The Wonder (Queen of Hearts Saga #2)(28)
Dinah could barely nod her head with the thundering pain in her temple, but she managed to swallow a few gulps of water. Sir Gorrann had thrown a rock at her? Her thoughts were confused, cloudy. There were the mushrooms and the Yurkei and their arrows and then… she couldn’t remember. Why had the Spade taken her this way in the first place?
Morte’s easy lilt rocked her back to unconsciousness, and when she awoke again the dusk was settling. She looked around. They were in a vast field of waving pale-green grass, as tall as most men, interspersed with curling lavender trees that whirled and leapt from their roots. The wind rippled the grass violently from side to side, and when she tucked her head to avoid a lashing from the grasses, the Yurkei didn’t even seem to notice. A line of Yurkei warriors stretched out in front of them, and Dinah noticed that she was surrounded on all sides by Yurkei guards, eyeing her and Sir Gorrann with obvious loathing. She stared back unabashedly at the warriors, so different than anything she had ever seen before. Their skin was a dark toffee, the color of wet sand or burned bread. Stripes of thick white paint ran from under their eyes down their entire body, covering their arms and bare torsos. Each one had glowing bright-blue eyes that radiated from their dark faces. They each had white hair that came to a point in the middle of their forehead. Most had short hair, cropped to just below the neck, although Mundoo’s was longer and braided down his back with stripes of blue. Each warrior wore pants (if one could call them that) made of white feathers that sat low and snug around their muscled pelvises.
They were strangely handsome and moved with a graceful ease that eluded every human Dinah had ever known. Their horses were all the same pale tan with white manes. The horses were smaller than the mares she had seen at the stable, but they seemed quicker and more connected to their riders. Together they moved, horse and rider, as though they were of one mind. All together, the Yurkei created an incredible mass of muscle and skill, each Yurkei in possession of a quiver hung across their backs, full of white arrows flecked with gray.
Mundoo rode at the front, the heavy footsteps of his Hornhoov echoing across the quiet landscape. He was taller than the rest, and Dinah could see from the rippling of muscles across his back that he was an impressive specimen. It was strange to look upon Mundoo, a name that struck fear into the heart of every Wonderland girl and boy and see that while he was no doubt a fierce man, he was still just a man. Stories of the Yurkei ran rampant in Wonderland—stories of the horrors they inflicted upon innocent towns, of how they beat their women, of how they sacrificed their children and gnawed on human bones. It was said that they mated with cranes, and that their offspring were the terrible white bears of the Twisted Wood. Dinah had always been skeptical of the Yurkei stories—mostly because she was skeptical of everything she learned—but she could see now with her own eyes that the stories were grossly exaggerated.
These men weren’t so unlike the Cards. They dressed differently and spoke in a language that sounded like the flowing of water, but they were just men, not monsters. She had learned some basic Yurkei language in her studies, but the true lesson had been unspoken: they are the enemy. Know the language of the enemy.
Dinah struggled against her restraints as her arms fell asleep and her spine raged in protest from being bent forward for so many hours. “Yeh best quit moving,” noted the Spade quietly. “Don’t call attention to yourself.”
“Mmm….” The Spade removed her gag for a short second. “Morte?” she gasped. Even with the blindfold, she could feel Sir Gorrann’s disappointment boring into her as he put her gag back in place.
Finally, he gave a nod. “Amazing what yeh care about. Morte let me climb up—probably because I was carrying yeh. He’s heavily drugged from the mushrooms—he probably isn’t even aware what’s happening right now. He’s just walking. Otherwise, I think he would have killed a great many today.” The Spade paused. “I want to warn yeh that Morte might not live long once we get to Hu-Yuhar. Yeh must understand that he has killed many, many Yurkei. Iy-Joyera means the black devil.”
Dinah felt her eyes blur with tears and blood dripping from her head wound. She strained against her gag. “Whhhh….” Sir Gorrann pulled it out again. “Why… why did you lead me here?”
“Don’t yeh worry about that quite yet. It will all play out.” Dinah closed her eyes again, half-reassured, half-alarmed by the Spade’s presence behind her. “Sleep. I’ll wake yeh when we arrive. Best get yer wits about yeh. And don’t try to kill the Chief again, otherwise we’ll both end up riddled with arrows.”
I can’t promise that, thought Dinah drowsily, on the edge of sleep as Sir Gorrann struggled to blindly put her gag back in. Not if he tries to kill me first. I will fight for my pathetic existence, no matter how meaningless it is at this point. Her head throbbed and she dropped swiftly into the soothing arms of sleep.
Chapter Nine
She awoke flat on her back, her eyes staring up at a circle of bright blue sky. She blinked a few times before her hands came up to wipe her watering eyes. Her arms were free. This was a good sign. She let her eyes play over her surroundings, hesitant to move. She was in a tent of some sort, but it wasn’t triangular, or square. It was perfectly round and short, shaped like the tarts she had loved back at the palace. She knew if she stood that her fingers would brush the tip of the roof, and if she were just a bit taller she would be able to stick her hand through the open hole at the top. Dinah pushed herself up shakily. She was sitting on some sort of incredible mattress made of woven grass. Her back felt better than it had in weeks of sleeping on the hard ground. For the first time in a long time, Dinah’s body felt truly rested. She stretched her arms out in front of her body—which led to a pulse of pain that radiated down from her head.