Free Forgotten by Lyn Lowe Page B

coming and couldn’t react, or was as clueless and beyond caring as she seemed was impossible to guess.
    All he needed to do was nothing. The girl was nothing to Kaie. Just another Hollow. His whole body was vibrating. One look at him from either of the soldiers would give away his ruse. But the old man wasn’t paying any attention, and the other’s saw nothing but the girl.
    Tovan’s hand dropped on the girl’s head, stroking the light brown straw there once. Then those thick fingers looped through her hair and jerked her up. It was cruel and unnecessary – a simple command would get her up just as easily – and brought tears to the little girl’s eyes.
    He just needed to keep his mouth shut.
    The soldier was laughing as he yanked her close, forcing the girl up on her toes. Tovan used his free hand to fumble at the neck of her shirt, lacking even enough decency to wait until he got her to his tent before he pawed at her. The girl’s empty hazel eyes stared vacantly, but Kaie couldn’t shake the feeling that she was looking at him, waiting for him to do something.
    “Leave her alone!”
    Silence dropped across the small camp like a wet blanket. Two heads swiveled to him faster than he ever imagined possible. The girl fell back to the ground. Kaie’s victory was fleeting and costly.
    The young soldier was on him in an instant, fist connecting solidly with Kaie’s jaw. Before he could recover, another blow took him in the stomach. He was soft, from his months with Peren and his time sitting in the wagon, and the impact was enough to drive him back to the ground. He struggled to regain his feet, but it was too late. The old man was on him now too, and the practiced soldier wasn’t going to waste time with a fist fight. The metal of the old man’s sword pressed against his throat was warm and smelled of iron. It also put an end to any half-formed delusions of fighting his way free.
    In the time it took Kaie to lift his hands over his head, he came up with and rejected a dozen ideas of how to manage the situation. But, with the old man close enough to smell sour wine and onions on his breath, there was nothing that could be done. For the sake of the Hollow laying not three feet away, completely oblivious to his sacrifice, Kaie had given up any chance of freedom.
    “Who are you?”
    It was Tovan who asked the question, but Kaie never peeled his eyes away from the old man. No matter how cruel the young soldier might be, it was the other who was going to kill him. “I’m unarmed. I’m not here to cause trouble.”
    The old soldier gestured to the wagon. “Kid, run and get the rope.”
    In moments, Kaie’s arms were jerked violently backward, a coarse rope wrapping around his wrists. All the nerves in his body screamed for him to fight. He knew that every second he didn’t, it grew increasingly more likely he would never get the chance. But if they were tying him up, they weren’t sure they were going to kill him. So long as there was a chance he could live through this, he was going to take it. Even if that meant the circulation in his hands was constricted enough that he could already feel his fingertips growing numb.
    As Tovan fumbled at his hands, an idea began to form. It was insane, and liable to make his situation even more treacherous, but it might be the difference between making it to the outpost and being left bound and gagged.
    “Now,” the old man began, lowering the sword but not putting it away. “I’d like to hear the answer to the boy’s question.”
    Kissa’s voice rose, unbidden, to the top of his mind. Kaie the Unbroken is dead . He needed to stay that way. It was unlikely that either of these men heard that name, but if his next ruse was to work, he couldn’t take the chance. He would need a new name.
    “Kale,” he answered quickly. That wasn’t good enough, though. These people all gave themselves second names. Even some of the slaves got second names, according to Vaughan. If he