Good Company

by Dale Lucas

  The Lady Tzimena broke from where she’d been preparing her saddlebags. “Lord Marshal!” she shouted. “Stop it, this instant!”

  He turned on her, his glare stopping her in her tracks. “I will stop nothing,” he said. Rem saw the Lady Tzimena’s face turn white. Eye to eye with the lord marshal, the Lady Tzimena had just, for the first time, realized how fierce—how serious—the man was. Rem could feel it, even from where he stood: the cold and pure force of will that emanated from the old soldier’s dread gaze. In that instant Rem was reminded of his own father. Despite himself, he shuddered.

  “This man,” the lord marshal said slowly, “is nothing to you. This man, Lady Tzimena, is a criminal. I would strongly urge you to keep to yourself in his presence, milady—to say nothing to him, to acknowledge him in no meaningful fashion, and to concern yourself, instead, with your own safety and your impending wifely duties.”

  “How dare you,” Tzimena said. She was trying to be defiant, but Rem saw that she was failing in the face of the lord marshal’s quiet fury. He didn’t blame her. Rem himself would’ve had a hard time standing fast against that man.

  “How dare you,” the lord marshal countered. “You are a guest among us. You are a prize—”

  Tuvera shot forward then, hand on the hilt of her sheathed sword. Rem saw that her face was red, her brow furrowed. “A prize?” she shouted. “You son of a whore!”

  Her sword rasped as it started to leave its scabbard.

  Wallenbrand lunged between the captain and the lord marshal then, arms out. “Only through me, Captain,” the old lieutenant said.

  “Easy enough,” Elvaris hissed, and drew her own blade. The Taverando caught a spear of sunlight and flashed coldly.

  Rem found himself on his feet only a breath later, his own sword snatched up from where it lay nearby. His response was wholly instinctual, but what else could he do? In the two or three breaths following Elvaris’s drawing of her blade, everyone armed in the clearing hastily prepared themselves for a melee. Only the Lady Tzimena, her nurse, Kolia, the caged Red Raven, and old Wallenbrand had no weapons in hand.

  This is wrong, Rem thought, all wrong.

  He studied the frozen scene, trying to decide who was serious and who was merely making a display. The lord marshal’s hand was on his own sword, but he hadn’t drawn. Tuvera’s blade was half-exposed, never having left its scabbard. Elvaris had her Taverando level and ready. Brekkon held his own sword, but his hands clearly shook. Croften had gone for his crossbow and kept sweeping the tip of the loaded bolt back and forth over the company. Redriga had a hand ax, Galen a compound bow, arrow already nocked and drawn, and Sandiva stood ready with both her sword and a matching dagger, ready to enter the fray two-handed. Near the oxcart, Wirren held the hatchet that the company often used to hack up firewood.

  Rem looked around for Torval. The dwarf was a few paces behind him and to his right. His maul hung at his side, at ease, but ready for action.

  “Don’t be foolish, Captain,” the lord marshal said. “This young lady’s honor isn’t worth dying for.”

  “You tell me,” Tuvera said. “You’re the one who’ll pay for questioning it.”

  “Say the word,” Elvaris urged.

  “Be quiet,” Tuvera hissed back.

  The lord marshal swung his gaze back to the Lady Tzimena. “Forgive my bluntness, lady, but my only task is to deliver you, safely, to my master in Erald. After that you become his problem, and no longer mine.”

  Kolia, the lady’s nurse, was at her elbow now, trying to draw her away. “Leave him be,” she said.

  “I’ll see you censured for this,” the Lady Tzimena said.

  “You’re welcome to try,” the lord marshal answered. “Once we are back in the city, back among the court. But here, in the wild? This is my court, milady. Here, I am the law. I am all that stands between you and the likes of that man in the cage, and the knives of the other outlaws that haunt these woods. Vex me further and I shall throw you to them as a ready prize when the time comes. Remember that.”

  He went back about his business. The Lady Tzimena stood, staring into the air, shocked and humiliated by the lord marshal’s dressing-down.

  Rem, satisfied that no one would try to kill anyone, at least for the next few minutes, threw down his sword, moved away from the fire, and snatched up his still-damp gambeson. As he slipped into the protective coat, he looked to the Red Raven in his cage.

  The Raven was upright again, but his mouth was bloody and swollen. He peered through the bars at Tzimena, the intensity of his gaze holding in it an unspoken command of some sort. Rem stole a glance at the lady and saw that she seemed to be offering a silent retort.

  There’s history there, Rem realized. Only two people with such a history—two people deeply in love—can speak without words like that.

  He’s telling her to keep her mouth shut, to bide her time.

  She’s telling him she wants the lord marshal’s head on a plate.

  Gods . . . what have we stumbled into?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Within an hour they were back on the road. Their mounted train snaked along, the supply wagon trundling behind the silent, sullen ox dragging it. The river, on their right since their descent into the Ethkeraldi, was now off to their left, sometimes within sight, sometimes trailing far away into the wood, lost among the redwoods and hemlocks and ground-choking ferns. It was a sunny day, but the canopy was so thick that very little light penetrated. The sylvan world around them was a patchwork of light and shadow, deep wells of darkness hugging the roots of great trees and shaggy fern beds and gnarled deadfalls as lonely spears of sunlight hosted whirling clouds of insects and dancing dust motes. As they rode, Rem heard the rush of small furry bodies among the ferns or heard the clockwork knock of woodpeckers. Every sound that reached his ears caused him to stiffen and search the brush for signs of danger.

  When a covey of grouse burst from beneath a fallen cedar, winging upward toward the pine boughs, Rem reflexively wheeled his horse round toward the disturbance and sat for a time, staring, sure that there was something in the brush he needed to see.

  Torval rode nearer. “There’s nothing there, lad.”

  “Do we know that?” Rem asked quietly. “Do we know that for a fact?”

  Sandiva and Elvaris, who’d been bringing up the rear of the party, joined Rem and Torval where they sat their mounts, staring into the woods, almost willing some unseen enemy to show itself.

  “Orcs again?” Sandiva asked teasingly, her youthful glibness suddenly irritating.

  “What is it?” Elvaris asked. Rem could hear a combination of honest concern and impatient condescension in her voice. She was a hardened soldier. She knew when a companion was too nervous—too paranoid—to be trusted. The fact that she gently tried to bring Rem out of his edgy reverie made him more than a little ashamed of himself.

  “It’s nothing,” Rem said finally. He couldn’t bring himself to meet the swordswoman’s level gaze. He spurred his mount, and the horse cantered on.

  Up ahead the cage leaned a little as it rounded a bend in the road, blocked from sight by the enormous trunk of a fir tree, fringed all round its base with shaggy brush.

  Elvaris hove up beside Rem on her horse. “Something’s troubling you,” she said. “Tell me what it is.”

  Rem shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “Clearly, I’m being a fool.” Torval fell in beside him and kept pace. Only half-satisfied, Elvaris finally withdrew and fell in beside Sandiva again, bringing up the rear as they had all morning.

  “You need to let it go, lad,” Torval said, barely above a whisper.

  Rem’s response was quiet. “It could come at any time.”

  “Aye,” the dwarf said. “And if it does, you need to be ready to fight. As you are, you’re prone to panic or freeze. We can’t have that.”

  Rem nodded again. The dwarf was right. He needed to get his head straight. In his current state, he’d be of no use in a fight. He
threw Torval a grim look.

  “Forgive me,” he said.

  * * *

  They rode on. Hours passed. The waning day, thankfully, would not mimic the excitement of its first half. Rem’s clothes were nearly dry now. That hour before a fire had done them wonders.

  On all sides the forest hemmed them in, a textured fairyland of emerald greens, deep rusty browns, mottled grays, and rich umbers. It was a lovely view, Rem thought—their quiet little train making its slow progress along the road, thousands of sentinel trees and fern stands surrounding them, teasing glimpses of the bright-blue sky peering intermittently through chinks in the forest canopy.

  Then, from behind, there came a loud crack. It wasn’t a breaking twig or a snapping limb; it was the sound of a calving iceberg or a hilltop oak riven by lightning. The sound was sudden and loud and echoed through the wood with portentous fury. Rem’s horse reared under him in protest, as did Torval’s pony. As he struggled to calm his mount, Rem’s eyes darted all around him, wondering just what could have made that terrible sound. It had come from right behind.

  His horse turned. Rem saw a giant redwood toppling, almost gracefully, before it crashed down with enormous force across the road. Sandiva’s mount was so affrighted, it threw her from the saddle. Elvaris dismounted quickly, holding her own horse’s reins as she moved to get the cursing Sandiva back on her feet.

  Rem looked to Torval. The dwarf, struggling with his balking pony, caught Rem’s gaze.

  “Hold,” Torval said. “Don’t panic.” He sounded as though he was trying to convince himself as much as Rem.

  There came another crack, this time from up ahead. Rem wheeled his horse round just in time to see another huge redwood smashing across the road before the train. The horses at the fore reared and screamed and threatened to bolt. Croften was thrown from his mount and hit the ground cursing. The Lady Tzimena was nearly tossed from hers, but leaned against her animal’s withers and held fast.

  Blocked ahead. Blocked behind.

  Boxed in.

  Rem looked to Torval again. The dwarf swung out of his saddle.

  “All right,” he said, yanking out his maul and taking a defensive position behind his pony. “Get ready.”

  Rem dismounted and drew his sword, then followed Torval’s lead and swung around his horse, taking refuge behind it. He and Torval were now back to back, sandwiched between their two skittish mounts, the animals’ flanks providing some measure of protection against outside attack, if it came.

  Elvaris had Sandiva up now. They stood, taking in the scene around them, Elvaris holding her horse’s reins in one hand. The other hand had fallen to the hilt of her sheathed sword.

  “You bloody nag!” Sandiva shouted into the foliage where her bolting horse had disappeared. “I’ll cook you and eat you for that!”

  “Bottled in,” Torval said behind Rem. “They’ll come fast now, from the flanks.”

  “Get away from here,” the Raven said from his cage, ten feet ahead of them. “If you stand between me and them—”

  Rem heard a percussive thump, just ahead, past the Raven’s cage, on the outer wall of the ox wain. Squinting, he realized that a still-vibrating arrow fletched with goose feathers was now embedded finger-deep in the outer wall of the supply wagon, just above the rear wheel. On the opposite side of the wagon, two more thumps followed, along with two more quivering arrows.

  “Cack,” Torval said.

  Arrows came whizzing out of the forest on all sides. Not one hit a live target, but all came dangerously close. They fletched the earth around the horses’ skittish hooves; they stuck fast in tree trunks just over the shoulders of the exposed members of the company; more than half a dozen were visible on the side of the ox wain that Rem could see. He supposed there were probably just as many on the other side.

  “Form ranks!” the lord marshal cried. “To arms!”

  “Protect the lady!” Tuvera shouted, her horse stamping in a circle.

  Atop the wagon, Wirren bent over the cart wall behind the driver’s bench, reaching for a crossbow propped just a few feet below him in the cart bed.

  “Those were warning shots!” someone shouted out of the forest. The voice was female, powerful and clear, but impossible to pinpoint. “Draw your weapons and we’ll skewer the lot of you!”

  The lord marshal drew his sword.

  An instant later, an arrow whizzed out of the brush and bit deep into his horse’s chest. The lord marshal’s mount screamed and fell, and the lord marshal—sword and all—was thrown onto the muddy road.

  Rem studied the scene: the lord marshal prone; his horse on its side, screaming in pain at the arrow that had pierced it; Croften trying to use his horse as a barricade, his big crossbow hanging precariously under one arm; the forward Estavari swordswomen all closing in around the Lady Tzimena while Elvaris and Sandiva still sought their attackers at the rear; young Brekkon swinging out of his saddle and helping his father to his feet; Wallenbrand still mounted, whirling his horse around and around as if in search of their hidden assailants.

  “We only want the Raven and the girl!” the woman in the woods shouted now. “Throw down your arms and stand fast while we take them, and none of you will be harmed. You can walk out of these woods alive!”

  The moment the lord marshal was on his feet again, he shoved his boy off and surveyed the company before and behind him. “What are you waiting for?” he cried. “Defensive positions! We’re under attack!”

  Another arrow shot out of the brush. Rem saw it an instant before it hit its target and thought for sure it was meant for the lord marshal.

  Instead it drove itself deep into young Brekkon’s surcoated chest. The boy fell with a small, breathless sound. The young man lay still, lifeless. The lord marshal stood over him, eyes wide, mouth agape.

  From somewhere off to their left, Rem heard voices in the woods.

  “Kallend, you dumb shit!” someone hissed.

  “I was aiming at the lord marshal!” another hissed back.

  “Torval,” Rem said.

  “Down,” the dwarf finished.

  The partners hit the dirt in unison as a flight of arrows cut the air above them. Rem could see very little, because when he fell, he landed flat and kept his head down, but he heard both his horse and Torval’s pony scream and go staggering away, leaving him and his dwarven partner suddenly unprotected. Behind him Elvaris called Sandiva’s name. Up ahead the Lady Tzimena shouted, as well, while someone else in her company—Tuvera, maybe, or Redriga—started barking orders. The cart thumped and rocked as more arrows bit deep into its wooden flanks. Rem dared a glance and saw that even the Red Raven was hunkered flat in his cage, desperate not to be hit by a stray shot.

  “Move,” Rem shouted at Torval. “Under the cart!”

  “Right behind you!” Torval snapped back.

  Rem started crawling forward, as quickly and flatly as he could, all knees and elbows. In seconds he was right underneath the Raven’s cage, and he stopped there. Torval wriggled in behind him. There was not so much space under here as there would be under the main cart. Rem listened as the arrows whizzed and thumped in the world above him. There was a break in the volley and the faint sound of rattling ash in quivers.

  “Move,” Rem hissed to Torval. “They’re preparing another round!”

  Rem scrambled out from under the cage cart, sprang to his feet, and threw himself clumsily into the bed of the wain. An arrow split the air that he’d occupied just a moment earlier. As Rem scurried farther into the cart bed, over the piles of provisions and tarps that covered it, Torval vaulted up behind, scurrying in as fast as he could. The walls of the cart were thumped in chorus. Arrow tips bit through here and there, glinting meanly in the forested half light.

  Torval then leaned out over the rear lip of the cart. Rem wasn’t sure what he was after—had he dropped his maul? Was he helping someone else? As the dwarf hung over the rear gate, reaching for something, Rem saw an archer rise up on the great tr
ee felled to block their escape—directly behind them. The outlaw aimed his arrow at Torval as he drew.

  “Torval!” Rem shouted.

  The dwarf yanked hard on something and came rolling up into the cart bed again. Apparently, he’d been trying to reach the rear gate and draw it up so it could give them a little more protection. The gate rose and clanked into place vertically just as the loosed arrow from the archer on the fallen tree bit through it. As Rem watched, Torval darted to each side of the rear gate, unlocked the inward-swung doors hinged above that gate, and slammed them shut.

  The cart was now secure—somewhat. To a height of five feet on all sides, Rem and Torval were protected.

  Rem turned to see if Wirren had taken cover. The cart driver lay slumped over the fore wall of the cart, an arrow protruding from his bleeding throat, dead.

  Rem poised one foot on a chest filled with tools and materials for repairing leather and keeping armor rust-free. His plan was to launch himself upward, if only for an instant, to peer over the fore wall of the cart and see what was happening out on the road. He didn’t relish exposing himself, but there was no other way to get a good look at what was unfolding.

  “Are you daft?” Torval growled from where he hunkered. More arrows thumped against the outer walls of the cart.

  “I promise,” Rem said, “I’ll only be a moment.”

  With that he leapt, got a tenuous grip on the lip of the cart’s fore wall, and called on all his strength to pull him up so he could see.

  It was a terrible sight. At least three of the horses lay dead. The rest were nowhere to be seen, having bolted into the woods. Croften was propped with his back to the fallen tree that blocked their path, an arrow in his shoulder, awkwardly trying to reload his crossbow from his compromised position. Brekkon lay where he’d fallen. Kolia, the Lady Tzimena’s nurse, was down, as well. Tuvera and Redriga were hunkered low, faces in the mud behind their fallen horses. At intervals arrows still flew from the brush surrounding the road, some falling to the earth without a target, some finding purchase in the dead.