The Prendarian Chronicles Duet

The Prendarian Chronicles (Duet)
Gemma Woods
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2024 Gemma Woods

Rigah stood and gazed out the window of the conveyance. The sun had finally broken night, but the view held nothing but long, endless fields of quaanti grain, glowing pink and ripe, swaying in the gentle breeze.

She drummed her fingers on the communication console in an impatient rhythm. If only she could have traveled by hovercraft. A hovercraft could race over the open ground, without the side-to-side swaying of this ungainly conveyance. The large vehicle lumbered along like a methodical beast, a crawling armored machine on this narrow, provincial road. At this pace, she would not reach her household before nightfall.

A screech rent the silence, and the conveyance jolted with unsteady force. She nearly lost her footing as the vehicle shuddered to a halt. What now?

She walked through the connecting chamber to the front of the conveyance, unlocked the loading doors, and descended the steep ramp. A cloud of dust hung over the road, and a mass of twisted metal was wedged underneath the front wheels of the conveyance. Damn the gods. Some kind of farm equipment, no doubt left lying in the road by an idiot slave. At least the machine appeared to be empty. A human could not have survived the heavy crush of her conveyance.

She put one foot on an edge of the metal wreckage and pushed down hard. No movement. The ruined metal was wedged tight. It would take many men to pry the wreckage free, and she had left her entire contingent of soldiers in the Western Quarter to quell the slave uprising. Only two servants accompanied her this day.

She would send a servant for assistance. All would be eager to assist the Leader Elect. But even if a hundred men suddenly sprang from the quaanti fields, she would not reach home before nightfall. The gods truly frowned upon her. She kicked the metal wreck.

“You’ll have to kick it harder than that to move it,” a masculine voice said.

Who dared speak to her so insolently? She spun to face the rude man. He stood twenty paces away in the field, cutting the long stalks of grain with easy sweeps of a threshing blade, clearing a path as he moved closer. An Earther. Handsome, for a slave, with dark hair pushed back from his high forehead. The heavy threshing blade swung gracefully in his powerful grasp.

He reached the edge of the field and stopped with the blade above his shoulder, at the end of a long sweep. He stared at her as if he had never seen a woman before, his gaze moving rudely over her form.

His clothes were as rough as his manners. He wore no tunic, only a loose-fitting shirt and trousers. Broad shoulders. A chest so wide, a woman could comfortably lie upon him. His waist was narrow, but his loose trousers showed nothing of him below the waist.

Her gaze swept up again, and she found him looking back at her face. Never had an Earther dared to meet her gaze so boldly.

Such unusual eyes. Amber brown. She’d seen many Earthers since her people had conquered their world, but she had never seen such stunning eyes.

The color was rare, but she recognized the look in them.

Hunger.

He swung his threshing blade down, resting it on the ground at his feet. “At least no one was on the baler.”

What manner of slave was he, to speak directly to a member of her race? Perhaps he’d been sheltered from her people here in the wilderness. Yet he spoke Prendarian well, with only the barest hint of an accent to betray his Earth origins.

He crossed in front of her and studied the wreckage. How dare he turn his back to her?

But she would not reprimand him. A field slave could not be expected to know how to behave in the presence of the Leader Elect. And he looked too delicious, rumpled and slightly damp with a light sweat despite the cool breeze. A handsome man could be forgiven much.

He crouched down and began prying at the twisted metal with his threshing blade. His shirt pulled tight across his broad shoulders. She moved to his side and studied his profile. A strong nose, straight but not delicate. His lips were full and sensuous. Exotic. As were the best of his fellow Earthers.

Tempting.

She had never lain with an Earther. She chose her consorts from the elite of her own race -- men who inevitably wheedled her for political favors. No wonder it had been months since she had bothered to take a man.

Perhaps her mother was right. Perhaps a low-ranked man, a concubine, was more suited to serving the Leader Elect. A man who would pleasure her exclusively. A man who would request nothing from her.

A man like this Earther.

Ah. Her journey had been tiresome indeed, to make her stand here in idle musings.

Her derelict conveyance operator approached, head lowered in shame. She would deal with his neglect later. Six weeks of scrubbing in the kitchens would teach him to be attentive. “Eldin,” she called to him. “Move the conveyance back.” Perhaps the wreckage would free itself.

He bowed without speaking and drew away.

The Earther stood. “No,” he shouted to Eldin.

He thought to give orders to her servants? Eldin ignored him and went inside the conveyance.

“Stop him,” the Earther said.

Who was this slave, to challenge her orders? “Do not speak,” she commanded. He clenched his hands into fists, but said nothing.

The conveyance moved back, dragging the wreckage with it. The crumpled metal dug hard into the road, ripping huge trenches in the dirt and tearing up rocks as it moved.

The conveyance ground to a halt. A thick haze of dust drifted along the road. For at least twenty paces, huge holes had been torn into the surface. The conveyance would not be able to pass, and the wreckage was still caught underneath it.

A dozen men appeared from the fields, no doubt drawn by the noise. Slaves, all of them. “Repair this road,” she ordered.

They stood mutely, heads hanging, afraid to look at her. Proper slaves. Proper and incompetent.

The handsome Earther sighed. “Rick, bring shovels and a leveler. Everyone else start gathering rocks. Hurry, before the owner sees this mess.”

The men scattered, obeying the man’s orders without comment or question. He was a slave, as all Earthers were. Did he hold a formal station that commanded such authority? “Who are you?”

“Jason.”

That could not be his station. “Jay-sun. That is your name?”