for miles before them, the Keep getting smaller and smaller in the horizon behind them. “I have never in my life been man-handled in this manner. I will have your head on a spike for this, you … you… lowly barbarian.”
Cullen didn’t answer the arrogant young woman; he kept riding silently with her still slung over his shoulder, stretching the distance between their pursuers, using all his expertise at horsemanship. After a while there was no sign of pursuit and Cullen decided to let his horse slow down to a trot. A few hours of easy riding later with him silently enduring her rants and wails until she grew tired, he slowed the horse down to a halt. It was a good place to camp, with a stream running by and trees that bore fruit all around them. Three more days of hard riding lay before them, to get to the border of the Western Kingdom, and another day to reach the castle of King Gawain, and he wanted the horse to gather as much strength as it could.
He dismounted and unceremoniously dumped his burden onto a soft patch of moss. Shania fell hard, but the soft moss broke her fall. Nevertheless, she had the breath taken out of her and was livid with rage. He ignored her and sat down to clean the blood off his broadsword. She watched his sullen expression. His cool, care free demeanor infuriated her. Never had a man felt so intimidating to her. She was used to perfumed nobles and prancing princes bowing before her and offering their slender arms for her to hold as they walked in obeisance beside her. This man was nothing like that at all, and it made her blood boil to not have her superior station acknowledged.
“Savage!’ She cried out. “Ill-mannered brute! Haven’t you been taught in the ways to treating a woman of high birth, a regal princess?”
He eyed her silently, running the whetstone across the length of his blade with almost mechanical precision, blue sparks spraying with each stroke. The huge warhorse happily munched away at the grass behind him.
“Well, what have you to say?” She screamed. “I am Princess Shania; men bow before me or lose their heads.”
“You’re not my princess, woman.” Cullen said, anger pricking at the back of his neck. “To me you are a burden I need deliver for a few coins, no more.”
***
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