by JD Byrne
“Is the question difficult?” Spider asked, stepping to her and pulling a small dagger from his belt. Unlike the blades wielded by his underlings, this one was sharp and well cared for, sunlight glinting off the polished steel. He pressed it to Strefer’s throat so that she could just feel the edge of the blade against her skin. “It should not be a difficult question. I know who I am. My companions know who they are. Surely you must know who you are.” He pressed the blade a bit harder against her neck. “I’ll ask again, then. Are you Strefer Quants?”
“Don’t say anything,” said Rurek, sitting on the ground, his legs splayed out before him.
Spider turned, walked to Rurek, and brought his boot heel down on his left leg, in which the arrow was still buried. Rurek howled in pain. “Wrong answer, hero!” Spider yelled, spurring his companions to nervous laughter. In a flash he was back in front of Strefer, dagger to her neck. “You know, the bulletin there isn’t very clear on what may or may not happen to your friend there. If dealing with him more roughly might loosen your tongue, well…”
“No,” Strefer said, almost involuntarily. Whatever might happen to Rurek, she would not have any more of it on her head. “Please, don’t.”
“Ah, so there is something that might make you talk,” Spider said, a gleam in his eye. “I will ask one last time. Are you Strefer Quants?” With this question, the goon with the spear moved to Rurek’s side in a menacing fashion.
Before Strefer could answer, something rang out from the woods, a sharp burst of noise. She saw the effect of it before she had time to process just what the noise was, as the back of Spider’s head exploded in a mess of blood and brain. He slumped to the ground, dagger falling out of his limp hand along the way. Strefer looked down, saw the smirk he still wore on his now lifeless face, and screamed.
“Get down!” Rurek said, his voice strained with pain.
Without thinking, Strefer did as she was told and dropped to the ground, face covered in the dust kicked up by the activity. Spider lay beside her, completely motionless. She looked up to see his four minions staring at each other, dumb expressions of confusion on their faces. A second shot rang out, slamming the one with the spear near Rurek in the shoulder. He fell, but pulled himself back up on his spear and ran off into the woods. The others followed suit.
Strefer jumped up and ran to Rurek, covering him with her body.
“What’s happening?” he asked. “I can’t see anything with you smothering me like this.”
“I don’t know,” Strefer said. “Spider’s dead. His gang’s run off. Someone…” She stopped herself as another man stepped out of the woods, just beyond where the trail widened into the clearing. Where Spider and his men appeared to come from everywhere at once, this one was coming from the direction Strefer and Rurek had traveled that day.
He was tall and slender, with pale green skin that indicated he was not a native to these woods. He walked quickly, but deliberately, to where they crouched, rifle to his shoulder, scanning the clearing. When he was within a few feet of them, he slung the rifle over his shoulder and knelt down beside them.
“Let me take a look at that,” he said, slowly moving Strefer away and then prying off the hands that Rurek had clamped around his wound.
“Good gods, what now,” Strefer said, frantically searching the trees for some sign of the next player in this drama.
“Who are you?” Rurek asked through gritted teeth.
“A friend,” the man said, slowly getting Rurek to relax his grip. “That’s all you need to know for now. But if it will make you more comfortable, call me Forlahn. We’ll have more time later for explanations. Spider’s men will be back, once they convince themselves that they are not really afraid of getting killed themselves. If nothing else, they’ll come to pick over his corpse.” He nodded with his head towards Spider’s body. With Rurek’s hands out of the way, he studied the wound.
“Can you help him?” Strefer asked. “Pull the arrow out or something?”
“No, no, no,” Forlahn said, covering the shaft with both hands. “Like most bandits, Spider probably uses barbed arrows.” He jumped up, went over to where Spider lay, and pulled one of the arrows out of the quiver still stuck to his thigh. “See?” he said, pointing to the tip of the arrow, a twisted mash of metal that looked as cruel an implement as Strefer could imagine. “Pull that out now and all it’s going to do is leave a big bloody hole in your friend’s leg. It’ll get infected and he’ll die.”
“Then how do we get it out?” Strefer asked, ashamed at the panic she heard in her own voice.
Forlahn walked back to Rurek, who was now lying flat on his back.
“Well, there are two options,” Forlahn said, kneeling back down beside Rurek. Without warning, he rolled the big Sentinel over onto his side, grasped the shaft of the arrow in his hand, and pushed hard. The barbed arrowhead, bloody and disgusting, slid out the back side of his thigh. Strefer looked away.
“What in blazes are you doing?” Rurek screamed.
“Sorry,” Forlahn said, very matter of factly. “I needed to force the arrowhead out of your leg. It was best for me to do it without you knowing it was going to happen. Trust me.”
Rurek looked back over his shoulder at Forlahn and cursed in pain several times. His complaints were cut short by another urgent question. “What are you doing?”
Forlahn had slipped a knife out from under his belt. “Don’t worry. I’m just going to cut off the back end of the shaft, so less of it has to pass through your leg when I pull it out. All right?”
Rurek stopped and kept still while Forlahn sawed at the shaft. When he was done, only a small stump was left protruding from the wound. With another quick movement, Forlahn slid the rest of the arrow out of Rurek’s leg.
Forlahn turned and looked back towards the spot where he had emerged from the woods. “Malin! Malin! Come here, boy, I need you,” he shouted.
Strefer turned her head at the rustle of leaves from back at the far end of the clearing. A small boy burst out of the trees, moving as quickly as possible under the load he was carrying. Strefer guessed he was not more than ten years old. There was a large pack of some sort on his back and in each hand he carried a rifle. He ran in a hunched-over fashion, as if the weight of the pack was almost too much for him. Nevertheless, he moved quickly and confidently, dropping to his knees when he reached Forlahn.
“Find me some cloth we can use for a bandage,” he said to the boy, who slipped the pack off his back and began rooting around inside of it.
Not quite sure how to process all that had happened to her in the past few minutes, Strefer sat down on the dry ground, pulled her knees to her chest, and wrapped her arms around herself. It was one thing to be set upon by bandits in these woods. Strefer was surprised it had not happened earlier. And even the appearance of a mysterious rescuer was not beyond imagining. But the appearance of a child on the scene was a bridge too far in her mind. “And who is this?” she asked, voice shaking.
“Malin is my son,” Forlahn said as he worked, wrapping a coiled-up bundle of fabric around Rurek’s thigh. “As I said, there will be time for explanations later.” The boy said nothing, but did glance briefly in her direction.
“When is it going to be later?” she asked, voice louder than she anticipated. “This is getting to be a bit much for me to handle.”
“Very soon now,” Forlahn said, quickly finishing the bandage. “You need to stand up, friend,” he said to Rurek. “You can use her for support.” Strefer got up and walked over beside him. “It will hurt for quite a bit,” Forlahn continued, “but once we make some distance, we can rest and treat it more thoroughly. All right?”
“I hope you’re right,” Rurek said, extending a hand. Forlahn grabbed it and pulled the larger man to his feet. Rurek winced and shifted his weigh to his good leg. When Strefer moved to help him, Rurek waved her away. “I’ll manage.”
Strefer knew he would need her help eventually, but she was not going to forc
e the issue. Instead, she walked over to Spider’s corpse, bent down, and took the bow from his side.
“Don’t take that,” Forlahn said, to her surprise.
“Why not? We need to defend ourselves, don’t we? Especially with him out of commission,” she said, nodding towards Rurek.
“Have you ever used a bow?” Forlahn asked. “If you haven’t, it won’t be much use to you, and it will give you a false sense of security.”
She never thought of it that way, but still didn’t like the idea of being defenseless.
“Take the dagger instead,” Forlahn said, pointing to the blade that had once been pressed against her own throat. “It will serve you better.”
It would certainly be an improvement over her dull knife. She put the bow back beside Spider, then took the blade from his dead hand and slipped it into her belt. But before she walked away, she pulled the remaining arrows out of Spider’s quiver and broke them, one by one, over her knee. “At least nobody else can use them,” she said.
“Good thinking,” Forlahn said. Behind him, Rurek tried to take a step and howled in pain. “Can you?” he asked, gesturing towards him.
“I’ll try,” she said, slipping under Rurek’s arm before he had a chance to protest. “Are you all right?”
“I’ve been better,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Indeed.” Forlahn took the pack and slung it over his back, much better suited to bear the weight than the boy. “Are those reloaded?” he asked Malin, pointing to the rifles he had been carrying. The boy nodded affirmatively. Forlahn took one of the guns, while the boy took the other and the one Forlahn had been carrying initially. “This way.”
He led them to the pool in the clearing and then off the path entirely, along the stream that fed the pool. Strefer gritted her teeth under Rurek’s weight, but at least the stress coursing through her had chased away the lead in her belly. Before long, the sunlight and blue skies above were replaced by the enclosing green darkness of the forest canopy.
Chapter 25
Strefer had a strong sense of déjà vu as they stopped in another clearing perhaps half a mile downstream from where they had been. It looked almost exactly like the place they had just been attacked in. All that was missing were Spider and his goons.
She spotted a tree near the stream and helped Rurek over towards it. The wounded sentinel sat down and propped himself up against the tree, the relief of being off his injured leg clear on his face. The cloth that Forlahn had tied around his leg was now soaked with blood. Strefer was amazed he was still conscious.
Strefer knelt next to the stream and filled her cupped hands with the running water. It was clear and cold, shocking her stomach when she drank down a handful. The day was so warm and bright, she expected the water to be warmer. She took another handful and splashed it on her face. Braced by the cold, it was only then that she became aware of the ache of her body, the soreness that coursed through her. It was the first time since the arrow had flown out of nowhere that she was not running on adrenalin and pure instinct. Finally with a chance to reflect on what had happened that day, she wept silently to herself for a moment.
Forlahn’s voice broke her vigil.
“Here, let me take a look at that,” he said, kneeling over Rurek. With a speed and deftness that made it clear he had done this before, he removed the bandage. “That doesn’t look too bad.” He looked Rurek in the eye. “We’re going to have to cauterize it, though.”
If the thought of burning flame on flesh bothered Rurek, he did not show it. “I figured as much. If we had a fire…”
Forlahn cut him off. “Not yet. We need to treat the wound a bit first.” He called for the boy, who had not said a word while they made their way from the first clearing to this one. He sprinted to Forlahn’s side like a well-trained dog. “Bring me a biscuit, will you?” The boy scampered away.
“A biscuit?” Strefer asked, walking slowly to them. “Time for a snack, is it?”
“Hardly,” he said as the boy brought back a small, round hunk of bread. “We’ll make camp here for the night,” he told the boy. “Go find us something for dinner. Maybe a vegetable, if you can find something safe.” The boy ran to Forlahn’s pack, took something from an outside pocket, then disappeared into the woods.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Strefer asked. Forlahn did not answer her. “I mean, sending the boy out into the woods by himself?”
“Are you volunteering to go with him?” he said crisply, displaying some frustration with her without raising his voice. He took the biscuit and dunked it in the stream several times.
“I’m probably not the right choice,” Strefer said, backing down.
“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine.” Forlahn took the mushy concoction in his hand and tore it into two parts. He put one part on either side of Rurek’s thigh where the arrow had gone through it. “He doesn’t say much. He’s a shy boy. But he is very capable of handling himself out there.” He looked around and frowned. “Here, can you hold these?” he asked Strefer. She just looked at the wound and the pastry dough with suspicion. “Just keep them on there for a moment while I wash this bandage out.”
Strefer did as she was told, although she had no experience with wounds. She was quickly learning that she had no stomach for them, either. “Does that hurt?” she asked Rurek, trying to find the right amount of pressure.
“Not so much anymore,” he said. “Maybe I’m just getting used to it.” He gave her a weak but genuine smile. She reciprocated.
Forlahn took the bloody wrap to the stream and wrung it out several times in the cold water. When it could charitably be called clean, he returned. “All right,” he said, getting down next to Strefer, “let me tie this back on so that mixture can do its work. We’ll cauterize it later tonight.” He tied the wrap while Strefer held the soggy bread in place.
“What is a soggy biscuit going to do for a bloody wound?” Rurek asked.
“They don’t teach you these things, Sentinel?” Forlahn asked with a grin. “A normal table biscuit won’t do very much. But if you have one made from a recipe that includes certain herbs, it can help prevent infection.” He finished his task and sat back awkwardly to survey his work. “Tastes pretty good, too. Kills two birds with one stone—foodstuff and medical tool. You learn to maximize resources when you’re in my line of work.”
“Yeah, speaking of that,” Strefer said, sitting down on the ground, “now that we’ve settled down for the night, would you mind telling us just who you are and how you managed to be in the same godforsaken place in the middle of the woods as we were? Not that we weren’t glad to see you, of course.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “I knew where you were because I was following you.”
“Following us?” Strefer said, more exasperated than angry. “Again?”
“For how long?” Rurek asked.
“About five days, give or take. I picked up your trail about midday, then found your campsite that night. I’ve been about a quarter mile behind you ever since.”
Strefer’s stomach tied itself in knots. Until now, she had only seen Forlahn as their savior and an ally. But now she was having second thoughts. Was he a bandit just like Spider? What better way to capture them and eliminate the competition? Now he had them well off the path on which they were traveling, wounded and outgunned. Her mind flirted with trying to overpower or surprise him before the boy came back.
Rurek, apparently, did not share her concern. “You’re a tracker, then?”
“Not by training,” Forlahn said, shaking his head. “I’ve picked up quite a few tricks over the years, though.”
“Doing what?” Strefer asked, more bluntly than she intended. She was getting tired of this.
He looked up in the trees and thought for a moment. “I’ve never really thought about what to call what I do, I guess. Maybe the best term is hired gun? Only I tend to shoot first and ask for money later.” He chuckled at his joke, although neit
her of the others did.
“You just wander around shooting people?” Strefer asked.
“No, no, no,” Forlahn said, waving away the suggestion. “I like to think that I act as something of a counterweight to the bandits. The Arbor is thick with them, as you have learned. They don’t bother the major cities, so the Confederation doesn’t really care about them. Smaller cities and towns don’t have the wherewithal to do anything about them. So there are a few men, like me, who operate privately against them. Freelancers, if you will.”
“Sounds like a dangerous way to make a living,” Rurek said. “Can’t imagine it pays very well, either.”
Forlahn shook his head. “It’s no way to get rich, I’ll give you that. Most of the cities, even the smaller ones, pay some kind of bounty for a dead bandit, leaders in particular. Those don’t add up to very much, but I’ve learned to get along. The Arbor is full of unclaimed land, wild and inviting if you know how to live off it. It’s not for everyone, but it’s a living.”
Strefer was still not satisfied. “You’re different from these bandits how, exactly?”
“Well, let me see,” he said, pausing in mock thought. “A bandit sets upon unsuspecting travelers, threatens them with violence, and demands money or some other thing of value. If you don’t comply with their demands, they will hurt you at best, kill you at worst. On the other hand, I perform a service without being asked to so do, in return hoping only for some slight compensation. See the difference?”
“In other words, the difference is they’re the bad guys and you’re the good guys?” she asked.
“Precisely.”
“So where do you live, then?” Strefer continued. “When you need to take a break from doing good.”