"Come with us," I said.
"This is my house," he growled, eyes flashing. "Those are my staff. I need to save as many as I can."
I wanted to berate him further for trying to be a hero, but Kai grabbed my arm and started to pull me in the opposite direction. Master turned and ran down the corridor, and I fought Kai to look back until I stumbled and was forced to concentrate on where we were going.
At the end of the corridor, the hallway split, and I had assumed Kai would take the fork which led to the garden. The intruders were inside the house; to me it made sense to get outside and try to sneak around the building. The fork Kai had taken, however, would lead us in a circle to the front door.
"Where are we going?" I hissed, trying to hold him back.
"The grounds were full of guards," he replied, barely slowing his pace. "How many men do you think it must have taken to overpower them? There must be dozens of them outside."
"But they're in the hall!" I protested.
"Now they are. By the time we get there, I'm hoping they will have moved."
A shout echoed along the corridor behind us, and Kai swore in Granthian and pulled me along faster. Glass smashed, and a woman screamed.
"Sasha!" I cried, trying again to halt Kai's mad dash and make him go back. Sasha was the only woman in the house, and I couldn't bear to think of what was happening to her. A sudden flashback from years ago blinded me to my surroundings and a sob rose in my throat.
"Tam, come on! We need to keep moving!"
"We have to help her!" I cried.
"I can't." Kai's eyes were too bright. "There's too many of them. I have to get us out. Please, Tam. Don't fall apart on me now."
I sniffed and nodded, wiping a string of snot from my nose with the back of my hand. Together we ran down the corridor, and I choked down the terror rising within me as the sounds of battle grew closer.
The entrance hall was a mess. The floor was littered with bodies-some in the uniform of the household guard, some wearing that of the Thirskan forces, and others whom I didn't recognise-the marble black and slick with blood. Great sprays of it arced up the walls, and in the far corner a fire blazed where a sconce had been shattered, sending burning oil crashing over an ornamental chest. Men were fighting beyond the flames, their shadows leering at us, thrown across the room by the firelight. Kai grabbed my shoulder and held me back, our mad dash coming to a screeching halt. I looked down into the dead eyes of Shan, and my stomach heaved.
In a trice Kai had me flattened against the wall, his hand covering my mouth urging me to be quiet, although I doubted the fighting men would hear us over the cacophony.
Kai was wild-eyed as he looked around the room, and the reason for his panic soon became apparent. The front door was hanging off its hinges-was that the sound we had heard?-and more men were spilling in all the time, making escape impossible. Behind us, voices echoed along the corridor, getting nearer by the second. We were trapped.
҉҉҉
An angry roar split the air, and the men fighting in the corner suddenly fell back as though attacked by a force of nature.
Master flew after them, wielding his scimitar with deadly precision, cutting them down as though they were toy soldiers. More men piled in behind him, what looked to be the last of the army and the household guards, but for every man they killed, it seemed another two came through the door to take his place. Master looked magnificent: his robes billowing around him as he moved, his sword flashing in the light of the fire, hair waving wildly with every turn of his head. Under different circumstances the sight would have stolen my breath. As it was, my heart was in my mouth.
Master struck down another man with a blow across the neck, and he pinwheeled away, gargling and spraying blood. Another immediately took his place, a bigger man who moved well and attacked hard. They thrust and parried, jostling amongst the other fighters, and my blood pounded as I followed each of Master's movements. He seemed to be getting the upper hand when suddenly another man jumped into the fray, the two of them attacking Master as one.
Kai caught me around the waist as I tried to break cover to help him. I struggled against his grip, but his arm was like iron and the look he gave me would have quelled Master himself.
When I looked back to the bloody scene, Master was lying immobile on the ground.
I screamed then, my worst fears realised and lying before me in a broken heap. The man who had felled Master looked up, a malevolent smirk on his blood-splattered face. Hoisting his weapon, he approached.
Kai grabbed me and turned to run back down the corridor, but the men approaching from that direction had caught up while we'd been distracted and were even then bearing down on us. Kai shoved me against the wall, placing himself between me and them, and ran forward to confront the first of our attackers. His blade flashed, there was a sickening crunch of metal on bone, and the man crumpled, felled before he had even lifted his weapon. More closed in, surrounding us from all sides. I sank to the floor, unable to contain my sobs. Between their legs I could still see Master's fallen body, the brilliant colours of his robes still shining in the light despite the blood and gore which coated everything. I had seen him die, and was about to watch Kai be murdered as well. I was twelve years old again, watching everyone I loved be taken from me.
Kai backed up until he was almost on top of me, the men forming a tight ring, trapping us against the wall. I started rocking, then banging my head against the cold stone, unable to stand the sight of the men advancing, the foul scent of blood, the sound of swords and screams echoing around the hall. I wanted it to be over, wanted to be dead already. They had already as good as killed me.
Kai groped behind him, grabbed my arm, and hauled me up. He was still facing the men surrounding us, his scimitar held in a trembling hand, sweeping from side to side in an effort to keep them back. Risking a glance, he looked at me, tears glittering in the depths of his brilliant green eyes.
"I love you," I said, my voice choked. I couldn't bear for him to die without ever having heard those words.
His expression twisted into something anguished, so much pain on his face I would have given anything to erase it. Then it cleared, something hard and violent taking its place, transforming Kai into a man I didn't recognise. For a second, I was afraid. Then I felt nothing, because he drew back his sword arm and swung.
Pain exploded in my head, and my whole world turned black.
###
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Keep reading: The Soldier, sequel to The Slave
Copyright Kate Aaron 2014
Chapter One
The heavy manacles binding my wrists clinked with every step I took, and it felt like I had taken a million. Around me, men trudged in silence, the jangle of their armour, the swish of leather trousers, their laboured breaths as we waded through the thick desert sand the only sounds breaking the silence of the night. We were all exhausted, ripe with sweat and blood, and I was scared as I had never been before, not even when I'd been captured and first sold into slavery.
The cart carrying the cage bogged down for the hundredth, or maybe thousandth time, and the procession stopped, muttered curses accompanying the distribution of shovels to dig it out. A man kicked the small of my back, and I landed heavily on my knees. "Dig," he ordered, so with my bare hands, I dug.
I risked a glance at the cage's occupants. The men had overrun the compound, looted everything of value, and set the place to burning. They'd dragged the limp bodies of Tamelik and Master out to the cart and locked them in the cage. Tam lay like a broken doll, an ugly gash on his forehead marking the place I had struck him with the hilt of my scimitar. He was still breathing, his chest rising and falling in brisk, shallow movements, and I offered up a prayer to the Great Overlord in the sky that I hadn't harmed him too badly.
It had never been my intention to harm him. When we'd seen Master fall, Tam had become hysterical. The attackers had advanced, and perhaps if I had been only me, I could have fought my way loose, but there was no way I was going to get Tam out as well. He hadn't know what was happening, who was attacking us or why. There I had the advantage over him. Had he not been so scared, perhaps he would have taken note of the dark hair and green eyes of the men descending upon us. Seen how closely they resembled me and realised it was my people who had torn his comfortable life apart.
Or perhaps he had realised. He had been twelve years old when other soldiers, other Granthians, had done the same thing to his family: had stumbled across their nomad tents and slaughtered everyone. Everyone except Tam. And now my people had come again to take away everything and everybody he loved.