Stripped by the Wind

Chapter 4: The Breaking of the Caravan (Part 2)

The sticks scattered from her arms as she crashed through the underbrush, branches whipping at her bare arms and legs. The scarf flew backward, the ends streaming behind her like tattered banners. She burst out of the treeline and into the clearing where the caravan was camped, gasping for breath, her chest heaving.

The mercenaries were lounging around a small fire, eating their midday meal. Every head turned toward her.

"Look at her," someone said---Galt, she realized, the scarred one. His eyes crawled over her body, lingering on the scarf that had slipped entirely off one shoulder and was now hanging askew across her chest, barely clinging to her body. One breast was fully exposed, the pale mound heaving with exertion, the pink nipple tight and pebbled. The other was half-covered by a strip of wool so thin it might as well have been nothing. The torn dress clung to her hips, the gaping hole revealing the curve of her right buttock. "Running out of the woods like a startled doe. What's the matter, girl? See a snake?"

Laughter rippled through the group.

Lyra grabbed the scarf and pulled it back over her chest, her fingers trembling. "I heard men in the woods. More than one. They were---they were talking about waiting until nightfall."

The laughter died.

Voss appeared from behind the lead wagon, her expression sharp. "Show me."

There were no men in the woods.

Lyra led Voss and a half-dozen armed mercenaries back to the spot where she'd heard the voices, but the forest was empty. No tracks, no discarded gear, no sign that anyone had been there at all. The mercenaries spread out, searching the underbrush, but after twenty minutes they returned with nothing but shrugs and shaking heads.

"Probably just bandits passing through," Voss said dismissively. "They saw the caravan, decided we were too well-guarded, and moved on."

"But I heard them," Lyra insisted. "They said---"

"You heard something," Voss cut her off. "A deer, maybe. Or your own imagination." Her cold eyes fixed on Lyra's face. "You're jumpy. I understand. But don't waste my time with phantom threats again."

She turned and strode back toward the caravan, the mercenaries trailing after her. Galt was the last to leave, and as he passed Lyra, he leaned close.

"Jumping at shadows, little mouse," he murmured, his breath hot against her ear. "You should save your fear for things that are real."

Then he was gone, and Lyra was alone in the forest, her scarf clutched uselessly to her chest.

The afternoon was quiet.

Too quiet.

Lyra felt it in the air---a strange, oppressive stillness that made the hair on her arms stand up. The birds had stopped singing. The wind had died. Even the horses seemed uneasy, tossing their heads and snorting as they plodded along the dusty road.

Pip noticed it too. "Storm coming," he said, glancing at the sky through the canvas flap. "Big one."

Lyra followed his gaze. The clouds that had been thin and harmless that morning had thickened into a dark, churning mass on the eastern horizon. Lightning flickered in its depths, too distant to hear, but ominous nonetheless.

"Will we stop?"

Pip shook his head. "Voss will push on. Wants to make the river crossing before dark."

But the storm was faster.

It hit just as the sun began its descent---a sudden, violent explosion of wind and rain that seemed to come from nowhere. The wagons shuddered. The canvas covers snapped and billowed. The horses screamed and reared, and the mercenaries shouted as they struggled to keep control.

Lyra, still in the supply wagon, was thrown against a barrel of salted meat as the vehicle listed sideways. The scarf---already loose, already frayed, already barely clinging to her body---was torn from her shoulders by a violent gust of wind that ripped through the wagon's canvas cover like a clawed hand. She saw it whip through the air, a tattered brown ribbon spinning into the chaos, and then it was gone---snatched through a tear in the canvas and hurled into the storm, lost somewhere in the churning darkness of wind and rain and mud. She would never see it again.

"Everyone out!" Voss's voice cut through the storm like a blade. "Circle the wagons! Get the horses secured!"

Lyra stumbled out of the wagon into a wall of water. The rain was so heavy she could barely see---sheets of it, driving sideways in the wind, stinging her skin like needles. Within seconds she was soaked to the bone, her hair plastered to her face, her torn dress clinging to her body like a second skin. The fabric was so thin now, so riddled with holes, that it provided almost no coverage at all. The water streaming down her breasts pooled in the hollow of her navel, and the wind pressed the wet cotton against her pubic mound, outlining every detail of her sex.

But there was no time to think about that. The wagons were sliding in the mud, the horses were panicking, and the mercenaries were shouting orders she couldn't understand.

"Help with the horses!" someone yelled, and Lyra ran toward the sound. Her bare feet slipped in the mud, and she went down hard, landing on her hands and knees. The fall was brutal---her body slammed into the churned earth.

With the impact the dress tore apart completely.

She felt it happen in a sickening, irreversible moment. The rotten seams gave way all at once---the shoulders ripped free, the waistband snapped, the skirt shredded into ribbons. The entire garment simply disintegrated around her body, the waterlogged fabric tearing like wet paper. She felt it slide down her arms, felt it peel away from her hips and thighs, felt the cold rain lashing directly against her bare skin with no barrier at all.

When she pushed herself up onto her knees, the dress was no longer on her body. It lay in the mud beneath her---a formless, shapeless ruin of torn cotton and frayed thread, so thoroughly destroyed that it was impossible to tell it had ever been clothing. She stared at it, her chest heaving, her mind refusing to process what had happened.