Barbarian Prince (3 page)

The screams released some from their indecisive paralysis.

It had the opposite effect on Noelle.

For a space of critical heartbeats, Noelle merely stared wide-eyed with mouth agape at the barbarian horde heading straight for them from the path through the forest that edged the plain where they’d built their colony.

Monica, who’d already whirled to charge toward the gate and safety, spotted Noelle and changed directions abruptly. Charging toward her, she slammed into Noelle in her efforts to grab her. Their feet tangled, and both of them sprawled out.

Monica hit the dirt like she was spring loaded. Completely unfazed from her collision with the ground, she grabbed Noelle’s arm on her rebound and yanked her to her feet.

It was enough to throw off Noelle’s shock and jog her sense of self-preservation. She ran. She ran so fast she outran Monica and began dragging her.

She ran so fast she didn’t know what the hell happened when she was abruptly slammed against the ground. She thought for several moments that Monica had tripped and fallen on her.

Until she was hauled up and tossed over a broad shoulder that knocked the breath out of her and made her black out.

“
Can you
believe
those stupid bastards
led
the damned Amazons back to the colony and got
us
captured?” Monica burst out angrily.

Noelle still had a headache—from being carried with her head hanging down, she thought. “Did I get hit on the head?”

Monica’s anger subsided abruptly and she moved toward Noelle, examining her head carefully. “I don’t see anything. Whiplash probably,” she diagnosed, “from being body slammed on the ground by that bitch.”

Drak stared out at the drifts of snow that were gradually growing higher, his expression a cross between disgust and plain out anger. But it had very little to do with the weather conditions outside that were more miserable than usual. He had hated this time of year since he’d been a boy. And the fact that a forced peace lay over the lands due to conditions that no sane man would tackle for glory or riches had little to do with it, directly, at any rate. It reminded him of his losses, filled him with fresh pain that he had hoped every year would not visit him with his memories.

The distance of time didn’t seem to have helped a great deal.

He considered that for a moment. How many
anums
had passed?

He had been four
anums
when his sister had been born. He recalled the birth. He would not have recalled the age he had been—didn’t—but he did recall that his mother had said that he was four years older and that he was certainly old enough to be his young sister’s protector.

Except he hadn’t been competent enough to protect her and no amount of practice or skills acquired since that time could make up for the lack he had had when it had been needed.

That
was what tormented him, he realized, far more than the losses.

It had been his fault—all the way around.

His father, Drak the Dark, had broken centuries of tradition when he had decided to keep his woman until she delivered his son—his heir. He had ignored his advisors when they had pointed out that it was always possible to determine his seed from the others—a Flaxen
always
knew his get by scent—knew the scent of the woman they’d impregnated. Even if it transpired that the child favored his mother rather than his father—a rare thing!—he would know the offspring by scent!

There were reasons for the traditions! And refusing to honor age old traditions was just asking for trouble!

The advisors hadn’t lost their heads for pointing that out to their Prince, but it had been a near thing.

He, of everyone, even his closest friends, knew why his father had ignored tradition and kept his woman.

In the beginning it had been because, despite the myths to the contrary, a man did
not
always know his child—sometimes, yes, but there was no absolute certainty except when the child looked like a copy of the father. It rarely mattered, however, and that was why most men were content to adhere to the centuries old tradition. Unless a man had valuable possessions or property that he wanted to ensure passed to his son, there was no reason to be concerned.

His father was not actually the son of Drak the Red, however, as he was first believed to be and he had suffered for his father’s ‘mistake’. Until the day he died, Drak the Red had searched for his ‘true’ son, determined to usurp the changeling that was his namesake and replace him with the true heir. Drak the Dark refused to take a chance that he might repeat that mistake and bring another man’s son to his throne.

So he had taken the woman and she had born a son for him—and then a daughter—and still he would not return her to her people because he had become enthralled with her long before she had born his first child. It hadn’t been until she had become pregnant a third time that Drak the Dark had begun to feel some concern that his son and heir might be weakened by the presence and influence of a female.

And that anxiety had been compounded by the worry that his woman might produce a second heir who could create a split in the realm if the younger son should decide
not
to accept his elder brother as high Prince.

That decision had pitched all of them into a nightmare. For although he had hated his father ever afterwards for his decision that had cost him his beloved mother and sister, he hadn’t been so blinded by his hate that he wasn’t aware that it had created a hellish existence for his father for his final years, as well.

Occasionally, he wondered what his life would have been like if his father hadn’t thumbed his nose at tradition, but he didn’t like to travel that road because he was fairly certain his mother would still be alive if his father hadn’t kept her, hadn’t become obsessed with her.

That
was the danger of keeping a woman! A man could lose his head over a woman. It would warp his judgment and distract him and that would make him dangerous on the battlefield.

Uneasiness slithered through him at the last thought, but he dismissed it.

He would not make the same mistake his father had!

The approach of his second in command distracted him from his dark thoughts. He straightened, studying the older man as he moved briskly across the great hall. Kulle bowed respectfully when he reached him. “Lord, the ship is prepared.”

Drak felt his belly tighten. It was much the same reaction he had to imminent battle—the thrill of the fight, the fear of defeat and death—anticipation and dread rolled together in an unidentifiable rock in his belly.

There was more fear and dread in this, however, than anticipation. “And Moden—is he confident that that rusting contraption will make another voyage and back again?”

Kulle released a snort that was part amusement and part disgust. “Likely your order would have worked with anyone else, Lord. But that one became witless the moment I suggested he would be sailing with us if he was so confident in it. He has not had a woman before.”

Drak rolled his eyes. “A miscalculation, that! Well, we will all know before long if it will make the journey there and back.”

Kulle frowned, glanced around uneasily, and moved a little closer to where Drak stood in the window embrasure. “I am not concerned that it will hold together for the voyage,” he muttered in a growling whisper. “It is the speed—or lack of it—that concerns me. If it will not make the trip there and back swiftly, it will not make it at all and then you would be trapped in that dread, dark sea forever! For you would not catch our world or its sister before you ran out of supplies.”

Drak shrugged. “There is always that risk. There has always
been
that risk. But they will not come to us and if we do not go while the two worlds are closest there is no chance of catching our prey.”

They had always been inclined, in point of fact, to consider that the gods favored their voyage/endeavor. For the one time of year that the sister worlds were closest was in the dead of winter when the weather was far too foul for hunting or warring, making it the perfect time to turn their attentions to mating. And the second closest approach was just before spring thaw. This circumstance made it just possible to take them back to the more benign of the two sisters for their delicate term of gestation and return in time to prepare for war.

Not that there was always a war to return to. Historically speaking, war was actually fairly rare. There
was
likely to be a skirmish or two between rival clans over some dispute, however—which made it absolutely necessary to make and repair weapons and polish their fighting skills—but they had not had all out war with another clan since he’d been a boy.

That war had broken out when his mother had tried to escape with him and his sister to prevent his father, Drak the Dark, from separating her from her son.

He had made treaty with their enemies after the death of his father in battle. It had not been a popular decision since their enemies had killed the ruling Prince in battle—earning him the sobriquet of Drak the Fair—but he had considered his father as responsible for his mother’s death as he had the man who’d captured her—or more. After ten years of war and the death of all parties initially involved in the dispute, he had figured it was time to make peace between their two clans.

“
Well I am too old for such things, Lord. I am happy enough to wait here by the fire,” Kulle commented with a touch of amusement, “while you strapping young lads pursue the vixens.”

Drak uttered a derisive snort. “You do not have enough
anums
on me to consider yourself old,” he retorted. “And I am beyond the thrill of capture myself, if it comes to that. I would not be going if it was not my duty to the men and to the realm.”

Kulle’s amusement waned. “Will you be taking young Prince Terl on this raid?”

Drak’s own humor vanished. “I have said that I will not,” he responded tightly. “When he is old enough to
lead
a raid he may do so with my blessing. Until then, he is my heir and will do his duty to the realm and stay here.”

Kulle nodded quickly and backed away. “I will tell the men to prepare themselves quickly for the voyage. You will be leaving at first light?”

“
Aye. Make certain my sons are there to bid me farewell.”

“
Well that didn’t work worth a damn!” Monica said irritably.

She had hatched an escape plan after their third miserable night in the wooden cage where they were being held prisoner by the alien women they’d dubbed the Amazon warrior women because their society seemed strongly reminiscent of those mythological warrior women of Earth. She’d talked Noelle into helping her ‘jump’ the elderly woman that usually brought their food in the evenings and then they were going to lock the woman in the cage, sneak out of the village with the help of the cover of darkness, and find their way back to the colony—a half a day’s walk roughly South East of their current position.

As simple as the plan had seemed, the execution hadn’t gone down quite the way they’d envisioned it would. And the problem hadn’t been the one that Noelle had been most worried about—facing the darkness and their new home world’s night predators on the long walk back to the colony.

As planned, Monica had leapt onto the woman’s back as soon as she’d leaned over to set the pot she’d brought down. On cue, Noelle dove at the woman’s legs, trying to knock her off balance so that the two of them could quickly overcome her. Despite doubts she’d harbored but not voiced, she had actually succeeded in that goal.

And then everything had gone completely wrong! Both Monica and the older woman had landed on top of her, pinning her at the bottom of the pile where she was unable to lend Monica a hand in subduing the alien woman. Before they could scramble to their feet and make another attempt to overcome the old woman, three more Amazon women had piled into the cage—because the old woman was screaming her head off—and they’d been subdued in a matter of moments and tied hand and foot.

As
if
they hadn’t been miserable enough before the damn women had decided to tie them up!

“
No!” Noelle said sarcastically, glaring at her companion. “I thought it went well.”

Monica met her indignant gaze for a long moment and finally shrugged. “It was worth a try.”

“
Says who?” Noelle snapped. “
I
didn’t think it was worth a try.
I
didn’t want to do it at all!”

“
Hey! Don’t blame me! I didn’t make you do it.”

“
You talked me in to it!”

“
Exactly! Your decision. I just made a suggestion. It isn’t
my
fault it didn’t work! Everything went just as I’d planned until you sprawled out instead of leaping up and helping me subdue the bitch!”

Noelle was convinced there was something wrong with Monica’s logic, but she was too upset over their most recent confrontation with the damned amazons to think it through—at the moment.