A Sinless Betrayal - Cherie Benjamin (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📗

"The barbarians are coming!"
At that moment, my heart stops. I look up from where I am sitting next to the boudoir in the manor to the oval-shaped window. No, I think to myself. This can't be happening.

The barbarians rarely ever raided the northwestern villages, but when they did, they left the streets bloodied and the houses bare. And if they were feeling especially evil, they'd even take a maiden back to their king as a gift.

I am dressed in a beautiful red silk dress, ready to go to the town square to meet with the man that I'd been courting for about a month. Rumour had said that Sir Cordell was going to ask for my hand in marriage. And of course, I was to accept his offer. Cordell is the wealthiest noble in the village with the most to offer me.

He'd told me his stories of how he and his men would ride out to conquer the barbarians and kill their king to capture the Silvertongue and rid the kingdom of any future barbarian attacks. I had asked him what the Silvertongue was on our ride to the meadows, the ones that he took me on our first time alone together.

"A Silvertongue is an object that knows all the world's languages, whether they be secret, or well known," Cordell had said to me. "The Silvertongue will help us to decipher the book of Azazel. Anyone who can decipher the book of Azazel is said to bathe in riches and achieve world domination with his men. I shall marry you, Elizabella, and then we shall rule the world as the greatest King and Queen anyone has ever known."

"My lady!" the maidservant calls. "We must evacuate out the back door immediately! Your father has been killed and your mother captured."

My face goes pale and I can feel the knot in my stomach tighten. "Killed…? Captured?" Before I can properly respond, the sound of battle cries and splintering wood downstairs echoes out and breaks me from my stunned trance.

Michelle, my maid, grabs my hand and tugs me down the hallway. I struggle to keep up with having the burden of a heavy silk dress, tripping over my skirts every so often as I am being yanked hurriedly down the stairs.

A cry in the distance is followed by the sound of a gruesome squishing sound of a barbarian spear going through the flesh of an innocent villager. At the bottom of the steps lays my other handmaiden, surrounded by a pool of blood with a knife in her stomach.

Michelle sobs loudly, but I quickly hush her, pushing her out the back door. The sound of crashing can be heard as barbarians are seen invading my kitchens and smashing my mother's prized fine china.

It's ridiculously hot on this particular summer month, the smell of death and blood lingering in the sticky air. It's complete chaos out on the roads. The square is littered with dead bodies, screaming women and children, and debris from wrecked bazaars and merchant stands.

I absently wonder where Cordell is, and if he's safe. I wonder if my father died quickly and painlessly and if my mother is still alive and well. "My lady, please!" Michelle tugs on my pale white hand, pulling me farther into the forest to escape the hoard of barbarians that ambushes my quiet little village of Bellechester.

Barbarians usually dressed in animal skins and wore the bones of humans in bracelets or necklaces. They grew their hair out long and ran with wolves, fighting on foot instead of horseback, and with khopesh swords and daggers instead of iron swords.

As Michelle pulls me deeper into the depths of the lush green forest, I can see life as I knew it slowly fading away before my reluctant eyes. Tears form where tears weren't welcome and I soon find myself crying like a child. It's all happening so fast; my mother is captured, my father is dead, my house is wrecked and my riches are gone. It is a slap in the face that was gifted from reality, and I am only a tiny speck on the face of the earth, running away into the forbidden wilderness with my lowly maidservant as my only companion left.

I choke on my tears. Michelle turns around to make sure that I didn't hurt myself. I hadn't hurt myself on the outside, but I'm hurting a lot on the inside.

Wolves howling in the background distract me from my woe for a split second, causing me to stumble over a prominent root protruding from the ground. I fall, pulling my maidservant down with me.

"Are you alright, my lady?" Michelle's voice comes out in a rushed whisper. My heart's beating faster than it ever beat before, and I can hear the sound of twigs cracking under rough, bare feet nearing us.

"Shh," I whisper, wiping my tears with a shaky hand. "I can hear them. They're close—you know what they do when they find women hiding."

The maid's eyes widen. "I feel as if I am too afraid to ask," Michelle whimpered.

Hidden in the brush, I peer through the leaves to look at my surroundings. The sound of barking wolves can still be heard, but the footsteps have gone deeper into the forest than we have. "They take them as sex slaves. I thought you knew."

A crunch of a twig and the swift rustling of leaves makes Michelle yelp and shake uncontrollably. "We can't be captured, my lady. We must run!"

"No!" I growl while pulling her back to the ground as she leans back on her haunches, readying to dart out into the forest. "We cannot risk that. We cannot outrun the barbarians, so I say that our best chance of survival and escape are to sit and wait them out. Wait 'till they clear the area."

Michelle groans. "I'm afraid," she whispered. "I don't want to be their slave."

I don't tell her about the other stories I'd heard about the barbarians, like how they would sell their slave to other men to bed after they grew tired of their own, how they would rape a slave if she did not submit willingly, and how sometimes barbarians would put their women on display in horrid public events.

I'm determined to get us out alive and free, and I'm determined to find Cordell again. I want to see his red-brown hair, bright green eyes and sunny smile. I want to hear him laugh and feel his rose-petal lips on my skin when he kisses my hand politely.

"Three Horses!" A voice calls in the distance. They speak in a language that I do not understand. Michelle and I crouch back into the leaves more, hiding our bodies from barbarian eyes.

"Paleface trinket," one slurs, holding up a silver necklace. I refrain myself from gasping, my hand flying to my neck where my mother's necklace should have been. It must have come off when I fell, and now it was going to be stolen by those beasts.

"Drinks of Waterfall," the other says. "Paleface…close."

The bone chains on their necks, arms and feet jingle as they crouch closer to where we hide. I bite my lip and I see Michelle panicking, muttering silent prayers with her eyes glued firmly shut.

I decided to pray as well, bowing my head and letting my curtain of chestnut hair cover my face. I had thought that they'd gone, but I'm terribly wrong. A curious hand feels around through the brush where we are hiding.

I stay as still as possible to try and avoid contact with the rough hand and cease my noise, hopelessly thinking that perhaps they'd leave if they didn't hear or feel anything. But I'm wrong again.

Michelle shrieks like a pig being butchered to death when the rough hand grabs a fistful of her black hair and tugs her up by the soft strands. The barbarians laugh and as the one called Drinks of Waterfall pushes my maid to the other one named Three Horses. Three Horses grabs Michelle and ties her flailing hands with rope as Drinks of Waterfall holds her arms down.

My maidservant is gagged and slung over Three Horses' shoulder. I slink down into the brush as Drinks of Waterfall nears again. He sees me. I know he sees me. He reaches down, winding his fingers into my soft chestnut locks of hair, yanking so harshly that I feel my scalp begin to bleed.

I squeal in pain, grasping at the barbarian's hands. Three Horses looks back and grins, muttering something to his colleague. It was probably praise and approval for my capture.

I put up a fight as Drinks of Waterfall tries to tie my hands with leather strips of rope. The barbarian growls in frustration when I hit him hard in the stomach, then laughs at me when I whimper in pain from the wrist-ropes being too tight.

"Let us go!" I hiss at him through my teeth. I kick at Drinks Of Waterfall as he slings me over his broad, copper-toned shoulder. He doesn't listen to me—but what do I expect? He's a filthy barbarian. And barbarians show no mercy to palefaces.

I struggle as he carries me through the woods like I'm a mere sack of flour, ignoring the profanities I spew from my mouth, ignoring the cries, and ignoring the pleas.

"You're an animal!" I scream, kicking my feet hard against his chest. Drinks of Waterfall growls viciously, raising his hand to my bottom and smacking it down hard on the silk-covered skin.

I yelp out in shock and anger. I struggle even harder. "You beast!" I scream. "You'll rot in Hell for this!" He whips me down from his shoulder and carries me baby style in one arm as he fishes a rag out of his leather satchel he carries on his shoulder.

The rag is brown, but it has a strange white substance on it. The barbarian stuffs it inside of my mouth against my will. I manage to bite his finger as he does so, and it draws blood. But the white substance on the rag was making me feel drowsy and like I was full of jelly and no bones. My eyes fluttered shut as the barbarian cussed and wiped his bleeding finger on my beautiful red silk dress.

I hate him…I hate him…

0o0o0o0o

When I awaken, the smell of cooking meat holds my interest. I lift my head off of the warm shoulder that I'd been slobbering all over and my eyes flicker open. Music was playing, meat was cooking, and women dressed in animal skins were weaving baskets and tending to little naked babies running wild all over the ground.

I wrap my arms around the person carrying me as my eyes slip shut again. It's hard to keep them open and I still feel so weak. I don't know where I am, and I don't remember much of where I was before I went to sleep.

My eyes flutter open and really look at my surroundings. Stone buildings, tents, and strange wooden houses attract my attention. I see the same women weaving a basket while her naked, copper-skinned baby boy ran naked around the fire, in which another woman roasted meat over.

"Michelle," I mumble, finally coming to. I look up, frightened. Where am I? The last I remember was the forest, hiding from the barbarians.

I look at the body that is carrying me. The broad copper shoulders, long black hair weaved into a fuzzy braid that reached his hips. I look at the side of his serene features. It's Drinks of Waterfall.

I'm horrified instantly and begin to struggle as I see Three Horses carrying a passed out Michelle on his shoulders. "No fight," Drinks of Waterfall hisses at me. "Almost there."

My heart pounds inside of my chest. There's no use in struggling because I already know that I won't escape Drinks of