Born Under an Ill-Omened Star

The Danger at Dawn

I  sleep so restlessly that I might as well be awake. What actually brings me round is the crunch of a crispy palm leaf disintegrating beneath the pressure of a foot. A human foot?  I bolt upright. The sun is starting to climb and birds are chirping their morning pleasantries. My eyes scout the tree line of the glade. Nothing immediately stands out. 

Perhaps I'm mistaken. Maybe the noise was a small animal? Without taking my eyes off the treeline, I reach out instinctively to the knife I always keep by my bedside in the drylands. I feel only the forest floor. If only I had added a weapon to my saddlebag before the wedding, but I'll forgive myself for the lack of foresight on that one. 

Without my knife and worse, without Xander, I am completely and desperately alone. Another crunch. There's definitely someone or something here. I'm on my feet. With my back to the treehouse, at least I'm covered from behind. I notice a string of ants marching in a file by my right foot and I'm momentarily distracted. And it's only whilst looking at the ground that I see a pair of hands snake out from inside the treehouse and yank my ankles backwards. 

                                                                                                 ***

I topple forward, using my hands to narrowly avoid a face plant, and break my fall. At the moment of impact, I feel pain shoot up my left wrist. I wince as a bull of a man draws himself from the treehouse. How he managed to fit in there is beyond me. Before I can launch myself out his range, he wrestles onto my back, pressing me against the forest floor. As I wriggle and squirm, he grabs my arms and forces them behind me. I'm no match for his mammoth stature and I feel the coarse strands of rope restraints being wound tighter and tighter around my wrists. 

From my flat position, my range of motion is limited. Think!  With every ounce of strength I have, I raise my chest as high as I can and throw my head back, aiming for a clean hit to the nose. My aim lands true and I hear my assailant yelp. With that small expression of humanity, I finally find my voice. 'HELP!' I scream. "HELP!" The word almost sounds unnatural on my tongue. 

'Décrat!' I call for help in Volarese on the off chance that someone unfamiliar with the common tongue is passing through. My cries either fall on deaf ears or no ears at all. 

'Shut yer mouth ya drak' fumes the attacker, applying more weight if that's even possible. 'If you've broken ma nose a swear you're done for.'  

Drak. His insult surprises me. It's an unusual jibe and refers to Generation Drake - an ancient race of people who due to their 'laziness' and 'stupidity' almost entirely wiped themselves out -  according to the scriptures. Apparently, they failed to recognise and take measures to prevent the spread of the Green Plague, the consequences of which proved fatal. They were a pre-omen race and so historical records are limited and fading from memory.  The insult 'drak', on the other hand, seems to have withstood the test of time. 

'Who are you? Why are you doing this?', I exclaim. I'm gripped by a sudden terror. Could this be the brother of someone I killed? A bereaved father? Am I subject to an act of revenge, driven by pure hatred? If that's the case, I don't think any words of mine would have the power to diffuse the situation.  

'No questions, missy. Yer coming wae us.' 

Us? As if on cue, I see five shadows emerge from the tree line. Three men and two women it looks like. They vary dramatically in height but all share a similar grim expression on their weathered faces. With their muddied clothes and tangled hair, it's clear that I'm not the only one who's spent the night exposed to the elements. 

'Adair Karrow, my name is Ivan Strendr and I ask kindly for your complete compliance. We are here to take you away. If you make life hard for us rest assured, things will get very nasty.' The voice belongs to the wiry man furthest to the right. He speaks surprisingly well with what I would even describe as a nobleman's accent. 

Still pinned to the ground, I cannot help but think that things have already turned nasty. What to do? I cast my mind back. I had once read a fable about a girl who escaped captivity by manipulating her captors into believing she was someone else. With the ten tonne weight on my back, my options are limited. 

'Please sur, you have the wrong person,' I change my accent, add a slight lisp. 'I don't know who you're looking for but there was a girl here. Yesterday. She was desperate ti swap her dress for my smock n trousers. She was in a right tizzy. She took off East, she did. Didnae say where she wus going, only that she had tu get away.'  

I see a younger-looking man and woman exchange a glance. A look of uncertainty? 

I regard the group before me. I'm quite certain I have never seen any of these people before in my life. I have, of course, never had my portrait painted. Maybe, just maybe, they're going off of a loose description. 

'Oh and you just, went along with it then did you. Dearie?' Ivan's tone is razor-sharp. I don't think he's buying this. If I weren't so afraid I would be feeling like a fool. 

'Why...why yes of course! I've never owned no dress and I thought tu muself I could exchange it fur at least ten ribbonpounds at the marketplace on Saturday.' I do my best to sound believable. 

'Get her up, Quey' Ivan orders. The bull-man who is presumably named Quey, grabs me under the armpits and hoists me to my feet. 

'Oi Ivan, she wasnae talking like that when a first jumped her' Quey says, his two hands planted firmly on my shoulders. 

'Excellent point my friend.' Ivan approaches until he's a hair's breadth from my face. 'You know what I think, dearie?' I feel the hotness of his breath on my face and I daren't move a muscle. 'I think you're lying through your teeth.' 

And before I can say or do anything, he whips a black hood from his back pocket and throws it over my head, casting my world into darkness.