by Robert Beers
“Arrrggghhh!” He felt the bones in the joint give way as he tried to force his way out of the bitch's grip.
“It's your own fault you know.” She told him as she forced him to his knees. “It wouldn't have broken if you had just gone with it and sat down like you were supposed to.”
The words came out of his mouth through teeth clenched against the agony. “A slip of a girl ... how can you...?”
Charity brought her knee up sharply to the point of his chin, ending both what he was going to ask and his consciousness, together.
She spun on her other heel to face the one who had started it all.
The highwayman snarled at her. “Come on, bitch! I'll split yer from twat to chin, by the pit, I will!” He spat out a bit more of the brown wad he was chewing.
Charity shook her head. “No, you won't, and I'm not going to waste my time fussing with you.”
She caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Neely and his opponent were dancing closer and closer to where she and the bandleader stood.
Their movements seemed choreographed. Slash and parry, bob and weave. Thin lines of red stood out starkly against the white of Neely's blouse where the dance had come too close. His opponent's left arm hung useless at his side, testimony to the reach of Neely's long arms.
The tracker ducked beneath a backhand swipe of the other's knife, and then arched backwards to avoid being disemboweled by a sudden change of direction. His heel slipped on a pile of horse droppings, sending him into the grass, off-balance, and flat on his back. The knife squirted from his hand, and landed out of his reach.
“Hah!” The thief gloated. “Gotcha now, slick!”
He tossed the knife back and forth from hand to hand as he sidled around Neely, looking for an opening.
“Gut ‘im, Lengen. Leave ‘im fer the crows.” His leader called out.
“Hear that, Slick?” Lengen snickered through his matted beard. “Doogin wants ya gutted. Let's see iffn we kin do that, eh?”
The thief darted in at Neely, his knife sweeping at the tracker's midsection.
Neely twisted to the side as he threw his fist at the thief's jaw in a desperate roundhouse. He connected just as the tip of the blade cut a furrow across his ribcage, drawing out a hiss of pain.
The thief's head rocked with the blow, and he fell off to Neely's left side, rolling away from the elbow that followed.
He climbed to his hands and knees, only to fall a last time to a straight-legged kick from Charity.
“That was a foul blow!” The highwayman yelled. “You gave ‘im no chance. No chance at all!”
“I didn't intend to.” Charity stepped around Neely and ran the few steps it took to get to her horse. She pulled out her bow and strung it, nocking an arrow and immediately aiming it at the highwayman.
“Ok. Call off your men who're left, or I send this shaft right through your eye.”
Doogin flicked his eyes left and right, gauging his chances of making it to cover. The answer didn't please him.
He seemed to shrink in size, like a tomcat loosing its puff. His sword fell into the grass. “Rubert!” He called out to the fellow fighting Flynn. “Leave off. Leave off, I say!”
The thief backed away from Flynn. and lowered his glaive. They were both breathing heavily. Flynn sounded like a bellows as he puffed and blowed.
Charity nodded. “Good. Now, the three of you get together so I don't have to keep turning my head. Get up, Neely.”
He climbed to his feet, and stood, swaying slightly in the aftermath of the fighting.
Charity saw the bloodstain spreading through the fabric of his blouse, and raised the arrow to point. “If he dies...”
Doogin held his hands up as if they would shield him from the arrow. “Deity! No, lady. Please. I don't want to die.”
Neely held his hand over his ribs as he trudged across the glen to his horse. The old gelding hadn't moved an inch during the fighting.
He looked at Charity as he passed her. “I'll be all right, Charity. Flynn'll bind me up. Th’ fixin's are in my bags here.” He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a bundle of cloth and a jar of ointment. Flynn hurried over and helped him off with his vest and blouse.
Charity watched Flynn's ministrations to Neely for a while, keeping a close eye on the Highwayman and the standing survivors of his gang. When it looked as if Neely was going to be all right as he had said, she lowered her bow and indicated to Doogin with a point of her chin the rest of the band that lay in the grass.
“Ok, you three start covering your dead so the wild animals can't get to them. When those who aren't dead come to, they can help you.”
The redhead glared at her as he cradled his wrist with his good hand. “What about me? Me hand's broke, I can't do nothin.”
“You can pick up stuff with your other hand, can't you? I still have this arrow nocked.” She lifted the half-drawn bow slightly. “And you're not one of my favorite people.”
Finn the Red scrambled to join Doogin and Rubert in picking up stones and sticks for their dead companions’ burial mounds.
Flynn finished with his binding of Neely's wounds, and they searched through the grass, picking up what weapons they could find. Flynn appropriated the glaive for his own use, ignoring the glare sent his way by Rubert.
Doogin objected when he saw them stuffing the purloined weapons into their horses’ saddlebags. “Ere now! You can't go off an’ leave us helpless. It ain't charitable.”
Neely smirked. “And what you was gonna do to us was? Least we's leavin’ you alive.”
Charity put her foot into her saddle's left stirrup, and swung herself into position. Her mare stamped the soft ground, eager to be off. “I'm going to keep watch every now and then to make sure you boys are keeping to yourselves, and not following us. And just so you do, I want you to keep an eye on that acorn across the glen.”
She pulled out her bow, restrung it and drew an arrow to her ear.
The silence that greeted the dropping of the acorn was audible.
Doogin scratched himself behind an ear, and swallowed. “Uh ... me an’ the boys ... we'll be goin’ north.”
* * * *
Neely brushed the dirt off of his hands as he walked back to his horse. “Nope, not a track. Lessen you call an old bug hole a track.”
Flynn muttered to himself as Neely remounted. “Coulda sworn it were a track.”
Charity, Flynn and Neely were east of the slopes leading to Dragonglade. The last of the Long Wood was just a dark line on the northern horizon. The shadows of the mountains crept toward them as the sun began to dip below the jagged peaks to their west.
Charity reached forward and patted the neck of her Dapple Gray mare as the horse bent her head to crop the dark green grass.
“Well, I guess we should be satisfied we're well clear of the outlaws.” She spoke half to herself. “We haven't seen any tracks of men or horses for the past hundred miles or more.”
Neely reined his horse back into line with Charity and Flynn. “Doesn't hurt to keep an eye out, just in case.”
Charity urged her mount onward with a click of her tongue. “I suppose you're right. I'd rather not have to take on four-to-one odds again any time soon.”
“You're pretty good at it, Miss Charity.” Flynn pulled an apple out of his right-hand saddlebag and took a bite out of it.
She hid her smile with a yawn. “Doesn't mean I want to do it on a daily basis.”
Charity then turned in the saddle to look at Neely. “Do you know anything of the land between here and Ort?”
He shook his head. “Not a blessed thing. Spent my time on the East side of Cloudhook. The headwaters of the Ort are supposed to be in this part of the country,” He looked around at the deepening shadows. “Somewhere...”
“There's a river with the same name as a city?” Charity asked.
“It's the way they do things.” Neely shrugged. “You come across a good name, makes sense to put it on as many things
as it fits. Logical, really.”
Charity thought, “Confusing, really.”
Flynn mumbled something. Charity barely caught the word river in what he said.
She reined the mare in, allowing Flynn's draft horse to catch up. “What was that? Something about a river?”
Flynn looked down as his left hand toyed with the pommel on the saddle. “I wuz just thinkin', that's all.”
“Thinking? About what?”
“You'd just think I wuz bein’ silly.”
Charity reached up and touched Flynn on his huge arm. “No, I won't. And you know that.”
The big man's face twitched with a small, brief smile. “I wuz just talkin’ to meself, wonderin’ like, y'know, about the river? I ain't never seen a real river. Oh, I seen lots ‘n lots o’ creeks an’ streams, mind you. But a river. They say th’ Ort's gots places where you can't see th’ other side, it's so wide.
“Anyway, that's what I wuz talkin’ to meself about. Nuthin’ much, really.”
Charity patted his arm where she'd touched it. “I think it's sweet. This has to be a real adventure for you. I'm glad.”
The cat took the closeness of the two horses as an opportunity to jump up to a higher vantage point. She arched her back as she rubbed against Flynn, her tail held like a furry flagpole.
Charity giggled. “It looks like she's decided you're her new friend.”
Neely snorted from his position to the rear of them. “If we're quite through foolin’ around here, I'd like to find a good campsite before th’ bloody moon comes out.”
“He's right on that, Miss Charity.” Flynn squinted at the line of red light on the mountaintops. “It's gettin’ dark, fast. I'd druther not have to do my wood gatherin’ all in th’ dark.”
The cat echoed Flynn's sentiments with a meow.
Charity nodded and stood in the stirrups as she tried to check the landscape ahead of them.
“How about up there?” She pointed to a rise in the land that was a bowshot to their southwest. “That looks like a small stand of trees, which means we'll have wood for a fire, at least.”
Neely squinted as he tried to see the spot Charity was pointing out to them. “Y'say there's trees up there? Where? Can't see a bloody thing in this gloom.”
“She's got the younger eyes, Neely. They's probably trees where she says they is. C'mon, ol’ boy.” He kicked his heels gently into the draft horse's flanks, and started into a brisk walk up the slope behind Charity.
Neely pulled Wilbut into line behind Flynn's horse and they followed Charity and her younger eyes up to the trees and to their camp for the night.
Charity guided her horse through the maze of boulders and dead trees down the slope toward the flat below, with one hand on the halter and the other reaching for whatever handhold was handy. The Dapple Gray mare followed her docilely, trusting in Charity's ability to know the best path to the grass below. The cat rode in her accustomed place behind the saddle, watching their progress with interest.
“Them's gotta be the headwaters, I'll bet.” Flynn was in line behind Charity, his large draft horse's dinner plate hooves finding the loose foundation underfoot more secure than those of his smaller cousins.
Neely clicked his tongue, and rubbed Wilbut's muzzle, reassuring the older horse as they trailed Flynn. “Good. The horses'll need th’ fresh water, an’ I'm ‘bout parched meself. Haven't seen a spring for the past two days. Where in th’ pit is all th’ blinkin’ water?”
Flynn pointed to the headwaters. “There.”
Neely hoped his large friend could feel his glare. “Har de har har.”
“Well, it is.”
Charity started to slip in loose shale, and caught herself on the corpse of an old Madrone that jutted from between two cow-sized boulders colored a dusty pink with streaks of mud gray shooting through them. “You two better pay more attention to the trail. I don't want to have both of you in my lap. It's really loose here. Hush, girl. There's a good lass.” She soothed the mare as some more of the shale went skittering down the slope.
Neely called out from his spot in the rear, “Ease up there, Charity, we're doin’ no good this way. See those big stones off to your left?”
Charity shaded her eyes with the palm of her hand, and looked where Neely indicated. “I see them.”
“Looks like a switch back to me, from up here. May take us a bit more time than this straight downhill shot we're doin', but at least we'll get there in one piece.”
Charity looked over her shoulder at Flynn. “What do you think, Flynn? It's three of us here.”
He rubbed the salt and rust stubble on his chin. “Well, now, Miss Charity. I'm not sayin’ I'd druther have Neely leadin’ us instead of you, I wants you to know that.”
She nodded her understanding.
Flynn's chest heaved with a sigh. “Neely's th’ best of the three of us when it comes ta trackin'. Iffn he sees a switchback, you can bet money it's there. I don't much fancy me landin’ in your lap, meself not that it isn't a fine lookin’ lap, mind you.”
Charity's laughter was infectious, and lightened the mood of their climb down to the headwaters of the Ort River.
Neely's guess proved correct in both matters. The series of switchbacks he found allowed them to lead the horses with much less of a chance of a fall. But it lengthened the time of the descent to the point that it was well into the afternoon by the time they came out onto the flat.
The mighty Ort's headwaters, as with most major rivers, were something of an understatement compared to what they became several miles downstream. The flat where they began was the northern tip of a series of valleys that extended hundreds of leagues to the south, ending at the miles wide mouth of the Ort River where it met the Southern sea below the city of the same name.
Charity could see at least a dozen small springs flowing out from under the hill of rubble they'd descended. She pointed to a spot where several of them had cut tiny canyons into the soft earth of the flat. “There's where all the water's been hiding, Neely. It's under that pile of rock and driftwood we were on.”
“Aye.” He turned and looked up to where they'd begun their climb down. “Wonder what caused all this to pile up here? Looks like some giant cleaned his yard, an’ this is th’ trash heap.”
Charity watched her mare drink from one of the streams. The cat was across from the mare, lapping up some of the water with flicks of her quick pink tongue. She glanced back at the debris hill. “I can't answer that one. You're right, though. It does look unnatural, almost as if a giant shovel scooped out all the litter from around us, and piled it all there.” She pointed at the hill, and then began filling her water bags.
“Bet it wuz th’ magik war whut done it.” Flynn squatted to fill his own bags. “I'd sure liked ta have seen that.”
“Enough of that!” Neely busied himself checking the cinches on his tack. “Magik makes my skin crawl. Unnatural, it is. Man shouldn't mess around with such stuff. Them wizards an’ sorcerers murdered whole cities. It's all from straight outta th’ Pit, nohow.”
Charity's eyebrows climbed into her scalp line. “Oh?”
Flynn chuckled. “Yer foot's in it now, Neely.”
Charity demurely secured the cork in her last bag as she walked over to Neely. When she was close enough to stand toe to toe with him, she looked up into his face, and smiled. “Are you telling me that my brother, my twin brother was a creature straight out of the Pit?” Her voice was soft and gently modulated, but each word drove into Neely's gut like a hammer blow.
He tried to smile, but the effort was a sickly one at best. “Uh ... miss Charity. ‘Bout your brother...”
Charity smiled back at him. Her expression promised mayhem. “What about my brother?”
Neely backed away. “Nuthin'. I meant nuthin’ by it, Charity. I mean that. My grandad, he tol’ me stories ‘bout th’ magik war an’ whut was done to th’ folk back then. Gave me nightmares, they did. I'm sure your brother's as good a man as you're a w
oman. Whether he does magik or not.”
Flynn clapped his hands. “Good answer, Neely. Good answer. You kin skin ‘im now, Miss Charity.”
Neely's glare shot knives at Flynn.
Charity put her hands behind her back, and nodded at Flynn. “Thank you, Flynn, but I think Neely looks much better in his skin than out of it.”
She looked back at Neely. “Your apology is accepted, and you can be sure that if you ever had met my brother, you'd have found he's worth every bit of respect you could show him. Now, shall we be on our way?”
The three of them climbed back into their saddles. Charity scooped up the cat and placed her back onto the saddlebags, and they started the horses walking along the Ort as it made its way into the Southlands. The flat was more than wide enough, so they rode side by side. Flynn was on the outside, Neely in the middle, and Charity rode next to the bank.
The river grew wider and deeper as the miles eased into the background. Soon cattails and rushes began to appear as a buffer between the banks and the slow moving water.
“Looks like I'll be cuttin’ myself a willow branch soon.” Flynn remarked. “A nice bit of fire roasted fish would go down proper.”
Charity eased her mare closer to the bank so she could see over the rushes. “Yes, I think I'd like that. It'd make a nice change from biscuits and stew.”
“I'll keep with th’ stew an’ biscuits, thank you.” Neely said.
Charity turned in her saddle. “What's the matter? Don't you like fish?”
He shuddered. “Can't stand ‘em. Won't eat ‘em.”
Flynn laughed. “Don't even try it, Miss Charity. Long as I've known ‘im, he's been this way. Won't even try a nice bit of fry an’ chips.”
Neely shuddered again. “Eeuugghh.”
Charity turned back to face the direction they were riding. “Looks like a good time for another one of your stories, Neely.”
Both Flynn and Charity could feel the face Neely made.
Flynn chuckled again. “May as well tell it, Neely. She's gonna dig it outta you, one way or another.”
Neely flicked his horse's reins irritatedly. “Man can't keep one little secret with you two,” he muttered, “All right, here it is, but it's the last one. You hear?”