Honor Bound by Joey Hill (speld decodable readers .txt) 📕

woman in red trimmed with seed pearls, standing with her arms folded, a faint frown creasing her brow. She had the Queen’s hairline and the same long jaw. But this one was eaten up with jealousy and resentment. Sikara—bah, what hard, ugly names these people had!—would do well to watch her back. Still, the Queen was lucky. Amae had the feeling not much slipped past her Guard Captain. Rhio would protect his royal charge with swift and brutal efficiency.

Rhio. Rhi-o-marr-d. She sounded it out under her breath, curling her tongue around each syllable, inflecting the word in the way of her people.

Name the child, shape the life, went the Ancestors’ proverb. Long, descriptive names were an integral part of Shar’d’iloned’t’Hywil culture. Or they had been. The Captain’s name was too short for true beauty, but nowhere near so . . . so angular as those she’d heard so far in Caracole of the Leaves.

Rhiomard. A growl with a purr at the end. It suited him well enough, a four-square soldier, dedicated to his duty. At first glance, he’d struck her as stolid, possibly dull.

She’d selected him for the Test of the Battle Maiden out of pure devilment, because he alone had remained perfectly expressionless through her performance. Not many men managed that. To her delight, he’d taken her choice very personally indeed. Temper had sparked in that steady gaze and he’d risen to her challenge—Amae bit the inside of her cheek to stop the reminiscent grin—in every possible way.

She’d seen men lose bladder control during the Test. Not this one. He’d honored his Ancestors, holding his nerve as well as any Shar warrior. And it seemed he was a decent man. By the First Mother, she’d almost forgotten they existed. Those cool gray eyes had darkened with genuine concern when Giral ordered her to report to the diabloman he employed as his Slave Master.

Don’t think of it, of slashing claws, and glutinous sniggers.

Suppressing a shudder, she pulled the cloak tighter around her shoulders. Someday soon a chance must come! She’d have only the one. But then, oh, then . . . Giral would pay until his bones cracked, his screams never-ending. Music to her ears.

This Rhio, he might be useful. Curling her bare toes into the deep pile of the rug, Amae considered.

The Captain was by no means a youth—there’d been a sprinkle of gray at his

temples—but he had good muscle tone and excellent reflexes. The nearest thing to a real warrior she’d seen since her last sight of her eldest brother, the iron-shod quarterstaff a blur in his hands. Young and strong and brave, standing his ground. But step by step, an evil green cloud forced him back, roiling with armored, segmented limbs and pincers and snapping mandibles.

“Run, Amae, run!” he’d yelled, the quarterstaff ringing as it cracked a chitinous elbow joint. An eldritch howl issued from the cloud, echoed by the scream of the diabloman linked to the foul thing.

Whirling around, Amae had ducked under the thrust of a six-foot pike and shoved her blade into the belly of the Trinitarian soldier blocking her path. Jerking it across and up, she registered his grunt of pained surprise and felt the warm, slippery rush of his blood across her knuckles. But before she could yank the dagger free, something atrociously hard slammed into her temple.

“Amae!” Her brother’s anguished bellow echoed across the parched landscape, fading away as oblivion rolled her under and into the dark. She’d been fifteen.

Now she sucked in a breath, folding her arms across her chest so she could hold herself together unnoticed. Alone. The last warrior of the Shar’d’iloned’t’Hywil. Vengeance was hers, her sacred duty to the Ancestors, her personal pleasure. It mattered not how long she had to wait. If nothing else, slavery had taught her patience.

Amae’d’haraleen’t’Lenquisquilirian.

Every day of her captivity, she found a mirror, even if it was only a reflection in a pond, or the dregs in the bottom of a cup. Over and over, she murmured her name, so that it at least would not disappear into the empty dark. If there was time, she repeated the roll call of those she had lost, but as the years went by, one name after another slipped from her memory and she grieved for that bitter death as well.

There wasn’t a literal translation of her name, though “Green Sapling Growing” was near enough. Like all the names of her people, it included a subtext covering every possible connotation and nuance. Encoded in the flowing syllables was the blind determination of new life to fulfill its purpose, to grow and bloom, the joy of unfurling in the light, of twig and blossom and green tendril.

She gave herself a mental shake. Where had this foolish spurt of memory and grief come from? It was of no use whatsoever, a weakness she could not afford.

Boots rang on the tiled floor of the vestibule. Rhiomard and his Sergeant strode into the chamber. Amae’s heart skipped a beat.

Ah, of course. The stern-faced Captain had set her off. A warrior who respected a woman enough to serve her—a man with nothing left to prove, a real man! Taking her wayward thoughts in a firm grip, she steered them away from everything she could never have.

Four

Could she turn this Rhio into an ally? No, that would mean trust. Too dangerous by far. A tool perhaps. Amae bit her lip. A pity to use him thus, because it would not go well with him if he failed in his duty, but there it was. She might not have a choice.

Deliberately, she shifted her gaze to the homely face of the female Sergeant. What had he called her? Yachi, that was it. By the bones of Those Before, just the sound of the name set her teeth on edge! Like a cat hawking up a fur ball.

The woman could hardly have missed the reaction of the Trinitarian delegation. They hadn’t been able to stop shooting her sideways glances, appalled,