She rolled away and managed to get up onto her knees, and saw the milling crowd of riders on horseback and dogs surrounding her. Another pair of hooves kicked close to her, and she ducked back, falling against the legs of another horse.
Someone laughed, a cruel sound, as Kayla made a wild dash to get past one of the horses. Something tripped her and she fell again, landing hard.
"Enough." The woman's voice was quiet, but loud enough to be heard above the sounds of the horses and the snarling dogs.
Kayla got up slowly as a single rider moved to face her. She couldn't see much of the woman, just a glint of bright eyes, some kind of metal visible beneath her swirling long cloak. Her horse stamped angrily as it moved toward Kayla at its rider's urging, one slow step at a time.
The woman spoke again. "Well, well, what do we have here?" Now that she was closer, Kayla could see that she wore metal armor under the cloak, the bright steel reflecting the moonlight. The woman's face was as emotionless and as finely chiseled as glass. She stared at Kayla, who could now see the tips of pointed ears beneath the hood of the woman's cloak.
They're elves, they're all elves. . . .
This can't be real, it can't be happening to me!
The other riders moved in, surrounding Kayla with stomping horses, the huge hounds circling her. The riders all wore silver and leather armor, which jangled with their laughter as they closed in around her. And in their faces, she saw hatred and cruel pleasure, malevolent smiles on their fine features, moonlight reflected in a dozen pairs of eyes, ice blue and green, pale violet and silver. None of those eyes looked even remotely friendly.
"Is it human?" a man's voice asked.
"It has magic!" another voice crowed exultantly.
"Can we kill it now?" a third voice asked, dry and dusty as death.
"I want to wake up now," Kayla said to no one in particular. "This is an awful nightmare, and I really want to wake up now."
She waited to see if anything would happen. The riders watched her in silence, the horses shifting and making odd snuffling sounds.
"It's only a human child," the woman said at last. "A little human girlchild with some magic. Nothing more than that."
Maybe they'll be nice to me because I'm a kid? Kayla thought hopefully.
"Tie it up and bring it along," the woman said.
Kayla was more exhausted than she'd thought was possible. It felt as though she'd been running behind the horses for hours, with the sweat dripping down her forehead and into her eyes. With her hands tied and the rope fastened to the saddle of the woman in the silver metal armor, there was no way she could even wipe her face.
I'm sure I'm going to wake up any second now, she thought, feeling the burning pain in her legs getting worse by the minute. Any second now, I'll wake up and be somewhere else . . . any second now . . .
The moon was higher now, illuminating the entire forest with silvery light, and it was by that moonlight that Kayla first saw the castle, rising from the hill like something out of legend. Tall spires of gray stone arched upward, covered with ivy and hung with tattered cloth banners. Maybe once it had been beautiful, but now it looked as dead as the surrounding forest, dead and decaying.
There was no sign of life as they rode slowly over a creaking wooden bridge through the castle gates. She had to walk carefully to keep from falling over the pieces of wood and stone lying on the ground. The group of riders stopped in the open courtyard.
"I must change into court clothes before I go before Queen Lilith," the woman in armor said, dismounting from her horse and taking the rope that held Kayla's hands. "Come with me, girl," she said, tugging at the rope.
"Hey, I'm not a dog on a leash, lady!" Kayla snapped.
She saw the smile that drifted across the woman's face beneath her cloak hood. "No, you are not," she agreed, and with a deft movement, drew the knife at her belt. Kayla flinched back, but the woman only cut the rope. Kayla rubbed at her sore wrists, which were red and raw from the chafing of the rope. Without even thinking about it, she let the magic simmering within her rise to the surface, sparks of pale blue flickering over her skin. The abrasions and pain disappeared a moment later.
"A healer!" someone murmured close to her, and the words were repeated by the others, gathering close around her. One of them reached for Kayla's hand with grasping long fingers, a broad-shouldered man wearing dark leathers and, oddly enough, a bright red cap on his head. She stepped back, not liking the look in his eyes.
"Don't touch her," the woman said. "She's mine, not any of yours. Unless you wish to fight me for her?"
The elf wearing the red cap backed away a step.
"I thought not." The woman pulled the hood of her cloak away from her face, staring at Kayla with an odd look in her green eyes. Without the hood, she looked much younger than Kayla had thought, short sandy-colored hair tousled around the fine features of her face and those long, pointed ears.<T>