"Yeah, we collect for the guv," the leader responded, and there was more sniggering.
"Uh-huh. And how much do you collect?"
"All we kin git," one of the others said, chuckling evilly.
Joe slid off his horse in a casual way, at one and the same time shifting his swordbelt to the proper position.
"Now, why don't I believe you?" Joe mused aloud, almost taunting.
"You can believe this, foreigner," the leader responded. ' 'There's six of us and you got just you and the bitch.''
Mia slid off her horse to the other side, coolly reaching into a saddle pocket and picking up a small throwing knife, which she deftly palmed. Even this naked, without even the hair, it was possible to hide things if you just stood right and moved right.
Joe looked them over. The leader was fairly near; no problem. Three of the other five looked pretty relaxed; they would waste precious time bringing any kind of weapon to bear. The one with the loaded crossbow aimed straight at his chest was the immediate problem. He calculated position, trying to insure that he had the proper angle and that nothing else would be in the way. Mia had moved closer to the men but out of the line of fire and stood there kind of sexily, but tense.
"Six is a problem," Joe admitted. "Five is much simpler. But, of course, you give me no choice. It is give you everything and live, or refuse and die." He had his hand on the sword hilt now, and he could feel Irving's anticipation, its energy, even sheathed, feel its power uniting his arm and its dwarf magic.
"That's the choice."
"I think I choose that you all die," Joe responded, and the answer caught the leader off guard for a precious fraction of a second. Joe leaped and the great broadsword sang and sliced clean through the leader's neck, sending his head, still with a bewildered look on its face, high in the air.
At the same moment, Mia smoothly threw the knife into the chest of the man with the cocked crossbow. He screamed and bent over and the bolt shot harmlessly into the ground several feet from anybody.
Reacting to a two-pronged attack, the remaining four split, three fanning out against Joe, swords drawn, while one, with a maniacal leer, came right at Mia. She waited patiently for him, then, at almost the last second, leaped and kicked him straight in the chest, sending him backward while she whirled and retained her balance. The man she'd struck was hurt badly, probably with crushed ribs, but he was getting to his feet. She ran at him and gave him a kick to the side of the head; then, spying the crossbow bolt in the ground, she reached down, pulled it out, and plunged it into the man's neck.
Joe faced the trio, waiting for one to get brave enough to close.
"Come on, come on," the big man invited them. "I haven't got all day. I want to be in town by dark!"
"Big talk!" one snapped. "There's—"
''Three of you now,'' Joe finished. "We're halfway done and I haven't even had any fun yet. If you stay like this too much longer, my girl's going to have an easy time plugging each of you in the back and I won't even get to fight!"
There was a sound like a giant rubber band being sprung at high tension and the middle man screamed, then pitched over, a bolt in his back.
The other two backed up nervously. "Okay, Mister, okay! Call it off!" one of them cried. "No toll for you!"
"You don't get off that easily," he told them. "You insulted my girl. She doesn't like anybody calling her a bitch but me. And I don't like ragtag bandits."
They both threw down their swords. Mia, who'd had enough time to reload and recock the bow, looked very disappointed.
"All right! All right! We give up! Just let us go!" one of them pleaded.
Joe sheathed his sword but called, "Mia, keep them covered. Shoot the first one who so much as scratches his fleas and I'll have time to take the manhood from the other one!"
"Your wish is my command, Master," she responded, never enjoying that line more than now.
Methodically, never taking his eyes completely off the pair, he rifled the headless corpse of the leader, coming up with two small bags. Straightening up, he quickly looked into them and found, as he'd expected, one had coins, the other gems. He turned to the pair. "Now, the first thing you are going to do is tear down that barricade," he told them.
"Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" they both said, going to it with a vengeance. Within minutes, they had it reasonably cleared.
"Now—where are your horses? Your horses! Where?"
They pointed to the trees, and he went over to Mia and took the crossbow. He never liked them; one shot and then you had nothing, but if he couldn't take one of these idiots barehanded he didn't deserve to be out here. "Mia, go get the horses and any belongings you find that won't have to be burned," he ordered. She went, and soon came back, leading the horses two at a time.
"See if you can tie off all six to ours," he told her.
''You ain't gonna leave us with no horses!" one of the robbers wailed. "We couldn't get no place afore dark on foot!"
"Two grown men afraid of the dark," he mocked. "If you're that scared, you can make the border before sunset with a good pace. Do you good. And, by that time, you'll have no problems thinking up a good story for the nice men there. And it'll be a doozy, I bet. Take off all your clothes!"
"Why, you can't ask us to do that! It's against the Rules or somethin'!"
"Ain't fair," the other agreed.
He laughed. "You boys want a code of honor, you better head way south," he told them. "Haven't you got it yet? I am robbing you!" He uncocked the crossbow almost inviting them to come at him, and tossed it away, then went again to his sword. "Now, which is it? Your clothes or your manhood? I wonder if a man could make it back to that entry station that way without bleeding to death?"
They raced each other to get it all off.
He gestured at the two men, who looked even worse in the buff than they looked in those clothes, then at the road back the way they came. "Now, run!" he ordered. "I'm going to count as high as I can, then I'm gonna pick up that crossbow and fire it right down that road."
"How high kin you count?" one asked.
"I don't know. Let's see, I got one finger, two fingers ..."
They were off like a shot, making a hilarious sight running down that road, and even Mia laughed at them as they quickly were out of sight.
"Anything but the horses?" he asked her.
"Saddlebags, Master. A couple of crossbows, extra bolts, and a fair amount of Marquewood silks. Also two dead men. It appears we were not their first victims of the day."
He nodded. "Well, pack up what you can. Can you tie up the horses so we can take them all in? They're pretty average looking but they ought to bring some money."
She went to do that and he looked around at the four dead bodies. He felt terrific! His old confidence was completely back. And yet, he realized, he'd only been responsible for one of them directly and another by misdirection. Mia had done most of the work and as good as any fighter he'd ever seen.
Mia was soon back. "All set?" he asked her.
"But for one thing, Master," she responded, running to the first man she'd killed and removing the knife, then cleaning it on his tunic.
"You were amazing," he told her honestly. "Tiana could not have done any better.''
She beamed. "I was sure about the first one, Master, but not the second. It is very odd, but I had never been able to do that sort of kick before. I think my hair always got in the way or threw me off. This time I did not have to allow for the hair. Perhaps this is not such a tragedy, after all."
"Well, don't get too cocky!" he warned. "These guys were dangerous, yes, but they were common thieves. Professionals would have reacted without thinking, and they would not have taken you for granted."
She spat on the ground near a body. "That sort of man always takes girl slaves for granted, Master." She ran lightly back and jumped atop her horse, then gathered what reins she could and tied everything off. They looked now like horse-breeders on their way to market.
Joe mounted his own horse and started past the former barricade. "On the road again," he sang. "Can't wait to get back on the road again ..."
Marge stirred from under her tarp and peered out fuzzily. "Huh, wuzzit?" She looked around and suddenly saw a whole lot more horses around her. "Where'd they come from?"
Joe laughed. "Poor Marge! Go back to sleep! A robbery and a fight can't wake you up, but my singing does it every time!"
Marge peered blurrily at the horses, then at Mia and Joe, frowned, shrugged, and crawled back under her tarp.
****
It wasn't much of a town, but it was clearly seeing better days because of the proximity of military units. There had been a lot of new and obviously slipshod construction along its one main street, probably to serve the military forces who had first passed it by, then returned in the truce and remained nearby.
The stable manager was taken aback at the number of horses. "They're for sale," Joe told him. "Cheap."
The livery man, a stout, middle-aged man, with gray hair and mustache dressed in brown, who looked and smelled as if he'd been born in the stable, looked them over. "Ain't much," he commented. "Serviceable, though. You got clear title?"
"The men who owned them won't be coming to claim them, if that's what you mean," Joe answered. "They made a serious mistake of trying to rob me."
"Well, I'll be swaggered! I thought that was Stirt's horse there!"
"Scruffy man, fleas, dirty gray clothes?"
"The very one!"
"If he returns, he'll be carrying his head under his arm," Joe told the liveryman. "If he does and still wants his horse, I'll refund your money.''
The liveryman looked suddenly frightened. "You shouldn't oughta joke like that, son. Not 'round here. It ain't all that improbable!"
"Was he a friend of yours?"
"Nope. Real backstabber. Bad from the start. It's just that he owed me money. Not that I was gonna get it anyway, but. . ."
"Thirty for the lot and you put up my three for the night," Joe told him.
"Ain't possible! I'll be lucky to resell the lot for twenty-five afore some nosy somebody from the military district comes in and confiscates them as necessary for the defense. Ten plus the board and feed of yours.''
"I'll sell them on the street for more than that." They went back and forth in traditional fashion, finally settling on seventeen gold pieces and the livery service. With the still uncounted booty from the thieves' stash, he was beginning to take a certain liking to Valisandra in spite of its rottenness.
"The military are near here?" he asked the liveryman.
"Couple miles. Lots of train in' and stuff, lots, of noise and marching and all that other soldier crap."
"All Valisandran?"
He nodded. "All except some of the officers. I ain't sure what they are. Might not even be human for all I know. There's a Valisandran Volsan detachment, too. Big suckers."
"Volsan—they're of the centaurs, right?"
"Yep. Wouldn't want to face any of them in a fight. Kinda all in one cavalry. Drink harder than a thievin' barman, too. Mostly humans be in tonight, though. Full pack workday; won't be many. You up here to sign up?"
"I am up here to see if there is anything worth my while to sign up for," he replied. "Any of the stores open? And how available is the hotel?"
"Most of the stores'll be open for a while yet, just in case the soldiers come in and want something. Used to have lots of folks here on their way to deal with the dwarf lords in the mountains. Even some tourists, believe it or not. Now, it's just soldiers. If they hadn't come back and stuck here, we'd 'a dried up and blowed away. Hotel's always half or better empty because of it. The guv puts soldiers up."
Joe nodded and left the stables. Mia joined him. "Let's get you your whatever it is," he told her.
"Hafiid, Master."
"Yeah, hafiid. Best to pick up what we need now."
The general store wasn't exactly overflowing with hafiids. "Not much call for 'em down here, at least 'til fall," the proprietor told him. "Still, got one or two."
The hafiid turned out to be a loose-fitting, pleated robelike garment of beige-colored wool that was essentially of a single piece, with a neat knitted hole in it and two sleeves. It was essentially a one-size-fits-all kind of thing that came down to her ankles. The loose, robelike sleeves were much too long, but could be trimmed to fit. The other part was a burnoose thing the same color, made out of stretch wool, and had a six-inch flap that hung down the back. Optional was any pair of boots, midcalf or lower, that were some shade of brown or tan. She tried out a few, clearly uncomfortable with any kind of footwear, but settled on a midcalf model that wasn't that easy to get into or out of but, she said, provided the most support.
"She will also need a neck collar," the proprietor said. "Another of the new regulations, I'm afraid. The next thing you know, they'll require them to have leashes. It really has gotten that odd."
She picked a bronze collar that pretty well matched the bracelets, anklets, and earrings she already had, but with evenly spaced oversized rivets that came to broad points spaced around it. In place of one rivet was a loop through which something, perhaps a chain, could be attached. Maybe the proprietor wasn't far from the truth. The proprietor fitted it carefully, then put a protective leather patch in between it and the back of her neck and pulled a series of tiny seals. There was a hissing and some smoke rose from the collar, making her flinch, but none got through and he soon removed the patch. The collar was fused, as if welded.
With the complete outfit on, Joe thought she looked like a slightly punk, tan-colored nun.
"Used to be we saw no slaves down here, and the ones we saw were all Marquewood, and there was never any problem," the storekeeper told him apologetically. "Now, though, you can be declared a slave for spitting on the boardwalk. It hasn't happened yet, but the rumors are all these new slave regulations are in preparation for making just about all the lower classes slaves. The government denies it, but you can't trust them these days to tell you much. Even many of the fairy races are being rounded up and forced into work gangs. It's not like it used to be."
"I can see that,'' Joe responded. He could see Sugasto's grand social vision clearly and it made him sick. The masses would be enslaved to the state, fed, cheaply clothed, and housed en masse, forced to do all the menial labor at the end of a lash until they dropped. Otherwise, there would be soldiers, a trading class to supply the necessities and maintain trade and commerce, but a rather small one, and, of course, the top one percent who would control everything. It was an ugly picture, but it explained all the harsh slave measures.
Only a small percentage of people could be truly of the slave class anywhere; he knew that. The Rules mandated it, and the ways you reached that status, and what sorts of labor were under it. If Sugasto and his cronies turned their domain into nothing more than a slave state, they wouldn't really be within the Rules but rather outside of them. Since the masses wouldn't be true slaves, bound by the Rules of slaves like Mia, they would always be a potential danger. You couldn't really turn your back on them. Hence, the collars, the chainings, all the rest. The hairless rule was equally obvious; if any of those ersatz slaves had the opportunity, they might escape. Dressed in uniforms or some such or foreign clothing, they might well cause a lot of harm. If you were hairless, though, you kind of stood out in the crowd. Back in the earliest Colonial days in the US, he knew, blacks had often been treated the same as indentured servants. They became permanent slaves because their skin made it easy to spot them anywhere. The false justifications came later.
This place felt on the verge of being the victim of a grandiose and evil experiment. Indeed, this might be regional, only one of many such, to test out what worked and what didn't and sort of get the bugs out. The one that had the highest gain and least losses and problems would be the eventual fate of all Husaquahr.
Mia took charge of helping outfit him, suggesting a buckskin sort of outfit with dark brown fur trim
and a droopy, broad-brimmed leather hat. Her eye was perfect; she unerringly seemed to choose only the things that fit him.
Almost on impulse, he added a forked leather bullwhip. He used to be fair with one, but hadn't bothered with it much. Somehow, though, it fit the image.
They left for the hotel, Mia carrying her boots and, in fact, her slave outfit. She would wear them when she had to.
"I want a room, directions to a decent meal, and arrangements for a bath," he told the clerk.
"Just the one night? Heading south, then?"
'"No. North."
The clerk stiffened. "Then you will be with us longer than that."
"Why? Problems?"
"You don't know! The zombie masters are gathering on the plains just north of here for the next three days and nights. I wouldn't go a hundred yards north of this town for at least one day longer!"
"Zombies, huh? Sounds like something's up."
The clerk shrugged. "These days, sir—who knows?"
He signed in and had Mia square things away in the room, then went over to the cafe. They were short on food, shorter on cuisine, but they remembered the days when wealthy Marquewood merchants would pass through on the way to the dwarf lords, there to negotiate for the exquisite craftsmanship only dwarf magic could create. They often brought their personal slaves along. There was no objection at all to Mia serving her master, and then eating anything he left on his plate. Of course, there war a slight hitch.
"I'm sorry, sir, but everything's rationed these days," the waitress apologized. She was one of the typical cafe-types, short, fat, and brash. "We'll soon be out of business if they don't let us get some regular deliveries back. All the ranch produce has been pretty much taken by the army, and nobody makes deliveries from Marquewood no more."
He was sympathetic, and managed, with serrated hunting knife, to cut what was supposed to be a steak and get it down. They were doing the best they could. At least the strictly vegetarian Mia could have her fill; local gardens were deemed too minor for the authorities, and so the locals at least had some vegetables for now, even pastries of beet sugar and bran, although they weren't sure what would happen when winter came.
Songs Of The Dancing Gods Page 17