Free The Oathbound by Mercedes Lackey Page A

taste in her mouth; lying on her side, tied hand and foot, in total darkness. It hurt even to think, but she forced herself to attempt to discipline her thoughts and martial them into coherency, despite their tendency to shred like spiderwebs in a high wind. What had happened to her—where was she?
    Think—it was so hard to think—it was like swimming through treacle to put one thought after another. Everything was fogged, and her only real desire was to relax and pass back into oblivion.
    Which meant she’d been drugged.
    That made her angry; anger burned some of the befuddlement away. And the resulting temporary surge in control gave her enough to remember a cleansing ritual.
    Something like a candlemark later, she was still tied hand and foot and lying in total darkness. But the rest of the drug had been purged from her body and she was at last clearheaded and ready to think—and act. Now, what had happened?
    She thought back to her last clear memory—parting with her client for the day. It had been a particularly fruitless session, but he had voiced hopes for the morrow. There were supposed to be two horse tamers from the North arriving in time for beast-market day. Her client had been optimistic, particularly over the rumored forest-hunters they were said to be bringing. They had parted, she with her day’s wages safely in the hidden pocket of her robe, he accompanied by his grooms.
    And she’d started back to the inn by the usual route.
    But—now she had it!—there’d been a tangle of carts blocking the Street of the Chandlers. The carters had been swearing and brawling, laughingly goaded on by a velvet-clad youth on his high-bred palfrey who’d probably been the cause of the accident in the first place. She’d given up on seeing the street cleared before supper, and had ducked into an alley.
    Then had come the sound of running behind her. Before she could turn to see who it was, she was shoved face-first against the rough wood of the wall, and a sack was flung over her head. A dozen hands pinned her against the alley wall while a sickly-sweet smelling cloth was forced over her mouth and nose. She had no chance to glimpse the faces of her assailants, and oblivion had followed with the first breath of whatever-it-was that had saturated the cloth.
    But for who had done this to her—oh, that she knew without seeing their faces. It could only be Kavin and his gang of ennobled toughs—and to pay for it all, Wethes.
    As if her thought had conjured him, the door to her prison opened, and Wethes stood silhouetted against the glare of light from the torch on the wall of the hallway beyond him.
    Terror overwhelmed her, terror so strong as to take the place of the drug in befuddling her. She could no longer think, only feel, and all she felt was fear. He seemed to be five hundred feet tall, and even more menacing than her nightmares painted him.
    “So,” he laughed, looking down at her as she tried to squirm farther away from him, “My little bride returns at last to her loving husband.”
     
    “Damn, damn, damn!” Tarma cursed, and paced the icy street outside the door of the Broken Sword; exactly twenty paces east, then twenty west, then twenty east again. It was past sunset: Kethry wasn’t back yet; she’d sent no word that she’d be late, and that wasn’t like her. And—
    She suddenly went cold, then hot, then her head spun dizzily. She clutched the lintel for support while the street spun before her eyes. The door of the inn opened, but she dared not try and move. Her ears told her of booted feet approaching, yet she was too giddy to even turn to see who it was.
    “I’d ask if you had too much wine, except that I didn’t see you drink more than a mouthful or two before you left the room,” Justin spoke quietly, for her ears alone, as he added his support to that of the lintel. “Something’s wrong?”
    “Keth—something’s happened to Keth—” Tarma gasped for air.
    “I know she’s late,