Page 33 of Prize of the Warlord
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As we prepare to break camp, I notice that the horses look far worse for wear despite the hours of reprieve. They are shaggy, hardy beasts, born in this wilderness, but even they cannot endure a blizzard without suffering. Even though the snow has lessened to a sifting of large flakes, the horses remain bunched together under a scant shelter of skins that someone must have rigged for them when we stopped here.
The humans, too, are looking scruffier and more miserable than they did when I first saw them. They’re certainly smellier, and some of them have minor wounds. The one who took me from my room in the stronghold, the one who is nearly as big as the Warlord, has puffy swollen bags under his eyes. Lacerations from the ice-wyrms mar his face and hands.
I can still feel my own shallow cuts from the ice-wyrms. They’re stiff and a little sticky, but they barely hurt at all. When I dressed, I didn’t see any oozing or swelling.
Only Kaja seems invigorated by our stop. She wasn’t in the tent with the Warlord and me—perhaps she took refuge in another tent or preferred to remain outside. She bounds through the drifted snow like an oversized kitten. When she rolls up against a tree, and clumps of snow tumble from its boughs toward her face, she bats at them with enormous paws before leaping upright, chuffing and shaking her head.
Jili and the woman who looks like her mother mount their horse first, then Zeha follows, leading her wounded horse. A handful of others trail after them while the rest of the warriors finish packing up camp. I stand by the Warlord’s horse and wait, fighting the urge to help with tying blankets into rolls or attaching them to saddles. I refuse to aid my kidnappers. Especially after their leader indulged my “craven lust” and then rejected me.
He’s the last to leave the campsite, waving everyone ahead and then boosting me ungraciously into the saddle with a firm shove to my rear. I hold myself as close to the pommel as I can, trying to create space between us, but he’s enormous, and it’s impossible to stay clear of him completely. Finally I give up and settle in, though I keep my back rigid, touching him as little as possible.
Kaja paces just ahead of us, occasionally padding away into the trees to investigate some fascinating sight, sound, or smell.
“You’re angry with me,” the Warlord says.
I vent a scoffing laugh. “I’ve been angry with you since you kidnapped me.”
He shifts behind me. “This is different.”
“You don’t care that I’m angry,” I tell him. “You’re my captor, not my protector. You hate me, remember? I’m a filthy worthless weakling with ‘craven lust.’ You’re eventually going to send me home or kill me. Or you’ll marry me, which is the same thing as killing me, because I can’t survive up here.”
“The land isn’t all like this,” he says. “Our home valley has some fertile soil, good hunting and fishing, and few monsters.”
“Fertile land?” I snort. “How do you farm with all the snow and ice?”
“The upper slopes of the mountains receive plenty of sun. We time our plantings carefully, and we have crops that can survive.”
“I don’t care,” I say recklessly. “I don’t want to hear any more about it. I won’t be staying long, at least not alive. So it doesn’t matter.”
“It could take weeks for your father and the prince to realize they can’t find you. And even then, they may not contact me again.”
“And in that case you’d—” I swallow hard.
“I’d take you as my wife, in the hopes that our bond would force your father’s hand.”
“I’d rather you killed me,” I whisper.
A long silence. Then he says, low, “Am I such an unwelcome prospect as a husband?”
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I almost laugh. An unwelcome prospect as a husband? He’s an enemy raider, one who has ravaged my people’s lands and taken our goods. Why should he care what sort of husband I think he’d make?
“You told me you’re in love with another woman, and that you’ll never touch me again,” I say. “I’d rather not be soul-bound to a man who detests me, who is disgusted by my body’s natural needs. Small and weak I may be, pitiful and pathetic in your eyes, but I’m a woman with the same capacity for love and pleasure as anyone else. And I have the same capacity for honor, bravery, loyalty, and jealousy, too. I’d rather not live to become a laughingstock among your people—the pathetic mouse with the disloyal husband who beds someone else.”
“A life-bond is sacred.” He sounds shocked and offended. “If I bound myself to you, I would never stray. Not even if it meant I would never feel the warmth of a woman’s body again.” His voice sinks deeper. “And I never said I loved the woman in my village. Only that she and I would make a good match.”
“But youcouldlove her. You could have a strong family with her.”
“I could. She is a strong, fertile, desirable woman.”
“Yet you would marryme. You would ruin your life and mine, all for the sake of winning influence over my father?” My voice shrills, shaking with emotion I can’t suppress.
“If it meant my people could gain a foothold in the southern lands—yes.”
“That’s—that’s so godsdamnnoble,” I seethe. “Why are you such a beautiful, self-sacrificing bastard?”
