Shadowfell Read Free

provided neither piece is touching the margin of the circle. Second round goes to the challenger.’
    A small cheer went up. Someone lifted a tankard in celebration; someone clapped Father on the back. Drunk and incapable as he was, he had won the second round and there was still a chance to stop this before my freedom was forfeit.
    ‘Father,’ I said, leaning close to whisper in his ear, ‘please don’t go on with this. Ask that man to let you out of the game. Tell him it was a mistake. Nobody in his right mind would agree to such a thing. Father, don’t do this to me –’
    He swatted me away as if I were a troublesome insect. ‘Leave me be, girl!’ His eyes were on the three silver pieces. My price. Fifteen years as his daughter. Nearly three years as his guardian and attendant, his minder and companion on the hard road to self-destruction. Oh gods, this couldn’t be real. I would never complain about cold and hunger again, if only this could be a dream.
    ‘Challenger throws the third.’ Fowler’s voice had an edge in it. ‘You sure you want to go through with this?’
    Father did not speak, simply gathered up the pieces.
    ‘So be it, then. When you’re ready.’
    In the silence before the throw, it seemed nobody breathed but me, and mine was the shallow, uneven breath of utter panic. Make this not be happening, oh please, please . . .
    ‘Flame!’ came the hooded man’s call, and an instant later the stones hit the tabletop. I heard the universal gasp of horror and knew without the need to look that Father had lost.
    No time. No time for anything. Father shouting; a bench toppling, a fist connecting with someone’s jaw, a string of oaths. Now several men were throwing punches, knocking over seats, grappling with one another, as if they had only been waiting for an excuse to fight. Someone crashed into me, sending me reeling into the red-faced man, who grabbed me and seized the opportunity to clamp one hand around my breast and slip the other between my legs. In the press of bodies, nobody noticed. In the general din, my protest went unheard. The man’s hand was creeping up my inner thigh. I put my hands against his chest and pushed, and he laughed at me. Struggling in his grasp, I heard Father’s voice raised above the others: ‘Filthy cheat! Liars and swindlers, the lot of you!’ A pair of combatants lurched across the cabin, scattering others in their wake, and the fellow who was holding me let go abruptly. I staggered, caught off balance, and fell to my knees. The fighters reeled into me, crushing my hip and shoulder against the wall; in a moment I would be trampled. The cabin was full of surging bodies and flailing arms. I struggled to catch my breath. Out. Oh, please, let me out.
    A hand reached down, fastened around my arm and hauled me upright. Someone interposed his body between me and the crowd, then shouldered a way out of the cabin, drawing me along with him. As we stepped out into the cold quiet of the night, I saw that it was the hooded man, the man who had just won me in a game of stanies. I shrank away, but he kept hold of my wrist. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Make haste.’
    ‘No! You can’t make me go! He didn’t know what he was doing. He’s not in his right mind! You can’t –’
    The man headed across the plank, his hand a manacle around my wrist. Rather than topple over and fall into the water, I followed. Above the noise from the chancy-boat I heard my father’s voice, shouting.
    ‘Please,’ I gasped as we reached the shore and my captor marched on toward the settlement without so much as a glance at me. ‘You must know how wrong this is. He didn’t mean it. He needs me. Please don’t do this.’
    The man stopped so abruptly that I crashed into him. He spoke in a sharp undertone.
    ‘That’s what you want, is it? A life on the road, a father who’s prepared to sell you to a stranger for the price of a few jugs of ale?’
    I stood shivering and silent in his hold, for