Page 10 of Trapped to Tame
She couldn’t hear what was said, but as soon as swords were drawn, she moved, walking quickly and decisively from the room, but not so fast as to be noticed.
Eve found the bag she'd stowed and left the inn, grabbing a random cloak that was hung on a hook with some others. It was too long for her, but that didn't matter. She grinned as she walked down the street and out the way they'd come earlier, back towards the forest.
This time, before she did anything else, she found a stream and, after tying the cloak up around her waist, she waded into the frigid waters. Braving the cold, she walked against the current. She didn’t know how to hide her tracks from them, but now she didn’t have to. They wouldn’t find her again.
She walked into the night until she was too tired to go any further. Only then did she leave the water, her feet so numb that she could hardly walk. She huddled under her stolen cloak beside a boulder out of the worst of the wind and tried to sleep.
The Dark Army was camped not far away. That was what she’d heard them speaking of in the town. The Dark Brothers. She thought she had some of the skills required to be a mercenary. She didn't know if they would let a woman like her join, but if they did, she would become one of them, she vowed.
In the morning, the weather had turned. It was rainy and cold, the sun hidden by dense, low cloud but still Eve pressed on, huddled in her sodden cloak. She left the stream, walking through winding animal trails and wondering how long it would take to get to the Army where it was currently camped in the east. They were close enough for the townsfolk to be nervous, so it couldn’t be that far away.
She walked well into the day before she dug into the food she had stolen from the Brothers. She only ate a little bit of the bread though, trying to eke it out for as long as possible in case the Brothers had moved on or it took longer to find them.
She came across another stream, this time flowing in an opposite direction. She followed it, hoping it would lead her to something more than trees, copses, and valleys. She’d had no idea the realm was so fucking big!
She spent another night huddled in the wet cloak, cold and shivering and, the next day, the weather got even colder. Her teeth were chattering as she began her journey and, by midday, her reserves were completely depleted.
She sat and ate more than she had the day before, hunger, cold, and exhaustion gnawing at her desire to continue, but she had to keep moving or she would die out here. She had to find the Army. It was only a matter of time.
As soon as she felt that her legs could carry her once more, she stood up and began to walk.
It wasn’t until the late afternoon that she finally came upon a small camp. Staying out of sight in the trees, she watched and waited, grinning when she saw three men dressed in black coming out of a large tent. This was but a small party, but the rest of the Army had to be close. It just had to be.
She was hungry and tired, but she circumvented the camp and continued on. Just as the sky was beginning to darken, she was rewarded by the twinkling of a hundred or so small fires in the valley below her. She’d found them! Feeling as if a weight had been lifted from her, she began to make her way down over the rough terrain of the hill.
At the bottom, she found that she was practically in the Camp already. She walked through an outer perimeter of small, patched tents where dangerous-looking people who reminded her of where she’d come from loitered in groups by tiny fires that gave out little light and even less heat. Her lips turned up in grim determination. Eve felt almost at home, sad as that was.
She reached a sort-of boundary. Everything past it was uniform and looked well-maintained. A guard stopped her as she began to cross over the invisible line, and she looked him in the eye.
‘I wish to join the Brothers,’ she said.
The soldier had the audacity to laugh in her face.
‘She wants to join the Brothers,’ he mocked, looking at her stature and clearly finding her wanting. He clucked her under the chin. ‘You’d do better in the pleasure tents, sweet.’
She batted his hand away with a growl. ‘I'll do whatever I need to,’ she said, ‘but I belong with the Brothers as one of them.’
‘If you want to prove yourself, you do it in the rings, but you have to win your first fight.’
She grinned darkly. Now that was something she could do.
He nodded to another soldier close by.
‘Take her there.’
Eve found herself following one of the other guards through the Camp; the real Camp. She could hear the sounds of fighting, a balm on her soul – also sad, but true.
They arrived at their destination, and she took in the scenes around her. All the rings were occupied with men, bloody and sweating. Some had weapons and others fought with their bare hands. In the ring closest to her, she found a man digging out another's eye, but she wasn’t shocked nor sickened. She was no stranger to this world. For the first time since leaving her town, Eve was able to relax. This was a place she understood. The soldier nodded.
‘In that tent there. You must win the first fight, or you’ll be the Army’s to do with what it will.’
‘What does that mean?’ Eve asked.
‘It means death for a man.’ He looked her over. ‘But for you, the soldier’s pleasure tents probably. I’ll look forward to seeing you there,’ he said with a wink and then he was gone.
Eve showed no emotion as she walked towards the tent, ducking inside and feeling for the first time that something in her life was going her way.
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