Escape from Cabriz

Zachary yelled something, and Kristin’s horse took off at a breakneck pace with no urging from her. She very nearly fell off, and in her mind she saw herself rolling end over end down the slope, backpack and all.

They gained a grassy plateau, with trees, and once he was certain Kristin was safe Zachary leaped off his horse and crept back to the edge of the slope with a formidable pistol grasped in one hand.

“Who are they?” Kristin asked, crawling up beside him as she’d seen soldiers and cowboys do in movies.

Zachary’s eyes were narrowed as he surveyed the apparently empty countryside. “Rebels,” he speculated with a shrug of one shoulder, “or maybe bandits.”

Kristin shivered. “You mean we have to worry about crooks, besides rebels and Jascha’s soldiers?”

“Stay back,” he growled, still scanning the wooded area at the base of the steep incline they’d just climbed.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Excuse me,” was the brusque response as he checked the chamber of the pistol and then produced more bullets from his jacket pocket and thrust them into place with a practiced thumb, “but I’m a little busy at the moment. Maybe we could chat later.”

Kristin was about to accuse him of being ridiculous when a second bullet struck the ground not half a dozen feet from where they lay. She scooted closer to Zachary. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

“Smart girl,” Zachary answered, drawing a bead on something at the edge of the woods. “The good news is, these guys are either lousy shots or they don’t want to hit us. We were vulnerable as ducks in a rain barrel while we were climbing the hillside.”

Just as Kristin was about to comment, he squeezed the trigger, and the explosion seemed deafening. She covered her ears with both hands and moved closer still to Zachary’s side. “Did you hit anything?” she asked, peering toward the trees.

“Probably not. I just want them to know we’re prepared to fight back—sometimes that’s enough.”

“Don’t you have binoculars or something?” Kristin queried, watching Zachary squint. She wished she had her camera.

“That would be a great idea, princess,” he answered with a long-suffering sigh. “Then they could pinpoint us by the reflection off the glass and blow us to little quivering pieces.”

Kristin shuddered. “You don’t need to be so graphic.”

“Start moving backward, toward the horses,” Zachary ordered. “And don’t stick that sweet little rear end of yours up in the air. You’re liable to get it shot off if you do.”

She obeyed, but only because it was a matter of life and death. “I suppose this means we can’t have a fire at lunchtime,” she lamented as she wriggled along the ground like an earthworm in reverse.

“It means we may not live till lunchtime,” Zachary replied.

When they were a good thirty feet away from the edge, he rose to a crouching position, one hand splayed on Kristin’s back to keep her down. When no shots were fired, he released her.

“Stay as low as you can until you get to the trees,” he said.

Kristin was trembling, but she did as she was told. Her clothes were covered with dirt now, and her hair was all atangle around her face. She thought with yearning of her makeup case, and her toothbrush, and a big bathtub filled with steaming, scented water.

Only moments had passed when they mounted their skittish horses, but they seemed like hours to Kristin.

“Ride ahead,” Zachary told her.

She knew he was protecting her, but it was little comfort. Surely there were easier, safer ways out of the country. “Are they gone?” she asked. “The people who were shooting at us, I mean?”

“Probably,” Zachary answered. But he was obviously on the alert.

At noon they stopped by a stream to water the horses and rest. Zachary produced two more packets of food, this time little pieces of dried meat.

Kristin sat on a log and gobbled down her share, too hungry to complain. “Do they have McDonald’s in Rhaos?” she asked as Zachary, having finished his meal, rummaged through his backpack.

He chucked. “Not yet,” he answered. “But I’m sure they’re working on it.” To her wonder and delight he brought out a new toothbrush, still in its box, and a little travel-size tube of toothpaste.

Kristin accepted them eagerly. “I don’t suppose you have soap?” she asked in a hopeful voice, kneeling by the clean stream, taking the brush from its package and dipping the bristles in the water.

He grinned. “It just so happens that I do. But you won’t need it until later.”

Kristin was too busy brushing her teeth to comment. It felt glorious to have her mouth clean and fresh again. When she was finished, she put the toothbrush carefully back into its box and tucked it, along with the tube of paste, into the pocket of her jacket.

“Do you think those guys are still following us?” she asked.

Zachary shrugged. “I don’t know. They may have decided we weren’t worth the trouble.”

“So they probably weren’t soldiers.”

He shook his head. “No. Soldiers would have surrounded us—probably without firing a shot.”

Kristin shook off the horrifying thought. “How do you know they’re not going to do that, in an hour, or this afternoon, or tomorrow?”

“I don’t,” was the blunt reply.

When the horses had rested, eaten a little of the lush grass growing along the stream bank and had their fill of water, Zachary helped Kristin back into the saddle and they set out again. The two of them rode side by side, keeping to the edges of meadows and clearings. Thankfully, they didn’t encounter another hillside, but Kristin knew it was only a matter of time.

“I think it’s remarkable,” she said once in an effort to start some kind of civil interchange with Zachary, “that this part of the country is forested, while the southern section is practically all jungle.”

“It’s a weird place,” Zachary allowed, not so much as glancing in her direction. His eyes moved constantly in this direction and that, like those of a Secret Service agent protecting a high government official.

Not that Kristin thought he had any particular regard for her. He was just doing his job, that was all.

Near nightfall they came to a little hut nestled into the crook of a canyon. The place looked uninhabited, but there was wood piled along one tilting outside wall, and a crooked chimney jutted from the warped roof.

“How did you know about this place?” Kristin asked, getting down from the horse on her own even though she nearly stumbled under the weight of the backpack while doing it.

With a self-confident grin, Zachary unfastened her pack and lifted it away, setting her free. He was standing close, and Kristin felt as though her insides had suddenly been magnetized to his. Her mind gave the command to retreat, but her legs didn’t move. She simply stood there, looking up at Zachary and remembering all the times he’d turned her inside out, whether in bed or elsewhere.

He removed his own pack and tossed it aside, his wicked hazel eyes never leaving her face. There was an insolent confidence in his expression but, for the life of her, Kristin could neither move nor speak to thwart him. The old feelings had all come back in force, and it was as though no time at all had passed, as though no wounds had been dealt.

She knew that if he took her then and there, she wouldn’t have the strength to object.

It seemed the entire world had shifted to slow motion, with only Kristin’s rebellious heart beating a speedy rhythm. Zachary’s hands cupped the sides of her face, his thumbs moving gently over her skin. Then he lifted her chin.

She saw his mouth descending toward hers and gave a little whimper, but that was all the protest she could manage. Perhaps, she thought wildly, it had not been a protest at all, but eager submission.

Every subtle injury he’d done her was healed in those moments, at least temporarily, and Kristin would have given her soul to be part of him again.

Everything within Kristin focused on the sensation of his lips touching hers. She felt as if she were standing in a mud puddle, gripping an electric fence with both hands.