Brother of the Dragon Read Online Free Page B

shouted. “Gunsa, bring a hatchet!”
    With that, the girl sprang to her feet and bolted. The ox was between her and the rider, and he was slow to react. She ran for her life, bare feet pounding in the dry grass.
    “Ai, Zan! Another dove!” the raider cried. Two-score throats, all yelping with delight, answered him. The rumble of many hooves filled the night behind her.
    As long as she had room to run, she kept to a straight line. Soon enough the horses would outpace her, and she would use her greater agility to dodge them. That was her plan, anyway. There was no cover in the tall grass, just open ground in all directions. Tonight the endless plain seemed more endless than usual.
    She caught sight of raiders to her left and right, cantering along, just keeping pace with her. They were at least twenty paces away. A single glance over her shoulder revealed ten riders trotting behind her in very leisurely fashion. Puzzled, she slowed a bit. The raiders reined in. Her puzzlement grew. Why didn’t they try to take her?
    All of a sudden there was a loud neigh, and a large horse reared up in front of her. It was so close its forelegs struck her in the ribs, sending her sprawling. Where had he come from? She could have sworn the way ahead was clear.
    She rolled to her knees, wincing from the horse’s kick. The animal towered over her, and she felt a cold flint spear tip, already wet with blood, pressed against her throat. Bracing herself for death, she closed her eyes.
    The point moved away. A stern voice commanded, “Stand up.”
    She opened her eyes and got a good look at the rider for the first time. He was dressed in a cloak the same dark gray color as his horse. No wonder he’d been hard to see. The rider’s head was covered by a grotesque hood, made from the skull of some horned beast and embellished with leather flaps and paint. To a more ignorant victim, he could have been taken for a spirit.
    The girl rose, clutching her bruised ribs. The rest of the raiders arrived, forming a ring around her and the hooded man.
    “Kill her, and let’s be off,” said one of the new arrivals, barely giving her dirty face a glance. There was silence as the hooded man continued to regard her.
    “What’re you waiting for, Zan? Let’s —” the fellow began again.
    With no word of warning, her hooded captor swung his spear in a wide arc, catching the protesting raider on the jaw. His hands flew up, and the man toppled backward off his mount. No one else said a word or moved to help.
    The hooded man called Zan dismounted. He took a length of rawhide rope from his belt and said to the girl, “Put out your hands.” When she did not comply, he barked, “This can go around your hands or your neck!”
    Reluctantly she presented her wrists. He cinched the hide strap around them tightly.
    “What’s your name?” he asked.
    “Beramun, daughter of —” She couldn’t finish and couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in her dark eyes. Her parents were dead. All her kin were dead.
    “You’re mine now, Beramun,” the man said, heedless of her suffering. He remounted, keeping the end of the hide rope in his left hand. “Try to run away, and I’ll have you hamstrung.”
    He snapped more orders to his men, sending half back to the camp to butcher the fallen animals. He led Beramun and the remainder of his hand across the dark plain to a dry ravine. There, a few bored-looking raiders guarded a collection of terrified captives kneeling in the dirt, hands tied like Beramun’s. At Zan’s command, the prisoners stood. Beramun’s rope was secured to the others.
    After a satisfied survey of the prisoners, Zan said, “Back to Almurk. We’ve meat for us and captives for the Master.”
    The prisoners were driven forward in a stumbling, weeping mass. More riders joined the loose column. Beramun, who was good with numbers, counted three times twenty warriors on horseback. In addition to their twenty-seven captives, the raiders had taken