Kidnapping Keela (16 page)

***

Marruk had been away with his brother, his father and two dozen other men for two days. Keela tried not to be over-anxious, if only not to unsettle Solima. But she could not stop thinking about Marruk and the dangers that awaited him. What would she do if something happened to him? She did not want to think about it. She was unable and unwilling to imagine a life without him.
 

A sudden whirring noise made her jump and she suppressed a scream as an arrow shot into a tree very near to her. Her heart began to race and she wanted to scream for help to alarm the guards who were always within in shouting range, but then she realised that there was a message attached to the arrow. Curious, she pulled the arrow out of the trunk and took off the note. Her hands shaking, she unfolded paper. A lock of hair was attached to the paper. A brown lock. Her heart missed a beat. With a sickening feeling in her stomach she began to read the message.
 

My Lady Arr’Carthian

I arrested Prince Marruk whilst he was attempting to seize my estates. And also the king, the Prince’s brother and all of the men who were with them. Enclosed is a lock of your mate’s hair as

proof of my statement.

You have the power to save the lives of all of these prisoners. Do not say a word to anyone. I have spies at the castle and I would find out if you were to go behind me. So, tell no one about this note or about

what you intend to do.

At midnight tonight come to your favourite place.

Come alone and unarmed.

Your humble servant

Abziarr Arr’Verkuzzi

Keela thought her heart was going to stop beating. Her greatest fears had been realised. She had had a bad feeling from the beginning. And it was even worse than she could have imagined. Not only was Marruk in danger, but the king and Berka, too, and also all the warriors that had joined the mission. She had to do what this Abziarr demanded of her. The life of so many men depended upon her. The only question was how she was going to manage to keep this to herself until midnight - and how she was going to get past the guards.
 

The last few hours were hell for Keela. Her thoughts were constantly with the imprisoned men and above all, naturally, with Marruk. The worst thing was that she could not speak to anyone about it and the knowledge that one of the people here in the castle was a traitor unsettled her. Who could it be? One of the guards? Or one of the servants? The cook? She knew all the men well and trusted every one of them – or at least she had until the moment when she read the note. Now the opposite was the case and she no longer trusted anyone at the castle. Every time she saw one of the men in the castle she wondered whether he was the spy. She searched for clues in the behaviour, the expression and the words of every man, but she could not find any. She simply could not trust anyone. This whole thing was driving her mad and with every hour she became more and more anxious.

She looked at the clock next to her bed. There was one more hour till midnight. She felt so sick with worry that she had barely eaten anything all day. So as not to draw attention to herself, she had forced herself to eat something, only to bring it up again later in the toilet. She was horribly afraid of what was coming to her, but she was still more afraid that something awful would happen to Marruk and the other men. She had no idea what this Abziarr expected of her. Why did he want to exchange her for the life of the men? Did he in fact want to make her his mate? That would be worse than if he were to kill her. She would never give herself willingly to another man. She would rather take her own life. She did not even know what these Verkuzzi looked like. Were they humanoid like the Carthians or were they possibly monstrous creatures?

Keela brooded and brooded until it was time to go. In quarter of an hour it would be midnight and she still had to find a way of getting past the guards. She crept quietly and with weak knees out of her room and along the corridor. A guard was standing downstairs in the hall. She watched nervously as he stretched out his arm and then went to the door that led to the kitchen. He opened it and said something to someone in the kitchen. This was her chance. His back was to her and he could not see her. Without a sound she crept down the stairs and into the hall that led to the rear exit.

So far so good, but now a new problem lay before her: two guards were at the exit. She could see their silhouettes through the glass in the door. There was no way for her to get past these two men.
 

“Shit!” she swore quietly.
 

She slipped into the breakfast room to her right. It had patio doors and the patio was surrounded by a low wall. If she ducked down the guards would not see her. She opened the patio door carefully and peered out. The guards were deep in discussion. Now and then they glanced into the garden, but not onto the patio where she was. Their concern was about someone forcing their way
into
the castle, not escaping
from
it. Bent over, Keela crept to the end of the patio, hidden by the wall. Once there she considered what to do next. A good fifty steps away she had a row of trees and bushes to hide herself with. But Keela was afraid that the guards might see her run from the patio to the trees out of the corner of their eye. She thought very hard.
 

Time was running out – she did not want to arrive late and therefore make the Verkuzzi angry. He would undoubtedly begin to kill his hostages if she did not get there at the set time. But how was she to get away from the patio without being seen? Then the great idea came to her. She would simply crawl through the grass to the trees. At survival training she had done this often enough. She lay on the ground, glanced over at the guards one last time and crawled away. It was hard and at first the distance did not seem to decrease. But at last she reached her goal and leant, relieved, against a tree trunk. Keeping hidden by the trees and the bushes, she moved away from the castle. Without any further problems she reached the small pond. She was very worried. Her heartbeat was droning loudly in her ears. After a few moments of anxious waiting, a hand was suddenly placed over her mouth from behind.

“Are you going to be good and not cause any problems?” asked a familiar voice. It was Mangan, one of the guards.

She nodded and the hand was moved from her mouth. Her heart pounding, she turned to face Mangan.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked the man that she would have suspected least of all.

“The reasons are none of your business. Come on. Get on my back. I’ll give you a ride. We’ll get there quicker.”

“I can’t believe that you’d give in to such a thing!” She said, shaking her head.

“Listen, if you cooperate, then nothing will happen to you. Please don’t make me to use force. So get on!”

She did as he said and stepped off the bench onto his back. She had hardly put her arms around his neck when he set of at an incredible speed. She had not believed that he would go very quickly with her on his back, and therefore found his suggestion somewhat strange, but now she had to admit that he could run faster giving her a piggy-back than she could have run alone. He did not appear to notice her weight.
 

***

Y-Quadrant, Karrx7

At the border of the Verkuzzi Region

8
^th
day of the month of Lumino in the year 7067

Federation Time

“What are we going to do now?” asked Berka in frustration.

Mortociar shrugged his shoulders.

“We need a magician. That’s a magic barrier. Without a spell to undo the magic we won’t get any further. We’ll have to send someone back to get Bajaja. I’m afraid we can’t do anything until then.”

“Perhaps we can go around the barrier,” said Marruk hopefully. “We’ll lose too much time if we send for Bajaja.”

“We have no idea how far the barrier goes. It could block off the whole border. I even think that’s highly probable. It’s not a big deal, extending the barrier length-ways. They won’t take any risks and because they can’t be sure at which point we’ll cross the border it’s likely that they’ve blocked everything,” thought Lurruk.
 

“Lurruk’s right,” agreed Mortociar. “We’ll send two men back to the palace. Kemal and Quartar, go straight back to the glider and fly to the palace! Bring the magician!”
 

The two men nodded and quickly disappeared. They had to go back over the Jade Mountains to get to the glider that they had left on the other side. The king looked at everyone and shrugged his shoulders again.

“It looks as if we can’t do much at the moment, so I suggest that we set up camp and rest. Remember that we’re on enemy territory. We mustn’t drop our vigilance at any point. Set up watches of six men at a time. Change of shift every five hours. Whoever falls asleep whilst on guard will be executed without hesitation.”

“Balda, Jeffe, Dunba, Kerretin, Jusabor and Trinko will take the first watch. Lurruk and Lamiha will collect wood for the fire. The others will set up the camp. Right, to work!” Marruk commanded.

***

Y-Quadrant, Karrx7

Somewhere on the way to the Jade Mountains

7th day of the month Lumino in the year 7067 Federation Time

Keela had no idea how long they had already been moving. Hours must have passed. It was already beginning to grow dark. Her abductor was not growing tired of carrying her. Her legs had been hurting her for a while. She was not used to spreading her legs like this for such a long time. Although at first it was quite pleasant not to have to run, she would now really like to use her legs. She wondered how Mangan was expecting to get to the land of the Verkuzzi carrying her if it was right that it took weeks to get to the Jade Mountains without a glider.
 

Just as she thought that she would no longer be able to bear the torture, Mangan suddenly stopped and put her down. She would have fallen if he had not held onto her arm to steady her. He helped her to sit down carefully.
 

“Rest,” he said, passing her a bottle of water.

Her hands shaking, she uncorked the bottle and put it to her lips. It was only when the refreshing fluid touched her lips that she realised how thirsty she was. Until then the pain in her legs had distracted her from her thirst and hunger. Her stomach rumbled as the water hit the emptiness prevailing there.
 

Mangan passed her a piece of dry meat and she accepted it gratefully. For a while she was occupied with satisfying her need for food and she almost forgot that he was there.
 

“We have to keep going,” he made her aware of him again.
 

Mangan put the bottle away and looked at her expectantly.
 

“Come on,” he ordered her, when she did not move.
 

With great difficulty Keela pulled herself up from the ground and followed Mangan on shaky legs through the forest to a cave. The entrance was quite hidden behind a bush.
 

“Why are we going into a cave?” she asked suspiciously.

Was he going to kill her now and hide her body in the cave? Perhaps it had been a lie that he was to take her to the King of the Verkuzzi.

“Just go,” he demanded, giving her a nudge that made her stumble forward.
 

He pushed her ahead and they entered the cave. It was not much more than a narrow passageway and she felt very uncomfortable, above all, as the light from the entrance was becoming weaker and weaker. There was a sharp bend to the right in the passageway, then, to her relief, she could see light at the end of the passageway. This path was clearly a short-cut through the hill. But as they approached what she thought was the exit she had to correct her presumption. The passageway did not open up to the outside but into a large cave lit by shimmering crystals. In the middle of the cave was a stone circle. The stones were all about three meters high and stood about a meter apart from one another. The diameter of the inner circle was perhaps ten meters.
 

“Come on!” said Mangan, walking towards the stone circle.

He turned round to her, just before reaching the huge stones, and he frowned because she was still standing in the same place as before.
 

“I can always use force if necessary, but I’d prefer not to have to. I’m not a man who likes to hurt women. So come on!”

Keela gave herself a nudge and walked towards her abductor. Once she had reached him he grabbed her by the arm and led her into the middle of the circle. She suddenly felt very strange, as if she were standing next to herself. She was here, but on the other hand she was not. She thought she could hear laughter in the distance and a man’s deep voice. Then everything was turning around and she almost lost consciousness. Where was she? What was happening to her? Who was she? All at once nothing made sense in her universe. She felt two strong arms being put around her and pressing her against the hard body of a man.
 

“Quiet,” said the voice that seemed vaguely familiar to her. “It’ll be over soon. The first time is always the worst.”

Blackness enshrouded her and released her mercifully from these frightening feelings.

***

Y-Quadrant, Karrx7

Royal Castle of the Arr’Verkuzzi

8
^th
day of the month of Lumino in the year 7067

Federation Time

“So, this is Marruk’s new mate,” she heard a man’s voice say in her dream. “She’s even more beautiful in real life than in the vision.”

“I’ve had the message sent to Prince Marruk, Your Highness,” said a female voice.

“Good, very good. Everything is going exactly as it should. Take good care of our guest and look after her when she wakes up. I don’t want a hair on her head harmed. I’m making you personally responsible for her well-being. Have I expressed myself clearly?”

“As you wish, Your Highness. I’ll watch over her constantly.”