The Iron Wolves by Andy Remic Read Free Book Online Page B

“You pale white-skins are forbidden from these valleys! You should know this! You will pay a toll. You will be whipped twenty times, then share my bed furs tonight. Then, if you are lucky, we will allow you to live.”
    “Share your bed furs?” said the woman, and released a peal of laughter so confident, so full of genuine humour that Tuboda checked the hilltops once more with growing agitation and placed his hand on the hilt of his curved sword. He kicked his horse forward, but the beast lowered its head, snorted and refused to move.
    The woman looked him in the eye and said, her voice low but carrying to the front of the column, “You talk big, for such a little man. Now, I have a deal for you. You will pay my toll if you wish to pass, Benkai Tal of the Horsenail tribe. These are no longer your lands. These are my lands. I am Orlana.”
    “Ha! Never heard of you, bitch.” He kicked himself from the saddle, hitting the dirt, and strode forward, unsheathing his sword smoothly with eyes glittering. Still the smile did not falter from this woman’s haughty, arrogant, pale white face. Benkai glanced again for hidden archers, but could see nothing. He scowled. This woman’s confidence started to worm past Benkai’s guard, to chip away at his supreme assuredness. He stopped, and lifted his sword so the tip of the wide curved blade was only an inch from Orlana’s throat. “You not look so confident now, pale face.”
    “Really?” said Orlana, and slapped away the blade.
    Benkai felt his hold on the situation slipping; he was being observed by all his men, and probably by some of the families far behind. This woman was mocking him, toying with him, and there was only one course of action open.
    Benkai drew back the blade and stabbed out; his intention was not to kill, but to wound her, to make her feel pain, to suffer, to drop her to her knees – and that would be the beginning of her torment, Benkai Tal would see to that. As he stabbed, he had visions of hot coals in her eyes, a back flayed of all skin, her feet with all ten toes cut free as she begged and squirmed. Yes. She would scream and moan long into the night hours…
    Orlana’s hand lifted, caught the blade, which was incredible because the razor-edge should have removed all her fingers, and she tugged it from Benkai’s grip like a warrior taking a stick from a child. She tossed the sword carelessly away, stepped swiftly forward and struck Benkai with the edge of her hand, a vicious chop that cracked and went through his neck. The head rolled away, looking surprised, and the body collapsed in a heap, pumping blood.
    Orlana looked up, and the other warriors sat on their mounts, faces grim, hands on sword hilts. This, they had not expected.
    Orlana knelt, and her bloody fingers touched the dry dust, and she said, “It is here, in the land, in the bedrock, in the soil, in the dust; it exists there, has always been there. It comes from the mountains and rivers, the trees and rocks; it rides through volcanic eruptions, it surges through the great cracks in the plates of the world.” She looked up then, and the tribesmen were watching her intently, unsure what to do. “Tuboda,” she said.
    Tuboda jerked as if stung, then slowly lifted his head to meet her gaze. His mouth was dry. This was turning into a bad day.
    “Yes, witch?”
    “Do you serve me, Tuboda?”
    Tuboda was painfully aware of his dead chief lying just feet away, and of the two hundred swords at his back. Sweat beaded his forehead and he licked salt-rimmed lips. But some primal intuition spoke to him through the earth, through the great rocks around him, and through his connection to that woman’s eyes. This was no mortal. This Orlana was… something special .
    He dismounted and approached her, more to put distance between himself and the swords at his back. He drew his own weapon, and for a moment the gathered tribesmen were unsure what path Tuboda would take. But then he thrust the weapon