Sword and Sorceress 30

by Waters, Elisabeth

  ~o0o~

  Pimchan packed a field Warrior’s satchel and dressed for a celebration. Her boot soles were stout, of course, for the Temple was more than a league distant, but the uppers and shafts were as red and soft as poppy petals. Her loose trousers and belted tunic were of embroidered silk, sewn with silver bells that jingled as she walked.

  Surely the All-Father would grant her petition. She had served the town faithfully for seven long years. Surely he would let this “reward” pass to another deserving Warrior, and assign Pimchan to carry her apprentice’s training into the field.

  Nandan, similarly dressed, pack and weapons on his back, joined her in the courtyard, where she waited with Tyana and Nadia, also dressed in their best trousers and tunics. Although Tyana was bedecked with topaz and turquoise, Nadia’s only ornament was that necklace of painted clay.

  A niggle of shame twinged Pimchan’s conscience at never having seen Nadia’s transition from childhood, never having bestowed on her even one jewel in keeping with her grown estate. More than that, she felt shame for concealing her planned departure from Nadia, but tears or wounded airs were more than she cared to face. The child—the woman—wasn’t a fool; she could see Pimchan’s pack, nearly a twin of Nandan’s. Did she assume it was ceremonial? Her attitude gave no sign that she thought abandonment possible.

  ~o0o~

  They were not alone in their journey. The whole town knew of the All-Father’s feast, and the attention of all Mountain Cloud was focused on the Chaos Temple. The feast would continue for a full day-round, and the food, judging by the past, would not run out. There was no rush. There was no crowding.

  Yet the northern gate was blocked—blocked by a mass of people facing away from the temple. Nervous people, scowling and fidgeting, arms crossed over their chests and legs spread.

  At the front of the group was the town Chief, with his Council ranged behind him.

  “I see packs on your backs,” he said, trying to sound casual.

  “My apprentice is ready to go out and learn the world,” said Pimchan, with equally false nonchalance. Only her training kept her heart rate steady, for this was a challenge, and a challenge from Mountain Cloud itself.

  “I see a pack on your back, too.”

  “Yes.”

  She took a step toward them, as if she would part them with her will.

  They shuffled and cast worried glances at the head-man, but he stood firm.

  “Will you leave us? Defenseless again?”

  She recognized the scornful ha from Nadia, behind her.

  Pimchan said, “I’ve been here seven years. You haven’t needed me. It’s time I moved on.”

  Unhappy murmurs spread through the blockage—though none from behind—and Pimchan’s peripheral vision filled with townsfolk watching the exchange.

  One of the Council elbowed the head-man a bit aside and lifted her chin, glaring up at the Warrior with tear-bright eyes.

  “We haven’t needed you because you were here. Before the All-Father sent you to us, we were raided often. Several times a year. We tried to defend ourselves, but the wall didn’t protect our fields. They know you can out-think them and out-fight them. Maybe out-magic them, too. They know you can put heart into us and help us plan and make ready. When you go....”

  She had foreseen the possibility of this argument and was prepared.

  “I intend to speak to the All-Father for you. He’ll leave one of his camp here until another Warrior can be found for the town. He won’t leave you defenseless, now that he’s put you under his protection. You know you can depend on him.”

  “We depend on you.”

  “Are you placing me above the All-Father?”

  Denials and disavowals came thick and fast, but it was clear that every “no” meant “yes”. The All-Father was great and far away, despite the occasional appearance like today’s feast. Their personal Warrior was theirs—here, now, permanent.

  “You will not be left defenseless,” Pimchan said. “You have my word.” A Warrior’s word was an unbreakable pledge, but she gave them the gift of a contract by promising twice more: “You have my word. You have my word.”

  With that, they parted to let the Warriors pass, although the looks they cast from under their lowered lids were full of unwilling doubt.

  ~o0o~

  “He’s not here.”

  The Steward of the feast paused in his whirl of preparation out of deference to the Warriors, but Pimchan could see he was needed and kept her interview short.

  “Where did he say we were to meet him instead?”

  “At your compound. He left early this morning. He sent word that he’s arrived and he’s waiting for you.”

  Pimchan’s nod released the man to his duties.

  Nandan managed to hold his tongue until they had passed the chained dogs that guarded the Temple and left the grounds.

  “Why did he say he’d meet us here, then go to our compound?”

  “He’s the All-Father. He has his reasons.”

  “Are we never to question them?”

  “Only if we already know them and have reasonable objections.”

  “But this—doesn’t make sense!”

  “It does to him.”

  Pimchan was afraid it made sense to her, too. She was nearly certain the All-Father was signaling to her that he wanted her where he had put her: in residence.

  As if she had already learned the lesson of not questioning her superiors—which Pimchan had ample reason to know she had not—Nadia still said nothing of Pimchan’s now-revealed plan to leave in company with Nandan.

  What Nadia did say was, “We need to get back. Quickly.”

  “She’s right,” said Tyana. “The All-Father, in his benevolent wisdom, might decide to go somewhere else and summon us there.”

  They hadn’t gone far when holiday-makers were overtaken by refugees, and complacent bows were replaced by complete abasement. One of the council members who had blocked their path as they left now blocked the path of their return, kow-towing with his forehead sending up little puffs of the roadbed’s powdered shell.

  He lifted his face, tears painting silver lines in his dust-caked cheeks. “Please return!”

  “I am returning. What happened within three hours of my leaving?”

  “Exactly what we feared would happen! Raiders! So many strangers are here for the feast, we thought nothing of seeing unfamiliar faces all around town. Then as the gong struck mid-afternoon, they threw off their cloaks and drew their swords.”

  “How many killed, that you know of?”

  “None! Everyone screamed and ran, and the raiders ran, too, all in one direction.”

  “The compound,” said Nadia.

  The All-Father!

  She had set no magical wards when she had left. She hadn’t known she’d need to. Lucky she hadn’t, or the All-Father would have found himself trapped between the attacking raiders and an unreachable fortress.

  “Go to the Temple,” she told the councilor. “Tell the All-Father’s guard what’s happened.”

  “They won’t leave him alone at the temple to come to our aid.”

  For, of course, he didn’t know the country’s great treasure had pleased himself by slipping away from his guard and trusting to anonymity. No matter how often that game turned dangerous, the All-Father persisted in playing it.

  “Do as I bid you!”

  The councilman scrambled to his feet and stumbled toward the Temple.

  “Tyana, Nadia, go back to the Temple. Anyone with the belly for a fight, come with us!”

  The Warriors broke into distance-eating lopes, collecting (and not collecting) amateur heroes as they went.

  The gates stood open—and why not, since the enemy was already within?

  Pimchan and Nandan led their contingent (which shrank as some of the zealots melted away to join their families huddled behind barred door-screens) to the headquarters of the town guard.

  There, they found th
e peacekeepers with the doors and windows open, seated around tables, drinking strong coffee and playing Sticks Against Stones.

  She told herself that they, also, had no knowledge of the true situation. Still, even leaving the All-Father out of it, such poltroonery ill-suited the men and women she had helped train.

  “Is this how you defend your people?”

  The Guard’s chief scowled up at her from under black brows.

  “Yes. With our protector gone, we couldn’t hope to outface or outfight these people. Our only hope is to let them have your compound and hope they make Mountain Cloud their base. If they claim us as their own, they may take good care of us. What would you have us do? Resist, and see our children slaughtered?”

  “You see me here,” said Pimchan, “and my trainee with me. The All-Father is sending some of his guards to help us. Your townsfolk have followed us to your defense. Will you sit and play while others do battle?”

  The guard chief rose, pale, and gripped the pommel of his sword.

  “I’ll kill the first who moves against the raiders. Either we give them the town with ease or they take it with blood.”

  “The All-Father—”

  “The All-Father gave us to you! We’re yours or we’re theirs! We’ll follow you or we’ll bow to them!”

  Mumbles and growls from all around her told Pimchan that everyone—even those who had followed her from the Temple—agreed with him.

  Meanwhile, their benefactor was in the hands of outlaws.

  She took a deep breath, a breath that reached her core and that, exhaled, took her freedom with it.

  “I yield.”

  At their chief’s nod, the guards began handing out weapons.

  An empty path ran from Pimchan and her apprentice to the door, as was proper, so she expected no check to her advance on her compound. Instead, she was brought up short, almost bowling over the young woman who stood, heedless, in her way.

  “Nadia!”

  Nadia, strain pulling taut the skin around her eyes, only half-focused on the Warriors. One hand was fisted around a stone; the other hand clutched the beads of her necklace.

  Pimchan took her by the shoulder and joggled her, as if to wake her.

  “I told you to go to the Temple.”

  “You said anybody with a belly for a fight to come with you.”

  “This isn’t a practice bout.”

  “I’ve seen killing before. This is my fight, too.”

  It was, Pimchan conceded, more the girl’s fight than her own, for the girl had been born in Mountain Cloud, and had lived here all her young life.

  “Stay to the rear.”

  “I’ll stay with you.”

  “I can’t bear you in mind to protect you.”

  Nadia quirked a hint of a wry smile. “Please don’t.”

  Pimchan, seeing that her followers were all armed, spoke to them. “Sort yourselves out; half of you go with Nandan, half of you come with me. My lot will approach from the front, you others go around to the back. Nandan knows where the back entrance is. I didn’t put up wards, but seven years of residence will have left my mark on the place; the raiders won’t have the power to keep me out by magic. We’ll go over the wall—”

  “You won’t have to.”

  Pimchan stopped, mouth open, stunned at her serving girl’s interruption.

  “Did you speak?”

  “They haven’t breached the walls. They’re still out in the street, trying to get in.”

  Her eyes on the hand Nadia had clenched around the clay beads from the compound’s earth, Pimchan said, “You say that as if you know.”

  Sweat dewed Nadia’s face. “The compound is still secure.”

  Pimchan placed a hand on the nape of Nadia’s neck, hoping she could bend the girl’s will without distracting it. This was not the first time she’d observed the companion-in-training speak certainly of something beyond normal perception. “I need for you to stay out of the fight. Obey me.”

  Nadia jerked a nod.

  To Nandan and the townsfolk, Pimchan said, “Nandan, take your partisans to the back, as I said. If the bandits have spread out to find a breach, start from there and split up, picking them off as you work your ways to the front. The front gate is where they’ll concentrate their attack. We’ll hold their interest there until you join us, then press them from three sides.”

  While Nandan led his group in silence, Pimchan and hers roared as they marched, striking their weapons against anything that would make a brave noise.

  The bandits were, of course, waiting for them.

  The outlaws were dressed in mismatched pieces of stolen armor and stolen finery. Jewels glittered from the tangles of matted beards and greasy hair.

  A man whose swagger marked him as the band’s leader faced Pimchan, his visage pinched with frustration.

  “You were gone. We were told you left.”

  “I came back.”

  “You gave up your post. Why can’t we get in?”

  “It’s still mine. Would you take what’s mine?”

  The man spat. “You Warriors make me sick. Think you can fight better than anybody else, magic better than anybody else, do what you please. This town was as good as ours, before you came. Like having a goat somebody else had to feed and shelter.”

  Other bandits laughed.

  “You think you’re better than me? You take what you want and leave when you’re ready, just like me.”

  “If you’re ready to leave,” Pimchan said, “allow my townsfolk to escort you out.”

  The man bellowed something his followers apparently understood, for they shouted in response and charged the town’s defenders.

  Pimchan ran to meet the chief’s charge. She would have been surprised, had she not been focused on protecting her own head, to see the vigor with which barbers and bakers met the bandits’ onslaught.

  The outlaw chief was a better fighter than she expected though not, fortunately, as good as he thought. Parang in one hand, kris in the other, he swept toward her like a walking windmill.

  Left. Right. Left. Right. The fool!

  It was like fighting a puppet. As if her opponent moved in a slower time, Pimchan dodged, blocked, and deflected his predictable blows, her blue-steel saber ringing against his lesser blades. Had he never fought anyone who fought back? Probably no one who spent the day training, no one whose life was weaponry and fightcraft.

  As he fought, his lips moved.

  Cursing? A waste of breath.

  A blow she should have met and repelled slipped through her guard and drew across her shoulder. It found a flaw in her armor—a near-impossible fluke—and blood ran down her arm. She didn’t feel the pain yet, but the gleam in the bandit’s eye chilled her.

  Not ordinary cursing. Magical cursing. And the man had some power.

  She whispered a counter-spell of her own, drawing on enchantments she had gathered in her travels and on the qualities etched into her scalp over the years.

  But, oh! he was strong! No doubt he had stolen or coerced sorcery and even black magic from any occultist he had come across. She would have to trust her physical force and skill.

  His next strike missed, and the dismay that sagged his mouth told her he had expected it to be unnaturally successful.

  She renewed her offense, savoring the growing fear in his eyes as his magic and might met hers and failed.

  A line of red across his throat, a splash of crimson on the street, and he was finished.

  She looked for another opponent. There were plenty to choose from. She struck down a bandit about to behead a townsman. Another outlaw fell before she reached him, laid low by a woman with a club.

  The bandits were too much for the partisans but not, Pimchan was gratified to see, for Nandan. Some townspeople had wisely run away, some had fallen, some were still fighting with more courage than skill. Nandan strode among them all like a temple dog, dealing wounds and terror to all trespassers.

  With a jangle of
a hundred bells, the barred screen that blocked the gateway of the compound fell inward and a figure out of Pimchan’s nightmares stood in the gap.

  Small, dressed in rags, elderly, seemingly fragile, white hair and mustache so thin and fine they might have been spun by silkworms, the All-Father leaned on a knarled stick with both slender hands.

  No. Oh, no.

  Two bandits took advantage of the Warriors’ distance and sprinted for the gate.

  They were met with sudden death. The All-Father’s hands parted, drawing a saber from the shaft of his “cane”. The leading bandit fell in a gout of blood; the second reeled from a skull-cracking blow from the cudgel that had acted as shaft.

  The All-Father waded into the battle, his war-cries curdling Pimchan’s blood. She could only imagine what they were doing to the bowels of the outlaws.

  Three Warriors were more than the bandits could face. Those who could still run, did so, helping and then abandoning incapacitated comrades.

  Still-sound townspeople went howling after them, collecting others who had been too … shy … to fight, but didn’t mind chasing down enemies in retreat.

  The remaining townsfolk cheered themselves and one another, reveling in the exaltation of victory before the pain of wounds and loss set in.

  For, inevitably, there had been loss. One matriarch, too old and stiff to fight but too heroic to let others fight for her, had died in the first clash. Two men lay near death. Most were wounded, some grievously: an eye here, a hand there, a leg all but amputated.

  Calls went up for healers, and they came, the surgical, the medical, and the magical. Pimchan ordered the dead and wounded carried into her compound—an undreamed of concession. The bandits, dead and wounded, she commanded to be bound with Mountain Cloud’s colors of blue and green and suspended from the top of the north wall until the wounded were dead and the dead were picked clean by the birds of Chaos.

  Through inspections and orders, she kept a very tight watch on the slight figure once again masquerading as a helpless old peasant.

  He bowed deeply to each casualty carried past him. When the last had entered, he followed.

  I can’t demand he stay where I can see him, but I can’t follow him when I’m still needed here!

  “I’ll watch him,” Nadia said, passing her as she spoke.