Page 11 of Arrows and Gems
He wouldn’t; it would be a shame to damage such a fine weapon. But she didn’t know that.
“Fine,” she ground out. Dropping her right hand from her shoulder, she undid the buckle on her quiver belt. It clattered to the ground, and Cap once again moved cautiously forward to retrieve it.
When he reached for her, though, she jerked away from him. “Don’t touch me!”
He exhaled heavily through his nose. “And how do you expect me to help you down without touching you?”
“I’ll get myself down.”
He raised an eyebrow, but she set her right hand on the front of the saddle and leaned forward, balancing as she slowly lifted her right leg over. Her face twisted in a grimace, clearly biting back a cry of pain with the movement.
As she was lowering herself to the ground, her knee gave out. Cap jumped forward to catch her. A wail escaped her whenher left shoulder rammed into his chest, but he wrapped his arms around her waist to keep her upright.
“Let go of me! What are you doing?” she protested when he pinned her to his chest with his left arm and began running his free hand along her sides. “You scoundrel!”
He grunted when her elbow found his stomach, but he didn’t release her. “Checking you for weapons. I don’t fancy a blade in my ribs.”
The confounded woman continued to struggle, but each twist was a little weaker than the last. When he was certain she had nothing dangerous concealed – unless it was someplace he didn’t dare check – he nodded to Jean-haut. “Grab the horse, and let’s get out of here.”
Cap bent down and put an arm under her knees, sliding his other arm around to support her shoulders, and hefted her into his arms. He felt a little ridiculous carrying a captive woman bridal style, but throwing her over his shoulder would have driven the arrow in farther.
“Put me down; I can walk.” Her protest was feeble, her voice growing weaker. She gave a half-hearted wiggle, but her head drifted toward his shoulder. Her dress was damp beneath his hand, but it should be the pain, not blood loss, sending her toward unconsciousness. He didn’t want the death of this young woman on his conscience. Even if she did work for the General.
She was too tall and her hair was the wrong shade, but as he glanced down at her drooping eyelids, he was suddenly reminded of his sister.
A stab of homesickness pierced his chest. He loved the forests and the mountains where he and his band made their camp, but he missed his family.
He knew he wasn’t the only one. All the more reason to hope this woman carried useful information, because the sooner they put a stop to the General’s machinations, the sooner they could all go home.
CHAPTER 5
Helena
The first thing she noticed was the burning pain in her left shoulder. It throbbed with each beat of her heart, pushing against something wrapped tightly around it.
The next thing was that her hands were tied in front of her waist. The ropes weren’t drawn cruelly tight, but she could feel the rough edges against her wrists. She wouldn’t be escaping them, especially since her upper arms were secured to her torso. She was lying on her back on the forest floor, a small rock or a tree root digging into her ribs.
“Are you serious?” a feminine voice hissed. “There is aholein your hood, Cap! But you’ll let her walk away so she can try again later?”
“We’re dropping her off at the nearest village for the local sheriff to handle,” a low, commanding voice corrected calmly. “We’re not murderers.”
Slitting her eyes open, Helena tried to assess the situation. Her feet weren’t tied, but her captors were only a few feet away. None of them were watching her.
The short man from the road shook his head. “We have no quarrel with her, aside from taking a shot at Cap,” he rumbled in a deep voice. “She has no identifying papers, nor any messages.”
“What are you saying?” the woman replied angrily.
The other member of the group, a tall man with his hooddrawn low over his face, looked at his companion. “That we waylaid the wrong person. She doesn’t work for General Valentin.”
During the pause that followed, Helena felt all three pairs of eyes on her. Something tickled her nose, but she tried to hold still instead of wrinkling her nose like she wanted to. She needed to maintain the element of surprise as long as she could.
“Unless they were verbal,” the woman finally suggested. “The timing was right. The General may not want to risk putting sensitive information in writing.”
The tickling grew more intense. Helena let her attention drop from the famed bandit and his followers for a moment to glare in annoyance at her nose.
A spider dangling from its string reached out its spindly legs and danced them across her skin again.
“AAAHHH!” she shrieked, all thought of advantages forgotten. Scrabbling with her feet, she tried to shove away from it, but her boots couldn’t find purchase on the leaf-littered ground. “Get it off! Get it off!”
