Outlaw of Vulvar (Vulvarian Saga Book 3) by J. K. Spenser

Author:J. K. Spenser [Spenser, J. K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sage Knight Press Ltd.
Published: 2021-01-04T22:00:00+00:00

13

We Acquire a Companion

Our room in the inn was at the rear of one of the two wings running back on the lot, partly cut out of a hill’s lower slope. We had to use the stairs to reach the floor from the front of the inn. But our rear-facing second-floor window was at ground level. Naela surmised the fugitive hunters would be watching the stairs in case Emer and I left. She said we had to avoid the stairs and leave the room appearing occupied. So going out, we bolted the door to make it seem to anyone trying the door we were in the place. Then we bustled out the open window with our baggage and slipped down the hillside to the rear courtyard.

There, as Naela had promised, she had left a team. I’d expected a team of veovarks, but instead, it was a pair of draft baacaases. They were a larger breed than those Vulvarians rode upon, but as I’d learn, far faster animals than veovarks. I saw the team hitched to a light, four-wheeled flat-bed farm wagon.

Naela hustled Emer and me into the back of the wagon along with our gear and then covered us both with a heavy canvas tarp. Then she climbed to the driver’s seat. I heard her let loose an ear-splitting whistle and then heard the slap of leather reins on the backs of the baacaases. We felt the wagon leap forward. Naela turned it onto the road at speed. The force threw Emer and me hard against the side. Then we heard the sound of the iron-rimmed wooden wheels clattering along the cobblestone street as we made for the gates.

I expected at any minute, Naela would pull the team to a screeching halt when we reached the gate I knew they shut at nightfall. But we never stopped. In a while, Naela flipped back the edge of the tarp.

“You can come out from beneath the tarp!” she shouted over the roar of pounding shod hooves and grinding wheels. “We’re outside the gates and away from the walls!”

Emer and I climbed out of the back and onto the seat on either side of Naela. We wanted to escape the bouncing and pounding of lying on the rough wooden planks that formed the floor of the wagon bed.

“Why didn’t we have to stop at the gate?” I asked. “I thought the guards closed them at nightfall?”

“A good friend was guarding the gate tonight,” Naela said. “She is aware I sometimes must leave town in a hurry and knows to throw open the gates when she hears my wagon flying toward the gates at night.”

Naela drove the carriage the same way she laughed, with reckless abandon. The wagon bounced and shimmied with each bump and rut. We flew along a twisting dirt track that we saw only vaguely by the dim light of the moons. In the curves, Emer and I had to hold on for dear life to avoid the force of the turns from throwing us from the fast-moving wagon.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.