Page 5 of Tashama
Tashama sprawledout on her back on a carpet of blue-green grass in the meadows of the mountain-ringed valley. The mountain’s sharp peaks poked into clouds settling too low, holding them hostage—and they, in response, shed tears of snowflakes on the dark green daggers. Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes, then stared at the sight.
She turned her attention to the lake sparkling in the early-morning sunlight several yards away from where she sat.There are no lakes near the mountains that ring Karthland.
“Balthazar,” she whispered. She blinked and surveyed the land for movement. Seeing nothing but a hawk soaring high above, she shook her head. “Balthazar!” she yelled, her voice betraying the fear mounting in her heart. She rubbed her forehead and tried to recall the geography of the land.
The Maldovians had a lake on their side of the mountains. Lake Cura...something.She looked back at the blue waters.“This just cannot be Maldovia,” she said under her breath, the horror of the notion finally sinking in. “You’ve delivered me to my enemy, Balthazar!”
Unsteadily, she rose to her feet. A stinging sensation crept across her arms, and the sleeves of her red turtleneck were riddled with cuts. She pulled one up with a cautious movement to find her arm streaked with blood. After finding the same with the other, she hurried to the edge of the lake, then crouched on the white-powdered, sandy beach.
She dipped her arms into the lake, then washed the cool liquid over the cuts. The blood mixed with the water, stinging her to the marrow of her bones, and she gritted her teeth against the pain.
Whispered voices filled the woods nearby.
She paused to listen; the voices abated. Except for the rippling of water at the tips of her running shoes and the dancing of the fresh green leaves on the branches of the elms, everything was quiet—too quiet.
She dipped her hands into the lake again. The reflection of the dark-haired man from her dreams shimmered in the water while he seemed to tower over her. Startled, she glanced back. No one was there.
She took a deep breath, relieved to see she was alone. Turning her eyes back to the water, she found him watching her again.
“Balthazar, what does this mean?” she whispered, and stretched her finger out to the man’s reflection.
The image of a ten-inch-tall butterfly flapped above her head in the mirror-like lake, and she looked up as the translucent blue-winged creature fluttered before her face. “Water sprite—I didn’t remember you.”
The creature darted around her head. “They come for you, Tashama! They come for you!” She circled around Tashama’shead again, then grabbed a strand of her hair. “A good catch for the dark-haired ones, you’ll make. Your emerald-green eyes—a mermaid, they’ll think you be!” Her tinny voice dripped with laughter, then she darted with a splash back into the lake.
Tashama stared at the ripples forming concentric circles, then the earth shook beneath her feet. Looking south, she saw a cloud of dust headed in her direction. She jumped up and dashed for the cover of the filtered shade of the forest.
“They come for you, Tashama.” The voices rustled with the breeze of the leaves. “They come for you.”
Covering her ears, she dodged branches and ran into the heart of the forest. The woodland sprites taunted her until the shade lightened and the forest gave way to a man-made clearing in the woods.
Tashama drew close to the forest fringe and gasped when she saw a group of about thirty men clad in armor, sipping ale beside a campfire. “Maldovia knights,” she said under her breath and moved behind the broad trunk of a tree, hidden by the leafy lower branches of the tree, and tall green ferns at the base.
The smell of ale on the soldiers’ breaths and the earthy male scent of unwashed skin carried on the breeze, making her wrinkle her nose.
“His Highness said the war will go on for another ten years at this rate. We kill them—they kill us, and for what? Neither of our kind has made any progress for years.” The breeze shifted, and the soldier threw his dagger carelessly into the earth, but another touched his arm and said, “What’s that smell on the breeze? There’s a sweetness in the air.”
The men grew quiet and tilted their noses up, trying to smell the fragrance the soldier had noticed. Tashama held her breath while the beating of her heart pounded wildly in her ears. Before anyone could make a move, a tall gray-haired man saunteredover to their location and cast a wary glance in her direction. Her heart nearly stopped.
The men all nodded at once. With as gentle a manner as they could muster, they set their tin cups on the ground and stood.
Tashama’s cut arms stung when the hair prickled in anticipation. They knew she was there.Damn it.Why hadn’t Balthazar prepared her better?
The old man standing with the soldiers, dressed in flowing midnight blue robes—sorcerer’s robes—bowed his head in her direction just once. As the armored men ran toward her, she bolted back through the woods in the direction of the lake. The branches tore at her arms, and she yanked her sleeves down to protect her wounds.
Hushed laughter rippled through the light-green leaves while the metal of armor clanked and crashed through the web of branches behind her, sending her heart skittering in panic.
She tugged at a spindly branch that grabbed her long braid. She wrenched the offending limb from its trunk and threw it to the ground while she gasped for air to fill her aching lungs.
The ground shook with the men’s approach. She dashed off again.
Soon she reached the lakeside clearing but stopped abruptly as men on horseback in leather tunics—at least a hundred, she surmised—filled the area.
One of the men chasing her from the clearing grabbed her wrist with his armored hand. She screamed out in surprise.
“Isthiswhat we were called here for?” the leader of the cavalry shouted, jumping down from his horse. “Forthis?” He grabbed Tashama’s free arm and held it high in the air. Then he dropped her arm and grabbed her braid. “Whatisit even?”
Her feelings bounced around her like a ping-pong ball on a tennis table, back and forth, from fear to anger. She wanted to slug him for touching her, but at the same time, she wantedto run away as far as she could from the enemy of her people. Unprepared for being caught, she felt her stomach knot in frustration. How could she let them catch her so easily?
