The Captive (11 page)

“Why would you do that? It wasn’t your fight.”

“Wasn’t it? I had friends on Riga Twelve.”

She heard his emphasis on the word ‘had’ and knew his
friends were dead.

“Riga Twelve isn’t the first planet they’ve conquered,” he
said bitterly, “nor will it be the last.”

“The Romarians are trying to bring peace to the galaxy.”

“Who told you that?”

“I heard my father talking about it.

“The Romarians are determined to conquer the galaxy, to
force everyone to believe as they do, or be destroyed,” he declared, his voice
bitter.

“And what of Daccar,” Ashlynne exclaimed. “There are no more
warlike people in the galaxy.”

“That’s true,” Falkon allowed with a small measure of pride.
There were no more brave or fierce fighters in the galaxy. “But we’ve never
tried to force our beliefs on other worlds. We may fight among ourselves, but
we don’t take our wars to other planets.”

“You were a mercenary,” she said scathingly. “If the price
was right, you’d probably fight your own people, too.”

Anger blazed in his eyes. “You don’t know a damn thing about
me,” he said, his voice brittle. And then the anger faded from his eyes,
replaced by a deep inconsolable sadness.

He blew out a deep breath. “I’ve no doubt the Romarians are
the ones behind the Hodorian attack on the mines. Romariz will come in now and
clean up the mess, and then they’ll claim Tierde, and the mine, for their own.”
And when that was done, they would be in control of the last free black
baneite
crystal mine in the galaxy.

“But we’re at peace with Romariz,” she said. “And Hodore,
too.”

“Not any more.”

“But my father signed a treaty.”

“Did he? Hell of a lot of good it did him.” But even as he spoke
the words, he knew none of it made sense. Romariz was already getting its share
of crystals from the mine; Hodore, too. The girl was right. There was no
reason, no logic, behind the attack.

She looked up at him, her eyes like bruises in her pale face
before her gaze slid away from his, and he wished he had kept his mouth shut.
He hadn’t meant to hurt her, or to remind her of what she had lost.

“I’m going to check the trap,” he said quietly and rising to
his feet, he left her there.

* * * * *

Ashlynne licked the grease from her fingers, then wiped her
hands on the hem of her skirt. Falkon’s snare had caught a fat black rabbit. No
matter what else he might be, he knew his way around in the woods, knew how to
survive. He had managed to light a fire, spit the beast, and roast it to
perfection. Even Meggie, the cook, couldn’t have done it better.

Thinking of Meggie brought thoughts of home to mind again.
She wondered if her parents had suffered before they died.

“Ashlynne.”

She looked up at him.

“Go ahead and cry.”

Not wanting him to think her weak, she started to tell him
she didn’t need to cry, that she was fine. But she wasn’t fine. Her heart was
heavy, her throat thick, and suddenly tears were running down her cheeks and
she was sobbing, crying as she hadn’t cried since she was a child.

Falkon watched her a moment and then, unable to help
himself, he drew her into his arms. He knew how she felt, knew the guilt of
surviving, the pain of losing those she had loved. She burrowed against him,
seeking his warmth, needing the comfort and reassurance of a human touch.

He tried not to think of how small she was, how right she
felt in his arms. It was only because he hadn’t had a woman in a very long time
that made holding her feel so good, smell so good. He tried not to notice how
soft her hair felt against his cheek, or the warmth of her breasts pressed
against his chest. He tried not to notice the way she fit into his arms, as if
she had been made especially for him…

He swore under his breath, wondering at the foolish notions
creeping into his thoughts. She was no different than any other woman, no
softer, no sweeter, no more desirable…ah, but she felt so very good nestled in
his arms.

Shoulders shaking, she wept until she had no tears left. And
still he held her, until her breathing returned to normal and she sat quiet in
his embrace, her face still buried in the hollow of his shoulder.

“Feel better now?” he asked kindly.

Feeling embarrassed, Ashlynne nodded. “Thank you.” She drew
back, wiping her eyes with the hem of her skirt.

“We should be moving on.”

She nodded again, not trusting herself to speak.

She watched as he smothered the fire and buried the rabbit’s
bones.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yes.”

With a curt nod, he took her hand and pulled her to her
feet, then turned and started walking eastward, cursing himself for his
weakness. He never should have taken her in his arms. She was the enemy. Given
the chance, she would probably turn him over to the authorities in exchange for
her freedom. He cursed softly. He had been so caught up in comforting her, so
busy thinking about how good it felt to hold her in his arms, he had missed the
perfect chance to lift the controller from her pocket.

“Falkon?” She spoke his name aloud for the first time,
liking the sound of it.

“What?”

“Where are we going?”

“Enjine Base Nine.”

“The star base? Why?”

“Why not?”

Ashlynne considered that for a moment. “You’re going to try to
steal a cruiser or something stupid like that, aren’t you?”

“Right the first time.” He didn’t know if the base had been
attacked, didn’t know which Army might be in control, but it didn’t matter. One
way or another, he was getting the hell out of here.

“You’ll never get away with it.”

She was probably right. The base would be heavily guarded.
After the recent attack, security would be tighter than usual. But it was his
only chance. “I’ve got to try.”

“What about…what about me?”

“I’ll leave you there. You can get a transport to wherever
you want to go.”

“Oh.” With a shock, she realized she didn’t want to be
parted from Falkon. She felt safe with him in a way she had never felt with
anyone else. And that was passing strange, she thought, because she didn’t
trust him at all.

Ashlynne sighed. It seemed like they had been walking
forever. Her feet hurt. She was hungry again. Tired from a restless night spent
on the hard ground. Every passing shadow, every sound, had brought her to full
wakefulness.

She stared at Falkon’s back. In spite of his protests, she
had activated the shackles the night before. She knew he hated her for it, but
she was afraid to trust him, afraid if she left his feet free, he would run off
in the night and leave her behind. She knew she was slowing him down, knew he
considered her a burden. She didn’t mean to be. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t
used to tramping through the jungle. She couldn’t help it if she was afraid of
spiders and snakes, if she didn’t know how to skin a rabbit, or cook the meat
over a fire. Never, in her wildest dreams, had she imagined she would ever need
to know such things.

Today, it wasn’t fear for herself that worried her. It was
fear for Falkon. The wound in his arm was festering. It was swollen and red,
oozing with thick yellow-green pus. He had told her not to worry, he was fine,
but he wasn’t walking as rapidly today, and she noticed that they rested more
often. He needed help, and soon.

She fought down a rising sense of panic. If he died, so
would she. She had no way of defending herself in this horrid place. She was
dependent on him for food and shelter and protection.

They came to a small waterhole and he dropped to his
stomach, drinking greedily. She knelt beside him, alarmed by the heat she could
feel radiating from his body. Lifting a tentative hand, she placed it on his
arm. He flinched away from her touch, but even that brief contact was enough to
tell her he was burning with fever.

Slowly, he turned to face her. “Guess you’ll soon be rid of
me,” he said.

“No!”

“I can’t go any further.” He rested his forehead on the
ground. The damp earth felt cool against his heated flesh. “Keep going east.
Sooner or later, you’ll reach the space port.”

“You can’t give up.”

He closed his eyes. “Sorry, princess. I wish…”

“Falkon?” She shook his uninjured shoulder. “Falkon! Wake
up.” She shook him again. “Don’t do this to me! You can’t die. I need you.” She
shook him again. “Please wake up!”

But it was no use. She sat back on her heels, staring at
him. Numb with fear, she glanced around the jungle. It would be dark soon. The
animals that slept through the heat of the day would be rousing, coming to the
pool to drink. She had to find a place to hide. And to think she had once
wanted to be independent, rebellious, even! Hah! She would be content to be
ordered about for the rest of her life if she could just go back home and find
everything as it had been before.

She rose on shaky legs, glancing frantically around, trying
to decide what to do. She had never had to make any decisions before, at least
none more serious than what dress to wear or how to spend her day. East. Falkon
had told her to go east.

Squaring her shoulders, she took a few steps, then looked
backward. She couldn’t just leave him lying there, prey to wild beasts. The
least she could do was drag him away from the water.

That, she soon found, was far easier said than done. Try as
she might, she couldn’t budge him. Tears of frustration rose in her eyes. She
couldn’t leave him, but she was afraid to stay near the pool. Night was falling
rapidly. Already, she could hear stirrings in the underbrush.

And then she heard voices. Male voices speaking a language
she didn’t understand. She glanced around, poised for flight, but before she
could locate a hiding place, they were there. Six dark-skinned men clad in
rough skins, their hair adorned with bits of fur and feathers and bone. She had
heard of them, the wild men of the jungle, men who refused to surrender the old
ways, men who still hunted with spears and clubs. Men who were rumored to be
cannibals.

She stared at them and then, overcome by fear and fatigue,
she slid to the ground, praying that she would be dead before they ate her.

* * * * *

Falkon woke to a raging thirst and the sound of drums. For a
time, he lay still, eyes closed, trying to determine where he was.

He heard footsteps, muffled conversation, the crackle of
flames.

Hands gripped his shoulders, holding him down. He gasped as
agony splintered through his wounded arm, opened his eyes to find himself
surrounded by a half-dozen painted faces. He’d heard stories of them in the
mine, the cannibals of Tierde.

Damn, were they carving him up alive? He glanced at his arm,
swore again as one of the men made a slit in his flesh. A trickle of dark red
blood and greenish-yellow pus spurted from the cut. He groaned as pressure was
applied to his arm, forcing more pus from the wound.

When only bright red blood ran from the cut, the witch
doctor held Falkon’s arm over a wooden cup until it was almost full, and then
he slapped a hot poultice over the wound. The pain was excruciating. With a
groan, Falkon pitched headlong into oblivion.

When he woke again, it was night. He glanced around, but
could see nothing in the dark hut. He licked dry lips, threw off the rough
blanket that covered him. He was hot, so hot. He tossed restlessly, plagued by
a relentless thirst. He couldn’t feel any pain in his arm and he wondered,
morbidly, if they had cut it off. He had a vague memory of a painted face
hovering over him, filling a wooden cup with his blood. The thought of someone
drinking from that cup made him sick to his stomach. He took a deep breath,
then reached across his body, relieved to find his arm still there.

Water. He had to have a drink.

He groaned as he rolled to his side, then to his hands and
knees. The movement made him dizzy.

“Falkon?”

Choking back his nausea, he lifted his head and looked
toward the sound of the voice. “Ashlynne?”

“Help me.”

He blinked into the darkness. “What’s wrong?”

“They tied me up.”

He grunted softly; then, gathering what little strength he
possessed, he crawled slowly toward her, only to go sprawling face down across
her lap when he bumped into her thigh.

“Are you all right?” she whispered.

“Oh, yeah, fine.” He lay there a moment, his head pillowed
in her lap. Sleep, he thought, it would be so nice to close his eyes and go to
sleep with his head in her lap.

“I’m scared.”

“Yeah, me too.” He struggled to sit up, then reached behind
her and fumbled with the rope binding her wrists. It seemed to take forever,
but, finally, he managed to loosen the knots.

“Hurry, we’ve got to get out of here.” She shook off the
rope and began to massage her wrists, wincing as the blood began to circulate
again. “They’re cannibals, aren’t they?”

“Yeah.”

She shuddered. She had been hoping she was wrong. “They’re
going to eat us, aren’t they?”

He didn’t care what they did, so long as they gave him
something cold to drink first.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” she said urgently.

“Yeah.” It was an effort to think. All he wanted to do was
close his eyes and sleep.

“Wake up! Falkon, wake up!” She shook his arm. “Come on,
we’ve got to go.”

“You go.” He was tired and thirsty and hungry and right
then, he didn’t care if he lived or died.

“Falkon! Damn you, wake up.”

In spite of everything, he felt himself smiling at her use
of profanity.

“Falkon.” Her voice, close to his ear. “If you don’t wake
up, I’m going to use the controller.”

That got his attention. “What do you want from me?” he
asked.

“I want you to get me out of here. Now.” She cocked her head
to one side. “I don’t hear anything. Maybe they’re all asleep.” She stood up, tugging
on his arm. “Let’s go. Hurry.”

He rose on legs that felt like warm rubber and staggered
toward the door of the hut, wondering at her bravado. Not too long ago, she had
been afraid of a harmless spider, now she was ready to fight off a tribe of
blood-thirsty cannibals.

He opened the hide flap that covered the doorway and peered
outside. All was quiet. Dark. Low clouds covered the moon and blotted out the
stars. A few raindrops splattered his face, giving promise of a downpour before
the night was out. The cool air revived him a little, clearing the cobwebs from
his mind. She was right. They had to get out of here.

“Stay close,” he whispered, and slipped outside.

It was to their advantage that the hut they had been in was
located a short distance away from the rest. Keeping to the shadows, he ghosted
around the corner of the shack. The jungle rose in front of him, dark, silent.

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the girl was
behind him, then slipped into the underbrush.

Ashlynne followed close on Falkon’s heels. She hadn’t
thought anything could be more frightening than seeing her home destroyed, but
one look at the cannibals who had captured them had changed her mind. Fear
could be a powerful impetus, and she had been terrified. She had watched in
horror as the medicine man had drained Falkon’s blood into a cup. He had taken
a swallow, nodded, and handed the cup to the man behind him, who had taken a
drink and passed it to the next man. That act alone had banished any doubts
she’d had about her captors and she had known that, somehow, she had to get
away.

She had fought with a ferocity she hadn’t known she
possessed when they tied her up, but all her struggles had been in vain. They
had bound her hands, then stood around her, talking softly. One man had run his
hands over her arms and legs, nodding and smiling, and though she hadn’t been
able to understand his words, she had known he was thinking of all the ways to
cook her.

She didn’t know how long she had sat there after the savages
left. Before the interior of the hut had grown dark, she had glanced around,
searching for something she could use to cut her hands free, but all she had
seen were skulls and shrunken heads and a pile of bones. Human bones.

She had stared at Falkon, lying on the ground across from
her, willing him to wake up before it was too late. She had heard the natives
singing and dancing, swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat as she
imagined them dragging her outside, stripping her of her clothes, tossing her
into a pot of boiling water.

But no one had come for her. Gradually, the drumming had
ceased and the night had grown silent.

And now she was following Falkon deeper into the jungle. All
the stories she had heard when she was a child rose up to haunt her, tales not
only of the cannibals, but of wild animals, of slime pits and burning sands, of
a lost city that had once been inhabited by a race of giants. She had always
thought such tales to be nothing but fiction, but if the cannibals were real,
might there not also be bottomless pits of slime and sands that burned like
fire? What if the jungle housed giants, as well?

She tripped over a log, gasping as pain exploded through her
knee. For a moment, she lay where she had fallen, too weary to move. What
difference did it make if they escaped the cannibals? There were probably a
thousand other, worse ways to die waiting for them in this great green hell.
Snakes and wild beasts and poisoned water. Suddenly, she didn’t care. She just
wanted it to be over.

“Ashlynne? Are you hurt?”

“Of course I’m hurt! And I’m hungry and tired and scared.”

He looked at her a moment and then, with a low groan, he
hunkered down on his heels beside her. “What happened to that spit-fire who
practically dragged me out of the cannibals’ camp?”

“I don’t know.” She looked up at him, tears making wet
trails through the dirt that covered her face. “We’re going to die out here,
aren’t we?”

“Not if I can help it. Come on, you can’t give up now.”

“Yes, I can. I’m tired.”

“I know. Come on, just a little further.”

“No.”

“Come on, princess, I can’t carry you.” He smiled grimly.
“Hell, before the night is over, you may have to carry me.”

She couldn’t help it, she laughed.

“That’s better.” He held out his hand. “Come on.”

With a sigh, she put her hand in his and let him help her to
her feet. “Do you know where we are?”

He jerked his chin. “All I know is that east is that way,
and that’s where we want to go. Ready?”

She nodded, and he turned and began walking. Far ahead, she
could see a tall slender mountain. Enjine Base Nine was at the foot of the
mountain.

She was certain things couldn’t get worse when it began to
rain. Not a light mist. Not a spring shower. But a heavy rain that quickly
soaked her to the skin.

She had never been so cold or so miserable in her whole life.

It seemed they walked for hours, but the mountain never got
any closer.

At dawn, Falkon found a place for them to rest, a small dark
cave that smelled of dung and dust and something long dead.

Falkon went in ahead of her. He reappeared a short while later,
a dead animal in his hands. He tossed the carcass away, then shrugged. “Your
castle awaits, princess.”

“I hate you,” she murmured. “I really do.”

“Yeah,” he said, following her inside. “I know.”

It was dark and cold. She stood in the middle of the cave,
her arms wrapped around her body, shivering uncontrollably.

“Get out of those wet things.”

“No.”

“Do it,” he said. She heard the scrap of cloth over skin and
knew he was removing his boots and breeches. “Dammit, Ashlynne, get out of
those wet clothes.”

She turned her back to him and undressed, grateful for the
cave’s sheltering darkness. She gasped when he grasped her arm and drew her
down beside him.

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you. Just lay close to me.
We’ll be warmer that way.”

She would have protested, but she could already feel his
heat seeping into her everywhere they touched, save for one cold damp area
around his buttocks, and she realized that he was not totally naked.