Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #11 February 2015 | Page 22

Leola’s bare feet made a slight padding noise as she
slinked through the service tunnels. There were no servants about at this time of night to discover her escape
attempt, and for that she thanked the Warriors in the
Sky. If she was successful, she would make a sacrifice at
the temple, in their honour, for watching over her.

had refused each time. She knew he only wanted her as
a means to an end, or at least he had in the beginning.
The man had several concubines and slaves to tend to
his male urges, but there was something in the way he
had started to look at her in the recent months that
made her quite uncomfortable.

Her captivity had lasted almost a year, and despite the
repeated attempts from her family to retrieve her, her
captor had refused to give her up. Now, through desperation, she had to escape.

Leola knew the intimacies of human relationships, the
requirement for a king to have an heir, she was heiress
to her father’s kingdom after all and had been appropriately educated: arts, literature, woodcraft, archery
and studies of the warrior arts as well as statesmanship
and diplomacy. Her lessons had been useless against
the barbarian brute that had held her captive for the
last year.

He had captured her along with four of her royal bodyguards after she had an argument with her father, King
Delon, and left the safety of the castle to ride out her
frustration; the argument was about something that
seemed so trivial and foolish now.
Her men had tried to protect her, but Horgan had a
larger group of men, fresh from a hunt in her father’s
own forest. Horgan himself took the reins of her horse
and pulled her from the saddle. She had struggled in
his grip, beating ineffectively at him with clenched
fists while his men laughed and slaughtered her bodyguards.
He had tried to convince her to marry him, but she

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She was maturing from a rough young girl into a lovely
young woman. The gazes of men showed their interest
in her. Her long, flowing hair, her chest that had filled
out into a firm young bust and the delicate curve of her
hips, all had formed from the boyish body at the time
of her capture.
She had known it was only a matter of [YH