Read The Wanderer's Mark: Book Three of Imirillia (The Books of Imirillia 3) for Free Online Page B

horse you gave Eleanor.”
    “Really?” Basaal had no need to conjure up any emotions, for his panic sounded like interest—it sounded like anger. “Any further news?”
    “The old man was from the East,” Shaamil answered. “Several companies have been sent to scour the desert and ask questions in any manner that will produce answers. If the queen is trying to reach the eastern coast, she will not get far. We will intercept her before she could hope to find a port.”
    Basaal licked his lips and rolled up the map slowly in his hands, his pulse racing. “And, when they catch her?”
    The emperor looked at Basaal. “She has sealed her own death.”
    ***
    “I’m sure that they did not see us,” Eleanor said aloud, more to allay her own fears than to calm Dantib. In the early afternoon, a line, a shoddy caravan of sorts, had appeared on the horizon. The small band was moving south until a group of riders broke away towards the southeast, the direction Eleanor and Dantib were traveling. At first, they had dismissed it out of hand, but Dantib grew increasingly nervous and eventually turned their horses towards one of the rocky crevices nearby. They wound down through a small canyon, and, as night fell, Dantib found a place, tucked away from sight, where they would wait a few hours before striking out again.
    “The caravan will be resting, and we can distance ourselves,” he told Eleanor as he gave the exhausted horses almost the last of their water. “The next river is less than a days’ journey to the east.”
    “Is this river like the last one?” she asked, remembering how they had to sift the last stream through Eleanor’s headscarf to drink any of it.
    “I believe so.” Dantib set a saddlebag on the ground.
    “That is not quite the style of living I had accustomed myself to in Zarbadast,” Eleanor laughed.
    Screaming startled Eleanor to her feet as three armed men came streaming into their makeshift cave. With their scimitars raised, they pushed Dantib to the ground away from the horses. Eleanor tried to run, but a man with only one eye grabbed her arm and wrenched it behind her back, forcing her to the ground.
    “Please.” Dantib spoke from his knees. “We are humble travelers. Take what you might, but leave us in peace.”
    A rather tall man stepped forward and laughed, calling to his companions in the cave. Eleanor tried to look up, but the one-eyed man brought his hand down across her temple, causing a flash of pain. A stone bit into Eleanor’s knee, but she dared not shift again as the men spoke.
    “The gray horse is as much dog meat as anything,” the tall man said. “But the brown mare will fetch a fair price.”
    “Take the horses,” Dantib said, sounding feeble and old.
    The tall man looked at Dantib, and then his eyes wandered towards Eleanor. She watched as best she could without catching the ire of her one-eyed captor.
    “Bring her to me,” the tall man said. Eleanor was forced to her feet.
    The man standing over Dantib said something she could not understand, and the three men laughed. Dantib must have understood the dialect, for a protective flash crossed his eyes and his chin quivered angrily.
    Eleanor was forced before the tall man. He reached a hand towards her, and she tried to slap him away. But her captor grabbed her wrists and held them tight behind her back. The tall man touched her face and turned her head, pulling off her headscarf. He said something to the other men in their own private dialect, then he moved his hand down her neck to her shoulder. Eleanor flinched, and he laughed, stepping forward and trapping her between himself and the one-eyed man. He sheathed his scimitar and brought his hands to her waist.
    “Don’t touch me!” Eleanor spat in the man’s face. He smiled in reply. Eleanor lifted her chin and threw her shoulders back. He caught the full force of her distain and hesitated, glaring back before roughly pressing his thumbs into her lower