Outlaw by Ted Dekker Read Free Book Online

voices whispering in my mind. The ones that asked why, if the man had been here long enough to learn the language, he was still captive in this pit. The ones that wondered if these gods would treat a woman as kindly as they had treated a man.
    I tried to rouse the man’s attention again. And yet again. It was pointless. Maybe his voice had been a hallucination after all.
      
    THEY came for me several hours later and woke me from a heavy sleep full of indecipherable dreams. Two men pulled me from my hole, then hefted me over one of their shoulders. The realization that they were taking me away from that place of safety near the man who spoke English jolted my mind. I made a pathetic protest into my gag and tried to kick, but I was nothing but a squirming pig in their grasp.
    It was dark outside, and a chorus of insects announced my passing. Bare feet slapped at the earth as I bounced over my carrier’s shoulder. No rain—that was new. Night had always seemed to bring rain.
    Even then my mind was beginning to register perceived facts about my new life. Such as that I was a pig. That it rained most nights. That the man’s shoulder under my waist was powerful and his stride strong under my weight.
    We must have traveled a mile before the man ducked through a doorway and set me in a sitting position on a hard floor. Soft voices were exchanged, and the men who had brought me left.
    A fire crackled. The air was hot, but a chill tickled my flesh with anticipation—of what, I could not know.
    When I didn’t think I could hold still in that silence for a moment longer, the bag was lifted off my head and I found myself staring up at a man I immediately recognized by the long scar on his left side: the tall leader on whom my eyes had first fallen in the ocean fog. His skin looked even blacker by the dancing flames. The fire pit was at the center of a round hut with a low, charred ceiling. His dark eyes studied me, still emotionless.
    He was dressed more stately and his skin glistened clean now. But when I say dressed, I mean only as the gods can dress, naked except for what could be called jewelry. Thatched golden arm- and thigh bands. A yellow-and-red collar nearly an inch wide wound around his neck. Two white bone hoops through his earlobes. No longer covered by the furry headdress, his hair was longer than I’d imagined, and wet with some kind of oil. The orange light cast deep shadows between his muscles. I was sure that this man could snap my neck with a simple, quick twist if he was so inclined.
    I found it difficult to breathe in his presence.
    He wasn’t alone. Behind me hands carefully unwound the wide lengths of woven fibers that that had secured me for the last three days. The yellow of my sleeveless blouse had turned brown, and my canvas shoes were gray with mud. My black capris were torn at one knee.
    I sat on a bark floor surrounded by thatched walls lined with no fewer than thirty human skulls.
    I turned my head to see who was behind me. A woman, perhaps in her late teens, knelt at my back. I could not see her face in the shadows.
    Like the man, she wore bone earrings and woven bands around her neck and arms. She was naked except for a lap-lap, flaps of red- and yellow-dyed fabric that hung from a string around her waist.
    Having completed her task, the woman stood up, squared her shoulders, and stepped to one side.
    “ Mitnarru .” She motioned for me to stand.
    I slowly pushed myself to my feet and stared at the woman’s face, struck by her beauty. Her dark cheekbones rose high, brightened by two streaks of a light blue paste or mud that wrapped around her brown eyes and rose like wide, pointed vines on her forehead. Her shoulders and breasts were accentuated by woven bands of blue and yellow.
    Both she and the man were clean despite the environment. From what I could see, other than the hair on their heads, both had either plucked or shaved every strand from their bodies.
    The man nodded at the woman. “ Bo