“Take her, but if I see you again—if you try to interfere with the tribute… I’ll… I mean… I’m still a Civil Guard… ”
“One thing at a time,” Astrid said. “Stand back.”
Moxy took out a thin blade and crouched down to cut the rope. “Ready?” she asked.
Astrid nodded her head then stood beneath the body while Moxy cut the rope. She caught Alisa easily and laid her down on the dirt road.
“Oh shit… ” the guard said, looking away. “That’s so wrong. I fucking hate Clarence.”
The other guard came back with the blanket. “Be quick about it,” he said. “When you leave, I have to raise the alarm. I’ll give you a head start.”
“What?” Marty said. “What are you talking about?”
“Think about it. It’s the only way to cover our asses,” Arthur said. “We have to be the ones to raise the alarm.”
“He’s right,” Astrid said, wrapping Alisa in the horse blanket. She scooped up the body and gently placed it over her shoulder. “It’s the only way. Give us ten minutes.”
She and Moxy slipped away into the woods. They found the tree where Gormer stood watch. He scurried back down the trunk cursing along the way.
“You got her?” Gormer asked. “How… ”
“I’ll tell you later,” Astrid said.
“The others are on the way back,” Moxy said, lifting her long, thin nose to the wind.
“Meet them at the horses like we planned,” Astrid said.
They heard bells ringing. Horns sounded. Voices shouted as they slipped through the woods toward the horses. Vinnie and Tarkon showed up a few minutes later and they rode back to Argan quickly.
The sun was just rising when they rode back into town. A light fog clung to the fields and rolled around in the woods as the village stirred.
One of the villagers came up to the five as they rode out of the misty forest. “Is that… ” she asked, pitchfork over her shoulder.
“Yes,” Astrid said. “Would you please go find Woody?”
The woman hurried toward the tents to get the bandit leader. Astrid brought Alisa down from the back of the horse and laid her down in the dewy grass.
“Get that rope off her,” Tarkon hissed when Astrid unwrapped the body. “Don’t let Woody see that.”
“Her neck,” Gormer said with a trembling voice after they removed the rope. Moxy quickly covered the horror by pulling up the collar of Alisa’s tunic.
Astrid did her best to arrange her hair.
Woody came slowly, with all of the bandits following close behind. They didn’t cry when they saw her. Their faces were hard.
“Thank you,” was all Woody said when he bent down to touch her face.
Astrid hid the rope behind her back. She gripped it hard until her palms dug into the coarse material. She knew what she would do with it as her heart pounded in her chest.
The bandits carried her off and weren’t seen or heard from until dusk. Everyone worked in silence for the rest of the day. The bandits kept to themselves when they returned, offering only restrained responses to the sympathies of the villagers.
Astrid and Vinnie took the first watch that night. They took turns standing at the well and patrolling the tree line. All Astrid could think about was the rope that Clarence used on Alisa.
Keep 52
Clarence paced the line of guards who were on duty the night before when Alisa was taken away. Officer Jank and Krann stood with sour faces opposite the line as Clarence walked between them, stopping in the middle to glare at them.
Clarence pointed with his finger at each guard and made a show of counting. “Am I to understand,” he said, voice booming, “that twenty-seven guards on patrol last night saw nothing! Another forty men from the keep, when called upon, found nothing in the woods?”
The guards shifted nervously on their tired feet. Clarence had kept them up and waiting long after their night shift ended.
“Don’t answer all at once!” Clarence shouted. Nobody said a word. “Alright, then!” he continued. “You two, the guards who sounded the alarm!”
He pointed to the pair of guards who Astrid confronted the night before. The two men froze, wide-eyed. “You passed the dead bandit girl at 4 a.m. Then, at 4:30 a.m., you discovered the body missing.”
“Y—yes sir,” the shorter guard said.
“That’s right,” his larger companion added.
Clarence strode up to them both and stood inches from them. He looked into their eyes, alternating between them, nose-to-nose. To their credit, they met his eyes and held them. Good, Clarence thought, displaying a little backbone just saved you pain.
“I will tolerate no more mistakes!” Clarence boomed. “You are all docked two days pay. Any more incidents on your watch and I’ll fire the lot of you! Your families can go live with the bandits in the woods!”
The guards breathed a collective sigh of relief that told Clarence they expected a lot worse. “Dismissed!” Clarence bellowed. The guards scurried away.
“Jank,” Clarence said, turning to his business partner. “I want you to put a complement of men on duty for two shifts. I’ll add a rider to your contract.”
“I’ll have to pull men from my operations in the South,” Jank said. Clarence raised an eyebrow. “I’ll send for them right away.”
Jank rushed over to one of his men while Krann stood ramrod straight with his swagger stick stuck under his arm. He glared brazenly at Clarence.
“I take it you don’t approve,” Clarence said with a mocking smile.
“Your rank permits you to command my men,” Krann said.
Clarence laughed. “Yes, old man. It certainly does. But you imply that Keep 52 is yours.”
“I am a humble steward,” Krann said.
“You are far from humble, Krann,” Clarence sneered. “Go scribble figures in your little lined books.” Clarence waved his hand. Krann gave a curt nod and stomped off.
Clarence flexed and stretched his fingers, making the black leather of his gloves creak. He was secretly glad for the incident from the night before. He was looking for any excuse to take more control from Krann and establish a better hold over the district.
Argan Village
Astrid excused herself from the harvest and slipped into the woods with the rope that was used to hang Alisa, stopping by the barrel maker to borrow some tools along the way.
She worked for several hours stretching the rope and working on the hemp braids. Much time was spent going over every inch, making the twists even and combing the fibers until the rope was supple.
When she was done, she wrapped it twice around her waist and looped one end around her left shoulder. She tucked the other end loosely into the coils at her waist. She carefully cut off the excess, then made her way back to the blacksmith.
“I need to burn this,” she said, holding up the unused rope section.
The blacksmith nodded to the forge, and Astrid threw the rope in without pause.
“I wonder if you might do me a favor?” Astrid turned to the blacksmith.
“If I’m able,” the man said, pausing in his work of making barrel straps.
“Can you add metal ends to this rope? They should be shaped like the narrow part of an egg and have attachment points for the strands.” She held up the frayed rope end.
The blacksmith’s daughter came over, and they looked at the rope together. “You’re making a rope weapon?” the girl asked.
Astrid nodded her head. Father and daughter conferred for a while. “We can do it,” the blacksmith said. They stopped work on the barrels and decided to work on Astrid’s project as a family.
“I’ll leave the rope with you,” Astrid said. She uncoiled it from her body and set it down carefully.
She left the blacksmith’s shop and ran into Woody.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said. “I have word from two other tribes. They’re in.”
“You don’t sound too happy about that,”
Astrid said.
“Well,” Woody replied, “They were a bit more receptive to village life than I thought. They want to camp with us in the field.”
“There’s plenty of room,” Astrid said.
“No,” Woody replied. “Space isn’t the issue. The tribes are… well, let’s just say we live in the woods apart from each other for a reason.”
Astrid thought for a moment. “How big is your tribe?”
“Woody smiled. You’ve only met fifteen of us. I have forty-eight more people living in the woods. We occupy a cave system about four miles from here.” He pointed off to the east to a rise in the hills.
“And if this new tribe moves into Argan?”
“I’ll have trouble answering to my people.”
“I see,” Astrid said with a smile. “I have a solution for that.”
“You do?” Woody asked, surprised.
“Bring them in. We’ll keep them busy with the harvest. The rest we’ll put on patrol,” Astrid said.
Woody looked dubious. “How will that help? They’re not going to start taking orders from you.”
“They might,” Astrid said, “when we all work together on a raid. Vinnie heard last night that they’re collecting extra tribute from the surrounding villages. We’re going to hit some wagons and give that tribute back to the villages. We’ll do some taxing of our own and pay you out of that.”
Woody gave a toothy grin. “One of us,” he said, and walked back to his camp with a spring in his step. A few minutes later, he sent scouts to bring word to the other bandit tribes.
Meet the New Bandits
After two more days of working in the fields, Woody found Astrid and a group of villagers running oats through a wood threshing wheel. Her former home didn’t use labor-saving devices like this. She suspected that being tradition-bound was a major reason that her father’s house fell to the New Way cult.
“Astrid,” Woody said. His shout startled her from her musing. “You OK?”
“Just lost in thought,” Astrid said. She turned to her work partners. “Sorry, I have other business.”
“I have someone you should meet,” Woody said as he lead Astrid over to the stables.
“Did your friends show up?”
“I wouldn’t call him a ‘friend,’” Woody hedged. “He’s the leader of a bandit clan near the border. He brought some of his people.”
“Why do you sound hesitant so suddenly?”
“Meet him. You’ll figure it out.”
Astrid tried not to let Woody’s evasion bother her as they rode out to the meeting place. That turned out to be a small clearing in a hollow near a partially-frozen pond.
“This is where we sometimes meet to settle tribal disputes,” Woody said.
Astrid dismounted opposite the clearing from a tall man with broad shoulders and thick, bulging arms. He wore no sleeves in spite of the cold. Eight men and four women stood behind him, all looking hard and ready to fight.
“She looks like a farm girl,” the man said. “This is no warrior.”
Astrid strode up to the man and met his eyes without blinking. It was refreshing to meet someone a bit taller than her.
“My name is Astrid,” she said in a neutral voice. She stuck out her hand.
The man scoffed and sneered. He kept eye contact with Astrid, but spoke directly to Woody. “You’re wasting my time with this shit. Maybe I should just raid Argan while I’m here to make this worth my while.”
“You wouldn’t want to do that,” Astrid said.
“How the fuck do you know what I want?” the man said.
“Why don’t you tell me your name, so I’ll know who I’m about to school?”
The man’s eyes grew wide and color rose to his cheeks. The rest of his people stepped back nervously.
“Don’t worry about my name, little woman,” the man said.
He pushed her with two, huge hands. As usual, Astrid saw it coming. She fought against a smirk and let the shove come. She gave him a quick jab in the nose as she let herself drop back.
The man barely flinched. Astrid knew this game well. With the preamble over, it was time to have some fun.
The bare-armed bandit wiped the blood from his nose. “So, you want to fight like a man? I’ll give you a fight.”
He lunged forward with surprising speed. She let him land a left cross to her jaw. Everyone gasped. When he followed through with a right hook, she stepped in, blocked his arm and gave him a left cross of her own.
Her punch landed on his cheek with a meaty slap-thud. The bandit staggered back and shook his head to clear it.
“You call that a lesson?” Astrid taunted. “You must be used to fighting your own shadow.”
The man lunged again with a bellow of rage. A flurry of wild punches clipped her chin once, glanced barely off her right cheek, and merely tickled her nose. She blocked the worst of it.
Just when she was beginning to enjoy what she considered play fighting, the man dropped back on his heel. When he came forward again, he did so with a high roundhouse kick that Astrid barely ducked.
“Oh, it’s on, now, pigfucker,” Astrid said.
She jumped forward, planted her feet, then executed a near perfect reverse spin kick. He ducked it.
“You’ve been toying with me!” Astrid shouted, only half mad, but seriously annoyed.
“Not as bad as you’ve been toying with me,” the man said. “Let’s do this for real.”
Astrid still didn’t need to draw from the Well, but he gave her a run for her money.
She lunge-kicked him in the gut, and he came back at her with a surprise foot sweep. When she jumped to avoid it, he was right there with a right/left combination that landed hard on her chin and cheek.
She ended it with an elbow to his jaw. When his head spun around with the force of the hit, she grabbed his shoulders with both hands and brought her knee to his gut.
Astrid danced back, ready for the next round. The big man held up his hand, then lifted his head. A huge, bloody grin spread across his face.
“My name is George,” he said. “That was the best fight I’ve had in a long time.”
Astrid stepped forward and carefully reached out a hand. George seized her hand hard and pulled himself up. She drew back her opposite fist and raised her eyebrows.
George let go of her hand and raised both of his, palms forward. “I just wanted to see what you’re made of,” he said. “I don’t want to finish off someone I can work with.”
Astrid just smiled. Yeah, she thought, finish me. Sure. Save that face.
“Let’s see what we can work out.” Astrid said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
On the Toll Road
“It’s a good day to collect tribute,” Jank’s wagon guard said to his partner. They rode along beside the Assessor’s cart under a crystal blue, late October sky. Both men wore the polished, black, light armor common to all Jank’s mercenaries.
Both men carried crossbows across their saddles that were loaded and ready to fire.
“What do you think, Oscar?” the lead guard, named Roger, asked the Assessor.
His double-complement of ten men rode on the wagon’s running boards looking glum. Riding the wagon this way was surprisingly tiring, especially with a full load that made the wagon sway back and forth. Some of the men got seasick.
Twelve men in all made up the Assessor’s guard.
“I think you both talk too damn much,” Oscar grumbled. “You’d do better to focus on the road and look out for bandits.”
Roger laughed and asked his companion, “What do you think, Tommy?”
“I think these Assessors need to worry less, especially since we’re on the job,” Tommy replied. “We have superior training, armor, weapons, and experience.”
“Woah!” Oscar called out and nudged the driver, who pulled back on the reins of the two-horse team pulling the wagon. “There’s a cart in the road up ahead.”
The wagon slowed to a stop.
Two young women stood beside a two-wheeled donkey cart with a broken axle. The assessor’s guard jumped down from the wagon and made a protective circle as one of the women started toward them.
“This could be a trap,” Oscar said.
“If it is,” Tommy replied. “What a sweet trap.”
The woman walking quickly toward them was a buxom blonde in a loose-fitting white blouse. She hiked her skirts up high as she hurried forward.
The men surrounding the cart shifted uneasily, but not from danger. The pretty young woman smiled as she began to run. Roger couldn’t take his eyes off the flesh dancing around beneath the blouse. He cleared his throat and swallowed hard.
“Thank goodness you’re here!” the young woman called out in a musical voice. “Our cart just broke down. We have to get this shipment of beet wine to the market, or our father will kill us!”
“Just calm down, sweetheart,” Roger said, giving what he felt was his most disarming smile. “Nobody’s going to kill you. I’ll make certain of that.” He rode his horse forward.
The woman smiled and batted her eyes at the guards. “Maybe these strong men can help us get the cart back on its axle. I think the spring just slipped a pin.”
“Roger,” Oscar said. “Be careful… ”
“Oh, come on,” Roger shot back over his shoulder as he got off his horse. “There are twelve of us.”
“We should help them,” one of the Assessor’s guards said. “They’re blocking the road. The sooner we clear the cart, the sooner we can get moving.” He licked his lips watching the young woman walk away.
“I don’t like this at all,” Oscar said.
“Oh, come on,” the guard said. “If this was a trap, they’d have sprung it already. They’re just a couple of village girls on the way to market.”
Several of the wagon guards put up their crossbows and followed the young woman. Tommy shrugged his shoulders and followed on his horse.
“Yup,” Roger said when he reached the cart. “Slipped a pin, alright. You men, get on either side. You lift it up, and I’ll slide under and slip the pins back into the bracket.”
“Oh, thank you so much,” the second young woman said. She clasped her hands in front of her ample chest while she batted her eyes.
Knight's Creed: Age Of Magic - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Tales of the Wellspring Knight Book 1) Page 15