by John Booth
Going for a neck throw was impossible. Adon did not appear to actually have a neck and he had hunkered down with his chin pressed tight against his chest. He had a longer reach than Jalia and the only protective clothing she had was Dell’s jerkin, which was good quality, but not made for warfare.
Jalia recognized a formidable opponent when she saw one and this man was definitely one of those. She ran towards him when he pushed the table away to give herself room to retreat later. Jalia knew she was going to need it.
Daniel swung round and dropped to the floor. The roundhouse swing of his sword in the hand of Twist whistled over his head, stirring his hair as it passed. Daniel used the flat of the toy sword to slap Twist hard on the calf. Twist gave out a yelp and jumped backwards given away the advantage he had gained.
Swords are a powerful weapon in the hands of a skilled practitioner and Twist appeared to Daniel to have had some training. Twist also wielded a knife in his other hand as many swordsmen did. The knife is typically used in a slashing manner, keeping the opponent far enough away to allow the sword to come into its own. Twist knew enough to use the combination well. There was no way that Daniel could turn the fight into a wrestling match.
The wooden sword in Daniel’s hand was nicely balanced. The oak was seasoned and very hard. It was polished and as blunt as the average side of a door. If Daniel allowed Twist to hit it edge on with his sword, it would probably be sliced in two. Daniel’s only hope was to make sure that the blades made contact flat to flat.
What happened next could best be described as an exhibition sword-fight. Twist swung his sword viciously and Daniel stepped into a position where he could push the steel sword away with his wooden one. Daniel often followed through with a strike to the side of Twist’s head or torso. The toy sword did little more than to anger Twist. But an angry swordsman was a fool by definition and Twist might give Daniel the moment that decides a fight; if he got angry enough.
Jalia ducked and dived across the other side of the room. Dell’s jerkin was sliced in two places and Jalia suspected she was bleeding from one of those cuts. She did not have the concentration to spare, or the time to look, as she defended herself against Adon’s relentless attack.
Adon was no fool and did nothing so stupid as to charge at her, or to allow himself to be constrained in movement by the people and furniture around him. Jalia had spun chairs at him in the hope of driving him off balance, but he always stepped back and collected himself. He was slowly boxing her into a corner of the room and what she needed was a moment of inspiration. Then an idea occurred to her.
Jalia dropped to the floor on her bottom as if in defeat. She scrabbled back along the floor causing villagers sheltering in the corner to bolt for safer locations.
“Please don’t kill me,” Jalia begged in a small frightened voice as her back came to rest against the corner of two solid walls and there was nowhere left to retreat.
Daniel heard Jalia’s words and ignored them. He did not attempt to look around or to try to help her.
Twist snarled in annoyance. He would never hear the last of it if Adon killed the armed girl while he was still dancing with this unarmed bastard. Especially as the bastard in question had been holding him at arms-length with nothing more than a toy sword. Jalia’s words encouraged Twist into making a stupid move.
Twist flipped his knife in his left hand so he was holding it by the tip of the blade. Then he threw it at Daniel. Daniel was stepping aside before the blade left Twist’s hand, the whole move having been telegraphed by the flip. He did not close in because the knife was heading straight for the people standing behind him. Daniel felt he had no choice as he slashed his toy sword through the air, knocking the knife onto the floor.
Balan had seen the knife flying towards his head and the certainty of death was already in his mind when Daniel knocked the knife down to the boy’s feet where it slid along the floor to bump its hilt against his toes.
Daniel felt the oak toy split as it hit the knife. When he lifted up the sword, he found there was only a six inch spike beyond the hilt, less than half an inch thick at the hilt and tapering to a splinter. It certainly could not be used to block a sword any longer.
Adon bellowed in triumph. Twist gave a feral grin and attacked.
When Adon saw the girl fall to the floor, he thought that she must have been trying to trick him. It was only as she carefully placed her knife on the ground and spun it so that its hilt faced him that he was certain he had won.
Jalia had put up quite a fight and Adon’s blood throbbed in his ears as he looked down at her. To his left, he heard the splintering of Daniel’s toy sword and adrenaline overtook his ability to think. He lifted his head and bellowed, thumping his fists against his chest in joy. He was on his third thump, when the knife Jalia had placed on the floor exactly in the right position to be picked up and thrown, went straight through his throat, severing both windpipe and jugular.
Adon tried to scream, but all that was heard was a bubbling sound as air from his windpipe mixed with the blood squirting from his severed artery. Bright red blood sprayed around the room in all directions. He collapsed to the floor and died.
Twist rushed at Daniel swinging the sword in a vicious roundhouse stroke that would have cut Daniel in two had it connected. Daniel stepped forward so quickly that the two men bumped other chest to chest. Twist looked up into Daniel’s face. It was the last thing he saw as Daniel stabbed the point of the broken toy into Twist’s left eye.
Twist staggered as his body caught up with his brain, which had concluded he was dead. He fell away from Daniel. Daniel spun towards Jalia and saw a spray of blood coming at him from Adon’s throat. He stepped smartly towards the villagers, who immediately backed out of his way.
“Do you always have to be so messy?”
Jalia was in motion, having pulled the knife from Adon’s throat in passing and moving to where her sword waited at the other end of the room. The blood spurting from Adon’s throat came to a stop and Daniel stepped forward to retrieve his sword from Twist’s lifeless hand. He backed towards Jalia with his sword held in front of him, in case any of the villagers felt they owed Adon or Twist their support. Nobody in the room moved so much as an inch.
“Hey, our clothes and shoes are here,” Jalia announced happily to the world. She pulled off Dell’s torn jerking and gratefully put on her leather jacket. Her pleated leather skirt was quickly pulled over her woolen underskirt while Daniel continued to watch the locals closely in case they attacked. None of them seemed to be the least bit interested in avenging their fallen compatriots.
Jalia handed Daniel his coat and sword harness as she took over guard duty for him. He noted that her scabbard was back in position across her back. Jalia never seemed to be Jalia without that sword and Daniel found a pressure he had not known he felt, suddenly lift.
Three men appeared at the door. The middle of the three carried a sword and he looked ready and able to use it. The men on either side of him carried brass tipped staves. They could be formidable weapons in the right hands and they looked to be held in the hands of experts.
5. Trouble at Sweetwater
The men took in the state of the room. Their fellow villagers cowered against the walls, two bodies slumped in the front half of the room and blood was scattered in small pools across the floor. At the far end of the room, two young strangers stood with swords in their hands. They looked as if they knew how to use them. The strangers had taken up defensive postures and were clearly more than ready to fight.
Donal Drenal was the leader of the men at the door. He was in the middle of the three and the only one carrying the sword. As the elected leader of the village, whatever happened next would be his responsibility. He recognized Adon Taldon and Twist Falfit as the dead men on the floor. That meant that the village was already doomed and most of the people in the hall were as good as dead. Perhaps it was that thought that drove him to recklessness.
“Pender, Walt, let�
�s take them,” Donal said sharply. His friends had also identified the dead men and knew the inevitable consequences. The men advanced into the room, weapons held at the ready.
“Stop!” shouted a commanding voice and it carried such authority that all three men found themselves stood still, almost against their will. The person who ordered them to stop was the young male stranger.
Jalia grinned. Daniel had developed that particular skill in Brinan when they had chased the last of the Mine Owner’s men out of the city. It make her want to giggle when she considered how the little trader boy she had met on the trail only two years ago could do that to people these days.
“We were robbed and left for dead by these two earlier today and no law in Jalon would convict us for what we have done,” Daniel continued calmly. “If it is your wish to die in an attempt to avenge this scum, feel free to try. You will most certainly lose.”
Donal looked into the young man’s eyes and saw the certainty in them. Then he looked into Jalia’s eyes and realized with a shock that she was looking forward to the fight. Her stance and clothes, not to mention the sword in her hand and the way she held it, told Donal this girl would be at least as dangerous as the man.
He sighed and dropped the point of his sword towards the floor. The men beside him quickly took a step back. Pender wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. Both men looked to Donal to see what he would do next.
“I believe you, stranger. We have known for years how these men obtained the goods they sold here, but we could do nothing about it.”
“He’s Daniel, I’m Jalia,” Jalia remarked as she straightened up an overturned bench and sat on it. “To my way of thinking, any two of you three men could have put an end to these murderers any time you wanted.”
Donal noted that though Jalia appeared relaxed, with her hands resting lightly on the hilt of her sword and its tip digging into the floor, it was the kind of relaxed stance a cat uses, just before it pounces on a mouse.
“You are quite correct, my Lady Jalia,” Donal told her. “That would be true if it were just the two of them we had to take on. But Adon Taldon is the eldest son of Mallon Taldon and when he finds out that his son is dead, we will all be dead as well.”
“This Mallon person must be a fairly old man, judging by the age of his son,” Daniel pointed out. “I would have thought that you could gang together to stop one old man.”
“The Taldon clan is over twenty men strong and their women are capable of gutting you as soon as look at you. The only good person in the whole family was Halfor. He ran away from them and married our village healer. Adon Taldon killed his own brother for having the effrontery to desert the clan.”
“I’ve asked you never to sway that out loud, Donal,” a middle aged woman said as she appeared at the door. “What if my son was to hear you?”
The woman strode into the room carrying a large carpetbag. She was dressed in well-made, but well-worn clothes, and appeared to be about thirty years old. “I heard that there was trouble at the Lord’s House and came as soon as I had packed my medicine bag.”
The woman walked over to where Adon’s body lay on the floor and observed him critically for a few seconds. Then she kicked the dead man viciously in the head.
“I wish I’d been here to watch you die, you foul bastard,” she said. She looked over to Twist’s body, lying on his back with the hilt of the toy sword still embedded in his eye. “Somebody finally gave you exactly what you so richly deserved.”
The woman looked over to Daniel and Jalia. “I take it that it was you two who dispatched my late unlamented brother in law and his dog?”
Jalia nodded a little reluctantly. This woman must be Dell’s mother and that might make the next few minutes more than a little awkward.
“Well done to you,” the woman said, smiling broadly at them. “My name is Malda and I am pleased to meet you.” Malda looked Jalia and Daniel over critically. “You appear to have a small cut in your side young lady. Come over here and I’ll treat it for you.”
“It’s only a scratch,” Jalia said quickly. She was feeling more and more uncomfortable and looked over to Daniel for some support. His eyes were as bleak as ice and Jalia remembered with a shock that Daniel believed Dell lay dead in the forest. Daniel was not the sort of man to let something like that remain unspoken. He was going to tell Malda about her son very soon if Jalia did not; that was a certainty.
Malda’s eyes had been drifting around the room looking for anybody else who might have been hurt. What she saw instead was Dell’s jerkin, slashed by Adon’s knife and lightly smeared with Jalia’s blood.
“Is Dell here? Is he injured? Somebody tell me,” Malda cried. She turned back towards Donal who shook his head to indicate to her that he didn’t know where Dell was.
“The woman was wearing Donal’s jerkin when she came in,” Balan said, in the way that young children do. Saying the words out loud, that everybody else in the room was thinking and no one was ever going to say.
“He was with Adon and Twist when they robbed us and left us for dead,” Daniel said half-apologetically. “He must have been told to guard the trail, because we met up with him about halfway here.” Daniel stopped talking as he braced himself for the words he had to say next.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Dell is….”
“Back on the trail with a broken leg and no shoes,” Jalia interrupted, and then her face went bright red as she saw Daniel staring at her in astonishment. “We couldn’t afford to risk him giving them warning. He should still be alive if he knows how to deal with a broken leg.”
Malda felt herself go through a series of emotions as she heard Jalia’s news. She knew Adon had been trying to convert Dell to the Taldon clan’s murderous ways. That brought anger. Dell had helped rob these two and they had caught him, that brought fear. He had a broken leg, but he was still alive. The feeling of relief she felt when she heard those words nearly dropped her to the floor in a faint. ‘Dell was still alive.’
“He is the son of a healer,” she snapped back at Jalia. “If he doesn’t know how to deal with a broken leg, I shall break his other one to give him practice. I must go at once to find him.” Malda turned away from them and ran towards the door, bag in hand.
Daniel was giving Jalia a look that she read as “Tell me, what exactly is going on here?”
“I didn’t want you to think I was going soft,” Jalia muttered, bending her head and rubbing the toe of a shoe against the floor. She looked for all the world like a naughty eight year old asking her father for forgiveness.
“I forgot to say,” Malda’s said, having stopped at the door. “Thank you for not killing my son.”
“Make sure he realizes that there will be no more such chances,” Daniel said solemnly. Their eyes met in silent understanding and she nodded grimly.
“I will be sure to explain it to him.”
“You did a good thing, Jalia,” Daniel said as he gave her a sudden hug. “Mercy is an act of the strong, not a sign of weakness.”
“I don’t plan to make a habit of it,” Jalia retorted and pushed Daniel away. He laughed, which annoyed her even more.
Donal stood waiting for them to notice him, his son by his side. Daniel and Jalia abandoned their bantering and looked expectantly at him.
“My son tells me you saved his life,” Donal said, and inclined his head to Daniel. “From what the others have told me, you are an exceptional swordsman.”
“He was trained by David al’Degar, his father,” Jalia said proudly. “Not that anybody around here is likely to have heard of him.
“I was also taught by David al’Degar,” Donal said unexpectedly. “I was in the king’s guard in Bagdor when he was sent from Delbon to train us many years ago. I thought his son was called Yousef though.”
“My older brother,” Daniel said without a trace of emotion. “I was born after my father’s return. He left the Guard to become a farmer and died of the was
ting plague when I was twelve, along with my mother.”
“I’m sorry,” Donal said. “He was a good man and a great swordsman. However, we must not keep you from continuing your journey. It would be best if you left soon and traveled as fast as you can to get away. Someone in the village will certainly pass the word of what you have done to the Taldon’s in the hope of tempering Maldon’s wrath. The rest of us will just have to hope he doesn’t kill us for allowing you to kill his heir.”
“There are some items of our property missing that have great sentimental value for us,” Jalia said. “Two throwing knives, an old dagger, and a ring that has been in my family for many years.”
“Two men bought the knives and the dagger,” Balon piped up excitedly. “And a lady bought the ring. They said they were traveling to Slarn. Where’s Slarn, Daddy?”
“It’s at the edge of the world, hundreds of miles to the east,” Donal told his son. He looked at Daniel and Jalia. “Will you follow them?”
Daniel hunkered down so he could look Balon straight in the eyes. “Who bought the donkeys?”
“Traders, the men who bought the knives were with them.”
“Then we had best be on our way,” Jalia said. She hadn’t mentioned finding her money belt and quite a lot of her gold in a bag on the floor. As far as Jalia was concerned, the sooner they left this village the better.
“We can’t leave just yet,” Daniel said, stopping Jalia in her tracks on her way to the door.
“Why not?” Jalia asked, dangerously sweetly.
“I owe young Balon a new sword for a start.”
“I’m sure his father can take care of that,” Jalia replied. Her eyes narrowed as she realized that Daniel was up to something.
“There is also the matter of the Taldon Clan. You wouldn’t want this village to suffer for something we did would you?” Daniel asked her innocently.