The Witch and the Dragon - Beta

Chapter Seven

"Come on, get up." A heavy boot jabbed her in the side. Alannah groaned and turned over. "Get up, I said. You slaves need to be moving. Now." Grumbling, she opened her eyes. The sun was rising, casting shafts of light through the trees. Oh, right. She was a slave. Wonderful.

She stood up, groaning again as her back clicked. The other slaves were awake and alert, save for Rose, who seemed sleepier than she did. Alannah grabbed her elbow and helped her upright. "Come on," she said. "Best fall in line."

The remaining two slavers cast nervous glances at the west, in the direction of the dragon's cave. But they still whipped the slaves into a line and got them moving again. They'd all been retied to the rope this morning in a different order – a way to keep their spirits down, perhaps – and now Rose was next to her in the procession. Alannah wondered if that had been an accident or if the girl had arranged to be there.

As the sun moved on across the sky, the slavers' anxious looks increased. Alannah watched them curiously. The dragon must be proving harder to kill than they thought.

A few more hours and they stopped again for a breather. They hadn't crossed a stream yet and only the slavers carried water skins on them. She'd have to wait until they reached a river before she tried to escape.

Rose knelt gracefully beside her, tucking her skirt around her ankles. "How did you get here?" Alannah asked her curiously. "You're clearly noble-born. How did they capture you?"

Rose's pretty mouth turned down at the corners. "My entourage and I set out from Dorithia a few days ago," she said. "My father arranged for me to marry Arion, so I and a few guards were on our way to Fellmere."

"Arion," repeated Alannah. "You mean King Arion? Our king?"

"That's right. I'm supposed to marry him."

"Which would make you a real princess."

"Father sent an army of guards with me," continued Rose. "But they were surprised on the crossing by these bandits. My carriage, most of the soldiers and the horses were all driven into the river. The slavers," she said, sending a glare at the two remaining, "killed the others."

"Do they know who you are?"

Rose nodded miserably. "Oh yes. They seem to think they'll get a lot of gold for me."

"But - if you don't arrive at the palace, the king will assume Dorithia broke its word and didn't send you." Alannah bit her lip. "He'll think it's a declaration of war."

"But my father did agree, he sent me to maintain peace."

"If your guards vanished into the river," said Alannah, "then they would have no proof that you'd left the kingdom." The king had numerous enemies in his own court who wanted to see him fail before he produced an heir. It wouldn't be difficult for them to sow discord and convince the kingdom of Dorithia's betrayal.

Rose straightened her shoulders. "My father would not accept such an attack on his honour."

"And we'd have war." Dorithia's infantry far surpassed their own. Teana was covered in dense forest and tall mountain ranges and had little space for the kind of training an army of soldiers required. Its strength lay in its navy, not its infantry. Dorithia would invade, send scores of men over the river and into Teana with no thought for the villages that sat in its path. Villages like her own. "You need to get to the capitol," she told Rose, "before the king realises you're missing."

"Enough talking," shouted a slaver. They were separating, hauling the slaves up, one by one. "Get going, come on. Only a few more hours and you'll be going home with your new masters, safe and sound." He snickered.

Rose stood. She looked pale and Alannah eyed her warily. "You're not going to faint, are you?" she asked. "Because I'm not carrying you."

The girl scowled at her. "Charming. Are you married?" Her gaze dropped to Alannah's hands, which were bare save for the coil of white thread. "No, I thought not."

Alannah bristled and opened her mouth to cut this princess down.Then something bright and silver burst out of the trees with a ringing battle cry. "What on earth...?"

The slavers startled. One of them unsheathed his sword, but he looked as bewildered as Alannah felt.The silver thing smashed into him and they both crashed to the ground.

Alannah squinted past the reflection of the sun. The silver was armour; full body plate stuff that barely let a chink of skin through. It was a knight – a sweltering one, given all that metal.

The knight rolled to his feet like an overfed dog and bared his own sword. Giving another warbling battle cry, he lumbered forward, tripped over his own feet and plummeted head first to the ground, where he lay for a moment, motionless.

"Well, that was disappointing," she murmured.

"Do you think he's all right?" asked Rose, who, bless her dainty princess heart, was staring at the knight in some concern.

"If he is, it won't last long."

The slavers converged on the knight and Alannah winced. They stripped him of his armour and beat him, until the man was left with only a breastplate and a single pauldron. They hauled him to his feet. The man had a crop of tight curls and a dimple in his chin.

"Hello, William," she said, as they tied him to the rope next to her. "Better late than never."