We’re halfway through July! I know I am in the minority here, but I do not like hot weather. For me, summer is like a little taste of hell. But it will end in a few months and then I can go back to complaining about the cold and snow. 😉

I started chemo last week. I had the port put back in on Wednesday, then had chemo on Thursday, and came home with the infusion pump until Saturday. It was so strange going to the hospital on Saturday. It was a ghost town. But the nurse let me in and unhooked old Homer (the chemo infusion pump) and I got to go home. My side effects have been fairly mild. My next chemo treatment is next Wednesday.

It is Tuesday so that means it is time for another Tuesday Teaser from The Storm King. Enjoy!

The Storm King- Chapter Two

^{copyright Maddy Barone 2024}

A man behind Ashley shouted, “She has brown hair!”

The sword in the hand of the horseman she faced was raised for a killing blow. She cringed, closing her eyes as she waited for death. A long moment passed before she let her shoulders drop a bit and opened her eyes a crack. The sword was lowered, held across the horseman’s chest. His eyes were narrowed in a glare. She noticed for the first time that he wore eyeliner. Or would that be kohl, like the ancient Egyptians had worn? Minus the long line extending past the outer corner of the eye. Get a grip, Ashley. Why are you noticing such a stupid detail at a time like this?

“Fine,” he growled, put a booted heel into his horse’s side, and cantered away.

Ashley pivoted to watch him go, and ended up beside Maya, transferring her stare to the other men. Some of them had dismounted and were closing in on them. All of them had their eyes outlined with black. It should have made them look ridiculous. It didn’t. One pointed to Maya.

“That one has yellow hair,” he said and laughed. “Lie down and spread your legs, girl, and I’ll let you live.”

Maya grabbed Ashley’s wrist again and the two of them bolted back down the alley. It did no good, though. They hadn’t gone more than a couple of yards before the man caught Maya by the hair and threw her to the ground. Yanked off balance, Ashley fell with her. The smack of her bad elbow against the hard ground jerked a scream out of her. She kicked at him desperately as he fumbled at the waistband of his pants. He pushed Ashley away with careless strength and knelt over her friend. Maya crab-walked away from him on her elbows and heels. He caught her by an ankle and wrenched her back.

 A shadow fell over Ashley. “Jarir!” another man barked. “Leave them alone. There are plenty of other women. These two should go to the holding pens.”

Maya’s attacker stilled with an ugly scowl. “The brown-haired one can go. That’s what the King wants. But the blonde is fair game. Go away, Jadon.”

Jadon slapped the back of Jarir’s head. “They are together. Get out of here. Go find another blonde. You won’t have any trouble. There’s nothing but blond-haired women here.”

Jarir got up with a growl and stalked away, fastening his pants. Jadon watched him with a frown for a moment before turning back to the women. Ashley leaned away from the long, suntanned hand he extended to her. He ignored that, grabbed her good arm, and yanked her to her feet.

His face wasn’t exactly kind, but at least he wasn’t unbuttoning his pants when he barked, “Come with me.”

“Where?” Maya demanded.

Jadon eyed Maya before answering. “There is a place where you will be safe. I will take you there and make sure you are not molested.”

Ashley wasn’t sure she believed him, but five or six other men had crowded around them in the narrow alley, so she didn’t think they had a choice. She shook his hand off and clutched Maya’s arm. Maya latched onto Ashley’s good arm and lifted her chin at Jadon.

Jadon nodded to one of the men. “Nodir, you take the blonde on your horse. I’ll take the brown-haired woman.”

Getting on the horse was hard with a long skirt tangling her legs and her bad elbow shrieking in pain, but Ashley managed to get settled behind Jadon. As they rode through the town she stared at the city, trying to figure out where they were. There were no cars, no traffic lights, no power lines, and no glass windows in the buildings. The buildings were made of timber, brick, and plaster, and none was taller than two stories. The roads were packed earth or gravel. She craned her head around to see Maya, but all Ashley could see was the very top of her head and a flutter of blue skirt behind the horseman.

Ashley didn’t want to, but she made herself look at the people they passed. The men on horseback were lean, with long, dark hair worn in a ponytail at the nape of their necks or a long braid down their backs. They wore heavy cloth pants and tough-looking leather armor over their bare chests and shoulders. Their lower arms were encased in metal studded leather vambraces and they wore heavy leather boots to the knee. Everyone else, mostly dead on the ground or moaning in pain from ghastly wounds, had blond hair. The men’s hair was trimmed short and the women’s was long. Their clothing was similar to what Ashley had seen in woodcuts and illustrations of medieval peasants. Men wore baggy trousers and tunics. Of course, it was hard to tell, really, considering how mangled they were, but Ashley assumed the blond people were native to this town and the horsemen were invaders.

If this wasn’t a dream—and the pain in her arm made her doubt it was—then had she and Maya traveled back in time? To when? And where? Ashley scoured her memory, trying to match the setting and the clothing to a particular place or time. The dark-haired horsemen weren’t Asian, so not Genghis Khan and the Mongols. They didn’t wear facial hair, so maybe Native Americans? No. Indians hadn’t worn leather armor. They weren’t Vikings. The blond natives could be Scandinavian or maybe Germanic. Ashley shook her head. This was crazy. The sword warriors spoke English. Modern English, not Middle English.

None of this made any sense!

Ashley’s poor brain hurt almost as badly as her elbow by the time they came to an open area. There was a wooden fenced ring in the middle of it, like a large horse corral. It was full of blond people, mostly men, but she saw a few women there, and they, surprisingly, had dark blond or light brown hair. That had to mean something. The long-haired men had pointed out her brown hair. But what did it mean?

When Jadon jabbed an elbow into Ashley’s side, she toppled out of the saddle and landed heavily on her good arm. A thud nearby and a choked off swear word from Maya told Ashley she was on the ground too.

“Kadzmil!” shouted Jadon. “Two more prisoners for the King.”

Ashley scrambled to her feet while a huge hulk of a man hurried up to them. His nose had been broken at some time in the past, but what made him ugly was his expression. He reached out and grabbed a hank of Ashley’s hair.

“Brown,” he sneered. “Darkest brown I’ve seen in this cesspit of a town.”

His hair was inky black, and no longer than Ashley’s own shoulder blade length locks. He pulled her closer by the hair. “We’ll see what the King wants with something like you.”

The pain in her scalp rivaled the pain in her elbow. “Let me go.”

He spat, narrowly missing her foot in its dainty silk shoe. The shoe, like the rest of her, was the worse for wear. He grabbed Maya by the arm and dragged both the women to a gate in the corral held open by a teenage boy. “Get inside,” he snarled and shoved them through the gate. Before Ashley even fell to her knees, the gate slammed shut.

Maya hadn’t fallen. She leaned down and gently helped Ashley to her feet. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Ashley looked around the corral. There must have been fifty people there, most staring at them. She noticed that their clothing had subtle differences. The cut and shapes of the tunics and trousers were the same, but the fabrics and decoration were different. Some were dressed in fine fabrics in bright hues with heavy embroidery around the cuffs, necklines, and hems of their tunics, and others were dressed in plainer garb with no embroidery. Ashley had seen this same thing in medieval and Renaissance paintings. A prince or duke would wear extravagant clothing made of satin, velvet or brocade heavily embellished with gold and gems, and the well-to-do merchants would wear similar clothing, but with less elaborate decoration, and even the peasants’ garb was similar, but made of coarser wool and linen and lacking the embroidery. Unlike at home, where a millionaire might wear the same jeans and T-shirt as a college student, these people shouted their station in life by what they wore.

A middle-aged woman in a plain brown dress came to them. Her hair was dishwater blond, almost brown, wrapped around her head in a messy braid. Distress showed in her wrinkled forehead and her hands wringing her apron.

“Oh, Lady Valdis,” she moaned. “They’ve brought you here? This is terrible.”

Valdis? Ashley shot a wild glance at Maya before turning back to the woman. “Do you know me?”

The woman’s face colored as she dropped a bobbing curtsey. “Oh, no, milady. Please forgive me if I am speaking out of turn. I’m only a baker’s wife. My husband’s bakery sometimes provided bread for your servants. So, you see, I know of you, of course.”

“You called me Lady Valdis?”

The woman’s hands wrung her apron even tighter. “Yes, milady.”

“You think I’m Valdis?” Ashley asked again, jerking a thumb toward her chest, needing to be absolutely sure.

“You are Lady Valdis Grimst, daughter of the Lieutenant Governor of New Thess.” The woman lowered her voice. “Are you trying to keep it a secret?”

Ashley’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“Like from your story?” Maya hissed.

“It’s a weird coincidence,” Ashley hissed back, trying to subdue the hysteria clawing its way up her throat.

But was it? The horsemen could be the Erabiri army. But that was crazy. “Where are we exactly?” she asked the woman.

She gave me a confused look. “This is the lower green, where the farmers at the south end of town graze their cows. Those monsters set up this pen to keep us in like cattle.”

That explained the smell of manure. “No, I mean what town is this?”

Her look went from mildly confused to horrified. She took a small step back. “This is Grimstaborg, milady.” Her tone said Duh.

Ashley wondered if there had been a town named Grimstaborg in her story. She didn’t think so. “Not New Thess City?” she asked cautiously.

“No, milady. The capital is three days north by wagon.” The woman took another wary step back and bobbed another curtsey. “I’ll get back to my husband now. Emris needs me.”

She bolted, casting one quick glance over her shoulder at Ashley. Great, Ashley groaned to herself. She probably thinks I’m crazy. Ashley fisted her hands in the thin silk of her dress. She might not be wrong.

The name the woman had called her husband popped into Ashley’s mind. Emris? Emris Baker was a character in her story. He had been Jerriel’s owner and had whipped the foreign slave-prince if he wasted any flour or didn’t sell all the bread. That was how Valdis had first met Jerriel. He had hauled a cart of bread to the governor’s mansion. The woman had said she was a baker’s wife. Ashley shook her head in denial. What a very odd coincidence. It was just a coincidence, right?

She turned to Maya to ask her what she thought but was interrupted. A man dressed in fine clothes bowed in front of her. He was probably around forty years old. “My lady, perhaps you do not remember me. Lord Ulsak Blenhiem, first minister of your father’s privy council. I am sorry to see you here.”

“Me, too,” Ashley muttered.

Lord Ulsak—definitely not a character from her story– turned to Maya and bowed again, a little less deeply. “Miss Maya. Why did those savages bring you here?”

Maya didn’t seem to wonder why the man knew her name. “Supposedly, there is a king that wants brown haired women. Does that make any sense to you?”

He shook his head. “Indeed, it does not.”

Ashley asked, “What king is this? Is his name Jerriel?”

“No, madam.” The nobleman’s face showed a touch of the same wariness the baker’s wife had shown. “King Rodir rules the grasslands and mountains to the south and west of New Thess.”

“But what’s the name of the country?”

The line between Lord Ulsak’s pale brows deepened. “Erabir, my lady. Are you ill?” he added quickly.

Maya grabbed Ashley by the shoulder. Ashley tried to blink tears back. “I’m going to barf,” she said.

“Hang in there,” Maya said bracingly. “This king must be Jerriel’s dad, right? What was his name?”

Ashley tried to think. “I don’t think I gave him a name. Hey, um, Lord Ulsak, what do you know about this King Rodir? How old is he? How long has this war been going on? I mean, is it a war? Or was this just a surprise attack?”

Ulsak blinked at her. “My lady, the savages have been conquering the colony bit by bit for the past five years. Each year, they have taken more and more towns and cities in the colony.” He spoke slowly, as if she were a kid who wasn’t too smart. “Surely you are aware of this.”

“New Thess is a colony of the Thessian Empire, right?” she said. “Why doesn’t the emperor send his army to defend the colony?”

Now the nobleman shook his head sadly. “The war over the succession has diverted most of the army. The Emperor cannot spare any troops to defend a distant colony. My lady, I know politics and wars aren’t suitable topics for ladies, but surely, even women are aware of what is going on in the world.”

“It’s been a difficult day,” Maya said grimly.

Biggest understatement ever. Ashley swiped the back of her dirty hand under her eyes. “I don’t know what is going on.”

“Of course, of course.” He looked around. “I wish I had a chair to offer you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Maya took hold of Ashley’s upper arm with a maniacally bright smile. “We’re just going to go over there and lean against the fence rail in the shade.”

They pushed through the people in the corral. Most of them were injured, some were angry, and some seemed too dazed to care about anything. The shade cast by the single tree was already full of people, but Maya bullied her way through until they got to the fence.

“How is your elbow?” she asked.

Ashley straightened it and bent it a few times. “Sore. But nothing is broken.”

Maya cautiously lifted it. “Your sleeve is too tight to roll up and get a good look, but I think it’s swollen.”

“No kidding.” Ashley could feel how the fabric of the sleeve compressed her arm. “Yeah. What are the chances of getting some ice for it?”

Maya gave her a look.

“Right.” Ashley leaned against the rail. “Now what?”

Maya lifted helpless hands. “We wait?”

“I never should have wished to meet Jerriel,” Ashley groaned.

Maya settled her back against the post beside her. “Well, it’s kind of exciting to get to live in one of your stories.”

Ashley gave her an incredulous stare. “Exciting? People are dying! Being raped! And do you think being in this pen is good for us? Why are we here?”

Maya looked away. “All good points. But if this is New Thess and Erabir, then you can find Jerriel. Everyone thinks you are Valdis from your story, so Jerriel will take care of you. And you can take care of me.”

“If that is really what this is.” Panic clutched at her throat. “Are we sharing some weird dream? How do we get back home?”

Maya shook her head. “I don’t think it’s a dream, and I don’t know how to get back home. Find a wishing well and throw in some coins?”

Ashley drew in a shuddering breath. “Do you really think that is what happened?”

“I can’t think what else it could be.” Her gaze wandered to the tree arching above them. “It’s fall,” she said with surprise.

The leaves on the tree were gold and orange. The cloudless sky was deep blue, but the air had a chill. “Great. I missed summer.” Panic climbed up Ashley’s throat again. “This isn’t fair!”

Maya gave her shoulder a little shake. “Calm down. Just breathe. It’s going to be okay.”

She worked on breathing. Air in, air out. I’m twenty-five, not five, she told herself. Throwing myself to the ground and screaming wouldn’t change anything. But it was sure tempting. Three men and a woman were talking nearby. To distract herself, Ashley focused on their conversation.

“We should have surrendered,” the woman said bitterly. “Everyone knows what happened to Grenspan last summer. This Storm King offered them an alliance, just like he offered us. They didn’t take it, and now that whole town is ashes. We didn’t take his offer either, so what do you think will happen here?”

“Ilsa, hush. It wouldn’t be an alliance of equals. We would have had to pay annual tribute and give up hostages to those barbarians. We would be barely more than slaves, like Herzborg.”

“We’d be alive, at least,” the woman argued. “I heard not one building was burnt, no houses were looted, and no women were raped in Herzborg. They accepted the alliance, and they are living in peace to this day. We won’t be so lucky.”

“We couldn’t surrender,” another man protested. “We are Thessians.”

“We’re idiots,” the woman countered. “Or our governor and his council are. Every summer the Storm King and his army conquer towns and cities on their way north. They must have known Grimstaborg was next.”

Another man spoke defensively. “Rodir and his savages are no match for our garrison!”

The third man shook his head. “Ilsa is right. The Erabiri started this march to take the north five years ago, and they haven’t lost a single battle. Our garrison hasn’t seen action in years. They were unprepared for this attack. And we are paying the price.”

“Nonsense!” That was the first man, chin at an arrogant tilt and voice pompous. “The battle for this city isn’t over yet.”

“It is for us,” the woman said. “Do you truly think the Storm King will be defeated this time?”

She had dark blond hair, much like the baker’s wife. Not quite brown, but darker than most. Ashley wondered why King Rodir wanted brown-haired women. She had brown hair. In the story, Valdis had brown hair. Did that have something to do with it? Probably not. The men here were all blond as far as she could see. Some men appeared to be wealthy. Some looked like they could be merchants or craftsmen with enough income to buy nice clothes, if not quite as fancy as what Lord Ulsak wore. Others must be laborers or poor men. Their clothing was well worn and ragged. So what, she wondered, did all these people have in common?

Maya approached the little group. “Excuse me. Why do you call him the Storm King?”

“He’s a force of nature,” the woman responded. “He can’t be stopped any more than a thunderstorm can be stopped.”

“We will stop him,” the first man said stoutly. “Just wait.”

Maya looked from him to the half a dozen Erabiri who were walking around the enclosure. Guards, Ashley realized with stupid surprise. She hadn’t even thought of escaping. Why would she? They were safe here, safer than they would be out in the city where women were being raped and men were being killed. Of course, the question of why they were here and what would happen to them made her doubt their long-term safety.

Maya gave the guy a pitying smile. “Right. Do you know that when I was being hauled through the city to this pen I didn’t see a single Thessian man in uniform? Not alive, anyway.”

He reddened and took a threatening step toward her. She lifted her nose with a bored expression.

“Hey, hey.” It was the man who had agreed with the woman. “We’re all on the same side, here.”

Maya looked at him. “Why are we here, do you think?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, Lady Valdis is here probably because her father is the Lieutenant Governor. Lord Ulsak is the head of the council. They make sense, I guess. But I am just a secretary to Lorn Galseth at the Traders Guild. I have no idea why I am here.”

Lorn Galseth was a name Ashley recognized. He was the man in charge of the slave trade in New Thess City. Or he had been in her story.

He added grimly, “I guess we’ll find out, eventually.”

But when? Night fell, and no one was given food or blankets. Ashley was hungry and cold, her arm ached, and she was scared. Was it crazy to pin all their hopes on finding Jerriel? How old was he now? Unbelievably, her stupid wish at the fountain had started all this. She didn’t know what was going to happen. If it wasn’t for Maya being with her, Ashley would have been a basket case. Well, more of a basket case.

The two women curled up together for warmth on the trampled grass. “Maybe we’ll wake up tomorrow back home,” Ashley suggested hopefully.

But in the morning, they woke up cold and stiff and hungry in the same corral, with a dozen Erabiri warriors screaming at them.