The New Moon

Chapter 1

A Place Not Home

Where the sudden thunderstorm had come from, I wasn’t sure, but as our horses galloped across the open fields, mud splashed up onto my clothes and in my face. I could feel my patience wearing thin. I had no idea where the man was leading me and every single time I asked he ignored me. I was half tempted to turn Sampson around and ride away…but he had mentioned Slayer and there was no arguing with that.

“I need to slow down! My horse can’t take much more or he’ll burn out!” I yelled through the driving rain.

“We have to make haste!” He turned his head around quickly and shook it. “He can take it!”

He didn’t know my horse. It was one thing to drive me, but I wasn’t about to take the risk of hurting Sampson. His own horse had to be struggling with every breath. I pulled back on the reins and Sampson all too happily came down to a walk. He needed water … he needed to rest.

“What are you doing!?” The man hollered, slowing his own horse and turning around.

“Resting my horse.” I grabbed for my water sack and dismounted. He got off his horse as well and walked up behind me. I glared at him, but he didn’t seem bothered in the least. He pulled out a square cloth and held it out. “What is that?”

“Pulled leather. The water won’t leak through. It’s so he can drink it easier.” I still refused to soften my glare, but accepted his offer. I poured water in as he held it and Sampson eagerly gulped it up. Without even asking I walked over to his horse and let him have the rest of the water.

“How much further?” I asked.

“Quite some distance.”

“Do you plan on resting at all?” I traveled hard, but this man was clearly insane. He went full out for too long of an extended time. “Because at the pace you’re going…”

His eyes seemed to darken as he looked at me. “My pace is perfect. If you can’t keep up with me then maybe I overestimated your ability.”

“It has nothing to do with my ability, but perhaps the stability of your mind. You have to be crazy to work your horse the way you do. If you knew anything about Slayer then you’d know how much he’d disagree with your pace. He was always for taking his time. He never rushed a thing. You’re out of your mind, boy.”

He threw his hands up in the air and began pacing. The rain was falling unmercifully and we were taking the time to argue. “I am no boy. I have a name.” I looked at him, waiting expectantly. “I never said it was any of your concern as to what my name is.”

I sighed. I couldn’t believe him. I grabbed Sampson’s reins and headed for the edge of a small wooded area. I needed all the shelter from the rain that I could get. I was soaked and it was and terribly cold.

“Where are you going?” he called, still standing in the middle of the field.

“Since when is it any of your concern?” I fired back at him.

“We can’t stop, Sadie!”

“You can’t, but I am whether you like it or not.” I was smashed against the ground, mud smearing against my face under the weight of his body.

“We haven’t got time to stop!” I felt straps being fastened around my wrists and my entire torso as well. He quickly bound my legs all the while I tried to fight against him. He was an animal.

“Get off me!” I screamed.

He didn’t reply to me. In fact, he stayed silent for a majority of the journey. He tied Sampson’s reins around his saddle horn and I was forced to lay across the front of his saddle, right in his lap. After much incessant screaming and cursing, he gagged me with a kerchief from one of his pockets. I was appalled, but had expected it all the same.

Whether it was the cloth shoved in my mouth or the way the saddle dug into my stomach, long after the rain stopped I began to feel extremely sick. I couldn’t tell him and I couldn’t move at all. I started to whimper, in hopes of getting his attention. “You did this to yourself.”

I shook my head and looked up at him. I had a feeling that my stomach was about to empty itself and there was nothing I could do about it. I felt it come up, being pretty much helpless in the situation. He worked quickly to get the cloth untied, simply throwing it into the field. I couldn’t imagine he’d want it back.

“Great,” he muttered, but I noticed that he kept the horses moving. He untied my legs and pulled me up so that I was sitting, facing him. He grabbed his own water sack. Rather regretfully, I let him pour the water into my mouth so that I could rinse it out. “Drink some. You need it.”

I didn’t want it, though. I obeyed his orders because, at the moment, I really had no other choice. “My ribs hurt,” I muttered, wishing I could rub my side and relieve myself of some of the pain the man had inflicted on me.

“Stop complaining!”

I could feel my face screw up again and leaned over the saddle and threw up once more. I had known I shouldn’t drink the water. “Look at what you’ve done.” I looked up at him just in time to duck away from a swinging arm. “Slayer will kill you for the way you’re treating me. He’ll kill you.”

“Slayer told me that you’d be feisty and resistant. He just wanted me to get you to him as quickly as possible, no matter what it-,”

“He would not have wanted you to do this! I think I know him a little better than you do!” It was a little difficult to feel properly enraged when I was stuck on his saddle straddling him.

“I’ve known him for six years,” the man protested, as if I had no idea what I was talking about when I claimed to know him better.

“Try twelve,” I said darkly in reply. I had known him twice as long as my assassin captor. I couldn’t help feeling the slightest bit smug. “And not once did I ever see you around.”

It was his turn to smile and there was something vicious about the way he did it. “I only saw him at night. And of course you didn’t know about me. That would have defeated my purpose.”

I wanted to smack him. He was harboring secrets from me and rubbing it in my face. What he needed was someone to knock his sense back into his head. I was all too willing to be the one to do it.

We both remained silent for the rest of the trip. I kept my gaze focused on the grass passing beneath us. More than once, I could feel him staring at me but I refused to acknowledge him in any way. I was disgusted.

Perhaps it was the hand lightly tapping my cheek that alarmed me the most. I hadn’t realized that I had fallen asleep. I was almost ashamed of myself. Staring at the grass had grown increasingly boring and I…

“We’re here.” My breath caught. I looked around the clearing in the woods. There was a wooden house with a slanted slate roof. It had a chimney that was currently puffing out clouds of grey smoke. There was a pile of chopped wood against the near side of the house and a roofed porch that stretched along the entire front of the structure. A small barn was situated off near the edge of the clearing with two large paddocks for horses and other animals to graze in. I recognized none of my surroundings.

“Where? Where is here?” I demanded.

Maybe he saw the alarm in my eyes or heard it in my voice that made his face soften for a moment. “Slayer was forced to move over a year ago. They’d discovered his whereabouts and he wasn’t safe anymore.”

Slayer had told me to never return to what I knew was home unless it was an emergency. He said that he couldn’t risk someone following me. He’d been discovered anyways and I had had no knowledge of it.

“Sooner than I expected!” I recognized that gruff and stony voice. “What…?”

I somehow managed to squirm off the saddle with my entire upper body tied up and run over to him. He was walking with a cane, but his body seemed as strong as ever. His dark brown hair and beard were short and deeply speckled with grey and white hair. His scarred and weathered face had softened over the years, as had his bright blue eyes.

I ran up to him and would have wrapped my arms around him had they been free. I rested my head on his shoulder, waiting patiently as he undid the binds holding me. As soon as I could, I embraced him. He was all I had. He was all I had ever had…

“Why was she tied up?” Slayer released me and was staring oddly at the man who had so kindly escorted me. The man was taller than Slayer, but in that moment, Slayer seemed to be towering over him.

“She was being difficult,” he said simply. “You failed to mention how insufferable she is.”

Slayer seemed as offended as I was. It brought me great comfort to see how protective he was of me. I felt safe for the time being. “Well, I most certainly told you that it was going to be difficult, but I never told you to kidnap her.”

He easily got distracted when Sampson nickered happily at him. “Look at how tall he’s gotten! What a fine horse he has grown in to.” He looked at me, his entire demeanor changing in an instant. “But there are much more important matters to attend to. There will be enough time for catching up after supper.”

“But what are the important matters?” I asked slowly. I was confused.

A smile cracked his face and he laughed. “Cooking supper. You must be starving. Chance probably kept the two of you going nonstop. He’s a driving wind, that boy.”

“So, the boy has a name?” I looked over my shoulder and smirked.

“Surely you at least told her who you were?” Slayer inquired as the three of us walked inside.

“It didn’t seem relevant at the time. I was in a hurry.” Slayer gave him a stern look and Chance merely shrugged. “It’s an unimportant matter.”

“What kind of name is Chance anyway?” I received my own look and raised my eyebrows in reply.

“I was under the impression that neither of you were children any longer. Apparently my judgment was sorely off.” He walked over to the fireplace and directed an amused look at both of us. “Perhaps you two wouldn’t mind gathering beans from the garden out behind the house after you get changed?”

I finished lacing up my boots as I sat on the bed in one of the four spare rooms that Slayer had built. The house looked rather small from the outside but was large and roomy on the inside…an illusion at best. I had donned a simple pair of brown pants and a white shirt that I left undone a fair amount, exposing an indecent amount of my chest. The strings were tied off, though, and I felt comfortable enough.

I heard a rather forced cough and glanced up. Chance was standing in a nearly identical outfit to mine, save that his pants were black. “What?” I asked, sounding bored.

“You take quite a while to dress, no?” I heaved a sigh and chose to ignore his statement. “What, I wonder, would Slayer say if he saw your shirt?”

“I haven’t the slightest clue, but I am sure wondering why you were staring there to begin with. You are, perhaps, one of the rudest gentlemen I have ever encountered.”

Chance got a boyish grin on his face and walked into my room, closing the door. I felt slightly uncomfortable at his boldness, but waited to hear his reasoning. “I say after Slayer retires for the night me and you get this over and done with. Do you agree?” I gave him a perplexed look. I had no idea what he was proposing or what he was even talking about. “We’ll figure out who is really the better of us. A duel … with swords.”

“Ending in…?” Generally duels ended in death. I knew he couldn’t possibly be so stupid as to think I would agree to such a proposition.

“The victor of the duel will choose what the less fortunate one has to do. They choose when, where, and what.” I didn’t like the look in his eye. He had something up his sleeve, I just wasn’t sure as to what it was.

It would be stupid of me to accept under such vague terms, but I refused to back down. “You haven’t the slightest clue what you are getting yourself into. But I have only one condition…”

“What?”

“The one who comes out on top can choose whatever or where ever, just not when. It cannot be prolonged. I say after the fight it has to performed or carried out. If you do not agree with that then there is no duel.”

His smile broadened and he grabbed my hand in his. “I hope you are no stranger to humility.”

Slayer looked exhausted after supper. I hadn’t the heart to keep him awake any longer. His sleep had been almost nonexistent since he left his old home. He claimed that he found that he would not be able to rest until I was found and brought to safety. Safe from what, I still wasn’t sure. I was assured, however, that in the morning he would take as much time as needed to explain everything to me. I found that he was also very curious to hear about my adventures, although I expect he caught word of what I was up to from various sources.

All the while Slayer spoke with me, I could see Chance directing a mischievous glance in my direction. The anticipation was awful. His eyes were all but boring into the back of my head. Seeing Slayer off to bed was almost a relief. I was going to grab my sword and shove it through Chance’s forehead.

By the time I emerged from my room with my sword, he was nowhere to be found. I looked in his room and then wandered around the rest of the house. “Chance?” I called, trying to keep my voice down. I didn’t want to bring unwanted attention from Slayer.

He walked in through the front door and beckoned me to come outside. I wanted to put him in his place and teach him a lesson or two. I held my sword firmly in my hand and as soon as he turned around I had it pointed at his throat. “No cheating.”

“Never turn your back on a killer, that’s the first lesson you should’ve learned. We don’t play fair. Rules of Engagement are for men with more arrogance then their bodies can withstand. Now try and fight me, boy.”

“Don’t,” Chance’s sword clashed against mine and sent my blade in front of my own face, “call me boy. You know my name now. Use it or I’ll make you regret every time you ever used it when I choose what it is I want you to do.”

“And when was it established that you would win?” Our blades repeatedly slammed against each other in a whirlwind of attacks. I hadn’t expected him to be quite so talented. His rough and crude personality made it seem as if he would be a bit careless in a fight, but I was horribly mistaken … horribly.

I knew that I was just as good, if not better, than him with handling a sword. The only thing he had over me was his endurance. It was no wonder how he was able to travel at such a ridiculous pace. The man never seemed to tire. My movements began to turn sloppy as I fought to keep up. More than once, I felt the tip of his blade nick my arms through my shirt. Blood began to seep onto the white fabric, but I didn’t have time to pay it much attention.

Whether I tripped or simply took a careless step, I somehow managed to land myself on my back. My sword was in his hand and both were pointed at my neck. My body was screaming in pain. My arms stung and I could feel my head spinning ever so slightly. I hadn’t been in such a fight since … ever.

I took deep breaths to fill my lungs and noticed that he hardly seemed to be struggling at all. “You’re rusty,” he said blandly.

“I hadn’t noticed,” I growled, pushing myself to my feet. “Congratulations. Now hurry up and let us get this over with. I don’t fancy staying up much later than I have to.”