Terra Prima

War Prize

Issi was handed down to an old crone, who gripped her arms with surprising strength. The dark-haired girl had been manhandled so much in the past four hours that she wouldn't have been surprised if bruises had blossomed on her arms. It was evening now, and the sun was close to setting. She had dried because of the cold.

The beast-her kidnapper called him Merrikh when she'd heard him speaking to the beast-ran fast. Incredibly so. She'd been blow-dried by the forcefully created wind. Her hair would be irreversibly tangled, she thought mournfully. Issi had always been proud of how well-managed she kept her wild, dark hair, but this could set her back a year or three.

The ancient woman hustled her inside, where she was promptly draped in furs and blankets made of furred skins turned inwards and the outsides decorated brightly with images of the sun, trees and Pangaean animals. The woman shoved her down by a fire pit, which was in the center of one room of the tent, on a level lower than the rest of the floor. The result was a nice ledge to sit on, and despite the fact that Issi was forcibly blow-dried and her clothes clung uncomfortably to her body like a second skin, she admitted that she was comfortable.

The woman bustled around behind her, making noises and jabbering in the singing language of the Tribals. It made the hair raise on the back of her neck, so Issi huddled tighter, bundling the blankets around herself. The woman jabbed her in the back with a bony finger and the dark-haired girl whipped around, blue eyes wide. For a second, the woman was taken aback as she realized that the girl's eyes were the same shade as the atchi-ga flower so highly prized by Rider Set and consequently his Camp.

She regained her composure quickly, however, and shoved a bowl of stew-like food in front of her before passing her a flat, round piece of bread about the size of both fists. When she bit into it, Issi realized that despite its slightly hard exterior, the inside was soft and delicious. She finished the food quickly, and the woman passed her a fruit. It was about the same size as the bread, but it was perfectly round, and was pale green like a green apple.

She bit into it and nearly gagged at the tangy taste of it. Issabella forced it down, and reluctantly took another bite. Beggars-especially not kidnapped ones-couldn't be choosers, as the old adage went. Soon, she was scarfing down the fruit, encouraged by the rumbling of her stomach. Then she swallowed another huge bite, and it felt like something had gotten caught in her throat. Issi coughed, trying desperately to dislodge the piece.

Hands seized her from behind and someone-not the crone, because these hands were too strong-smacked her back between the shoulder blades. An arm came around, resting under her breasts, and she doubled over onto it, hacking and coughing. In a final heave, accompanied by a blow, she coughed up the blockage-a seed, and gripped the arm with her hands while she tried to catch her breath.

Someone uttered a soft stream of what she assumed was curses, due to the vehement nature of their pronunciation. She was unceremoniously dropped when the arm withdrew from its position as her support and she let herself fall down, still breathing raggedly. The crone cleaned up the piece of fruit within seconds and practically dragged Issi back to the fire lower-dais and fixed the blankets around her. The girl was shivering still and it agitated Set, who snapped impatiently at Mi-lo, the elderly woman who managed the servants of his kurar-the huge, luxurious tent he lived in.

It was rather large. From one end to the other was forty feet, with cloth dividers that could be dropped to separate rooms or lifted to make one large, comfortable kurar padded with pillows and furs and carpets. The only part of the tent that could not be simply packed up in minutes was the fire-dais, which had to be dug into the ground so the fire wouldn't catch on the trappings of the kurar and set the entire thing afire.