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The Udruns came at night, killed our guards, and took most of the dams, leaving the foals behind. Thankfully, the stallions and Samju had been separated from them at the time, already stabled inside Dreaming Summit. We would never know if they would have driven the Udruns off or if they would have been taken as well.
That night, though, my father was injured.
He held on for a couple of weeks, but no matter how hard I tried to bring the fever from his wound down or how many times I called the physician out, he eventually succumbed.
And with his death, everything changed.
Because the Udruns had taken most of the dams, Bertram didn't have enough grown horses for this year's tythe. The foals were still too young to travel, and I didn't think the Thyres would have appreciated them, so he came up with the idea to use me and three other girls as tributes.
It was a win-win for him, because all four of us had been orphaned or widowed during the Udruns' attack and would only be useless mouths to feed during the cold season.
Cold seasons were always harsh, no matter how much we prepared for them. Every year toward the end, hunger struck.
From other outposts, we learned that Thyres had accepted human women and girls as tributes before, and Bertram was sure Warlord Brogan wouldn't be any different.
Deaf to the other girls' tears, he coerced the four of us into becomingwillingtributes for the warlord. Tying us up might have been a bit dramatic on his end, but that was Bertram.
The other girls cried most of the way, but I didn't have any more tears left when the wagon took off. After my father's death, I was all cried out and didn't really care about what would happen to me.
My worst pain came from knowing I had to part with Samju, my horse. He had been just a colt when I found him in the steppe. His mother had been killed by a brazen—a bear-lion-like predator—and he had been injured. It was a small miracle that he hadn't been killed as well, as brazen were not known to leave anything living behind. When I first found him, my father had wanted to kill Samju, said he would never make it, but I had been determined to save him.
Now, three years later, he was very much the wild horse his parents had undoubtedly been, and he only allowed one person to ride him: me.
Bertram would have never tried to take him had my father been alive, but since it was just me, he added him to the tribute, uncaring that the Thyres would either break or kill him.
There wasn't much Bertram and his soldiers could do to me after that. I didn't even care when they told us to take our clothes off and dress in what basically consisted of underwear, before they tied our hands behind our backs and took us into the great hall belonging to Brogan of Grymburg, the warlord of our region.
The planet of Thyre was split into five regions, each one was assigned to a warlord and Khazar Gryck, the Emperor of Thyre, ruled over all of them.
Thyre was also occupied by a nomadic race named Udruns, who despised all settlements; Thyre strongholds as well as human outposts.
Us humans had arrived last on Thyre. According to my great-great-grandparents, Earth had become a united confederation, called the Terran Confederation, and turned into a semityrannical society. My ancestors had consolidated their wealth and taken off into space in search of a new world and found it on Thyre. A planet rich in fauna and flora and not yet enslaved to technology. It was a paradise for people like my ancestors who desired nothing more than to be free and to pave their own ways.
The settlers struck a deal with the Thyres to allow them to build outposts in exchange for tythe, which they paid in the form of livestock, horses, crops, and I supposed now with kallinies, calling them tributes instead of slaves, sacrifices, human sex trafficking, or whatever other labels would come to mind for selling their defenseless women. I wasn't even sure who was worse; the humans for doing so or the Thyres for accepting them.
Not that it mattered to me, nothing mattered to me any anymore I lost everything I had ever loved and valued. I was sure that as a horse handler, I would have been much more valuable to our outpost than as a tribute, but this was life, and life on Thyre for women wasn't fair. So I figured, if me being a tribute helped Dreaming Summit in some way, then maybe it was worth the sacrifice.
With our heads down to hide our shame at being paraded half-naked, the four of us entered the great hall. Still, I noticed the many torches and fires lighting and warming the cavernous space. Ahead of me were steps leading up to a throne I had noticed from the shadows where we had waited our turn to be paraded in front of the warlord.
The throne at the top of the steps was occupied by a man—the warlord, I assumed—but with my lowered head, I didn't see much of him and didn't have the energy or curiosity to lift my head and scrutinize him.
I felt desolate, with no idea what the future would bring, or if it even had anything in store for me, after I lost everything I held dear in my life.
The whinnying of a horse surprised me, and I looked up. I would have known this whinny anywhere—Samju. My heart leapt as I realized he and five other horses were being held by four handlers to be shown to the Warlord of Grymburg. I hadn't realized he journeyed with us, since we women were kept inside a wagon the entire time.Although I should have, I realized,since we were short on horses and nobody in their right mind would have wanted to care for Samju back in Dreaming Summit.
Ever since Samju had been a colt, he and I had never been separated for more than a night. Sometimes, when he was younger, I snuck into the stable and slept by his side. Now I realized, that he must have missed me just as much as I missed him because as soon as he saw or scented me, he went crazy and ripped himself loose from his handler.
"Samju, no," I cried out, dismayed, worried they would hurt him right before all hell broke loose.
The tall Thyre I had barely noticed and assumed to be the warlord, leapt off his throne and for a moment, time seemed to stand still as our eyes met.
He was the most imposing man I had ever seen. Taller than the tallest man in our outpost and wider in the shoulders than any of the large macay trees, which could easily house a person.
A thick, black braid hung over his left shoulder—the symbol that called him out as warlord—and I noticed how ripped his naked torso was. Muscles seemed to have grown on muscles. His hands were so large, he could have easily wrung my neck using only a few fingers and without so much as breaking a sweat.
The most startling thing about him, though, were his eyes. Black irises were surrounded by a halo of the most electrifying blue I had ever seen, accentuated by his deep-set eye sockets as well as the brighter-than-white sclera.
The clapping of hooves on the stone ground woke me from my stupor, and I turned my head to Samju. The urge to wrap my arms around his beautiful neck was nearly overwhelming, but they were bound behind my back.
