The Staff of the Winds (The Wizard of South Corner Book 1) (5 page)

Instead of just responding to her entirely reasonable question with a reasonable answer, Aaron had grinned at her and said: “Yes, Sarah, for the sixth time, Owen is coming, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t go mooning after him the whole time he’s here.”

“Mooning after him,” Sarah answered indignantly, “since when have I ever gone ‘mooning’ after any of your little friends? I was just wondering what meat and vegetables we’ll need to buy at the market tomorrow. Besides, if I was going to go ‘mooning’ after someone, as you put it, it certainly would not be Owen McMichaels.” At this point, Sarah looked to her father to see if he would back her up as he should, and she was almost certain that she saw his lips quirk up in a humorous smile before he quickly turned his head back down to his plate. It was certainly no picnic, she thought, to be the sole grown woman living in the same house with two such immature men.

“Sarah,” Aaron responded, his grin growing wider, “you’ve been following me and Owen around like a little lost puppy since you were five years old. Don’t tell me you’re not stuck on Owen, because I’m sure that it wasn’t me that you were so interested in.”

“I have not,” Sarah denied, coloring just a bit, and angry at herself for doing so, “it’s just that there’s nothing much to do in this village, and the few boys my age are so juvenile.”

“Aaron, stop picking on your sister,” Brian Murray finally intervened. “I’m just glad that you lost interest in that Darrel Hanson,” he said to Sarah. “That boy will be lucky to rise to the level of his father, and his father is the village idiot.”

“Oh dad,” Sarah answered, somewhat relieved that the focus had shifted away from her and Owen, “Darrell, may not be too bright, but he is a sweet boy. He just wanted me to teach him how to shoot his bow.”

This brought a snort from her father and a laugh from Aaron.

“And why not,” she said, the heat rising in her face, “you know I’m almost as good a shot as you are, even with that ridiculous light weight thing you make me shoot with in feast day competitions.”

There was the time during their last lesson, she remembered, when Darrell had become too familiar with his hands while she was demonstrating the proper draw, but she was sure that neither her father nor her brother knew about that. Besides, swinging her bow down quickly after the release, which naturally brought the still vibrating string hard up into Darrell’s crotch had put a stop to that. And, she had still buried the shaft deep in the bulls-eye, by the way, she thought with satisfaction.

“Now Sarah, nobody’s questioning your skill,” Brian said, trying to restore peace. “Its just as I’ve told you before, what a young man tells a young woman he wants is not always what is really on his mind.”

Later that night, lying drowsy in her bed, Sarah was thinking, ‘
and what about what a young woman wants?’
  But she knew that Owen McMichaels just thought of her as Aaron’s kid sister. She remembered back to the summer before, when she had first really become aware of her strong attraction to Owen.  He and her brother were out by the woodshed in their backyard splitting some large rounds of ash and cherry to lay up to dry for firewood.  They were both working and sweating with their shirts off in the hot summer sun.  Whereas Aaron was growing into a man of average height, with a lean, wiry physique, Owen was tall and broad with big shoulders and muscles that seemed alive with the work.

While Sarah hung the wash, she surreptitiously watched Owen swing that great double-bladed ax high over his head and bring it slicing cleanly down, effortlessly cleaving the large rounds on the chopping block before him.  He was using his entire body to wield that ax, his cleanly muscled arms, chest and waist clenching with the down stroke, his taught belly and narrow hips rotating with the movement. With each stroke the tough cherry rounds exploded cleanly in two almost in advance of the heavy, silver blade’s arrival. In her imagination, Sarah wanted desperately to relive that day, but this time to invisibly walk that short distance across the yard and glide her hands lightly across those strong shoulders while they worked, down that long flexing back, across that hard, working stomach, and below? Sarah drifted into sleep dreaming of soft white sheets pinned like flags to the clothesline, floating out lightly in the breeze, the warm, strong body of her lover in her arms, with the recurring kachunk of an ax splitting wood in the distance.

All that night and into the next day they marched, whipped and beaten if they fell off the pace set by the men who drove them.  By mid-morning, the people of South Corner were walking in a daze.  Putting one foot in front of the other in a steady mindless rhythm, plagued by the pain of their bonds, the wounds of their capture, exhaustion born of their efforts, and a growing thirst. The gorn too were grumbling, complaining in their deep guttural tongues of the sun and the long march without rest, but they, like the heavily armed men who drove them, at least carried a water bag at their hip.

Sarah found herself staring at the water bag, swaying and sloshing on the hip of one of the soldiers ahead of her. It was made of a tightly woven canvas, its seams sealed with pitch, that was joined to a wooden spout with a large cork stopper. The bag sweated slightly, giving the canvas a dark, damp sheen, and cooling the water inside. The bob and sway of that bag was hypnotic, and Sarah used it to draw her mind away from the pain in her shoulders and the ache in her legs. The parched state of Sarah’s mouth and throat, however, continued to grow. Her head was pounding, and she was fighting a light dizziness, desperately trying not to stagger and fall.

She had seen others of the village fall and struggle desperately to rise with their arms cruelly bound tightly behind them, while their captors cursed and kicked them.  Similarly bound as she was, there was nothing that Sarah could do to help, nothing but to mark out those soldiers that seemed most eager to apply the club and the lash to their helpless captives.  Struggling to manage her pain and fear, she was replacing it with a smoldering fury aimed at their tormentors.  She had been careful to identify and keep track of the man who had set upon her in her bedroom, so that when the time came she would be able to take satisfaction from his destruction. As the day progressed, she had expanded her list to also include others of the most brutal. As for the gorn, they exhibited an eager brutality that seemed to be a natural part of their character. Sarah had no doubt that were the soldiers not there to inhibit them, the gorn would have long since used their long powerful arms and heavy claws to tear the villagers to pieces.

The mindless drudgery of the march, the rhythmic sway of the water bag that had captured her eye and to which she had subconsciously matched her pace, the dull but constant pain of muscles driven long beyond their point of exhaustion put Sarah into a trance of misery.  Her breath was in pants in time with her tread, and she found herself sighing “mother” each time her left foot hit the ground.  Sarah burst into tears and stifled a sob with the realization.  It had been so very hard since her mother had died and left her.  Her father had done his best to fill the gap, but he really knew little of the day-to-day requirements of running and maintaining a household and nothing at all of the trials of a girl approaching womanhood.  To be fair, he had also been devastated by the loss of his wife, but regardless, Sarah had had to step up and become an adult years before her time.  Now she wished with all of her heart that she could once again be a child, back in their home sitting on her mother’s lap, her mother’s comforting arms around her while she soothed all the troubles of her young world away.

At noon, the soldiers called a halt.  The line of march, that had strung out somewhat during the day, was gathered back into a more compact mass with the villagers divided into their small groups by age and gender, where they collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.  The gorn spread out to the shade of nearby trees where they crouched on the ground, drinking freely from their water bags.

After a brief rest, four of the men approached the group of young women.  Without warning, they seized them one at a time, threw them face down on the ground, and untied and removed the leather straps around their arms.  Sarah cried out with the sharp burning pain when the pressure was relieved from her shoulders.  At first, she had no power to move her arms, and her wrists remained useless behind her until a soldier slapped them apart.  Once she finally regained some feeling and control of her limbs, she rolled over and propped herself up into a sitting position.  When she looked up, a soldier tossed a water bag at her.

“Take a drink,” he said, “then go water the others. Keep moving and don’t talk to anyone or you’ll both be beaten.” He stared at her until she nodded her understanding, then he walked away.

Sarah pulled the bag onto her lap and worked out the cork.  Her arms were trembling, but she managed to tip the bag up to her mouth and take a big swallow.  She almost gagged, but the cool water, flavored heavily by pine pitch, felt and tasted wonderful.  With her second swallow, she felt the eyes of her fellow captives on her, and groaning she got to her feet and carried the bag over to the nearest group.  The arms of the other villagers had not been untied, so Sarah held the bag and helped each person drink their fill.  The other young women in her group had been treated likewise, and were also rising clumsily to minister to their friends and neighbors from the village.

Trying not to be obvious, Sarah deliberately worked her way to the group that held her father and her brother. She gave water to her father first, and between swallows, she wetted a corner of her nightdress and used it to clean the blood from his face. Before she had finished, a soldier stepped over to her, cuffed her hard on the left ear, knocking her down, and shoved her father over with his boot.

“Keep moving,” he growled at Sarah, then stepped back to his original position of observation.

Sarah made no comment; picked up the water bag, which had been leaking out onto the ground, and moved on to give water to her brother. One more face was added to her list.

Once all the prisoners had received water, and the soldiers and Gorn had eaten from their supplies of biscuit and dried meat, the young women were taken down to a nearby stream where the water bags were refilled. Sarah and the others were each given two bags to carry; the prisoners were kicked and prodded to their feet, and the march resumed.  The full canvas water bags that Sarah carried were heavy and the straps cut into her shoulders, but at least her arms were left unbound so she welcomed the change.

Owen and Jack had been maintaining a good pace all morning, alternately trotting, walking, then leading their horses. Although they did not know where the raiding party was headed, they suspected that they were in for a long chase and did not want one of their mounts to come up lame before the chase was done. Their quarry was easy to follow; it is difficult to hide your tracks when your party numbers more than a hundred, and they had obviously been driving hard. Judging by the signs, they were still nearly half a day ahead.

As the day progressed, the boys became more and more wary of a possible ambush.  Since the tracks of the raiders and their captives could not be hidden, they reasoned that the party they were chasing would almost certainly take some action to discourage pursuit.  When they had set out, Owen had carried his father’s bow in a leather case under the stirrup leathers on the left side, with his staff tied in place on the right.  Now he carried the bow in his hand with the quiver tied to his saddle, and when they approached a likely site for an ambush, he nocked and readied an arrow.

The land through which they were traveling had been green with lush grasses near the village, but gradually it had turned to dry rolling hills with an occasional small dense copse of trees or a line of brush following a stream.  The trail frequently led them to features that could easily hide a small ambush.  When this happened, the boys took what precautionary steps they could to avoid falling into a trap. At times they rode well wide of a potential ambush site—they had no fear of losing the trail. When that was not possible, they took turns scouting ahead so that if one of them was attacked the other could act as a reserve force to cover the retreat, or at the least remain free to report back to the men in South Corner. All of this took precious time that slowed their chase.