by Victor Milán
It was a fatal mistake. Like the elves who had raised him and trained him, Stillhawk was no horse-bowman. He had already dropped to the grass without reining in his bay, and was running off his momentum with his long brown lean-thewed legs. Even as he ran, he nocked an arrow and released, then, running, reached into his quiver for another.
The arrows that struck the second and third short bowmen down were already in flight when the two men turned their heads to gape at the broad-headed arrow that had transfixed the first one's throat. The short-bow volley fell wide, arrows hissing into the grass like snakes. "Randi, they're shooting at us,' Goldie panted. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
They were almost upon the horseman, who still hadn't freed his weapon from his victim. Ignoring her mare, Zaranda screamed, "Look me in the eye before you die, you scum!"
The horseman was quick on the uptake. He let go his trapped lance immediately, and was drawing his broadsword even as he turned. He saw Zaranda charging not twenty feet away, bared yellow teeth, and flung his sword high for a downward stroke.
Zaranda dug her heels into Goldie's flanks, urging her into a final surge of speed. As the mare dashed past the larger horse, Zaranda slashed forehand beneath the upraised arm. Her magic-imbued blade sliced almost effortlessly through stained leather, meat, and bone with a humming, crackling sound.
The raider fell, his final expression one of bewilderment.
"I hate that sour-milk smell," Goldie complained as Zaranda reined her in, almost in the burning cottage's yard. "Why did you have to get a magic sword imbued with lightning? It's not as if it actually throws bolts or anything… Uh-oh."
The last remark was elicited by the fact that, in spite of being well and truly on fire, the cot was disgorging marauders, half a dozen of them, casting away loot bundled into pillowcases in order to draw their blades. They were dirty, unkempt, and unshaven, dressed in rags and tag ends of armor, and their weapons were in as dire need of cleaning as their teeth. The armaments looked serviceable enough, despite their lamentable condition.
Three more horsemen came drumming out from around the far side of the burning house. One of them had two wing-fluttering hens, one black, one white-and-black checked, tied by the feet to the pommel of his saddle. He brandished a sword, as did one of his mounted fellows. The third swung the spiked, fist-sized ball of an aspergillum-style morningstar on its chain about his helmeted head.
Zaranda winced; they were devilish things to defend against.
The riders showed cunning. Rather than rushing straight at the mounted interloper, they spurred their horses wide, hoping to pin her against the house and the semicircle of footmen. Zaranda just had time to wheel Goldie about and dart for safety.
But that was never her style.
"Head down, babe," she murmured to her mare, and nudged her hard with her heels.
"You don't want me-"
"Gо!
The golden palomino mare put her head down and lunged forward-straight for the doorway of the flaming cottage. Zaranda laid her magic saber about her, looping left and right so that the blade formed wings that shimmered silver gossamer in the morning sun. Utterly astonished by her mad forward rush, the footmen broke to either side. She felt Crackletongue's enchanted steel bite flesh gratifyingly as she passed.
Then she laid her body forward along Goldie's arched neck, and the mare lunged into the building, trailing a despairing cry of "Za-ran-daaa!" Smoke drooled upward over the lintel of the doorframe, caressing Zaranda's nose and eyes with stinging fingers. Then they were inside, hooves thumping on earth packed hard and soaked with beasts' blood in classic Tethyrian country fashion, dried into a smooth hard maroon surface like glazed tile and covered with rush straw. Flames ran like dancing rat spirals up the ornately carved posts that upheld the roof, and wound about the roof beams a handspan above Zaranda's unarmored back. She felt their heat, heard their lustful crackle, felt embers fall on the back of her neck, smelled her own hair start to burn.
As she hoped, there was a kitchen door. They burst through into the relative cool of open. Woman and mare released the breath they had been holding and filled their lungs with blessed clean air. Zaranda let go the reins, which she held only from long equestrian habit, to bat away the sparks lodged in Goldie's mane and her own hair.
"Aren't you getting too old for this, Randi?" gasped the mare.
Zaranda threw back her hair and laughed like a schoolgirl. "No!"
Two horsemen appeared around the stone corner to Zaranda's left. Zaranda brought Goldie round to meet them. Then the sudden backward pivot of the mare's long ears alerted her that the third one had circled to take her from behind.
"Not so fast, buster," Goldie said as the third horse, a white stallion, ran up on her. "We hardly know each other."
She launched a sudden savage kick with both rear feet. The stallion screamed and shied back as a steel-shod hoof gouged a divot from his shoulder. His rider, the man with the mace-on-a-stick, groaned and sagged, clutching his thigh. Goldie's other hoof had caught him square, with luck breaking the femur or at the least giving him a deep bone bruise and an excellent set of cramps.
With one foe out of the fight, however temporarily, Zaranda charged the other two. The rider on Zaranda's left sat a stubby little pony a hand shorter than Goldie, who wasn't as dainty as she effected to believe. Zaranda put her mare's shoulder right into the smaller beast's chest, rocking the pony back on its haunches and fouling its rider's sword strokes, while Zaranda traded ringing cuts with the man to her right.
The bandit swordsman had greater strength, but Zaranda was used to that. Though she was tall and strong, most men were stronger. Skill and speed were her edges. In an exchange that flashed with more than sunlight, she took a nick in the shoulder but left the man's right side in ribbons and his cheek laid open, streaming blood into a matted gray-flecked beard. Frantically, he sidestepped his horse away from the blade storm.
All this time Goldie had been driving the pony back, trying to force its rump against the house's stone flank, and grunting mightily to let Zaranda know how hard she was working. The rider, who had a gap in his teeth and a right eye that looked at random out across the bean-fields, finally hit the notion of yanking his mount's head to the right and trying to slide past the mare.
As he did so, he hacked cross-body at Zaranda's face, hoping to down her while her attention was on his comrade. "Randi, duck!" shouted Goldie.
Zaranda threw herself to her right, letting her left foot slip from the stirrup, snagging the knee on the pommel to keep herself from leaving the saddle entirely. She whipped Crackletongue over and across her body, deflecting the broadsword so that it skimmed her rump and thunked into her saddle's cantle. With a backhand slash, she laid the man's face open. He screamed and dropped his sword, clutching his face with his hands.
With a bellow of triumph, the grizzle-bearded man spurred his horse at her, bringing his own blade up for the kill. A hissing sound, and he crossed his eyes to look at the bright, slim tip of Farlorn's rapier, which suddenly protruded from his breast. The blade slid inside him like a serpent's tongue, and out his back. He slumped from the saddle.
The cockeyed man had fallen to the grass beside the kitchen stoop and lay curled in a ball, sobbing.
Thanks," said Zaranda with a nod to Farlorn. The bard grinned and saluted her with a flourish of his blade.
Zaranda looked at the man with the morningstar, who sat a wary ten yards off, massaging his thigh. "Surrender, and we'll let you live," she told him, "as long as you're willing to answer a few questions." The man grimaced in pain and licked greasy lips. "Does that means just as long as I'm answering questions?" he asked.
"Zaranda," a familiar voice called timidly from the farmhouse's far side. "Could you, ah-could you show yourself, please?"
Zaranda turned and frowned at Farlorn. "Father Pelletyr?" she said.
He shrugged. The morningstar man took advantage of their distraction to spur his horse away behind some ap
ple trees covered with tiny green buds of fruit.
Farlorn dismounted to see to the man Zaranda had struck down. She rode Goldie back around the side of the cot, swinging well wide to avoid flames billowing from window and roof.
On the last grassy rise Zaranda and her comrades had crossed before hitting the farmhouse, a lone rider sat. He was a vast man, a good eight feet tall, astride a horse at least eighteen hands high and as broad as a beer-cart, which might have served a northern knight as a destrier but more likely was born to pull a plow. The man wore a hauberk of tarnished scale armor and, across one mountainous shoulder, bore a great double-bitted battle-axe with a six-foot helve. The restless wind made the hair of his topknot stream like a greasy black pennon.
Beside him, four ragged men on foot had Father Pelletyr by the arms. One of them held a knife blade, crusted with rust and ominous dark stains, against the cleric's throat.
4
"Zaranda," the priest said apologetically, "these gentlemen claim to be tax-collectors. If they're about their lawful business, it's wrong of us to interfere."
Farlorn had emerged from behind the house on his dapple-fannied gray. He answered Zaranda's query-look with a shrug to indicate the man she'd struck was no longer an issue. Then he glanced up the rise, and a smile quirked his handsome lips.
"Our good father was always one for following instructions,'' he murmured.
"Who dares," the monstrous rider bellowed, "interfere with the servitors of Baron Pundar on their lawful business?"
"Zaranda Star dares that and more," Zaranda declared. "Especially since I happen to be Countess Morninggold. Father, this beast's misled you; this is still County Morninggold, and these men no more than looters-and murderers."
She tossed her head haughtily, making her name-sake blaze flash in the sun. "Who dares to name that hedge-robber Pundar of Little Consequence 'baron'- and to prey upon my people?"
The morningstar man with the injured leg had circled round and now rode up to join his apparent leader. He stopped and turned back to the house.
"Pundar is too a baron," he called through cupped hands. "He has a piece of paper from the capital that proves it!"
"The capital?" Zaranda said, half to herself. "Since when is there a capital in Tethyr?"
"Why, Zazesspur-оw!"
The giant man had ridden a few steps forward and with a great backhanded clout knocked the morningstar man from the saddle.
"I do the talking here," he roared. "I am Togrev the Magnificent, lord high commander of the armed forces of Pundaria! We claim these lands by ancient right, as approved and attested by Zazesspur."
Zaranda and Farlorn had begun to ride forward. They could see the house's front now. Two of the footmen lay in unmoving lumps in the pigsty; the other four stood with hands up, looking nervously at Still-hawk, who stood covering them with an arrow nocked.
"By rights," Zaranda told Togrev, "we should hang the lot of you as the murderous bandit scum you are."
"You forget," the lord high commander said, and gestured with a black-nailed hand. A few feet from the captive cleric the little ass had its head down, cropping obliviously at the sweet spring grass. "I have your priest"
"For all the good that does you," Zaranda said. "It's poor practice to negotiate for hostages, and as a rule I won't do it."
Father Pelletyr squirmed his right arm free enough to touch himself four times on the breast in the sign of the rack on which Ilmater suffered. Then he crossed his hands before his breast as if they were bound and rolled his eyes heavenward, accepting. The cleric had a notable reluctance to face physical danger, but this was martyrdom, which made all the difference in the world.
"However," Zaranda said, stopping her horse twenty yards downslope from the huge man, "somebody needs to be left alive to tell that mound of ankheg droppings Pundar that if he troubles my people again hell wake some fine spring night with a fireball in his lap."
"And who would cast such a fireball?" demanded Togrev in an avalanche rumble.
"I would."
The morningstar man had rolled over and was sitting in the grass and rubbing the back of his neck. "She's a witch, Togrev," he said. "She knows all kind of wild magics. Beware her spells."
"Listen to the man," Zaranda said.
The huge man frowned at her. His brows beetled impressively. "Half-ogre, by the smell of him," Goldie muttered as the wind backed. "Ick."
"What will you do, then?" Togrev demanded.
"Kill you in single combat."
"You want me to fight that?" Goldie demanded in a whisper, nodding at the gigantic plowhorse. "He's as clumsy as a barrel of boulders, but if he ever connects, sweet Sune preserve me!"
Togrev frowned more impressively still, as if there were something here he didn't quite get. "Why should I go along with that?" he asked after a few heartbeats.
"Because if you don't, we'll slaughter you and all your men, and I'll whistle up a wind elemental to drop your head in Pundar's pigsty with a note attached."
"When did you learn to summon elementals?" Farlorn hissed out the side of his mouth in elf-speech, which half-ogres as a rule didn't understand.
"Never," replied Zaranda in the same tongue, which she grasped well enough but could only speak in pidgin. "Now shut up." She swung down from Goldie and stepped to the side to stand facing the half-ogre, legs braced and hands on hips. The wind stroked her face and ruffled her hair. The springtime smell would have been quite refreshing except that Goldie was quite right about Togrev: he was a half-ogre, manifestly, and lived up to their usual standards of hygiene. Togrev rumbled deep in his cavernous chest and swung down from his massive mount. Goldie flared her nostrils and blew out a long breath. Zaranda fought to keep her own shoulders from sagging in relief.
"And when I beat you, pathetic woman-thing?" the bandit chief demanded.
"If you win, you and your men go free. If you lose, your men still go free. This is really a pretty good deal I'm offering."
"Are you sure this is wise?" asked Farlorn out loud.
"No," Zaranda said, "but it'll be very soothing to my anger, one way or another."
Togrev scratched his unshaven chin and pondered. "
"Ware magic, Lord Commander!" the morningstar man exclaimed. "She's a witch, I tell you!"
"How is that fair?" the half-ogre asked in aggrieved tones. "You'll just cheat and use some witching tricks. You could never best me otherwise. I am Togrev the Magnificent!"
"Compared to what?" murmured Farlorn. "If you agree to meet me alone, with no outside interference from either side, I shall forbear to use any magic against you. I'll forgo even the blessings of my priest. Does that satisfy you?"
For answer the half-ogre swung his great axe in a wild flourish that ended with it poised above his head. The passage of air through inlets cut through the head made it moan like a lost soul.
"Prepare to break!" he roared.
"Not so fast," Zaranda said with a firm shake of the head. "My priest."
Togrev glowered at her. Then he nodded.
"Let the fat pig go."
His men gaped at him
"Do it!" he roared.
They let go of Father Pelletyr and stepped away as if he'd grown hot in their grasp.
The priest brushed himself off. "I forgive you," he murmured to his erstwhile captors.
Stillhawk herded his captives up the rise. They joined the dismounted morningstar man and the four who had held the cleric on one side of the combat — ground. The Dalesman-who was as sparing with words as any speaking ranger-looked rebellious when Zaranda signed him to put his nocked arrow back in its quiver. Her eyes met his and held them for a moment. He nodded and complied.
As Zaranda was turning her head to look at her opponent once again, he charged with speed surprising in one so huge. Which still wasn't very fast in absolute terms, but it had served him well in the past, taking enemies by surprise and stunning them into momentary-and fatal-inaction.
Zaranda was molded
of different metal. Without hesitation, she threw Crackletongue up to meet the axe. She did not try to block the strike; had she done so, the weight of the axe and the man behind it would have broken her arm and its blade would have cloven her, regardless. Instead the flat of her saber struck the haft right behind the bit, guiding the monstrous moaning weapon past her as she pirouetted aside.
At the instant of meeting, her sword emitted a snarl and shower of blue sparks. Crackletongue did that on making contact with creatures consecrated to evil, thus confirming something Zaranda had already surmised. With her help, the axe blade bit deep into the soft flesh of the hillside. Zaranda rolled her wrist and slashed forehand for the great corded neck. Togrev roared and threw his body back and to the side. Crackle-tongue's tip sparked as it bit, but it did no more than cut skin, cauterizing the slight wound as it left it.
Flash-fast, the half-ogre had wrenched free his axe, throwing out clods of earth, and whipped it into guard position before his metal-scaled breast. Zaranda sprang away to face him, half-crouched, Crackletongue held out before her, muttering and flickering with magic. "Not bad," she said. "You're quick for such a wad of blubber."
An impressive paunch strained the seams of Togrev's hauberk, but he was by no means a wad of blubber. For some treason Zaranda had found the few ogres and half-ogres she'd had dealings with-none friendly-were one and all sensitive to suggestions that they were fat. An angry foe was seldom a clearheaded one. And if the brute's that agile, she thought, I need all the edge I can get.
He seemed to be right-handed. She circled that direction, clockwise around him. He began pivoting to face her, and at the same time edging toward her. Then he snapped the great axe up and back as if it were a jackstraw, cocking for a strike.
She lunged. The half-ogre screamed like a wounded horse as Crackletongue's tip sank a handbreadth into the bulging triceps of his left arm. There was a sizzle and stink of burning flesh, and then Zaranda hurled herself past her foe, twisting her sword as she ripped it free, trying to do the maximum harm.