4

Wakefulness came back over Kel in the form of a splitting headache. Her eyelids felt too heavy to open. She groaned.

She appeared to be on a horse. That was odd, she pondered a little deliriously, her head flopping about on a limp neck. It didn't have Peachblossom's gait, but the back was too broad to be Hoshi…

Hoshi.

Memories of the fight earlier swamped her for a moment. Her mare's death. Jump, wounded at her feet. Tobe held by Scanrans. And then nothing but pain and blackness.

The pain was still there, threatening to plunge her back into full unconsciousness any second. Breathing was a little difficult: for some reason she could only suck air in through her nose. There was some sort of material covering her mouth.

Kel tried to raise her hands to pull the material away, but found she couldn't.

With great effort, Kel finally managed to force her eyes open.

As her vision cleared, she looked down at her hands. They were tied together with rope in front of her and the free end was wrapped tightly around the saddle horn of the horse she was sitting on.

Her heart starting to thump alarmingly, Kel leant to look down at her feet in the stirrups, the movement making her head swim. Rope had been looped around each ankle, tethering them to the stirrup straps.

Someone had made sure she was not about to go anywhere.

Now fully awake, as if someone had poured ice water over her head, Kel stared about her. Scanrans rode all around and the lead rope of the horse she was riding was being held by one whose dirty blonde hair fell past his shoulders in dreadlocks. A couple of large wolfhounds trotted near him.

Suddenly, she remembered what had happened and where they were taking her.

Into Scanra. To Maggur.

For a moment Kel felt nothing but a blind panic. She began to struggle against her bindings, but the rope just dug deeper into her wrists. Her frustrated curses were muffled by the gag.

The dreadlocked man turned on his horse at the noise and grinned.

"Ah…Lady Knight. You're back in the land of the living I see."

Kel fell still, breathing heavily. She glared at him, hazel eyes glittering with rage.

He only continued to smile that smarmy smile. Kel wanted nothing more than to wipe it off his scraggily bearded face.

"We're well on our journey. You've been out for a while now. Mannet knows just the right place to hit a person, don't you Mannet?" Dreadlocks nodded at a burly Scanran to Kel's left who smirked and winked at her.

Dreadlocks turned back to Kel, his grin widening. "It'll take us two days to get to Castle Rathhausak…although you already know that don't you? We'll ride until sunset and then make camp for the night. Get yourself nice and comfortable, Lady." And with that he turned forward again.

Comfortable! Kel felt anything but. Nausea rose in her throat, but she fought it back down. She called on every inch of her Yamani training to find some semblance of calm. It was harder to do than ever before.

Where were her friends? What had happened to them all? Had they survived?

A cheeping sound drew her eyes down to the horse's neck. Nari, the leader of the sparrow flock perched there, her small eyes worried as she considered Kel's predicament. As suddenly as she was there, however, the bird took off and flew into the distance. Several other sparrows appeared from the trees and followed.

Kel had been unable to give the sparrow any instructions, nor signal to her with hand gestures. She only hoped that Nari was truly clever enough to return to New Hope or Steadfast and get help.

With nothing else to do, Kel shut her eyes and started to pray.