Richard Howes

Gald to meet you too! Cheers!

A smoldering ache in my wrists turned into a blaze. My hands bound behind my back... My back... My spine threw lightning bolts, feet trussed, scalp burning, head spinning. Daylight came to my eyes. Red hair across my face showed me that I wasn’t scalped. I was alive. I was intact - little consolation at the thought of what they had done to Dalayne... What they would do to me... Being raped by those monsters was the least horror they might perform. 
          
          “You’re alive,” a baritone voice said. “Good. You are worth nothing dead.”
          
          I struggled to lift my head off the ground. My face was pressed into the dirt. My eyes half opened - enough to see a large man, a Scab, sitting by a fire. 
          
          I thought of the woman we attempted to rescue; Dalayne. I thought of Jill and wondered if they were successful or if there had been a dozen more Scabs waiting for us. A laugh was lost in my throat. I worried for them and should have worried for myself. My part failed. I could only hope my friends searched for me. Ramsey and Hayley were good trackers. 
          
          “They will follow,” the man said. “But my skills are better than your hunters’. They will not find the trail. I have been inside your camp. Many times I’ve gone there to take supplies.” He laughed.
          
          His horse shuffled its feet. My eyes opened enough to see canvas sack-cloth tied around each hoof - thick padded socks to hide the prints.
          
          The series:
          www.tinyurl.com/JulieRayzor
          www.tinyurl.com/RayzorWire2