Adina Shoemaker’s head bounced off hard, rocky ground, the impact addling her senses, turning the world blurry. Shouts and screams came to her like they were happening on the other side of a wet curtain. She flailed her legs, turning to get her hands under her. Sharp gravel on what had once been an asphalt road drove into her palms as she pushed up, kicking away from the body she’d fallen backward over. She got her feet under her, but as soon as she tried to rise, she was violently dizzy, the world seeming to turn abruptly ninety degrees. She hit the ground again. The clash of weapons, pleading screams and the raider’s victorious shouts were everywhere. She crawled as fast as she could on her hands and knees. She had no idea what direction she was going; just away from the sounds of fighting.
A strong hand grabbed the back of her jacket and she screamed. Her nails snapped against exposed asphalt, clawing to get away. Another hand grabbed her jacket pulling her back. She threw herself onto her back and kicked. She could make out the outline of the raider, but there were no details, only blobs. Trinkets and unidentifiable objects swung from his clothing as he threw her legs aside. Then his hands were on her again, holding her down. She screamed punched, kicked, clawed and bit. There was another raider. A knee drove into her belly and the world spun anew with the pain. The second raider threw his weight down again, driving his knee into her belly again and her whole body seized, trying to curl up to protect herself. But she couldn’t. The knee was there, and the body attached to it, leaning on her, pinning her. Strong hands grabbed hers and pulled them together. She felt rough cord wind around her wrists, barely able to see, her vision now blurred by tears of pain as well as from hitting her head.
“This one will be good for trade,” the first raider huffed, breathing hard with exertion. Hands tore her jacket open, her fear nipples standing out as they pawed her nineteen-year-old breasts through her shirt. She was round and womanly but wasn’t what anyone would call busty. A blurred face pushed close. “Pretty too. I like freckles.” He made an approving sound. “The warlord might want to keep her for himself.”
Hands dragged her to her feet, but her traumatized belly wouldn’t let her straighten. She still couldn’t take in more than shuddering half breaths. The rope pulled harshly, and she stumbled forward, then fell onto her knees, too dizzy to even stagger. One of the raiders grabbed a handful of her long, dark hair and pulled her upward.
“Get up!”
“Not too rough, idiot! That hair’s a selling point!”
She shrieked and was struggling to get her feet under her when hot liquid suddenly splashed across her face. She threw her hands up and recoiled, tasting blood. The hand holding her hair let go and the raider stumbled back. Even in her spinning vision, she could see blood gout from his neck, his hands grabbing at his slashed throat. There was another blurred body, moving fast.
The awful wet whistle and choking sound the raider made trying to breathe met with a feral roar from the second. There was a gunshot. Adina stumbled and hit the ground. An instant later the second raider crashed down on top of her. He didn’t move.
Beyond him, the other person was still moving, pistol up and firing, the sharp outline of a saber in their other hand.
The color fell suddenly out of Adina’s vision… she could hear her sobbing breaths, her wildly fluttering heartbeat. There was a tunnel for an instant… But that instant seemed to stretch on… and on… echoing in the tunnel were gunshots, the raider’s victorious cries turned fearful, then to shrieks of agony. Then there was nothing.
Adina woke slowly. Her mind was filled with screaming. Gunfire and the reek of burnt powder… the clash of weapons… the terrible sounds they made when they struck flesh were there again. There were unformed flashes; movement, colors, abstractions of faces. And other images, unwanted snapshots burned in her mind. Bodies twisted in ways they shouldn’t be. People she knew with vacant eyes and gaping mouths.
She was so cold.
She tasted dust in her mouth, felt dry on her lips. She tried to swallow but her tongue stuck to the inside of her mouth. It took several painful swallows before saliva eased the clogged feeling in her throat. But she paid for it with an ache in her cheeks like someone was squeezing her saliva glands between their fingers. The sharp, bitter taste of soot or burned oil that she expected wasn’t there. Nor was the sour, metallic taste of blood. It was just dirt.
She opened her eyes, blinking through the clinging fog of unconsciousness. She kept blinking, but all she could see was darkness. Dull pain jabbed her shoulders, pulling her toward consciousness. Her instinctive attempt to curl into a fetal ball against the pain and to hide her nipples from the cold brought her suddenly awake. Her belly spasmed like the raider’s knee was driving into it all over again. Her shoulders lit up like they were on fire when she tried to pull her arms forward. Her hands were restrained behind her.
Her fingers felt metal at her wrists. It was smooth, polished – cuffs with chain connecting them. She pulled at them. Something was attached to them.
No, no, no, no… Fear leapt up from the awful place inside her.
Feeling desperately along the chain, her fingers ran into a cable connected to it. She craned her neck, trying to see behind her in the darkness.
Shadows played on the crumbling concrete wall next to her. She turned toward the light. Ten yards away a fire was burning. Several dark shapes surrounded it. She froze, her heart hammering like it might tear itself from her chest. It took several moments of squinting and blinking to clear her vision enough for the shapes to resolve into packs and bundles. They weren’t people sleeping around the fire. Relief flowed over her and she had to clamp her mouth shut to stifle the sob that wanted to come with her relieved exhale. She let her head fall to the dirt again, just breathing and trying to control her emotions.
It took a few minutes, but she felt steadier. She put a foot on the ground and pushed, fighting the restraining cable and the cramps in her belly to flip over, putting her hands toward the dim firelight. She had to rest again after the effort. When she felt strong enough, she craned her neck, ignoring the pain shooting through her shoulders, neck and belly to see how the cable was attached to her restraints.
Smooth, dark metal encircled her wrists. These weren’t brute manacles like raiders or scavengers used. These were manufactured, maybe even made in a factory. She’d heard the unbelievable tales about the factories in the great city-states with their farms and walls and guns. Staring at the cuffs, something in her leapt with joy.
If even part of the tales the wandering storiers tell for a few pieces of scrap or a meal are true…
She couldn’t help herself, she let her fingers run over the smooth dark metal. But when she saw what connected to the center of the chain between the cuffs, her heart tumbled again. A lock. Equally well made, of dark metal, connected through a ring at the center of the chain that seemed built for the purpose. And through that lock passed the eye of a cable. She pulled, her eyes following the cable’s movement in the fire light. The other end was attached to the stout handle of a massive, crushed door that had once been the entrance of a grand building, now a ruin like most of the old world.
A bang and clatter brought her head around. Around the corner of the building she heard the tink and clank of metal on metal. She stopped moving and listened. Someone was working on something.
A painful chill suddenly shuddered up her body. She gritted her teeth and scooted the direction the cable ran to get some slack. Her teeth chattering, she pulled her knees up and she tucked her head, trying to and warm up. Not being able to wrap her arms around her legs, it wasn’t very effective. The fire seemed to torment her, only ten yards away.
Pain, cold and thirst chiseled at her will.
If they wanted you dead, they would have already killed you. She looked down at herself for the first time. She had to flip over for there to be to enough firelight to see anything. In the flickering illumination, she could see her clothes were dirty, torn but intact. Her jacket was pushed open, her thin shirt strained across her breasts, her hard nipples small mountain peaks in the flickering light. And there were dark stains on her shirt and jacket. She remembered the raider’s spraying blood… She swallowed again trying to keep other images of what happened out of her head.
If they wanted… She tried not to think about what raiders did to their captives. They would have already done it. And the stories about scavengers who’d turned cannibal were even worse. Fighting the desire to curl up again, she craned her head around, looking at the door handle she was connected to. Even if her hands were in front of her, the odds of her freeing the cable were slim. Another painful chill tore up her back. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, then called out.
“Hello!… Is someone there?”
The sound of working stopped, and she heard boots on gravel. A tall figure appeared from around the corner of the building, just a silhouette against the fire. She could make out grey-white, short cropped hair. He stopped for a moment and she could feel his eyes on her. She pushed over onto her front to hide her erect nipples. He retrieved something from a pack and walked to her. He was wearing a long coat that made seeing anything about him other than his silhouette impossible. He squatted in front of her and she heard him open a canteen. He held it up.
“You need to drink, you’re dehydrated.”
Her desperate thirst shouldered aside her fear. She struggled to get to her knees. He put a strong hand on her arm and helped her sit, then put the canteen to her mouth. She only hesitated for a moment.
He could have done anything he wanted to you while you were unconscious. She put her lips to the metal. Cold water flowed into her mouth. She only got half a swallow before her throat seized and she choked. He pulled the canteen away and she coughed hard, feeling like strips were being torn from her throat. It took several ragged breaths before her coughing eased. She lifted her head again and he helped her drink. This time she was able to drink, and she gulped down water as fast as he would pour it for her.
“Slowly.”
She took gasping breaths between gulps feeling the water hit her stomach and her whole body relaxed incrementally. She drank until she felt her belly slosh and then leaned back away from the canteen taking deep breaths.
He rocked back. “You finished?”
“Yes,” she answered a breathlessly. “Thank you.”
He didn’t answer. He screwed the top back on the canteen, set it aside and leaned forward. She jerked back but he continued he lean forward until he could reach around her with both arms. She felt his hands on her cuffs. Part of her wanted to bite him, to force him away, but her body locked up, encircled by his arms, suddenly trembling violently, not just from the cold. Her face was all but pressed against his coat, her eyes flitting wildly. With firelight on his back, she could see it was dark leather and armored. She felt him remove the lock from her cuffs. The weight of the cable dropped away. Over his shoulder, she saw the curved bottom of a sword scabbard extending out behind him.
As close as he was, she couldn’t help but smell him – smoke, hot engine oil, leather, sweat and a lighter oil of some kind. And under it all, soap. Her eyebrows climbed up a little. She knew the smell of soap; harsh, astringent-smelling, designed to clean, not… smell nice. And he was also warm, heat radiating from him like an engine.
He leaned back again, retrieved the canteen and stood, putting a hand under her arm, indicating she should stand.
Adina struggled to her feet, her legs and feet numb, his hand helping to lift her one hundred and twenty pounds easily. She stopped, gritting her teeth as blood rushed back into her legs with a feeling like fire under her skin as the circulation returned. She hissed, “It hurts!” He waited silently, coaxing until she could move on her own and lead her to the fire, her hands still cuffed behind her. He indicated a place where she should sit on the ground. “Sit down.”
She’d barely gotten her backside on the ground when the sudden warmth from the fire sent a strong shiver through her. She shook violently for a moment then was back to the overall trembling.
Now that they were in the firelight, she could get a better look at him. He was broad shouldered and taller than she’d first thought, a few inches over six feet she guessed based on her own height, five feet six inches, and where his shoulder was compared to hers as they walked back to the fire. He was older, maybe in his forties, his grey-white, close-cropped hair was nearly shaved around the sides and back. His white beard was similarly close-trimmed. His armored long coat was dark, well-worn with matching colored pauldrons on his shoulders. Each was adorned with an emblem that shone white in the firelight. At forty-five-degree angles, a sword and pistol crossed each other bracketed by a pair of wings with a helmet above them. The sword she’d seen the scabbard for rested on his left hip, a big pistol in a holster on his right. Beneath the open jacket his heavy shirt did little hide his warrior’s physique. His trousers fit closely over muscular thighs.
She’d seen very few people in her life that looked so… uniform. All of his clothes looked like they belonged together and many of the things he had seemed to be made to match everything else. Her mind wandered, imagining what his tight trousers looked like from the back without the long coat in the way.
He knelt next to her and she felt his hands on the cuffs again. “Don’t try to run off. Fair warning, catching people who try to run is part of what I do.” His voice wasn’t harsh per se, but straightforward, matter of fact.
This close in the firelight she could see several long-healed scars on his otherwise handsome face and the darkest blue eyes she’d ever seen. She’d seen a stone someone called Lapis. His eyes reminded her of it.
Then the handcuffs were off. As her hands fell forward the jabbing sensation in her shoulders turned to a spasm that made her hiss in pain and brought her straight up for a few seconds before easing off. He didn’t respond to her pained grimace. He was digging in a pouch at his belt. When the spasms passed, he held the canteen out to her and a piece of dried meat he’d retrieved from the pouch.
“Eat. You need your strength.”
The piece of dried meat was surprisingly large. Adina eyed it suspiciously, thoughts of cannibal scavengers rushed to her mind again. “What is it? Rat, lizard and dog are what we usually have. Rabbit when we’re lucky.”
He nodded. “It’s boar.”
Her eyes widened and she stared at it, envisioning the terrifying thousand-pound animals that roamed the empty wastes. Stories told of entire camps being killed and eaten by them. She’d only ever seen one and it took every man and woman with a gun to bring it down.
“How did you…” she looked from the meat to him.
He stood and stepped to one of the packs, dropping the cuffs into it. “Shot him in the head.” There was no pride or bravado in his tone, just a matter of fact reporting of facts. After a moment of digging, he pulled out a blanket and handed it to her. “What do they call you?”
She shook out the blanket with trembling urgency and pulled it tight around her. Another hard chill rocked her as her body heat suddenly stopped escaping, held to her by the blanket. “Adina…” she answered past the shivers that shook her voice. “Adina Shoemaker.” She took a bite of the dried meat. It was salty. Then as if the salt unleashed something inside her, suddenly all she could do was eat, devouring it without looking up. She gulped water from the canteen between bites to combat the salt and the dry. She hadn’t finished the first piece when he handed her as second. She snatched it, ripping it into chunks and wolfing it down.
She wasn’t released from the food’s spell until it was gone. Then she pulled her legs up tight, wrapping the blanket around her, completely at sea about as to what do say or do under his intense scrutiny.
“What… What’s your name?” she stammered, her voice still trembling.
“Asher.” He looked up at the clear sky, the breathtaking, bright blanket of stars gleaming down at them. “It’s cold tonight.”
He walked to her and reached a hand out to her face. She shied back from it. He extended it again until the back of his fingers lightly touched her cheek. His fingers were warm, and she could see burn scars on the back of his hand. But his touch was gentle. He turned his fingers and put them against her neck. He seemed to take the first good long look at her. His eyes traveled from her hazel eyes under her dark, curved eyebrows, across the freckles that shone maddeningly even though her skin was bronze from the sun, to her pointed chin. “You’re cold as ice.” He sat down next to her. “Lay down.”
Panic leapt up in her. “Why!”
His expression changed only marginally. “You’ll be warmer if you do.” Again, his tone was practical, matter of fact, not without emotion, but not overly… anything. He unbuckled is pistol belt, freeing the sword and set them aside, then laid down behind her, keeping her between him and the fire, adjusting his belt, sword and pistol, apparently to use as a pillow. He put a hand on her shoulder and pulled lightly. It was an invitation, not a demand.
He could have done anything to you…
She reluctantly laid down and he hooked an arm around her, pulling her against him and throwing part of his coat over her, then laid his head down, resting it on his arm and weapons.
Adina’s breath came in short fearful gasps. She could feel how aroused he was, even through the blanket. Being pulled back against his chest was like being against a warm, solid wall. She waited for his hands to start wandering over her. But several minutes later, his arm got heavy and his breathing turned easy.
Adina stayed still, not daring to move. He started to snore lightly. She craned her head as much as she could to see him hoping not to wake him – if he was actually asleep. He didn’t move. The intense creases between his eyebrows were gone. He looked… younger. She stayed frozen for a long time. But his body heat radiating through the blankets eased her clenching muscles. And she was so tired. The feel of him breathing so easily against her hair and his heavy arm over her were reassuring.
And Adina was suddenly asleep.