up from the left flank of the charging brigade, at once loud and indistinct. Then, with a powerful leap, her horse cleared a large bush, and she understood for herself. For the second time in her life, Bronwynn rode through the enchanting fields of Ngandib-Mar.
Not that she recognized anything. Pelmen had brought her past this place only the spring before, but that had been another wild ride, and mostly under the cover of night. Besides, the numbing uniformity of the snowy counterpane at their feet erased all memory of spring landmarks.
Freed now from all obstructing trees, the troop of riders took on the semblance at least of an organized band. The flanks dropped off and the center pushed forward to form a vanguard. Bronwynn whipped her horse gratuitously as it bounded along a few yards to the rear and left of Admon Faye. Before her were the many hills and valleys of the heart of Ngandib-Mat, but she saw the men were wheeling away from that heartland, turning eastward toward the line of high, stony cliffs that she knew formed this face of the Spinal Range. They were riding, then, to Westmouth the field where her father had died.
On Westmouth before Dragonsgate, her father had led the grand Golden Army to an equally grand defeat. Somewhere under the melting snow lay Talith’s unburied bones. That thought chased through the young woman’s attention, but she gave it no warm, sad welcome. She dismissed it. Her relationship with her father had never been good, and his death had resulted directly from his own foolish arrogance and his greed.
Bronwynn was much more concerned with where they were travelling now, and why.
They stopped only once to rest their horses on the banks of a small stream that curled through the colorless countryside. Then they were off again, a wedge of racing riders several hundreds of yards wide, plowing up plumes of snow in their wake. The sun was setting back of her left shoulder, turning the hilly horizon a glorious magenta, before they dipped down at last into the wide flat plain that was West-mouth, and she saw where they were going. Some miles beyond stood a single castle, its gray walls painted a dull orange by the setting sun.
She urged her exhausted mount forward, drawing abreast of Admon Faye once again, and shouted: “Whose is it?”
“It’s a merchant manor,” the slaver called back. “It belongs to the family of Ognadzu. It once was the home of Tohn mod Neelis, but now it’s ruled by his cousin.”
“Who’s his cousin?” Bronwynn yelled, her eyes watering in the whipping wind.
“Flayh,” Admon Faye answered, and it seemed to Bronwynn that for the first time today she finally felt the cold. She had heard much about Flayh, and in her mind his name had long been linked with that of Admon Faye as a foremost agent of wickedness and villainy. As they galloped across that last stretch of flat space that separated them from the castle, Bronwynn felt very much the small girl, a long, long way from home.
The castle was not an impressive edifice. Its tallest tower rose barely forty feet above the ground. It was from this spire that Pezi spied the large group of approaching riders. He had been taking his evening constitutional after a heavy dinner his one concession to the need for diminishing his blubbery bulk. His stringent exercise program called for his climbing the steps to this rooftop one time, resting several minutes to get his breath back, then returning slowly to the castle floor. On this particular occasion, however, he pushed himself into a trot on his way down, crying “Attackers from the south!” His cry stirred tremendous activity in a brief space of time, and Pezi felt rather proud of himself as he waddled hurriedly toward the gate. The excitement ceased as quickly as it began, however, when the sharp-eyed warrior who was officially on watch recognized that it was Admon Faye’s band of outlaws, and shouted the information down.
Pezi was a bit embarrassed and he didn’t look at the faces of those castle dwellers who walked past him on their way back to their places.
He heard several snickers behind him, and his visage clouded. He broadened his stance before the gate no easy task, given the stubbiness of his pudgy legs and shouted, “Open up!” to the two men who operated the winches that raised the portcullis.
From their vantage point atop the wall, they could see the fast-approaching cloud of Admon Faye’s crazed riders, who had targeted on the gate and now rode for it five abreast. They could also see the petulant figure of the unpopular Pezi, standing directly in the path of the incoming riders. They smiled at one another gleefully, and opened the gate…
“What happened?” the fat little merchant asked plaintively when he awoke several minutes later. His comment drew raucous laughter from those gathered around. He opened his eyes and rolled his head to the side, to find he was lying on a table in the great hall. Scattered around the room were outlaws and slavers guzzling ale and leering at the serving girls. Suddenly a giant form blocked his view, and he followed it up to look into the repugnant face of Admon Faye. Pezi winced at the sight.
“Well now. Awake, are you, Pezi? Very brave of you, lad, to attempt to hold off our charge that way. Bit foolhardy, however, to stand alone against a hundred and more riders. I trust you’ll forgive my clubbing you aside, but I thought you might prefer a split noggin to the hooves of half a hundred horses on your belly.”