Roder pulled at his sword hilt, but it didn’t seem to want to come out the scabbard. Red-faced, he shouted, “Hey!” at the phantom. Like a ghost, the man turned his horse away, and vanished silently into the trees.
“Teffen! Did you see-?” Roder realized he was addressing empty air. The boy was gone, too. Poor lad, he’s probably frightened and hiding, Roder thought.
“Teffen? Teffen, where are you? It was just one man, I’m sure. He turned tail when he saw me.” He stood absolutely still and listened. Tree frogs and crickets were beginning to wake up for the night. Beyond them he could hear nothing. He decided Teffen must have run off.
“Idiot,” he said good-naturedly. Teffen would return once he realized there was no danger. No sense blundering after him in the dark woods. Roder scratched up some tinder and twigs and used his flint to start a small campfire. If Teffen had any sense at all, he’d home in on the light or the smoke.
Roder sat down with his back against the fallen ash tree. The little fire crackled just beyond his feet. He laid his sword and scabbard across his lap and resolved to remain awake until Teffen returned. His resolve failed him. By the time the fire had burned down to a heap of glowing coals, Roder was well asleep.
Something brushed his cheek. In his torpor, Roder scratched his face to shoo the fly. It came back and nudged him a little more firmly. Not a fly, then. Berry.
“Go ‘way,” he mumbled, rolling away from the annoying horse.
Something tickled his nose. In his sleep-addled mind, Roder thought he was at home, at Camlargo. His small room was plagued with spiders during the warm months. He hated them. He once knew a boy who died of a spider bite. When the insistent tickling returned to his ear, he knew it couldn’t be Berry bothering him. It must be-a spider!
He rocketed upright, kicking his feet and slapping his own face with both hands. His backward progress was stopped when he ran into the ash tree trunk.
“Eh?” he said. A lantern flared. Roder looked up into a cold, grim face.
Leaning against the fallen tree was Teffen, a hooded lantern in his hand. With him were five rough-looking men clad in deerskins, their faces smeared with soot.
“What’s this?” asked Roder, unsure of what he was seeing.
“The charade is over,” Teffen said. “Good night, good Knight.” He nodded. Before Roder could protest, the hard-looking man nearest him raised a mallet and brought it down on Roder’s tousled head.
Lord Burnond was not going to like this turn of events.
Roder opened his eyes with effort. It felt as if someone had poured sealing wax on them.
“Ow,” he groaned. “I’m sorry, my lord. I didn’t mean to oversleep-” He blinked and tried to wipe away the haze and discovered his hands were tied to his ankles. It was an extraordinarily cramped position, made all the more unpleasant by the dull throb of pain in his head.
A bucketful of cold water hit him. “Good morning,” said a calm voice. Roder shook off the water and inner cobwebs and saw a slim pair of legs in front of him, clad in soft suede boots and black leather trews.
“Ugh, who is it?”
The legs bent, and Teffen squatted down nose to nose with Roder. “Did you sleep well?” he asked genially.
Roder strained against his bonds. “No, damn you! Let me go! Ow! What’s this mean, Teffen?”
“I thought the situation was clear. You’re my prisoner.”
“But I’m a Knight of Takhisis!”
“Are you? The quality of captives around here is going up.”
Another, stockier pair of legs entered his view. “This is all he had on ‘im,” said the newcomer. “Some kinda seal on it.”
“That’s an official dispatch!” Roder protested. “Put it back! Don’t touch it-” Fragments of the red wax seal fell on his shoes.
“Let’s see what the commandant of Camlargo has on his mind, eh?” Teffen perused the scroll sent by Commandant Burnond. “Hmm, interesting.”
“What’s it say?” Two more pairs of legs crowded around, peering over their leader’s shoulder.
“You know none of you know how to read,” said Teffen. His cronies merely grunted. “How about you, Roder? Can you read this?” He held the unrolled parchment in front of Roder. Neat lines of script filled the page from top to bottom.
“Of course I can read it,” he snapped. “That’s a very important dispatch from my lord Burnond Everride to Lord Laobert, commander of the garrison at Fangoth!”
The outlaw chief scrutinized the document again.
“Remarkable,” he said dryly. “I had no idea Bumond was so literate.”
“You know Lord Burnond?”
He stood up. “We’re competitors, you might say.” He rolled the scroll into a tight tube and stuck it in his boot top. “So, Roder, my lad. Now we’ve got you. The question is, what are we going to do with you?”
“You’d best let me go.”
“And waste a good hostage?” asked Teffen. The brigands laughed.
Roder was starting to sweat, his heart pounded in his ears. The bruise behind his left ear ached, and he felt as if he might throw up if they didn’t release him from this painful hogtie. “What is this all about? What about rescuing your sister?”
More laughter. Teffen knelt and displayed his short knife under Roder’s nose. Roder closed his eyes and steeled himself for the strike, but instead of plunging the blade in his back, the youth slit his rough bonds. Roder shivered with relief until four strong hands seized him by the arms and hauled him to his feet.
“Time for a genuine introduction. My name is Sandys,” he said. “As I am of noble lineage, I am called ‘Lord’ Sandys.”
All the blood drained from Roder’s head, and his knees folded like a pair of dry cornstalks. The outlaws dragged him his feet again, snickering.
“I see you’ve heard of me,” the former Teffen said.
“It was all a trap,” Roder gasped. “The robbery, the cart, your sister-
“You can meet my ‘sister,’ if you like.” He indicated the fifth man present, a rangy fellow with a face as tan as an old boot. His long reddish hair was pulled back in a thick hank. The outlaw grinned and held a tattered brown gown to his shoulders. Roder closed his eyes and cursed his own stupidity.
“You make a fine sister, Renny,” Sandys said. The raw-boned bandit laughed and tossed the old dress on the ground.
“We usually work the carter-and-his-sister routine on wealthy travelers,” the bandit chief said. “Once we saw you were by yourself, it seemed a good idea to land you and see what you were up to.”
“You make me sound like a trout,” said Roder.
“You took the bait like one.”
Roder swallowed and darted his eyes from side to side. He was somewhere deep in the forest. A smoky campfire smoldered in the center of the small clearing. Crude tents of deerskin and bark lined the edge of the clearing. He counted just five men with Lord Sandys.
Sandys handed him a hollowed gourd. “Drink,” he said. “No doubt you’ve got a headache.”
Roder took the gourd gratefully and gulped the liquid inside without sampling it first. It wasn’t water but some raw, fiery liquor, which scalded his throat all the way down to his stomach. His popeyed expression made the bandits roar.
“What kind of tenderfeet are the Knights sending after us these days?” said one. “Is this all they have left?”
“My job was to deliver a dispatch, not chase bandits,” Roder croaked.
“So I’ve seen, but German’s point is well made. How old are you, Roder?” Sandys asked.
“Twenty-five.”
Sandys narrowed his eyes. “How old?”
A chill ran down Roder’s spine. “Twenty.”
The outlaws laughed at him again. Sandys smiled. “That’s all right, Roder. I’m but twenty-four myself. It’s not how old you are that counts, it’s what you’ve done with your life.”
Stung by their laughter, Roder said, “I see what you’ve done with yours!”<
br />
“Your order made me into an outlaw,” Sandys shot back. “Lord Burnond confiscated my ancestral estate and drove my family into poverty.”
“Did he make you steal?”
Sandys drained what liquor remained from the gourd. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he said, “I know two great thieves, Roder. One lives in a castle and is deemed noble. The other lives in the forest and owns nothing but the clothes you see.”
The outlaws, laughing some more, turned and went about their morning chores. Roder stood where they left him, paralyzed. He could see they’d brought his gear along, including his sword, which was leaning against a tree scant feet away. Berry was there, too, tied to a picket line with the brigands’ horses. Could he reach his horse before the bandits could react?
“Forget escape,” Sandys said, still standing there. “You won’t last a day in the woods. If a beast doesn’t get you, other outlaws will-and not all the bandits in this forest are as tolerant as I am.”
“What’s to become of me?”
“I don’t know. Would your commandant pay to have you back?” The look on Roder’s face answered that question. “Too bad. He should prize his spies more.”
“Spies?”
Sandys suddenly backhanded Roder across the face. Though slight of build, the bandit chief had an iron hand. Roder’s aching head rang from the blow. He balled both fists, then stopped himself when he remembered Sandys was armed and he was not,
“Stop playing the fool!” Sandys said fiercely. “I see through Burnond’s stratagem!”
He massaged his throbbing jaw. “What are you talking about?”
“You came to the forest to spy on us, didn’t you? Why deny it when I have the proof before me?”
“You’re mad! I told you, I was sent by Lord Burnond to deliver-”
“To deliver this?” Sandys snatched the scroll from his boot and flung it in Roder’s face. “Don’t make me laugh! It’s gibberish-just random scribbles. Did you think I wouldn’t be able to read it?”
Roder picked up the dispatch. He unrolled it and look it over, puzzled. The parchment was cut square, and he couldn’t tell the top from the bottom. He turned it this way and that.
Sandys pulled the scroll from Roder’s unresisting grip. “Why do you persist in this stupid game? Next thing, you’ll ask me to believe a Dark Knight can’t read.”
He flushed. “It’s true, I cannot read.”
“Can’t read?” Sandys muttered, color draining from his face. “That’s what I thought. . ” He backed away, and shouted to his men: “Gerthan! Renny! Rothgen! Wall! Urlee!”
Only four men answered their chief’s call. “Where’s Rothgen?” Sandys said sharply.
“He took two pails down to the spring,” his “sister” replied. Renny squinted in that direction. “He is taking a long time-
“Get to your horses. We’re getting out of here!”
The robbers stared. Sandys roared some choice profanity, and they bolted into action. Roder looked on, absolutely thunderstruck. Gerthan ran past a moment later, a horse blanket draped over his shoulder. He pointed to Roder and said, “What about him, Sandys?”
“We don’t have time for fools. Leave him.”
Gerthan spat and shook his head. “He knows our faces,” he said. “We can’t let him live.”
Sandys was already across the clearing when the sound of German’s dagger leaving its sheath galvanized Roder to action. He sprang for his sword, still leaning against a tree a few steps away. German’s footfalls were close behind. Roder grabbed the sword hilt and swung around. The tip of the scabbard clipped the bandit’s nose. Leaping back, Gerthan shifted his grip on the dagger from thrust to throw. Roder frantically tried to free the sword from its casing, but it was stuck tight. An inch or two of blade emerged, coated with rust. His heart stopped. After falling in the stream, he’d shoved the sword in the scabbard without drying it.
With nothing else to do, he presented the sword, scabbard and all. The covered blade was a clumsy defense, but it was all Roder had. The bandit feinted a throw, and Roder waved his sheathed blade wildly. His grip was poor, and the heavy weapon flew from his grasp, rumbling through the air to land six feet behind his attacker. Gerthan grinned and took aim.
Somewhere in the dense greenery a horn blasted. A black arrow, fletched with gray goose feathers, sprouted from Gerthan’s ribs. He groaned loudly and dropped the dagger, following it to the ground a half-second later. Shouts followed, and the sound of men and horses crashing through the foliage. The horn blew again, closer. Roder spun around, trying to spot the source of his unexpected salvation. He saw Sandys vault onto a pony. Armed men on horseback and on foot were flooding the little clearing, dozens of them. More arrows flickered into the turf around him. Who was attacking? Another outlaw band, warring on Sandys’s gang?
Heart hammering, he knew he should do something. Picking up Gerthan’s dagger, Roder tore after Sandys, leaping over stones and tree roots. The bandit’s pony scrambled ahead, opening the gap between them until a trio of horsemen appeared directly in Sandys’s path. Sandys wrenched his horse around and found Roder blocking his way, dagger in hand.
Shouting, the bandit slapped the reins on either side of the pony’s neck and galloped at Roder. Whatever rush of courage Roder felt a moment before left him when he saw Sandys bearing down on him. He reversed his grip on the dagger as he’d seen Gerthan do, and flung it at the onrushing bandit. The next thing Roder knew he was flying through the air. He hit the ground hard and cut his chin. He didn’t see the thrown dagger land on the nose of Sandys’s horse, rapping the animal smartly. The dappled brown-and-white pony reared.
Roder clambered past the pony’s churning legs and threw himself on Sandys. The bandit was a seasoned fighter, but he’d fallen across some rocks, struck his head, and lay there partly stunned. Roder landed his hundred seventy-five pounds on top of him.
“Get off, damn you!” Sandys shouted, trying to shift the bigger man aside. Roder got his hands on Sandys’s wrists and pinned them to the ground. Sandys had an impressive cursing vocabulary and exercised it freely. While they struggled, men and horses surged around them.
The shouting and neighing subsided. Roder glanced away for only a second and saw the mounted men around them wore the tabard of the Fangoth garrison. Knights! He straightened his elbows, pushing himself up for a better look. Sandys took advantage of his distraction to plant a boot on Roder’s chest and heave him off. He rolled to his feet and found himself staring at the somber faces of twenty Dark Knights.
Roder grabbed Sandys and turned him around. Face streaked with dirt and blood (most of it from Roder’s chin cut), Sandys’s shirt was torn halfway to the waist. Beneath his jerkin, Sandys’s chest was tightly wound with a long linen bandage. It took a moment for Roder to understand why-”Lord” Sandys was a woman.
As he stared at the female outlaw, Sandys lashed out and punched him hard in the face. The Knights roared with laughter as Roder staggered back. He spat blood and found an eyetooth was loose.
“I’ve had enough of you!” he said in a rush of newfound rage. But he found his way to Sandys blocked by an imposing gray charger. Roder was about to take the rider to task when he realized who’d stopped him. There was no mistaking that iron gray beard and leonine head.
“Lord Burnond!” In a paroxysm of relief he clasped the old commandant’s leg. “My lord, you came after me!”
“Get away, boy,” Burnond said crossly. “We’re here to settle these outlaws, not save you.” He looked to the other side, where Sandys stood with her two surviving men. “Put them in chains,” Burnond said. “Add them to the ones we’ve already bagged.”
Foot soldiers prodded Sandys forward. She glared at Roder, He couldn’t fathom her expression-it was more than anger. Hatred? Or something like grudging respect?
Burnond ordered the herald to blow his cornet, and more men emerged from the trees. Some were in the livery of the Fangoth garrison, others Roder recogn
ized from Castle Camlargo. If both knightly contingents were present, then there were some two hundred Knights and men-at-arms in the clearing.
“Bring the prisoners along!” Burnond shouted.
Lines of captured brigands, chained together in long strings, filed past Burnond Everride. Roder was astonished at their number. Carefully, diffidently, he asked where the other outlaws came from.
Burnond cleared his throat. “We took Bloody Gottrus’s camp last night,” he said. “Gottrus himself died fighting, but we captured most of his gang.”
Sandys and her two surviving comrades were thrown in with the rest. Roder stood quietly beside the commandant until a shackled Sandys staggered past. The sight of her in chains affected him strangely.
“Sandys-” he said, stepping toward her.
Burnond ordered the prisoners to halt. “Is this the bandit known as Lord Sandys?”
She looked at the ferns, trodden into pulp by the Knights. “That’s her,” Roder said quietly.
“Her? There’ve been rumors to that effect, but I didn’t believe them. Very well, let her be so marked.” A squire hung a wooden tag around Sandys’s neck with her name painted on it. Burnond was about the dismiss her when Roder remembered the dispatch.
“Wait!” he said, darting out to snatch the parchment from Sandys’s boot. “Your dispatch, my lord!”
“My what? Oh, that.” Burnond took the scroll from Roder and crumpled it in his fist. “It’s nothing.”
“What? It’s a vital message for Lord Laobert!”
“Still playing your part, I see,” Sandys said wearily. “Give it up! It was all a ruse, wasn’t it?” She nodded at Roder. “You sent this mercenary into the forest posing as a Knight, to find us out, didn’t you?”
Burnond arched an iron-gray brow. “Roder’s no Knight, and he’s no mercenary, either.”
“You sent out this clever spy with a fake dispatch,” she said, “knowing the forest brotherhood couldn’t resist waylaying him. All the while you were on his trail with your troops, waiting to pounce on us.”
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