“My head,” he gasps. It is at that moment I remember the wound he got fighting the dragon that morning.
“I’m sorry!” I say, letting his arms go. Before I have time to climb off of him, he sticks his fingers through the loops of my braid and undoes it halfway. And then I am tipping to the side, and the ground is beneath my back, and Golmarr is straddling my waist and pinning my wrists by my ears.
Enzio claps. “Not bad, Sorrowlynn, but I think you need to work on your hand-to-hand combat.”
I glare up at Golmarr and struggle to get my wrists from his hands, but his powerful grip doesn’t loosen. “I thought you said your head was hurt,” I grumble.
“It is, but that wasn’t a good reason for you to stop fighting.” Even in the dark I can see his wide smile and white teeth. “When you fight, you use every available weapon you have to win. I turned your own sympathy against you.” He makes no move to get off me. I stare up into his shadowed eyes and contemplate his words. Gathering every bit of courage I possess, I lift my head and press my lips to his. For a moment his eyes widen and his hands tighten on my wrists, and then his body dips down and presses against mine. He releases his hold on me to lay his forearms flat on the ground on either side of my head. I smile against his mouth and flip him hard and fast, careful to cradle his head in my hand so it doesn’t hit the ground again, and then hop to my feet.
“So, if you used my sympathy against me, what did I use against you?” I ask.
Golmarr sits up and wraps his arms around his knees. Grinning, he answers, “My lascivious, lustful nature, obviously.”
I gasp, and Enzio starts laughing so loudly that the horses look up from their grazing. Golmarr’s laughter joins Enzio’s, and then I can’t help but chuckle. Enzio walks to the horse lord and gives him a hand up. Stepping to me, Golmarr runs his hand through my hair until the braid has come completely undone and my hair is loose around my shoulders.
“You pulled my ribbon out the first time you tugged on my braid, didn’t you? That is the second time you’ve done that today.”
He studies me for a moment and simply says, “It is a shame to leave hair like yours bound all the time.”
“You’re not the one who has to brush it out every morning,” I say.
“I wish I was.” He runs his fingers through my hair again and takes a small step closer.
“Golmarr!” Enzio crouches low and I see the silhouette of the black knife in his hand. “Something has spooked the horses!”
Golmarr slides his sword from its sheath. I throw my hands up in the air and glare at him. “I am disarmed!” I whisper. Hiking my skirt up around my knees, I sprint toward the horses, who have wandered a little ways off.
“Sorrowlynn, wait,” Golmarr whispers, but I ignore him.
The horses have stopped grazing and are both looking in the same direction, their ears facing forward. I grab the belt from my horse’s saddle and swing it around my waist, fumbling with the buckle in the dark. Next, I slide my staff from the leather strap. When I turn back toward Golmarr, I freeze. He and Enzio are gone. It is just me and the horses standing in the tall grass…and whatever has spooked them.
I grip my staff in my clammy hands and slowly start to spin in a circle, trying to get my bearings—trying to find Golmarr and Enzio. The moon has risen, painting the landscape silver, and the only sounds are chirping crickets and the gentle swish of the wind through the waist-high grass. When I have spun all the way around, a black mass is standing in front of me. I lift my staff to attack, but hesitate. For a moment my head fills with confusion as I stare at the outline of a tall, square-shouldered man with long black hair. In the dark he looks just like Golmarr…but Golmarr’s hair is now short.
My staff swings into action and meets steel. I press forward hard, swinging so quickly, with so much adrenaline, that my opponent stumbles backward. I leap forward and thrust the end of my staff into his stomach. He doubles over, and I use that moment to swing my staff toward his head, but his free arm meets my weapon and blocks it.
An arm cinches around my neck, and I feel the prick of a knife against the side of my ribs and the body of a second man pressed firm against my back. I force myself to freeze and my hands begin to tremble on my staff. “A woman?” a deep, rough voice whispers against my hair. “Disarm her.”
The man in front of me tears the staff from my hands and then slides the knife from my belt. Quickly, with featherlight fingers, he runs his hands over my arms and legs and then backs a step away. “This is all she has,” he says, holding up the staff and knife.