Vevie heard the falling shower of rain first and opened her eyes, wondering why she didn't feel more wet and miserable. Instead, she found that she was laying beside a crackling fire beneath the shelter of a big overhanging rock. It was a good thing there wasn't much of a wind or the wind would drive the rain into their shallow shelter.
How had she gotten here?
Last she remembered, they had stopped for morning tea. Had she fainted or was Juta feeding her sleeping herbs? Life as a royal had made her suspicious of everyone and everything, but somehow she trusted Juta. Her gut had been wrong before though, so it was better to err on the side of caution.
Squelching, running feet came toward her and the gruff voices and accents of the local area were heard through the rain. Only one voice with a different accent stood out from the group.
"Hey look here," a man in thin leather stepped into the dry ground in the shelter, warming his hands by the fire, followed by four others. "We've got a shelter and fire already."
Vevie lifted her head and the world spun around her. Gritting her teeth, she fumbled about for the knife Juta had given her and struggled to raise herself onto her elbow despite the vertigo.
"And entertainment," said one of the men, eyeing Vevie. He had a distinctly different accent from the other four men. It's accent was more familiar. More like an accent from one of the south-western nations on the continent, near Velor.
"Not interested," the tribesmen snorted. "We've got wives at home. No need to play with another."
"Sick, by the looks of things," a tribesman with a feather in his hair sniffed. "Leave her alone. She'll be unhappy enough that she has to share her food with us," he said, rummaging in her bag and pulling out the wrapped cheese with delight. "We'll have a good meal."
"Leaving a defenceless woman is wasted. These types of opportunities are hard to come by," the foreigner said, pulling up his trousers and tugging at his dirty orange shirt. He squatted beside Vevie and grabbed her face, making her nearly squeal in pain. She wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much that hurt.
"You go ahead," the tribesmen snorted. "We'll watch."
"You lot scared of your wives or something?" the foreigner sneered, flipping the open the bedroll and seeing how Vevie was clutching her knife. He laughed. "The woman's got a knife."
"What are you going to to with that, sweetheart?" he sneered, catching her wrist when she raised it. His other hand hovered over her breasts and Vevie swallowed a wave of nausea. "Looks like someone else has been having fun with you. Why don't you share and let me in too?"
Where in the world was Juta? She didn't like to think she needed him, but she did. If she wasn't so dizzy, she'd have already killed this man for looking at her wrong.
"I'm going to kill you if you touch me," Vevie rasped and exploded into action, taking the man by surprise. The problem was that she was at a disadvantage from a lying position and the dizziness put her balance off.
"Whoa," the foreigner knocked her back with a heavy blow, but that didn't stop her. He grappled with her and yelped when she managed to cut him. "Hey guys, a little help here?"
"The little fox has moves," the tribesmen smiled. "You want a woman, you conquer her yourself."
"Oi, who was it that helped you plan and destroy the Bearings Tribe?"
"Fine. Fine," the tribesmen grumbled, making their way over.
Vevie panted and dropped the knife from her captured arm to her free one and swept upward. Her head swam, but she struck out, going by feel and sound. There was a roar of pain and she was thrown aside. Blood sprayed in her face.
Vevie stayed where she fell, not having the breath or ability at the moment. Her vision blurred and her body cried and screamed at the moves she had forced it to do. The pain momentarily paralysed her. All she could do was watch.
***
Pustakawan heard the gruff voices coming from where he had set up camp and left Vevie. Racing through the rain, he was just in time to see Vevie thrust herself up from the ground and slice a man deeply in the arm. Blood spurted from the wound from where she must have struck an artery and the man roared, throwing her to one side with his good arm. His friends rushed over to help him.
Narrowing his eyes, Juta pulled out his sword and stepped out of the rain. With a few swift moves, he pulled the men away from Vevie and killed them with a thrust to the heart or a slice to the throat. Vevie panted and watched. Her eyes told him of several emotions. Relief, shame and frustration.
The last man - the one whose arm she had cut reached out for her with a leer, seeming to have not noticed that all his companions were dead in his pain and rage. He had wrapped the end of his shirt around his cut forearm when Pustakawan caught him by the hair and dragged him away, slipping a blade through his ribs and into his heart.
By the time Pustakawan had dragged all the bodies aside and cleaned up the camp a bit better, he noticed that Vevie's eyes had closed and she hadn't moved from where she'd fallen. Cleaning the knife she had dropped, he scowled at the blood on his bedroll. That was going to be troublesome to wash.
Pustakawan carved a thick tree branch end to have a wider and sharper end so that he would be able to use it more like a spade. He used some leafy branches to sweep the sandy ground to try and clear away some of the dirt and repositioned Vevie, leaving her food and water within reach in case she woke up again.
Then he stomped out to bury the men in the rain. Somewhere away from camp. It was going to take a while. As if he didn't already have enough work to do. He was concerned at Vevie's weakness and fainting. He might have to check her wounds more thoroughly. It would be bad if she had an infection. Maybe there were internal injuries too.
The problem was, was she going to let him look?