Intimations of Evil (Warriors of Vhast Book 1)

by Cary J Lenehan

  After a while she was thinking that the blades might have been meant for the purpose, but she was not sure that she was. She had seen people do this before and it had looked easy, but at present the safest place for a person to be was as her target. She hit the tree she aimed at sometimes, but more often with the butt of the knife or the flat rather than the blade. Those knives that somehow landed point first sometimes didn’t even stick in the wood, but just held for an instant before falling to the ground. After a while she determined she would have to do this every day and not let her absolutely disastrous start put her off. She realised her weapons skills were poor and, until she found some suitably shaped and sized rocks, she could not practice with her sling without perhaps losing some of her precious bullets.

  She really should have brought some of the bags of sling stones she had found back at the caravan, but she had been so pleased with the bullets that she hadn’t bothered doing so, even emptying her own bag of rocks to take the lead bullets.

  Bianca decided not to hobble the horses again, but to let them graze free. They had sought her out before and hopefully they would stay with her overnight. She was too exhausted, both physically and mentally, to care too much. Making a bed out of the saddles, spare blankets and her bedroll, Bianca said her prayers, asking again after the souls of her companions, and then lay down. Once she had finished being active, she started to sob uncontrollably and, despite her exhaustion, it was some time before she went to sleep curled up in a tight and miserable ball.

  ~~~

  In the morning the horses were all standing nearby. Bianca woke from a restless sleep populated by people who wanted to kill her. After saying prayers she again gave each of the horses a few handfuls of grain and some water before she prepared them, and herself, for the trail. After having saddled the warhorses Bianca put the pack-frame on the third horse.

  “You slowed us down yesterday,” she said. “I cannot remember what you were called, but I am going to call you Sluggard.” The subject of this conversation snorted. He was a large and ungainly looking animal, bigger than the other two and built more for hard work than for speed. In reality he had done well, given that he had been carrying considerably more weight than the other two horses, both of which normally carried an armed and armoured guard.

  Realising this, Bianca started seeing what she could do to even up the loads. Having done this she set off in, what she hoped, was the correct direction. At least the wind seemed steady and, if she kept it in her face, she would not begin to circle round, but keep to a straight path. Pulling her flute from her bedroll she began playing a soft tune to accompany their travel. At least the horses seemed to like this and it made her feel a little better.

  Some native caution told Bianca to look ahead carefully and she grew used to dismounting short of each low ridge, sometimes every couple of hundred paces, crawling to the top and looking around her—both ahead and behind—before calling the horses up and riding on. This caution slowed her progress, but she was eventually rewarded by seeing two riders on top of a ridge to her right and front and at least two hands of hundreds, twelve hundred, paces away—in what she hoped was the north-west. If she was right then these might be the pair who split off from the bandits.

  If they were, then they still seemed to be looking for something as they sat on their mounts scanning the horizon. When they had moved away from her, Bianca waited for a count of two hands of one hundred. On reaching twelve hundred she again called up the horses and moved on. She realised that, with the rises and falls of the plains she could never be sure if anyone was even one hundred hands of paces away from her.

  Two shallow valleys later Bianca found a patch of bushes and small trees along with a stream with small pool that looked as if was occasionally used as a campsite. Although it was still daylight, she decided to set up camp there. This would, hopefully, allow the pair of riders to move further away while the horses got a chance to graze. She looked after them, fed herself and set up camp before moving to a small shrubby bush near the crest above her camp.

  She practiced her knife throwing and even her ability to draw them out from their various scabbards around her body. By the time she decided to go down the hill to sleep she had reached the stage where the blades usually landed with the points towards the salvaged shield she was using as a target, even if they only sometimes hit it. They also landed without much force, although she was getting better at that part as well. She hoped that she would not have to defend herself by throwing knives, but when she had as few weapons as she did, it seemed to be the only thing that she could teach herself and practice on her own.

  The next day went the same as the last, with the horses responding better and better to Bianca’s voice. She wondered if the pair of warhorses were prompting Sluggard or if he was far brighter than the usual packhorse. She was now proceeding with no lead reins, changing her riding horse and getting the other two to follow on voice alone. Towards the end of the day, but still with plenty of daylight ahead, she spied a clump of trees on a ridge ahead, in this land almost a forest, with a small heap of stones beside it. She decided to make for that as a place to spend the night.

  She reached the trees only to find out that they continued down the slope ahead to a pool and a small creek. The rocks had several blue objects tied to them or even buried in among them. Idly she wondered why. Bringing the horses inside the grove she discovered, in a sheltered dell, a small spring that bubbled away down slope and was joined by a stream about fifty paces below than ran through the small valley. Looking around she saw a fire pit and a pile of wood and realised that this must be a fairly frequent stopping place.

  Bianca decided to be a lot more cautious about setting up camp than she had been before. Without unsaddling the horses she loose looped their reins to convenient small branches and climbed a tree, not without some difficulty, as, although she could climb walls and all over a loaded wain, town dwellers didn’t get much practice on trees.

  Through the smell of bruised leaves and the snap of small broken branches she did eventually get a much better vantage point. On reaching a clear spot she immediately saw a single rider come into view left of the path she had been taking, coming roughly from the direction that the stream was taking. He stood stationary on a rise looking to her right. Turning around Bianca saw two more riders who may, or to be honest, she thought to herself, may not, be the brigands. If it was them then they had curved back from the path she had last seen them take. It was obvious that each had seen the other and that they had all started heading towards her trees.

  Bianca weighed up her options and decided to stay hidden but be prepared to run, talk or fight. She moved the horses to the centre of the dell with the spring, putting Sluggard between the other two and looping their reins to their saddles and telling them each sternly to hold. She thought that this was the order given to warhorses to put them on guard and she may have been right as both Sirocco and Firestar pricked up their ears in response and looked at her in a way that horses normally didn’t.

  Taking the bag of, hopefully, magical sling bullets and slinging the bag of normal lead bullets from her belt as well, she sat down behind scrub where she could see the area near the fire pit. With a little bit of luck she was perhaps concealed from all of those who were approaching.

  She was working on the idea that if she couldn’t see the people as they came into view, maybe they would not see her. She examined her conscience and said a prayer to St Ursula that she hoped covered her if it came to a fight, at least asking her for the wisdom to choose the right side, if there was a choice, indeed, if there was a fight. Once this was done she settled down and began sharpening her blades on her whetstone. She paid particular attention to the points of the throwing blades that she had been practicing with. The soft sound of steel on fine stone helped calm her a little.

  Eventually the single rider came into view, moving up the creek. He was moving rapidly now and seemed to want to reach the campsite first. Bianca
returned the whetstone to its pouch and put her blades back in their scabbards, checking that all were secure and where she could reach them. Realising that this was a sign of nervousness, she settled down quietly and stopped fidgeting. The rider below looked quite young, not much older than her. He was checking around as he rode.

  She stilled further, glad of her small size and slight build, and thought of invisibility and it must have worked as his gaze missed her hiding place. He dismounted and checked the ground before unloading his horse while still keeping it ready to ride off. It may have worked with some but, after all, Bianca was an animal and baggage handler. It was obvious that he did not necessarily trust the other two riders. A thought passed through her mind that this would be fairly normal though. The pagan Khitan, being without the benefit of God’s forgiveness, were always fighting among themselves.

  Soon the other two appeared a five hands of paces from where she was concealed and rode slowly down into the hollow. If they had seriously looked around she would have been seen but their gaze was intent on the young man below. Bianca uttered a silent prayer that the horses behind her would stay silent and unseen. From what she could remember the two looked like the ones who had been a part of the attack on her caravan. Unlike the young Khitan below, but like the bandits, they also looked unkempt.

  They had to pass very near her hiding place to get to where the single man was and, as they came closest to her, only a few paces away, she started to get that strange feeling again—the same she had felt about Mongtu and Giacomo. It could not be a feeling about a person being bad or a law-breaker. Working in taverns she had met plenty of criminals and only a few had ever given her this feeling. No, it was something else. Maybe she had a feeling about when people were planning on doing something nasty to others. She didn’t know, but at any rate, she knew now that she would take the side of the young Khitan; if it came to taking sides.

  When the pair reached the young man they stayed in their saddles and had an exchange of words. From Bianca’s very limited knowledge of the language it looked like they were exchanging formal greetings, it was evident that they did not know each other and her sense of tension grew stronger. The two dismounted and all three men began to unload their horses. Keeping close watch she caught some odd looks between the two possible bandits.

  She eased open the bag of marked bullets and withdrew three that had more markings on them than some of the others; hopefully this made them more magical. She placed one in the pouch of her sling and held the others in her left hand.

  Bianca had just settled back down when she saw that the younger of the two bandits was stealthily drawing his sword. Just in time, the young Khitan noticed and hurriedly stopped a slash at his neck. A wild fight broke out and Bianca could see that any one of the three far outclassed her in combat.

  Despite the risk of slinging into a melee, she stood up and moved clear of the bush to cast if the opportunity arose. As it turned out, the two attackers themselves gave her the chance. So intent were they on getting the young man between them that they stayed their distance from him. Whirling her sling around, Bianca sent her bullet towards the older one, who was the one who was most behind and to the right of their victim. She had been aiming at his chest but in the course of the fight he ducked slightly and the bullet struck him fair on the temple.

  At that range the bullet smashed through the skull and into his head and he dropped instantly to the ground in a spasm and lay there twitching briefly as he died. Without pausing Bianca prepared to cast again but the unexpected sight of his companion’s fate had caused the younger attacker to pause and look down. This was all it took to allow the young Khitan to quickly strike a blow to the bandit’s hip, eliciting a scream which told of broken bones, and which he followed up with a rebounding strike to the top of his opponents shoulder. The bandit instantly dropped his weapon and shield and fell screaming in pain to the ground.

  Only then did the young Khitan look around warily to see who had dispatched the other attacker. Seeing no more threat Bianca stopped twirling her sling and moved clear and down the slope.

  As she moved Bianca called out, “Come Sirocco, come Firestar, come Sluggard,” and, without looking back, she headed down the slope soon to be followed as she went by three horses. She moved down through the grass, the air around her full of silence.

  Chapter XII

  “I thank you, umm, I mean I offer you the gift of hearth and water…no…Who are you? Are you a friend?” babbled Hulagu, unsure of what to say and still surprised, both by his survival and the strange sight that confronted him; a girl of the cities on her own in the grasslands with horses and very little in the way of weapons.

  She spoke, “Me say small Khitan,” she said in very bad and heavily accented Khitan that made it more than clear that she was one of the walled ones.

  “Slow please. Speak Latin?”

  He replied in her tongue, “Few word, not word I want.”

  “Me name Bianca. These bad men.”

  She must have lacked the next words as she switched to Latin.

  “They kill me friends.”

  Hulagu nodded. ‘Kill’ and ‘friends’ he understood.

  The girl continued in Khitan pointing at the man writhing on the ground, “Need ask why. You ask?”

  Hulagu thought for a moment. He wondered if she knew what she was asking. With the man having broken hospitality any measure Hulagu chose to employ could be used to make Koyunlu, if that was really his name, talk. Could she, a city girl, watch what may be needed to be done to get the information that she wanted?

  He nodded. “I do. I ask for me well.” They had quickly fallen to each speaking in the other’s tongue and it was obvious that each had only a small number of words, and little knowledge of how to use them. Hulagu suddenly remembered his manners and slipped back into Khitan.

  “I offer you the gift of hearth and water and may your sleep be safe and restful here. I am Hulagu of the Dire Wolves and I am on my wanderjahr.”

  The girl looked very puzzled. “You me welcome? You name Hulagu?” she said.

  Hulagu nodded. “Family are dogs where?” She mimed looking around and sniffing like as dog.

  Despite the tension Hulagu laughed and shook his head as he pointed in the direction he had come from. “Two days, not dogs,” he said. “You?”

  “No family,” she replied. “Friends dead.” Suddenly she stopped talking and moved to the injured man. He now had a dagger near drawn, but the girl kicked it away and then continued with a hard kick on his injured hip. She pointed down at him and continued, “He do it and many others.” With this she opened and closed her hands four times.

  He supposed she meant that there were forty-eight bandits. She now held out her open hands palm forward. “Now this many dead. Friends kill. Me hide. Me Bianca. Me no good in fight.”

  Hulagu took a good look at the girl in front of him. She was dressed in riding leathers and looked more like a Khitan than the town dwellers that he had seen or imagined. At her throat was a poorly carved wooden cross on a piece of string. It was her only jewellery. She was small and slender, except around her chest. In truth her face was fairly average in appearance, with two braids of unaccustomed blonde hair curled against her head and pale blue eyes.

  She seemed to be covered in knives, although she seemed uncomfortable with these, as if she had just started wearing them. She still had the cords of a sling between her fingers with a lead bullet, not a rock in it. Another bullet was clutched in her left hand. Near each of her shoulders stood a saddled horse, its reins looped up to its saddle. Each looked at him as if sizing him up as a potential enemy. Each was obviously battle trained, yet obeying this slip of a girl who said she could not fight, but had just killed one man. Behind them stood a large packhorse, laden but noticeably easy with his load. Its rein was also looped back and tied to the pack frame and it was also obeying on voice alone. He realised that, except for the man on the ground, silence had fallen and, just as he wa
s examining her, she was examining him.

  She seemed to realise this and, as if breaking the tension, Bianca again kicked the live bandit in the hip before she turned to the dead bandit on the ground, drew a dagger and unconcernedly dug her sling bullet out of his head. She cleaned it and her dagger on his clothes before examining the bullet and placing it, and the two others she had, back in their pouch and her dagger in its sheath.

  Hulagu decided that she might not be the delicate creature that city girls were supposed to be. She then surprised him even more by kneeling and closing the eyes of the man she had killed, using her thumb to force one eye back into its socket in order to do so, then lifting the cross around her neck to her lips in a bloody hand and kissing it before closing her eyes and obviously praying for a man of a different land and faith who may have killed her friends. She changed again by making a cross movement with her hand and again kissing the cross before looking up at Hulagu.

  “We talk this now?” She stood and nudged Koyunlu ungently with her foot.

  “What need to ask?” asked Hulagu.

  “He attack we? Why? He…” she paused and made a circle with her thumb and forefinger while making the forefinger of the other hand go in and out of the circle. “Friends? Where others? He follow me?”

  Hulagu held up both hands to stop the broken flow of questions, squatted beside Koyunlu and drew his knife. “You heard her. You can just start talking and I will tell you if I have heard enough.”

  Through teeth gritted with pain Koyunlu said, “No, I cannot.”

  “Cannot? I am going to kill you. You can die fast or you can die very slow and painful. How much worse can it get?”

  “Much worse. You cannot create pain for me forever. Yeah, we attacked a caravan a few days ago and had some fun with the girls. We knew there was a survivor and Kitzez and I were sent out to find her and that is all I can say. Now do your worst. Once I am dead, I can rest in the afterlife. I am not going to last long anyway.”