by Alex Bledsoe
The bar downstairs was empty. I helped myself to enough drink to dull my headache, then went into the street. Our horses, tied to the post the night before, were gone. The manure piles told me they’d been away for over six hours. The rest of the tiny crossroads town was deserted, although I found no other bodies, or any indication when the native population left. It was as if they’d just vanished.
I didn’t make a really thorough search because the whole thing was too damn eerie. I got out of there as fast as my wobbly legs would carry me. At first my wine-addled brain convinced me I was marked for death, that who or whatever had slaughtered everyone else would realize it had missed me and follow me to the ends of the earth. Later, after I’d thrown up a lot and choked down some half-cooked rabbit, I realized I’d just been incredibly, almost mythologically, lucky.
To this day I don’t know for certain who killed them all, or why. We were fighting in a disputed territory with lots of guerrilla units as well as regular troops on the prowl, none of whom were above ambushing us while we were drunk or asleep. Later I heard a faction loyal to the local king may have killed everyone and burned the town; I must have accidentally slipped out while they were off readying their torches. Either way, that day loaded with real death marked the symbolic demise of Eddie the Mercenary. Although I wasn’t a religious guy, I couldn’t shake the notion I’d been spared for a reason, and once I’d sobered up enough to think straight, I decided I’d be an idiot not to honor my luck.
I spent two aimless years doing odd jobs for meals and learning various quirky trades. I was still young, and didn’t really look like a soldier, although I still had my sword and sundry other hidden weapons. I also still despised horses, so I traveled everywhere on foot. It kept me lean and alert.
And so it was that one day thirteen years ago I strolled along the empty road between Antigo and Cazenovia, minding my own business, when I heard the distinctive clatter of swords in combat.
I instantly slipped off the road and into the thick forest. A woman’s voice snarled, “Goddammit!” accompanied by three quick clangs. I followed the sound to its source.
Three men, rough-clad ambush robbers by the look of them, surrounded a fourth figure. The bad guys had huge battered swords and wielded them with casual, vicious skill. They stood around their quarry in a practiced pattern that kept one of them always out of their victim’s field of vision.
In the center of this triangle stood a slender, red-haired girl, as tall as me but with that willowy quality so many country girls possess. She had short hair and was dressed like a man, which actually made her look more feminine. But this was certainly no helpless maiden.
As I watched, one of the men grabbed for her jacket. She spun, and something smaller than their weapons flashed in each of her hands. They were too big to be knives and not wide enough to be swords, but they clearly did the job. The man howled and jumped back as the girl blocked not only his awkward sword thrust but the straight-to-the-mark jab of another man now directly behind her.
She aimed a kick at the backstabber’s knee, but he dodged it. She used her momentum and spun, catching the third man’s sword in the crossed blades of her own long, thin weapons. She rolled her weight onto her back foot and slammed her other one into his crotch. As he fell, she kneed him hard in the face. He dropped, out cold. Then she whirled on the other two, trying to keep them both in sight.
“Who’s next, huh?” she demanded. There was no fear in her voice.
She was, however, outnumbered, and these guys were pros. They’d already slipped up by underestimating her, and they wouldn’t make that mistake again. They slowly circled, moving into opposite positions so she couldn’t watch them both at once. Neither of them had noticed me, however, and I used the trees and shadows to cover my approach.
“Look, fellas,” the girl continued, “this doesn’t have to get any uglier. I don’t have any money on me, so this is just a waste of your time.”
“You got something on you, all right,” one of them said. “It may not be money, but it don’t mean we can’t sell it somewhere.”
“Yeah, I bet you’re awful cute under all that,” the other agreed. “And I know one way to find out.”
She snorted. “What you see is nothing, I got a Falinese dancing girl tattooed across my back.” Then, surprising me as much as them, she attacked.
She feinted toward the weaker-looking of the two, and when the bigger man tried to take advantage of this, she was ready for him. She kicked him hard in the nuts, then spun and slashed him across the throat. It wasn’t just a casual blow, either; she windmilled at him, so that if the first blade missed, the second would not. In this case, neither did.
But even the best plans can be foiled by sheer dumb luck. The bigger man was so big, his momentum carried him forward faster than she could react, and he plowed into her, blood gushing from his neck. His weight drove her to the ground, and the remaining thug lost no time stepping forward to take advantage of this.
That is, he would have if my throwing knife hadn’t struck him in the heart. He never knew what hit him or where it came from, and he stumbled a few feet before collapsing. I waited to make sure he wasn’t faking before strolling over to the scene.
The girl, still pinned beneath the big man, looked up at me. “So are you gonna do anything other than gawk?” she gasped in annoyance. “I could use a little help here.”
“I already gave you a little help,” I said, and retrieved my knife from the dead man’s chest. I wiped the blood on his clothes and slipped it back into the side of my boot. “I figure you can get out of there on your own.”
She glared at me, but didn’t ask again, and after a couple of moments of concerted wriggling, she emerged rumpled but unhurt. Blood streaked her clothes, but none of it was hers. The first man moaned, and she kicked him in the head hard enough to knock him out again. Then she faced me, and I got my first close look at her.
She had wide shoulders and the kind of trim, narrow body that spoke of hard muscle beneath her baggy clothes. A deep scar cut through her right eyebrow and touched her hairline, where a streak of white sprang from it. She was cute rather than pretty, and I just bet she knew that and it bugged the hell out of her. “So what happens now?” she snapped, challenge in her voice. For all she knew, I was another bandit.
“Can I see that tattoo?” I asked with a grin.
“Is that why you jumped in?”
“Nah. You looked like you needed a hand. Hand given. We’ll leave it at that. See ya.”
“That’s it?” she exclaimed as I walked back toward the road.
“That’s it,” I tossed over my shoulder.
She made an exasperated noise. “Will you wait a minute?”
I stopped.
“Where are you headed?” she asked as she caught up with me.
“Nowhere,” I said honestly.
She paused for a deep, calming breath before she spoke again. “Here’s the thing. You’re pretty good with a knife. I assume you’re good with that sword. And you seem to be a decent guy. At least, you didn’t try to get into my money bag or my pants.” Then she stopped, scowling as if her openness embarrassed her.
“Either say it or don’t,” I prompted.
“Well, it’s just . . . I’m not a fighter, I’m a delivery man . . . girl. Woman. I’m new at it. And I’ve had six fights like that one in five days, most of them not even over the package I’m supposed to deliver. They were over this package.” She gestured at her body. “Know what I mean?”
“Ah.”
“And damn it, I don’t want to have to either pretend to be a teenage boy for the whole trip or just ‘lay back and enjoy it,’ as they say.”
“Understandable.”
“So. . . .” Again she paused, working up the nerve to say what she wanted. “I would like to hire you to go with me the rest of the way.”
“The rest of the way to where?”
“I’ll tell you when I know I can trust you. Until the
n, all you’d have to do is just tag along and look unpleasant.” She put her hands on her hips and waited for my reply. Her skin was flushed from exertion, and it made her freckles stand out.
“You don’t even know me,” I pointed out.
She rolled her eyes. “No, I don’t, and I don’t have time to check your damn references, either. I’m a pretty good judge of people, and my fast decisions tend to be my best ones. If you’re in, let’s go; if not, say so.”
“Okay, so what’s in it for me besides your charming company?”
“I have half my fee in advance. I’ll give you half of that, which means I’m out a quarter of it.”
“I can do math, you know. But how much actually goes into my pocket?”
She told me, and it was certainly a respectable amount. I didn’t have to think about it for long. “Okay, you got a deal. Where are we going?”
“Uh-uh. I’m the boss, so we’re in the world of need-to-know. Until, like I said, I know I can trust you.”
“It ain’t very smart to hire a bodyguard you don’t trust,” I pointed out.
“You’re not a bodyguard,” she almost snarled. “I can guard my own damn body, thank you very much. You’re just along to expedite things.”
“So I’m your arm candy,” I said with a grin.
She scowled, but I saw amusement in her eyes. “I’d say you were arm spinach. It’s good for you, but nobody enjoys it.”
“In case you stop eating healthy, then, maybe I better get half my fee in advance.”
She shrugged. “If it makes you feel more secure.” She took out a handful of money and counted out half of the agreed amount.
“You can trust me now,” I said as I put the money away.
“Only halfway,” she fired back, but she grinned when she said it.
And so I met Cathy Dumont, proprietor and sole employee of Dumont Confidential Courier Service. Since we were far enough from Arentia that she’d probably never heard of my family or my own connection to scandal, I gave her my real name, and we shook hands on our bargain. She told me nothing about our destination, or about the “package” she carried in her backpack. As for where we were headed, she said only that we had to cross the Wyomie River sometime within the next three weeks. We could’ve made better time on horses, but neither of us had the money to buy them or was sleazy enough to steal them. So we walked.
We fell into an easy traveling rhythm those first few days. Cathy proved to be quite loquacious, but unlike a lot of people, she actually had something substantial to say. She explained that she’d come from Bonduel, the daughter of a blacksmith who encouraged her to both master some form of weaponry and never allow herself to be dependent on anyone. She married young, and was widowed shortly afterwards, a memory that seemed to call up no regret on her part; I didn’t ask the obvious questions about just how her late spouse had met his end.
Yes, she was attractive. And yes, I noticed, and yes, it had been a while for me. But besides the fact that she was not very encouraging (she insisted we always sleep with the fire between us), I just wasn’t motivated that way. Although I’d visited whorehouses with my fellow soldiers, Janet had been my only “lover.” Even after seven years that memory was still too fresh.
TWELVE
Ten days later Cathy and I reached the public bridge over the Wyomie River. The spring thaw upstream had swollen it high above flood stage, and great foamy waves churned mere inches beneath the span. The banks, thankfully, were so steep and rocky the water had not flooded the town. But if it rose another eight inches, folks in Poy Sippi would be rolling up their pants legs.
Too deep and swift for boat traffic on a normal day, the Wyomie was an impassable border slicing between the last of the foothills and the irregular Ogachic Mountains beyond. Over time it had carved a famously deep canyon, and the bridge at Poy Sippi was the only way across for miles in either direction.
About a hundred years before, a land speculator had paid for the bridge, assuming the real estate on either end would quickly increase in value. But because the location had only the bridge to recommend it—the surrounding soil was too rocky for farming, and despite years of effort, nothing useful could be mined from it—Poy Sippi was slow to become a real family-friendly town. At the time Cathy and I passed through, it was just a ragged settlement of the kinds of people who could make a living off bridge patrons.
On the day we arrived, it was crowded with travelers funneling into, or fanning out from, the ends of the bridge. There was no charge to use it, so for lots of folks it was the only way across the Wyomie. The local constabulary was supposed to police it, but like all isolated officials, they spent most of their time enjoying the illicit spoils of looking the other way. You crossed at your own risk, and if you got beaten, mugged or worse, you were on your own. Lots of bodies washed up downstream.
Before crossing, we stopped for lunch at one of the roadhouses clustered around the ends of the bridge. The sign proclaimed it The Sway Easy, and beneath that was what appeared to be a motto: Pain Don’t Hurt. After the waitress delivered our drinks and food, Cathy leaned over to me and said softly, “My instructions are really clear. We have to be sure no one follows us across the bridge. Specifically, no women on white horses.”
“Okay,” I agreed. That seemed easy enough. “But why?”
“I think my client is a little paranoid.”
“So who is your client?” I asked. “Seriously. We’ve spent every minute of the last ten days together, surely you can trust me now.”
She bit her lip thoughtfully, then nodded. “Okay. I had taken a set of property deeds to Cape Querna down on the coast of Boscobel. While I was there, I was approached by a messenger with this job. He wouldn’t tell me who it was for, but he paid up front. When I’m done, I’m supposed to go back to Boscobel and check into the same boarding house. They’ll contact me then about the balance due.”
I scowled. “And you wouldn’t trust me,” I said sarcastically.
“Got nothing to do with trust. It’s how couriers operate. We never get paid everything in advance, and a lot of times we don’t know who’s hired us.” She shrugged. “It’s the business.”
The back of my neck suddenly tingled. I looked around at the other travelers in the roadhouse. None of them seemed interested in us, yet I knew someone was studying us with more than idle curiosity. It’s a skill, or a sense, that develops quickly in battle, when two eyes just aren’t enough. “Maybe your mysterious client isn’t paranoid,” I said quietly. “I got that prickly feeling.”
She nodded and muttered, “Me, too. Do we run or try to draw them out?”
“You’re letting me decide?” I teased.
“I’m asking your opinion.” She kicked me sharply under the table. “This is my job. Be serious.”
I grinned. “Okay. Since even I don’t know jack about your job, how likely is it that someone else knows what you’re carrying?”
“Not very.”
“So unless it’s some woman on a white horse, they’re probably no more interested in us than they are in anyone else who might wander through. Probably think we’re newlyweds with pockets full of wedding cash. If we let ’em pick the fight, we’ll draw an awful lot of attention.”
“So we should just valiantly tiptoe away?”
“You’re the boss.”
She smiled. She did that seldom, but when it happened, it was dazzling. It made her eyes crinkle at the corners and completely eliminated the hard, no-nonsense warrior-bitch look she cultivated. It also made her, momentarily at least, quite beautiful. I’d never tell her that, of course.
“Prudence over passion, then,” she said, and dug out money to pay the check. “Just like my daddy always said. Let’s at least let ’em know we’re not complete morons, though.”
Outside she casually joined the pedestrian traffic moving toward the bridge, pushed aside by the bigger wagons and horses. I headed in the opposite direction, looped quickly around a smithy shop and watched two
thuggish men emerge from the roadhouse. They saw Cathy walking away alone and instantly looked around for me, knowing they’d been smoked. I stepped out so they could see me, tapped the side of my nose to indicate I knew exactly what they were up to, and watched them shuffle back inside. Evidently they weren’t up for such hard work.
I caught up with Cathy. “Just a couple of bums thinking they’d surprise us. Gave up when they saw we were on to ’em. Good call.”
She just nodded, but I saw her blush slightly at the compliment. It was so adorable that, combined with the smile she’d given me over lunch, I found my thoughts turning in a surprising direction. But I kept them to myself, out of respect for Janet, and Cathy.
THAT HAD BEEN a long time ago, before traveling all day made my lower back throb like it did now. Now Poy Sippi was huge, and new gates controlled the bridge traffic. There was still no charge, but pedestrians could only cross at certain times, wagons at another, and so forth.
The old roadhouse we’d stopped at for lunch was long gone, replaced by a brand-new tavern advertising gourmet dinners and great-looking waitresses. I tried lunch, which was adequate, and admired the waitresses, who were attractive. But then again, so were the girls in the place next door. And across the street. The individual quality was gone, replaced by cookie-cutter roadhouses owned by far-off noblemen. I missed the individual touch.
“Everything good?” the waitress asked brightly. Her name tag said Trudy. “Shall I freshen up that ale for you?”
“No, thanks,” I said. “You know, I haven’t been here in a while; the place is really built up.”
“Oh, yes. There’s talk of putting in a whole other bridge to handle the traffic. If they do that, this place’ll explode.” She was young, so the thought excited her. I bet she’d be bored to tears by the town I remembered.
“You live here long?” I asked.