Chapter One
Lena whistled softly as she set the wooden pail underneath Elly, the family goat. She petted the goat’s rough flank briefly, and then started massaging her udders, quickly and efficiently, the thick milk frothing into the bucket with a sound like soft rain. As she worked her mind wandered, as it always did, to Von, the woodcutter’s son.
Lena had known Von since they were both just babes. He had been born only six months before she was, and their mothers had been close friends throughout their pregnancies. They remained close friends after giving birth, and so Lena had few childhood memories that didn’t include Von in some way or another. Now, however, she was on the cusp of her fifteenth birthday, and according to custom, she would have one year to find a suitable match for a husband, one that could provide for her a home to keep and food to cook. If she couldn’t find a match for herself, the men of the village would be able to ply her parents with offers, and they would have the final say in who she would marry.
Lena had always known since she was a little girl that she wanted to marry Von. He had always been her hero. When she was only four years old they had been outside playing hide and seek when she had wandered too close to a bee’s nest and had been stung numerous times, badly. Von had heard her screaming, himself only four-soon-to-be-five, and had rushed in and helped her to her feet and almost carried her back to her house. After handing her over to her worried mother, he had gone back out with a torch and burned the bee’s nest even though he ended up getting stung himself in the process, and he had to endure a spanking from his father for ruining the honey.
Von’s mother had died a year later soon after his sixth birthday from the wasting disease. He had been devastated and had fallen into a deep depression. His father had loved his mother dearly and hadn’t known how to be there for the little boy. Lena’s mother had volunteered to let Von stay with them for a while, but he declined and turned to drinking to wash away his despair and from that point Von had become the target for his father’s ever increasing anger. Eventually his sorrow for his mother was buried as more pressing issues, like avoiding his father’s fists during his drunken rages, became his primary focus. Still, Von had never let it come between him and Lena, wouldn’t, in fact, even speak of it to her, merely shrugging off her concern and changing the subject whenever she asked.
When they were ten years old, he had saved her from drowning. They had been swimming in the stream, swollen with melted snow and ice from the peaks, when she had ventured out just a little too far and had gotten caught in the swift moving current. She had been yanked under before she could scream or even knew what was happening. Von must have been watching her, though, because before she could be carried away too far he had been there, grabbing her hand and pulling her from the current, then carrying her back to shore, talking softly to her all the while.
Finally, just last year Lena had wanted to learn to ride a horse, so she had ‘borrowed’ one from Ralf, the draft horse he used to plow his potatoes. She didn’t think he would even notice it missing since he had left the day before to sell some potatoes in the city of Lestin, which was over four days away. Unfortunately, Ralf had met a merchant on the road only a half day away and sold his potatoes for a good profit, so he returned early to find his plow horse gone when he went to put away his cart horse.
Nothing riled the village up more than a thief, so as soon as the villagers heard Ralf yelling, “I’ve been robbed! Someone has stolen my horse!” they all stopped what they were doing and started searching for the missing horse at each other’s houses and fields. Ralf, himself, had found Lena and Von with his horse in a small meadow right outside the village and a short distance in the forest. He had called out to the other villagers until they were all surrounding the two children and the horse. Von’s father, a stout, surly man with arms as thick as the trees he chopped down, asked Von how he had the farmer’s horse. Instead of telling everyone how Lena had taken the horse because she wanted to ride one, he told those gathered that he had wanted to impress her, so he had taken the horse thinking he would have it back before Ralf returned. Many of the villagers had chuckled at this, but not Von’s father. The next time she saw Von he was still healing from a black eye and a split lip.
Lena finished up with the goat, her pail about halfway full of the rich, white milk. She took the pail and walked the short distance to the little hut she shared with her father and mother, still whistling and daydreaming of Von. She was about halfway between the hut and the small barn where the goat and a few chickens were kept when she heard a faint noise coming from within the forest, followed by the unmistakable sound of a girl’s laughter. Curious, but not really concerned, she continued on, until the sound of a deep, rich male’s voice stopped her dead in her tracks. It was Von’s voice; she would know it anywhere.
Lena sat the pail of milk down and walked toward the forest. She couldn’t help wondering why Von was in the forest at this time of day, and who he was with, but the idea of seeing him made her walk faster. She followed a short game trail to the place she and Von called ‘the rock’ due to the large boulder that jutted up from the ground. They had come here many times to play when they were younger, and this was also the place where Von had kissed her for the very first, and up to this point, only, time. Thinking of it brought a smile to her face and she unconsciously touched her lips with her fingers as if she could still feel Von’s warm lips moving against her own.
She rushed around the trunk of a giant oak tree and saw the rock right before her with Von perched atop it with his back to her, sitting beside a girl with long chestnut hair. Just as she was about to call his name she saw him put his arm around the girl’s waist and draw her closer to him. Lena recognized the girl as Cari, the daughter of the herbalist. As she watched, Cari looked up into Von’s eyes and smiled and Von smiled back at her, his hand pulling the strings of her top loose until her small breasts spilled fourth into his waiting hand. He lowered his head to her chest and she threw her head back and closed her eyes, moaning, running one long fingered hand through his hair.
Lena felt like she was paralyzed. She didn’t want to watch this unfold before her, but her brain had yet to catch up to what her heart already knew. While she stood there, her heart and brain warring for supremacy, she watched Von slide the girl’s skirts up to her waist and undo the ties of his breeches. He mounted her then, holding her bottom in his hands to keep her from sliding around on the rough surface of the rock. She saw Cari’s body shudder and heard Von groan, his eyes tightly shut for a brief instant and his head turned toward Lena.
Chapter Two
When Von’s eyes opened they spotted Lena standing there, staring at him, her eyes full of tears of betrayal, but her face devoid of expression. Without a whisper she turned and fled blindly into the forest. She heard him curse as he tried to tug his breeches back up, then he called out her name. Without stopping, she continued on, deeper into the forest, not really paying attention to where she was going, just knowing she needed to get away from Von and Cari and what she had just witnessed. Her mind had shut down and the only thing she could think about was escape.
“Lena!” she heard Von call. “Lena, wait, please, come back,” he shouted after her. She continued on without slowing down. She came upon a well-used game trail and followed it, eventually ending up at a small pond alive with the sound of frogs and crickets. She sat on a fallen log at the edge of the water and stared at her reflection for a long time, trying to come to terms with what she had just witnessed.
She had always thought her and Von would marry. It had never occurred to her that he would be interested in anyone else so the realization had come as a shock. Her heart felt empty and she felt betrayed. Lena knew men of the village sometimes cheated on their wives, the village was too small for everyone not to know everyone’s business, but she had never thought Von would do that to her. They were practically made for each other and had been inseparable since they were toddlers. He had been her hero, her best friend, and her first love all at once.
Realizing she was still crying, Lena wiped her eyes with her sleeve. No matter what had happened her parents were going to be angry with her for leaving the milk sitting out. She took a deep breath and tried to gather her wits about her, pushing the memory of Von and Cari out of her mind. It was too raw to deal with right now.
She was just about to stand up and start back to the village when she heard the faint, but unmistakable sound of horses. There weren’t too many people in the village that had horses, so Lena cautiously backed into the forest until her back was against a tree trunk, her eyes searching for the source of the sound.
Holding her breath, she listened again for the sound to come, and when it did it sounded closer. She peered around the tree trunk, scanning the forest for signs of movement. Finally, after a few minutes, she caught sight of a horse tossing its head against its reins. Once she saw it, her eyes focused and she realized that what she was looking at was more than just one horse and rider, it looked to be about fifty armed men on horseback and they were riding straight for her village.
She crept from her hiding spot and began making her way back toward the village as quietly as she could. When she judged she was far enough away the riders would not be able to spot her, she began to run as fast as her feet could carry her. She had come a long way, further than she had thought while in her foggy state, and it took her over an hour to reach the village. She burst from the woods, screaming, “Raiders!!” as loudly as she could. Without stopping, she made a beeline for her home, racing past other villagers and dodging the ones that tried to slow her.
Just as she reached her hut she heard battle cries erupting from the forest. She spun around just in time to see the raiders charging at the villagers. As she watched, one of the men on horseback ran down a man fleeing with his wife and child. The horseman trampled the child, who looked to be no older than five, and cleaved the wife’s head in with a mace, her teeth flying out of her mouth in a wad of brains and blood. The villager turned and tried to grab the man off of the horse, but he, too, was left dead amidst a growing puddle of his own blood, his head split in two.
Lena ducked into her hut, looking around quickly for her mother and father. They weren’t home. She sprinted back outside and almost ran directly into one of the mounted horsemen. Without thinking, she grabbed the dagger he had strapped to his leg and pulled it free from its sheath and plunged it into his groin. The rider screamed out in pain and leaned over in the saddle, trying to grab Lena’s hair. She dodged to the side and thrust the dagger into the man’s neck.
The man made a strangled gurgling noise before falling sideways out of the saddle. Lena grabbed the reins before the horse could run away and jumped onto its back. She had to find her mother and father, and Von. As hurt as she was she couldn’t leave him here to die without knowing she had tried to help him. She rode the horse behind the huts back towards the center of the village, careful to stay hidden from the raiders.
Just as she approached the square located in the center of the village she spotted Von. He was shouting at the huddled women and children, trying to get them to flee into the forest, but it looked like most were resisting, looking around with large, frightened eyes and screaming for their husbands. Lena rode right up to one woman with two small toddlers in her arms and smacked her sharply across the face.
The woman’s eyes cleared and she stared up at Lena on horseback. “Run and hide in the forest while you still can! Save your children!” Lena yelled at her. The woman looked at the two toddlers in her arms and seemed to just remember they were there. With a brief nod, she turned and ran the short distance to the tree line. She paused briefly and looked back one last time before disappearing into the forest.
Lena galloped the horse around the square, yelling at the frantic women and sometimes striking them to get their attention and urge them to flee. She knew they only had minutes before the raiders were upon them. Most women heeded her message and fled into the forest, but some were past saving, so hysterical they actually ran back towards the raiders, and these Lena had to let go with a heavy heart, knowing she would probably never see them alive again.
She saw Von carrying two children in his arms and another on his back, leading a woman by the hand into the forest. She gazed around the square again, swiftly, but didn’t see anyone. She let out a small sigh, hoping they had saved most of the women and children of the village, and then turned her horse towards Von to follow him. His eyes met hers across the square and she saw his eyes widen and he frantically started shouting and waving his arms at her, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying at this distance. She kicked her horse into a gallop, but before it could gain speed a strong arm grabbed her around her neck and jerked her from the saddle. She was pulled atop another horse and slung across the saddle, knocking the wind out of her.
Lena looked up and saw Von running towards her, but before he made it more than a few yards another raider ran at him, an axe held high above his head. Von dodged away, drawing his hunting dagger from its sheath. Lena struggled to get off the horse, but the rider put a firm hand on her back and held her in place. She twisted her head around and bit him viciously in the leg which earned her a swift kick to the side of her head. She saw stars and felt like she would vomit. Every time the horse’s feet came down she was jarred head to toe and the saddle pommel would dig into her stomach. She looked up one last time to see Von drive his dagger up under the raider’s ribcage into his heart before the world went black and she knew no more.
Chapter Three
Lena woke slowly, her head aching and with a painful throbbing in her back and midsection. She groaned and tried to roll over, but something prevented her. She peeked open one eye and saw she was on a bed, her hands tied to the posts above her head. Her feet were lashed as well. She could only open the one eye, the other having swollen shut from the fierce kick she had received.
She tried to pull herself up to get a better look around, but only managed a few inches. It was enough for her to see down the rest of her body, which was completely naked, and to see that she was in a small, one room hut that contained the bed she was in, a chamber pot, and a small table with a pitcher on it. Seeing the pitcher made her realize how thirsty she was and seeing it so close, yet knowing she couldn’t reach it, made her throat begin to burn.
Ignoring the pain in her throat and wrists, Lena tested the bonds that held her hands. After many minutes of struggling to loosen them, all she had managed to do was work up a sweat and make her wrists raw. She stopped struggling and lay still, closing her one good eye, and tried to think of a way to escape.
Obviously her captors didn’t want to kill her or she would already be dead. Raids didn’t happen all the time, but they were not unheard of and were usually for food or livestock. These raiders, however, had seemed especially vicious. She had never before seen raiders purposely kill women and children, and now that she thought about it, she didn’t see them go after any of the livestock in the village; it had instead seemed like a wonton killing spree. Only once before had a raiding party kidnapped a woman. It had been the cow herder’s daughter, a girl of fourteen years, and her father had traded his finest milk cow to get her back. Lena had been but a child of five or six years at the time, but she remembered the girl had been pregnant when she returned, something they found out after a few months of her being back home. The girl had taken hemlock and killed both herself and her unborn child.
Footsteps sounded outside the hut, interrupting Lena’s thoughts. She quickly closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, pretending to be asleep. She heard the door to the hut open and someone walk inside. It took all of her willpower not to peek, but she kept her eyes firmly shut, hoping the intruder would just go away. She tried not to think about the fact she was lying there naked, but she felt a small blush creeping up into her face and struggled silently to stop it.
She heard a deep, masculine chuckle before she felt a hand roughly grab her breast, pinching the sensitive nipple sharply and forcing her to gasp and open her eye. The man towering over her was tall, well over six feet, and heavily muscled. He had tattoos covering the right half of his face, trailing down his neck, arm, and leg on that side of his body. His left ear, nostril, and nipple were pierced with small pieces of sharpened bone. He was looking down at her body and grinning, his right hand still holding her breast while his left hand rubbed at his crotch.
Lena’s face burned with embarrassment and resentment. She turned her face away from the man so she didn’t have to see him look at her, which only served to make him laugh. He grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him, then crushed her lips to his in a savage kiss. At first Lena tried to keep her mouth firmly shut, but when that didn’t work she settled for biting his lower lip. He jerked back and smacked her across the left side of her face where it was swollen from being kicked. The pain was tremendous and she thought she would pass out again, hoped for it, in fact.
When her vision cleared she saw the man holding a hand to his lip, blood staining his fingers when he brought it away. He sneered at her and looked like he might hit her again, but instead he walked to the little table and picked up the pitcher sitting there and a small cup. He poured water into the cup and drank it down, watching Lena as he did so. “I came to give ye a drink, and maybe t’ have a little fun afore the others got a chance at ye. I’ve never liked sloppy seconds, ye see, but I daresay no man has ever touched ye proper, so maybe your seconds will still be tight enough to make me happy.”
He leered down at her, pouring another cup of water. Instead of drinking it, he poured it out on her belly and breasts, then replaced the cup and pitcher on the table and left the hut, laughing.
Lena looked longingly at the water pooled on her belly, her throat burning more than she had ever thought possible. She had never been this thirsty in all of her life. She arched her back up as much as her bindings would allow and tried to get the water to flow up towards her mouth. Most of it simply ran down her side, but she did manage to get a small mouthful, which did little to slake her thirst and seemed to only make it worse. It did, however, relieve some of the burning in her throat and made it so that her mouth didn’t seem glued together.
With nothing to do but lay tied to the bed, Lena let herself think about her home. She missed her mother and father and hoped they had escaped the raiders. She doubted she would ever know for sure, the chances for her escaping did not seem good, so in her mind she envisioned them emerging from the forest and returning home, probably thinking she had been killed during the raid, or maybe hoping she had escaped into the forest and would return soon. A small tear escaped her swollen eye and trickled down her cheek as she thought of home, and she despaired of ever seeing it again.
Although Lena was a virgin, she knew enough about sex to know what the raiders wanted her for. After they had their fun with her they would probably sell her off to another village or maybe even back to her own village. She thought again of the cow herder’s daughter, wondering if she, too, would prefer death to having a rapist’s child. How could she ever face Von again or look him in the eye knowing she had another man’s child growing within her womb?
Thoughts of Von brought back memories of him with Cari. She had almost forgotten about it with everything that had happened, but now the full brunt of it hit her like a punch to the heart, and tears streamed hot down her face. Von had always been her hero, her true love, and now she realized he didn’t want to be with her but had found somebody else instead. He was probably relieved she had been taken. Now he wouldn’t have to tell her he didn’t want to be with her or feel guilty about it, he wouldn’t have to watch her suffer and pine after him as he tried to start a life with another.
Exhaustion, fear, and heartbreak overtook her, drowning her in depths of despair until sleep finally washed over her, and she gave herself willingly to its dark embrace.
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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 16.08.2015
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