Another slapped him across the chest. “That’s no boy!” I didn’t recognize him, either. But I guess I didn’t know everyone in the village.
The men shook to life, some pulling their swords out and pointing them toward me, others jolting awake and staring at me with a look of utter confusion. Their faces, varying in their beauty, all had a degree of allure that stirred my heart. Yet I knew none of the faces. And none were masked. True, most men of that age were unmasked, but to find so many together at once? And they have swords. Like out of made-up tales. This is clearly not real!
“What are you doing here, woman?” demanded the one who had first spoken, the one whose voice I had mistaken for Father’s. There actually was a bit of a resemblance, but the man had just a few different features, a bend to his nose, a sneer to his lips that Father didn’t. The man hadn’t drawn his blade.
There was something off about these men. Before I even realized I wasn’t playing games with a stick blade, I’d pulled Elgar out of its sheath and fixed it readily in their direction. Both of my hands gripped the hilt. They’d come from the direction of the castle. “Who sent you?”
Some of the men burst out laughing, letting their blades fall. A few stuck them into the ground and leaned on them like walking sticks.
The leader took a few paces forward. I backed up uneasily, poking Elgar out in front of me.
The man dodged my awkward thrusts easily and knocked Elgar from my grip with the back of his hand. I cradled the sore spot without thinking, and the man slapped me across the cheek just as he had my wrist, with the back of his hand.
I cried out in shock. It was as if my own father had hit me. But he wouldn’t have. No man would have. I mean, unless their goddesses asked them to, but then why would a woman ever do that?
The rest of the men laughed, and the leader gestured to where Elgar had fallen.
“Pick it up!” he ordered.
One of the men scrambled forward to do as instructed. He handed the blade with two hands to the leader, who picked it up and turned it around in the air, staring at the violet glow. The leader’s brow furrowed and at last he lowered it.
“Take this back to His Lordship.” He thrust it at the man, who nodded and turned back to the pack waiting behind him before disappearing into the woods.
His Lordship? Since when does the lord have a set of speaking servants?
The leader slapped me with the back of his other hand across my other cheek.
I jumped.
“Thief!” he cried. “How dare you walk around with a sword from His Lordship’s castle?”
My tongue caught in my throat. “It’s mine! He gave it to me!” Had he sent these men to get it back? Where had they come from?
But your house is missing, Noll. This can’t be real. I rubbed my sore jaw. But it sure feels real.
The leader laughed, but his smile faded quickly. He grabbed me by the chin, and I winced from the pain of the pressure he exerted, a pain especially sharp in the cheeks that bore his blows. He turned my head back and forth, observing me like Mother often observed a piece of meat in the market.
He gasped. “Your ears! You mutilated your ears!” Despite the strangeness of the situation and the force exerted tightly over my face, my fingers instinctively brushed the tips of my ears. They were the same familiar, unwounded smooth edges as they were always.
I felt more lost now than I had before I entered the secret cavern.
The other men walked forward to join their leader in glaring at me.
“You’re right!” said one, his voice cocky and assured.
“Whatever possessed this one?” said another.
They were puzzled and introspective. A flash of light burned in their eyes and then faded. But it was not the flame I expected to see, just a trick of the moonlight, an echo of a shadow. These men didn’t carry flames in their eyes—and yet here they stood living before me.
The leader was confused, and he was angry. There was something about the way he looked at me, the way Father had always looked so longingly at Mother. Or Jurij at Elfriede. He let my face free and grabbed me tightly by the arm, yanking me forward down the dirt road and toward the village.
“Stop!” I screamed. The leader paused, looking over my head to address his compatriots.
“Let’s go!” he said. “It’s time we show those women exactly what happens when they disobey.”
He pulled me forward. I started struggling, but another of the men appeared at my side and grabbed my free arm, yanking me forward just as forcefully. A third man appeared behind me, and a black cloth flew in front of my face, wrapping tightly across my mouth and digging hard into my teeth and tongue as it was knotted behind me.