by Laura Taylor
“They’ve come through the Gully,” he murmured to Whisper, trepidation thick in his voice. “They likely made a run for it once they realised what they’d stumbled into, and on horseback, they’d have made a pretty good getaway. But even so…”
Whisper nodded, following his train of thought perfectly. “The slavers aren’t going to pass this up,” he replied. “They’ll be following them.”
“These women aren’t going to take kindly to a surprise visit.” The camp had sentries – four of them, armed with both bows and swords, and if he didn’t have more important things on his mind, Aidan would have taken the time to covet the bows as well. For a skilled archer, they were superb long-range weapons, silent, deadly, with ammunition that was relatively easy to craft.
“No, they’re not,” Whisper agreed, but an undertone to his voice had Aidan glancing sideways at him, then following his gaze to where Rochelle was staring intently down at the camp. “But I think I know a way we can smooth out the introduction,” he added, and Aidan merely raised an eyebrow. Did he seriously think she was going to…?
“Come on.” Whisper crept backwards down the hill. “We’ve got work to do.”
With Whisper at his side and Rochelle slightly in front of them both, Aidan strode through the forest, deliberately letting the leaves crunch beneath his feet. He didn’t want to risk a panic that could easily get them killed if the tribe of women didn’t hear them coming. Even so, there was still a chance they’d shoot first and ask questions later.
Watching Rochelle’s back as she strode ahead of them, he tried to imagine what was going on in her head. The choice to bring her on this assignment had been a simple one, but not an easy one. Her name had been next on the roster, and the women knew enough of the tribe’s routines by now that there would have been more than a handful of awkward questions to answer if he’d tried changing it at the last minute – particularly after Stick had told them who they were coming to meet. But now that they were here, and he was relying on her as their sole female representative to give a good report of his tribe to this group of potential allies, he found his head full of doubts.
It was always a fine line, trying to keep enough of the tribe happy in any given decision. Their morals spanned a wide spectrum of ideas, with Nicholas at one end and men like River at the other. Setting guidelines was all well and good, but come down too hard on any of them and they’d buck the system.
But he couldn’t help wondering if this was karma coming back around to bite him. Had he really done everything he could for Rochelle? Should he have been stricter on the men? What would Whisper have had to say about it if he’d tried?
Too late now, he consoled himself. What was done was done, and he would have to live with the consequences.
The sentries were doing their job, he was relieved to hear, as a loud cry of “Raiders!” echoed through the forest. They’d been detected. Now they just had to reach the camp itself.
As the clearing came into view, he could see the hastily assembled line-up set to defend it: a dozen women armed with bows, arrows nocked, bowstrings drawn.
“Stop,” a woman ordered, the instant they reached the edge of the trees, and they did so immediately. Aidan and Whisper both had their empty hands held out, a clear indication that they weren’t here to fight. Rochelle was armed with a machete – Aidan hadn’t been willing to let her walk into a potential battle unarmed – but she was holding it low and loosely. Having a woman with them would buy them a few precious moments to explain themselves, but that was the most they could expect.
“Who are you?” the nearest sentry demanded.
“My name is Rochelle,” Rochelle introduced herself. “And this is Aidan, and Whisper, of the Tribe of the Clear River Valley. We come in peace, and we’d like to speak to your leaders.”
The woman sized them up a moment longer – trust was a hard-won commodity these days – and then, without dropping her bow even an inch, she yelled, “Faith!”
On the far side of the camp, a short, stocky woman who looked to be in her early forties was tending to an injured woman, stripping bandages off a bloody wound and replacing them with fresh ones. She looked up at the shout, then handed her task over to another woman sitting nearby, wiping her hands on a rag and coming to stand beside the sentry. A short sword hung from her waist, and she didn’t seem the least bit nervous about speaking to them. Then again, with a dozen arrows trained on him, Aidan supposed she had little to fear.
“The Tribe of the Clear River Valley,” the sentry introduced them.
Faith looked Rochelle up and down slowly. “You run with this tribe?” she asked coldly.
Aidan held his breath. Though Rochelle had agreed to come down here and speak on their behalf, this could be the perfect opportunity to stab them in the back...
“I do,” Rochelle answered without hesitation. “Of my own free will.”
“And what do you want from us?”
“These are our tribal lands,” Aidan began, but Faith quickly interrupted him.
“I believe I was talking to the young lady.”
Far from being offended, Aidan found himself suddenly amused by her sharp tone and imperious demands. He held up his hands in acquiescence and looked at Rochelle.
But it seemed that Rochelle wasn’t fond of the woman’s attitude either. “Aidan is the leader of our tribe,” she said finally, after giving it a moment’s thought. “It would be more appropriate for him to speak on their behalf.”
Faith folded her arms and let out a sigh. Then she held up a hand, a signal to the waiting women that they could put their bows down. They’d passed the first hurdle, it seemed.
“Aidan, is it?” She looked unimpressed. “And who is this gentleman?” she asked, casting her eyes over Whisper.
“He’s Whisper,” Rochelle answered her. “He’s one of the senior warriors of the tribe.”
“Hm.” Faith dismissed him with a shrug and turned back to Aidan. “What’s your business here?”
“Two things,” Aidan told her. “The first is that these are our tribal lands. Aside from wanting to introduce ourselves, we wanted to tell you that we claim the territory from the coast to about ten kilometres inland, and south to the first bitumen road west. If you’re looking for somewhere to settle, we can advise you on a good place to go, and let you know which tribes of raiders are likely to cause you trouble.”
“That’s very generous of you,” Faith said, her tone implying it was anything but. “What makes you think we’re going to be your allies? Or that we’d want to settle anywhere near you?”
“That comes down to the second reason we’re here. You would have come through a gully on the way here, and from the looks of you, you ran into trouble with the slavers who occupy it.”
“What’s it to you?”
“Our tribe has fought theirs repeatedly over the last few years. We know them well. They’ll be following you south, and they’ll attack during the night.”
“We’re aware of the risk of an ambush, and we’re well prepared for it.”
Aidan glanced around their camp. Even with their women armed and alert, and sentries keeping a watchful eye on the forest, he could see a dozen holes in their defences. “With respect, you’re far from prepared. We could help you set up the camp to be more defensible and lend you our warriors to fight beside yours.”
Slowly and deliberately, Faith drew the sword at her side. She took a step forward and held the blade against Aidan’s neck. He didn’t so much as flinch.
“Perhaps you should reserve judgement on our preparedness until you’ve seen how quickly I can kill you.”
“Perhaps,” Aidan replied, his eyes never leaving hers, “I should mention the two dozen men who currently surround this camp. Of whom you seem blissfully unaware.” It was no idle threat. His men were masters at remaining undetected, and before walking into the middle of this camp, he’d sent them out to surround the clearing, ready to defend their small group if the women turned
out to be hostile.
Faith’s face paled visibly as the news sank in. She took a step back, withdrawing her sword, and her eyes scanned the forest around the camp, the first sign of fear settling on her face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
In the thin grey light of predawn, nearly thirty dark shapes slunk through the undergrowth. They were dressed in black, swords, knives and machetes wrapped in dark cloths to prevent them from glimmering in the faint moonlight. The women’s camp was dark, not a single fire burning, but it wasn’t hard to pick out the sleeping forms of the slavers’ soon-to-be captives. They lay in sleeping rolls and beneath worn blankets, their beds neatly arranged around the fireplaces.
The slavers glanced from side to side as they advanced, each one making sure he was still in line with the row of men. They stopped just before the edge of the tree line, waiting for the rest of the group on the far side of the camp to get in position. There were four sentries wandering the camp, cowled in hoods to ward off the night’s chill. They would be armed, but what were four women against thirty strong men? Completely surrounded and sleeping like babies, these troublesome bitches wouldn’t stand a chance.
Five or six metres behind the slavers, a dozen grey forms rose out of the landscape like wraiths. Silent as the dead, each one fitted an arrow onto a bowstring, clever fingers silencing the arrows as the bows were drawn. A dozen small twangs sounded suddenly, followed by a dozen dim thuds, and the women had a second arrow nocked and ready to fly before the first lot of men had even realised they were dead.
Cries of alarm went up all around the camp as the slavers spun around, shocked to see their targets behind them, instead of sleeping in the camp. A moment later, the four sentries drew their weapons and threw back their hoods, and the slavers were horrified to see not helpless women beneath the cowls, but thuggish men with murder in their eyes and steel in their hands. These four launched themselves into the fray, taking down another half a dozen slavers before their weapons were fully drawn.
Terrified by the ghostly warriors behind them, most of the men instinctively ran into the clearing. Or tried to. The tripwires that had been secured to the last row of trees toppled them like dominos, and that was when the slavers really knew they were in trouble. From further out in the dark, there came a rustling sound, long and low, and another dozen fighters rose from shallow trenches where they’d been buried in leaves, invisible even had it been broad daylight. These men threw themselves onto the fallen slavers before they could regain their feet, blood spraying in gruesome waterfalls as heads and limbs were severed.
Tossing his cloak to the ground, Whisper pulled out his machete and began trading blows with a slaver who had managed to escape the first round of arrows, and had also cleverly managed to jump the tripwire, having seen the man on his right fall over. He was not only clever but strong, and Whisper gave ground, waiting for an opportunity to injure him without compromising his own defences.
A battle cry came from behind the man, and then one of the women leapt onto his back, plunging a knife into his throat. Whisper only just manage to dart out of the way as the woman’s momentum flung the man forward, and he fell flat on his face, blood gushing out of his neck as the woman landed hard on top of him. It was a serviceable move, and he certainly wasn’t going to object to the help, but he also made a mental note to have a word with the women later about not announcing your intentions to the entire battlefield before carrying them out. If the man had been half a second quicker, she could well have leapt right onto the pointy end of his knife, rather than onto his back.
A scream from his left caught his attention, and he turned to see Faith sprawled on the ground, an apparent victim of their own tripwires. She rolled backwards in a move that even Whisper admired, lithe agility put to good use as she regained her feet, but she’d lost her sword in the process. The slaver swung at her, even as Whisper moved to intercept, with the cold knowledge that he was too far away, but then Faith surprised him again, grabbing a tree branch – still attached to the tree – and used it to block the blow.
A second later, Whisper plunged Faith’s sword into the slaver’s back, collected from the leaf litter where she’d dropped it, and the man slumped to the ground.
A quick glance around the rest of the battlefield told a heartening story – the last of the slavers were down, and members of both tribes were making sure they were all dead. They didn’t mess about with shaking the bodies or checking if they were still breathing. Whisper had long ago taught his tribe that it was perfectly possible for a ‘fallen’ slaver to only be playing dead, either to suddenly stab you in the heart, or to sneak away and live to fight another day. The basic test of whether or not a man was dead was to check if his head was still attached to his body. The simplest way to know for certain was to make sure that it wasn’t.
“Okay?” Whisper asked Faith, once he was certain there were no more immediate threats. She nodded, catching the sword as he tossed it back to her.
“Thanks,” she managed, breathing hard. Then she gave him a wry grin. “Seems you’re not so bad after all.”
Stick set a wide tray of fruit down on a fallen log, looking entirely pleased with himself as the women all around him eyed the offering eagerly.
“Go on, help yourself,” Aidan said from where he was tending to the fire. “That’s what we brought it for.” After the battle was over, he’d sent a runner back to the village to report on the victory, and also to invite the other women of the tribe to come and meet Faith. She’d mentioned several times that she was curious about them. And as a gesture of goodwill, Aidan had also asked the runner to bring back supplies for breakfast – as many eggs as they had available and a generous spread of fresh fruit. Travelling the way they were, he suspected the women had been living mostly on wild game and weeds. Food in the wilderness was plentiful enough, if you knew where to look, but it wasn’t always particularly palatable.
Four or five women fell on the fruit immediately, while others took their time, more because they wished to remain dignified than because they weren’t hungry.
Even Faith wasn’t immune to the temptation, he noted with satisfaction. She was talking to Dusk, but as she spied the fruit, she reached for a fresh, ripe pear – one of the last of the season. Her eyes closed in ecstasy as she bit into it, the juice dripping down her chin.
“Are you okay with this?” Aidan asked Hawk, who was fussing about with getting a frying pan settled over the flames. Cooking eight dozen eggs was no easy task, but he’d happily volunteered for the challenge.
“I’m all set. Go socialise.” Then Hawk dropped his voice to a low but insistent murmur. “Go talk to these women about buying some of their horses!”
“Okay, okay,” Aidan agreed, abandoning the fire. Once it was clear the women were to be allies, rather than enemies, that had been one of the first things his men started asking – even before they’d fought the slavers. He went to join Faith, waiting for a break in the conversation before he launched into discussions on trade and what the tribe might have to barter with.
“Two Swords?” she was asking, as he came to stand beside Dusk. “There’s got to be a story there.”
“My grandfather was Japanese,” Dusk explained. “He gave me a pair of swords for my sixteenth birthday. My mother nearly had a heart attack over it. She thought giving a child weapons was ludicrous. But I was captivated. They were exquisitely beautiful, and I insisted on learning to use them. I practised every day for years. Then, when civilisation collapsed, that knowledge kept me alive. So the new name seemed fairly obvious, given the circumstances.”
“And where are these swords now?”
“Lost, in one battle or another. At some point, running away became more important than keeping them.”
“And that’s wisdom, right there,” Faith agreed. “Live to fight another day. And what about you?” she said, turning swiftly to Aidan. “Aidan the Ferocious. How did you earn that name?”
In Aidan’s mind, i
t wasn’t much of a story, but the men of his tribe told it with pride, and parts of it were already starting to be embellished. “We were attacked by raiders a year or so after we set up our village,” he replied. “I killed fourteen men in one day.”
It wasn’t said as a boast, just as a simple fact, and Faith looked reasonably impressed… until Whisper suddenly appeared beside his elbow and tossed an idle, “With a broken arm,” into the conversation, before disappearing again just as quickly.
Faith stared at him, lost for words for a moment. “Truly?” she asked, once she’d collected herself.
Aidan shook his head, tossing a glare at Whisper, who wasn’t paying any attention to him anyway. “I only killed two of them after I broke my arm.”
Faith snorted. “I don’t think that diminishes the achievement. But one battle is still only one battle. Keeping a tribe together and alive for any length of time is a far greater achievement, wouldn’t you say?”
“Absolutely,” Aidan agreed. “And you’ve done an admirable job with yours, against significant odds.”
Faith preened slightly at the compliment, even though she’d been fishing for it. Aidan guessed it was more to remind him of her skills, rather than because she cared about his opinion. “Actually, there was something important I wanted to discuss with you,” he began, taking advantage of the break in the conversation, but Faith cut him off.
“No, we can’t merge our two tribes,” she said abruptly. “I know that’s what you’re thinking, and the four women you do have talk of little else besides the shortage of females in your village.”