The question now was; should I go straight back and tell them what I had learned? Or should I try to find out more?
At the very least, I needed to know what was going on here. I needed to know who these extra people were and where they had come from. Surely, bandit troupes did not get this big.
That would be easier said than done. Bandit guards patrolled the fringes of the village, making sure that no one got in or out. Skirting around the perimeter, using my knowledge of the area to keep out of sight, I found a gap in their defenses, courtesy of the old mill – a crumbling ruin for a decade now, since the stream that fed it had dried up.
Stealing along the dry stream bed to keep out of sight, I climbed into the ruin through a hole in the rear wall. Inside, a rickety ladder led to the decaying upper stories, and I made my way up carefully.
From a window, I scanned the village. The bandits were fully in control and my people were being used as slave labor to serve them, bringing them food and drink. I tried not to think about what else might be happening. Despite my earlier resolution to turn my back on Stenheim, my heart now went out to them as I recalled Taka’s speech. They had been trying to protect their own people, and however much they had done wrong, they had surely paid the price.
As I watched, I noticed that the bandits were not all that convivial. They did not all mix, but formed discrete pockets, and people from one pocket did not talk to those from another. The longer I looked, the more I noticed that they dressed differently, too. Those within one pocket all wore military badges and emblems stolen from soldiers. The bandits of another faction all had war-like face paint, giving them a distinctive and fearsome aspect. I realized that what I was seeing was not one bandit group, but several. King Cyrsan had invited other gangs from the area to join him in Stenheim. Why, I could not guess. Perhaps for some sort of summit, or to better teach my people a lesson, or just for the fun of the thing. Perhaps he was setting up Stenheim as a sort of bandit capital city.
I had seen enough. I needed to get back up the mountain to tell the guys what I had seen. I imagined their faces when I told them what I had discovered. They would apologize for suggesting that I was no use and would thank me for the good work I had done.
But as I stole back down, one of the woodworm riddled steps gave out under my tread. I screamed as my foot shot through, and as my body hit the staircase, it gave way, crashing to the floor below in a mass of splintered wood and a cloud of sawdust. Only the bannister remained, suspended in the air in apparent defiance of gravity, swinging from its fastenings. I clung to it, my feet paddling at thin air, my heart racing.
The door to the mill flew open and a group of bandits stormed in, swords drawn, led by Cyrsan himself. From the noise, they had clearly assumed they were under attack and had expected to find armed men. What they instead found was a single girl, hanging in the air, terrified and alone. They burst out laughing.
King Cyrsan looked up at me, a broad grin plastered across his ugly features. “Oh, it’s you. I thought you wouldn’t be able to keep away.”
I wanted to snarl back some clever and devastating response, but my mind was voided with panic. The bannister I was clinging to creaked, threatening to send me tumbling to the floor, where the best I could hope for was broken bones.
“Get her down,” ordered Cyrsan.
I couldn’t help feeling a wave of relief as the bandits set about to help me, but I knew that the time might come when I wished I had fallen.
“You helped your friends escape last night, didn’t you?” said Cyrsan, as I was brought before him, held between two bandits.
“Yes,” I answered, as proudly as my fear would allow.
“That was very stupid.”
“Probably,” I acknowledged. “They rode off without me once we’d gotten clear. I didn’t have any choice but to come back.”
“That was very stupid, too,” said Cyrsan.
“So it would seem,” I admitted, looking at the men holding me.
“Oh, I didn’t mean coming back was stupid,” Cyrsan corrected me. “Lying to me. That was very stupid indeed.”
“I’m not lying.” I hoped that the tremble in my voice did not give me away.
“Do you know how many bandits are in your village now?” asked Cyrsan.
“No.”
He shrugged. “Nor do I. Can you believe that? Bandits don’t usually play well together, but I think they recognized a good thing when I presented it to them. Or maybe they just wanted to have a bit of fun with your people while they still can. Doesn’t matter. My point is; there are a lot of bandits here. And yet, I still think your friends are going to attack. More than that, I’m actually worried about them attacking. People say that to be bandit king you have to be fearless. I say that’s stupid. To be bandit king you have to know what to be afraid of. And I am afraid of your friends.”
I wanted to say ‘You should be’ or something equally clever, but that would have given away my lie. I wanted them to think that the guys were long gone.
“And the reason I mention all of this,” Cyrsan went on, “is so you understand how important it is to me to know where they are. There is nothing I would not do to find out where they are. To you.” He leaned closer to me. “You will tell me where they are. Sooner or later, you will. Everyone breaks. So, why not tell me now? I take no pleasure in messing up so pretty a girl, and it would save you a great deal of pain.”
“They rode off and left me in the mountains.” I stuck to my story.
Cyrsan slapped me hard across the face.
I looked straight back at him, blinking back tears. “You think that’ll make me talk?”
Cyrsan gave a rueful smile. “Sadly not.” He looked at his men. “String her up in the square. Let her dangle awhile and see if that changes her mind.”
The bandits manhandled me out of the mill. I tried to struggle, but their grip was like iron. I’d like to say that I was brave about all this, but I was terrified, shaking uncontrollably and about to burst into tears at any moment. I didn’t know what they were going to do to me, but I knew in my heart that what Cyrsan had said was right. I would talk. We all like to think that we would never betray our friends, but no one is impervious to pain, and I had a hunch that I wouldn’t hold out long once they got started.
The truth was, it probably wouldn’t matter. I had left a note telling the guys that I would prepare the village for their attack tonight. Possibly, they would arrive sooner because of my sneaking off, but either way, they would attack without knowing what they were facing. They would ride into several gangs’ worth of bandits, and good fighters though they were, they would not have a chance.
As I was dragged into the village square, I saw friends and neighbors staring at me in horror and pity. Guilt, too; they all knew that they had played a part in my ending up here. Some stepped forward, as if coming to my aid, but they were shoved back by bandits. Last night, the people of Stenheim had outnumbered the bandits enough that they might have overwhelmed them, today, they didn’t have a chance. Amongst the onlookers, I caught sight of Bren and his eyes met mine.
Sometimes, it is the way with old friends, you don’t have to speak, you know what the other is thinking, and at that moment, I knew that Bren wanted to help me. Would do anything to help me. Looking straight at him, I mouthed a single word ‘Fort’. You would have had to be watching Bren very closely to see the slight incline of his head in a nod, but it was enough to give me some small sliver of hope. Even if I had not been able to save myself, I had perhaps given the guys the information they needed to make a successful attack on Stenheim tonight. Provided Bren could get out of the village safely. But that was now out of my hands.
Those hands were now tied in front of me, then held above my head. A rope was looped over the branch of a tree in the center of the square and one end tied to my bonds.
“Haul her up,” commanded Cyrsan.
I felt the strain in my shoulders as my feet left the ground. The bandits tugg
ed on the rope till I was hanging by my outstretched arms a few feet from the earth, then they secured the rope about the tree trunk.
“Here’s the thing,” said Cyrsan, coming close to speak to me. “This is a village of sheep. These scum should be ashamed to call themselves humans. Not one of them has the backbone to stand up. Except you. In a village of people for whom I have nothing but contempt, you are a jewel. I like you. I like your spirit. And I would hate to be forced to break it. You would make a wonderful queen - I have seven already, one for each day of the week, but Wednesday has been boring me for a while now. That’s why I’m giving you this chance. One hour. If you tell us where the mercenaries are, then you will be well treated, and will live out a life of luxury as my favorite consort. If you don’t, then my men will strip you and I will personally beat you to within an inch of your life. I’ll probably still take you as a wife, but the beating will take away that spirit. It won’t be the same. We’d both be happier if you just talk now.”
“Go to hell,” I snarled.
Cyrsan smiled. “If you hadn’t said that, I’d have thought less of you. But it’s that attitude that condemns you. I wish we’d met under different circumstances. See you in an hour. If you change your mind, just scream.”
Chapter 19
To try and take my mind off of the building pain in my arms and shoulders, I did a bit of math in my head. In an hour, Cyrsan would return. I could hold out for that hour, I was strong enough for that.
How long would it take Bren to reach the guys? Probably not much less than an hour. There was no way he could take a horse – getting out of the village would be hard enough. So, he would run, and Bren was a decent runner. Maybe forty-five minutes if he really pushed himself? The guys had horses, but they would not be able to ride until they got out of the crags. Bringing the horses down from the cave would, in fact, make things go slower rather than quicker. Once they were onto the slopes, they could ride and that would make the return journey faster from there on. Half an hour?
So, if everything went as quickly as possible; if Bren got out of the village quickly – or at all – if he was able to run the whole way; if he explained to the guys quickly; if the horses did not slow them down too much at the start and galloped their hardest at the end, then it would take an hour and a quarter. That was a lot of ifs. And for me, that quarter of an hour with Cyrsan might seem like an eternity.
And then what would happen? The guys could hardly just attack, they were still outnumbered twenty-five to one. What could they even do? I wished that I had been telling the truth when I said they had rode away. At least then they would be safe. More likely, they would die here, and many more of my village would follow them.
And me?
Well, once the guys were dead, what happened to me didn’t really matter.
Perhaps I should never have brought the guys here at all. But it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. If only the rest of the village had seen in them what I saw. But I couldn’t blame them for that. Certainly not when I saw them looking up at me from the fringes of the square with their dead, despondent eyes. They knew that a similar fate awaited them in time.
The seconds ticked slowly by into long, drawn-out minutes, as I contemplated my fate and the sharp pain in my arms gave way to an agonized ache.
Realistically, Bren wouldn’t make that journey in forty-five minutes. Perhaps he could do it in less than an hour, but not by much. If I was honest with myself, then the guys would be starting out for Stenheim just as Cyrsan was starting to torture me. If they were quick, then they might have gotten about halfway here before I cracked. Which still gave the bandits plenty of time to get out to meet them on the open slopes.
The guys would not have a chance.
I do not know how long I hung there, the inevitability of death and defeat weighing down my mind even as I tried to see some shred of hope, if not for myself, then at least for the village, for my family, and for the men I had taken to my heart.
I suppose that it must have been impossible, but it was my strong impression at the time that I heard a noise, like a sharp wind approaching fast. There cannot have been time and yet, I do remember hearing the approach of that arrow, slicing through the air for long seconds before it cut straight through the rope that held me and I dropped to the ground, my legs crumpling beneath me, the relief of being free tempered by the return of sensation to my numbed limbs, allowing me to feel the pain afresh.
The bandit guards who stood about me whirled around to see what had happened, and two were felled by arrows in quick succession, before they realized they were under attack.
“Find cover, you fools!” Cyrsan’s voice rang out. “Bring me that girl!”
Cyrsan might have been a monster, but he was a clever one, he knew that having me as a captive would give him the trump card.
But the pair of bandits who ran to grab me were dead before they hit the ground, arrows in their chests.
“Where the hell is that archer?!”
A thundering of hoofbeats made the bandits forget Kai for a minute. I looked behind me and saw Luca galloping through the village as fast as his horse would go, bearing down on me. He reached down off the horse and, as I felt his arm close around me and scoop me up into the saddle, I felt a lightness, as if I might actually float away. My men were here and all was right with the world. I didn’t know how they were here, I didn’t know if I was simply hallucinating, but I didn’t care.
“Stop the horse! Don’t let him get away!” Cyrsan continued to issue orders, but there seemed to be a problem. He might be King Cyrsan to his own men, but the other bandit gangs were not accustomed to being shouted at by strangers. In a dire situation, soldiers will follow orders for the good of the unit – bandits are not so generously inclined.
A handful of bandits – mostly Cyrsan’s own – ran out to block Luca’s path through the village, thrusting spears up at him. But Luca had drawn his sword and carved a path through them, with help from Kai’s arrows, which continued to pick off bandits with unerring accuracy.
“Where is that damn archer?!” Cyrsan was practically shrieking now, and I delighted in hearing him lose control.
Luca and I galloped out the far side of the village.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine now.”
“Good girl.” His sword deftly cut the ropes that bound my hands and he let me slip from the saddle to the ground. “Find somewhere safe to hide out here, this is going to get bloody.”
“I want to help!”
“By the gods, do you never learn?” Luca wheeled his horse about and charged back the way he had come.
Of course, he was right. I had nearly gotten myself killed last time I tried to help.
On the other hand, if I hadn’t tried, then the guys would have attacked Stenheim unaware of the numbers they were facing. As it was, Bren had clearly gotten away and told them – though how he had done it in the time I was not sure. I had probably saved their lives.
That was apparently all the justification I needed to start running back towards the village as fast as my legs would carry me. I could barely lift my arms, and my shoulders were a solid mass of pain, but that wasn’t going to stop me from doing everything I could. Regardless of how stupid it was. You can’t keep a disobedient girl down.
As I re-entered the village, I expected to find utter chaos, but it was, instead, eerily quiet. Bandits hurried through the streets, looking about them for the mercenaries, occasionally kicking down doors to search houses, but they were strangely silent as they did it. It was as if they were scared. There were only four men standing against them and yet, they acted as if they had already lost. It occurred to me that if it had been a hundred against fifty, then the hundred would have been confident. But a hundred against four? That felt like the four knew something you didn’t. There was an unease about the bandits that was making the loose truce between the gangs even less secure; fights had started to break out between the b
andits themselves as tensions boiled over.
I stole back towards the square, moving carefully, trying not to be seen, but I didn’t seem to matter anymore; they were only interested in the guys. Reaching the square, I peered out from behind a corner and couldn’t quite believe what I saw. At one side of the square stood Cyrsan and the other bandit chiefs, each with his own heavily armed entourage. Opposite them, strolling towards them with his spear in hand, was Taka. He stopped.
“Good morning.”
I almost screamed as an arrow zipped towards him. Taka knocked it out of the air with his spear. Seconds later, there was the sound of another arrow and a cry from the direction from which the first arrow had come.
“Thanks, Kai,” called Taka. “And if there are any other archers out there, I would advise you to take note of that.”
Kai would be taking down anyone who aimed for Taka.
“Your archer will run out of arrows soon,” commented Cyrsan.
“Bet your life?” asked Taka.
Cyrsan smiled nastily. “I’ve been here before, you know. I know how this goes. You have nothing but a veneer of confidence and you’ll use it to bluff. You’ll tell me to surrender now and I can walk away unharmed.”
Taka shook his head. “If I let you walk away, then when we leave there is nothing to stop you coming back. No. I’m afraid you die today. All of you. It really is the only way to be sure.”
“You think you can kill all of us.”
Her Mercenary Harem Page 14