Rebels of Vulvar (Vulvarian Saga Book 2), стр. 32

At the stables, I found three warriors on watch, walking the perimeter. I waited for them to pass and then slipped inside. Spotting the baacaas Idril had arranged for me use previously, I threw a saddle on its back and began tightening the girth. Suddenly, I felt the point of a spear pressed firmly against my back.

“Don’t move,” a voice said. “On your knees with your hands on top of your head.”

Turning my head, I saw two other warriors with their spears at the ready beside the one pressing her spear against my back. Knowing they would skewer me long before I could draw the katana, resistance would have been useless. I dropped to my knees and placed my hands on top of my head.

“Shackle him,” the same voice said.

I felt the cold steel of shackles as a warrior locked them onto my wrists. After they had taken my sword, hands hauled me roughly to my feet. I turned to face the three warriors.

“You’re under arrest, thief,” one warrior said.

“I am not a thief,” I said. “Idril, commander of the warriors, allowed my use of this baacaas. I need it again.”

“Liar,” said another. “You’re a slave attempting to escape the city to join the insurgents.”

“I am not a slave,” I said. “I am a free male and the son of Laena, the Anax of Thiva.”

The guard who had arrested me looked less certain.

“You may plead your case to the watch officer,” she said.

Two of the guards marched me from the stables to a nearby stone building. They took me inside where we stopped before a wooden door. One guard knocked.

“Enter,” said a voice beyond the door.

One warrior opened the door, and they escorted me inside, where a woman wearing the uniform of a warrior officer sat behind a wooden desk. She glanced up at me and smiled. My heart sank. The woman was Tiaaira, the surly cavalry commander I’d met previously on the road to Thiva.

“Praise to the Goddess Queens,” Tiaaira chortled. “If it isn’t the arrogant slave from the road. What mischief have we caught you doing now?”

“We found him in the stables saddling a baacaas,” a guard said.

“My guards caught you stealing a military baacaas?” Tiaaira said. “My, that’s a serious charge, slave.”

Tiaaira got up and walked around the desk, stopping before me. In her right hand, she held a dressage whip, which is similar to a riding crop, but longer. The whip was about thirty inches long, with short leather lashes at the end.

“Kneel and show some respect, slave,” Tiaaira said, kicking my feet from under me.

I collapsed to the floor on my knees.

“As I’ve told you before, I am not a slave but a free male,” I said. “I stole nothing. I only intended to borrow again the baacaas Idril allowed me to use in the past.”

“We do not lend baacaases to slaves,” Tiaaira said. “I will charge you with attempted theft.”

“Fine, turn me over to the civil authorities,” I said.

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” Tiaaira said. “Then your mother could have you released. No, slave. This is a military matter. I will not turn you over to the civil authorities.”

My angry stare told her I did not consider myself a slave.

“Confess that you attempted to steal the baacaas,” Tiaaira said.

“I attempted to steal nothing,” I said. “Release me.”

Tiaaira laughed contemptuously. “I advise you,” she said, “to confess.”

“I was not stealing the baacaas,” I said. “I confess to nothing.”

Tiaaira stiffened, her body trembling with fury. Then, beside herself with rage, she lashed me madly with the dressage whip.

“You dare to disrespect me, a female?” she cried.

Again and again, she struck me. My senses reeled. My back and shoulders tortured by the whip, felt as though they were aflame. She left my tunic and bloodied back in tatters. When she had exhausted herself, Tiaaira again stood before me, now spattered with my blood.

“Lock the beast in a cell,” she said. “We will impale him at dawn.”

The guards lifted me to my feet and dragged me from the room. We entered a corridor and then descended a long flight of stone stairs before passing through a dank, foul-smelling underground passageway lit by small oil lamps. The floors and walls were of limestone, quarried in massive blocks. There was a feeling of dampness and the smell of mold. At last, we came to a cell with iron bars. The guards thrust me inside through the open door, which they slammed shut behind me. Exhausted, my body aching from the sting of the whip, I lay on the straw-covered floor and slept.

How long I slept, I don’t know. When I woke up, my entire body ached. My painful back tortured me. I struggled up into a cross-legged sitting position. I regretted slipping out of my mother’s house, telling no one. It seemed Tiaaira would have her revenge. She would execute me and dispose of my body. My mother would never be the wiser. I would have a few more hours of life. Locked in a cell, unable to go to Idril, the woman I loved who was hurt, I no longer cared whether I lived or died. My hands were numb because of the tightness of the shackles. I opened and closed my hands, trying to restore some semblance of feeling. Strangely, I felt almost reconciled to the fate I knew awaited me.

But suddenly, I heard footsteps on the stone floor of the passageway. Had Tiaaira changed her mind, I wondered? Perhaps she was too impatient to wait until dawn for her revenge. Through the bars, I saw her appear in the shadows of the dimly lit corridor, a warrior following behind. Yes, it seemed my impalement would come early.

I continued watching Tiaaira approach, but my despair turned to bewilderment. Her hands were bound at the wrists. There was blood dripping from her mouth and nose and running down the side of her face from a cut above her eye. There was a loop of cord