Immediately Jael pivoted, half-expecting to find one of her opponent’s compatriots ready to sink a knife into her back, but there was no one. Quickly Jael wiped her blade on the grass, then dragged the two packs over to where the horses, now agitated by the noise and the smell of blood, paced restlessly. There were still the other packs under the wagon, and the saddles, too, but Jael was no longer concerned about them. More importantly, where was Tanis?
Jael paused only long enough to pick up the dead bandit’s knives—a disagreeable chore, as one was still clutched in the severed hand. But unlike her Kresh dagger, these were knives she could throw and then abandon if need be.
It was amazing to realize that only moments had passed, that guards and merchants and bandits were still fighting. Jael ducked under the wagon and nearly collided with Tanis, who was diving for the same shelter but from the other side. The left sleeve of his tunic was stained with blood, and his sword was still bloody, too.
“There you are!” he panted. “I’ve been looking everywhere. Can you carry most of these? The arm’s not too bad, I don’t think, but I can’t grip well. Come on, hurry before someone sees us here.”
Jael loaded her arms, praying she wouldn’t need to use her sword again, and Tanis managed to tuck both saddles under his good arm. Jael had to guide Tanis through the darkness to the horses, unhappily aware of how much noise they were making, stumbling through the grass. Tanis nearly tripped over the corpse of the bandit Jael had slain.
“Keep watch while I take care of the horses,” Jael told Tanis. “There’s got to be a few bandits staying outside, making sure no one gets away.”
Jael saddled the horses and loaded the pack horse as quickly as she could, but even as she drew the last strap tight on Tanis’s saddle, she heard footsteps and hoarse breathing quickly approaching, even before Tanis gave a warning shout.
“Get on your horse,” Jael said grimly, thrusting the reins into Tanis’s good hand. “I’ll give you a hand up.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Tanis began, but Jael interrupted him.
“You don’t have to. I can run and jump into the saddle. Just get up, will you?”
Tanis awkwardly pulled himself into the saddle with considerable help from Jael. As soon as Jael was sure Tanis would not fall off, she slapped his horse into motion. At the same moment, a merchant stumbled out of the circle of the wagons and collapsed, a dagger protruding from his back. Two bandits followed, ignoring the fallen merchant as soon as they saw Jael.
Jael seized the reins of her horse and the pack horse and urged them to a trot. Hearing the footsteps now close behind her, she grasped the horse’s mane tightly and jumped—
Jael’s toe caught in a knotted clump of weeds, and the horse’s mane tore free of her fingers. Jael fell heavily, the breath driven out of her lungs, but worse was the sound of two sets of running feet behind her while her horse’s hoofbeats faded into the night.
Reflexively Jael rolled, and that reflex saved her life. A dagger thunked solidly into the ground where Jael had been. Jael swiftly grasped the dagger and threw it—Gods bless Aunt Shadow and her patient lessons—and heard an answering cry, although she could not tell whether it was a cry of pain or of fear at a near miss.
Almost simultaneously she rolled again, freeing her scabbard so she could draw her sword as she scrambled to her feet. The weapon leaped to her hand, familiar there like an extension of her arm. She let it guide her around, her entire body following the motion of the sword. The blade flashed in the moonlight, and Jael felt it ring against metal before she saw the bandit’s sword. Her opponent’s sword shivered, but held, and Jael strained her ears, listening for the second bandit.
What she heard instead was hoofbeats approaching, and Jael’s heart leaped in recognition of the voice calling her name. Tanis!
Once more Jael’s sword flashed as if of its own volition, and Jael followed the stroke through, the blade dancing fiery patterns in what little moonlight shone through the breaks in the clouds. The bandit’s sword rang against hers again, but this time his steel was no match for the strange metal of Jael’s blade and snapped off at the point of impact. Jael whirled and slashed blindly, not caring much where—or even whether—she hit, running to meet Tanis.
Tanis leaned down from the saddle, his good hand extended. Jael reached up to clasp his hand solidly, her foot making it to the stirrup this time. Carefully holding her sword clear, Jael threw her leg over the horse’s rump and settled herself behind Tanis, releasing his hand to clasp her arm firmly around his waist. There was no time to sheathe her sword; Jael could only keep her seat and hold on grimly, every moment expecting to feel a dagger thunk into her back. As the seconds passed, Jael slowly realized that they were away, that there was no mounted pursuit, and she sobbed with relief into the back of Tanis’s tunic.
“Can you stop?” she asked at last when she had enough breath. “I need to clean my sword and sheathe it.”
“I don’t want to stop,” Tanis called back. “I’ve got to catch the other horses, and I can hardly see as it is.”
“Then stop and let’s switch,” Jael told him. “There’s plenty of light for me, and I can feel the horses ahead of us, too.”
Reluctantly Tanis reined in his horse.
“Do you hear anyone coming?” he asked worriedly.
Jael listened carefully. Far behind them, she could still hear cries, and she could see a glow of fire—at least one of the wagons was burning. The fine drizzle of rain had started again.
“No,” she said at last. “I think we killed all the bandits who noticed us leaving. I don’t hear anyone coming. Don’t bother getting down; if you scoot back, I can climb back up in front. It was hard enough getting you up here the first time.”
Jael noticed uneasily that Tanis’s forearm was still bleeding heavily. When she slid off the horse, she wiped and sheathed her sword, then yanked off her cloak, tunic, and shirt before Tanis’s astonished eyes. Shivering, she pulled her tunic back over her head, donned her cloak, drew her dagger, and cut ruthlessly through her shirt. When she climbed back onto the horse in front of Tanis, she pulled his arm around her side and in front of her where she could cut away his sleeve. The long slash down the top of his forearm looked deep, but there was no time to stitch it now, not if they wanted to catch the horses. Jael had to settle for wrapping his forearm as tightly as she could before they continued.
The horses, confused and frightened, had bolted straight north, but as their panic faded, they had gradually turned back toward the camp and Jael. As soon as Jael could see them, she whistled, the cheerful, coaxing whistle she used to call them to the fence when she had a treat for them. The horses turned toward her with gratifying eagerness, and when Jael was close enough, she easily collected the reins.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get your treat,” Jael laughed as the horses snuffled at her hands, “but it’ll have to wait until I can get into the saddlebags. Tanis, can you ride alone? We’ll make better time if we don’t tire your horse out with the weight of both of us.”
“I’m all right,” Tanis assured her. “I haven’t bled enough to weaken me. I’m depending on you to find someplace where we can find shelter.”
Jael’s heart fell. Find shelter? Find safe shelter? She’d have difficulty enough finding the road again!
“What about the bandits?” Jael asked carefully. “Do you think we should go back to the road?”
“We’d better not head straight back to the road,” Tanis agreed after a moment’s thought. “If the bandits come back west, they might see us. We’re probably a couple miles north of the road now; let’s turn straight west, and we can meet back up with the road tomorrow.”
West? Gods, which way was west? Jael scanned the sky, but the moon and stars were well hidden behind the clouds. All right, they’d ridden north after the horses, and then a little east, so west must be—yes, that way. Jael pulled two lengths of rope from her saddlebag.
“I’ll lead your horse an
d the pack horse,” she offered. “If you can get a little sleep in the saddle, so much the better.”
Although they were far from the road, this was open plain, not farmland, and the ground was reasonably firm and level. Despite Jael’s keen night vision and the good ground, however, Jael did not press the horses beyond a comfortably slow, steady pace. The gods alone knew how far they’d have to ride in the dark before finding shelter, and the horses did not share her night vision; if one of the horses lamed itself, Jael and Tanis could be in serious trouble.
Tanis drowsed, and Jael led the horses across the wet, grassy plain that seemed to go on forever. Was she still heading west? There was no knowing. There was no tracking their trail back, either, in the tall grass. For all she could tell, they might be heading in a large circle that led right back to the bandits. At last, however, Jael sighted a line of trees and bushes, likely growing at the edge of a stream or small river. At least the foliage would provide enough shelter for them, and perhaps the bushes would be tall enough to hide the horses.
When Jael reached the trees, she found that they bordered a good-sized stream, rather swollen with the spring rains but still well below its banks. A little exploration revealed a promisingly thick clump of bushes, large enough to hide the horses and allow them to forage, and a thicket where Jael could make a passable shelter from the rain.
Tanis was delighted with the discovery, and insisted on helping Jael arrange their cloaks as a ground cloth and stretch their oiled tent hide over the bushes. As soon as the camp was arranged, however, Jael insisted on lighting one of their lanterns and tending his injury. The cut was not as deep as Jael had feared, but Tanis made so much fuss while she cleaned and carefully stitched it that Jael would have thought the wound mortal.
“Sit still,” Jael said irritably when Tanis jerked his arm for the tenth time. “You didn’t give the healers this much trouble when that demon almost took your arm off.”
“They gave me a potion and put something on the scratches for pain, too,” Tanis retorted. “Can’t you make larger stitches and less of them?”
“Not unless you want a lovely big scar to show the ladies in the brothels and a crippled hand to ruin your career as a thief,” Jael snapped. “I’m sorry I’m not a healer with a hundred potions in my bag for every possible ailment. You’re lucky the knife wasn’t poisoned, or you’d be dead now. How did you get this cut, anyway?”
Tanis was silent for a long moment, and Jael looked up to see a very sheepish expression on his face.
“What?” Jael demanded. “You didn’t stop to tumble one of the merchants’ whores, did you?”
“No, but—” Tanis reached into the front of his tunic and pulled out a heavy pouch. “I did grab a few of these.”
“I was fighting for my life, and you stopped to cut purse strings?” Jael asked indignantly. “Who did you rob, the brigands or the merchants?”
“A bit of both,” Tanis admitted, grinning embarrassedly. “I got trapped at the other end of the camp when the brigands attacked—my warning gave the guards time to wake everyone there—so I had to fight my way out of an awful tangle of robbers and merchants and guards. There were people lying on the ground dead by the time I got through to the clearing in the middle, their purses just hanging there and fairly begging me to take them, so how could I resist? But while I was taking a dead brigand’s purse, one of his friends managed to creep up behind me, and I’m lucky I took his knife in my arm instead of my back.” He reached into his tunic again and dropped five more purses, one at a time, on his lap.
“I can’t fathom why you’d be fool enough to bother over purses,” Jael said, scowling, although she was inwardly awed by the pile of money in Tanis’s lap. “Mother and Father gave us plenty of money. That was nothing but greed.”
“Well, I’m a thief now,” Tanis said, shrugging a little uncomfortably. “Greed’s part of my profession. Besides, I didn’t know but we’d have to abandon some or all of our gear to get away quickly. I thought the extra money would help us replace our things in Westenvale, if we needed to.” He grinned engagingly. “Besides, it’s the best haul I’ve ever made.”
Jael sighed as she knotted the last stitch and cut the sinew off cleanly with her dagger.
“Well, you paid dear for it,” she said, shaking her head. “And we may yet have to spend some of that coin on a healer when we reach Westenvale if the muscle draws up.” She clasped his hand. “Squeeze my fingers if you can.”
Tanis complied, although he grimaced with pain as he tightened his fingers.
“Well, that’s good,” Jael said relievedly. “I’ll have to change the bandages often in this wet weather or it’ll fester, but the wound’s clean enough. It’ll probably heal all right. Tomorrow morning I’ll pack one of those pouches with small pebbles, and you should squeeze it often while the cut heals, and bend your wrist all around, too.”
Jael glanced around their small shelter and slowly tucked the needle, sinew, bandages, and salve back into her pack, not meeting Tanis’s eyes.
“There’s not much room here,” she said slowly. “Is it all right if—”
Tanis laid his good hand over hers, and when Jael looked up, his smile was warm.
“I’m sorry I left you alone,” he said humbly. “I acted like a brain-blighted idiot. I promised you I’d be patient and I wasn’t, and that makes me a scoundrel as well as a fool. It was just that Baaros-cursed merchant right over our heads—”
“I know.” Jael sighed and squeezed Tanis’s hand. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have complained about staying with the horses and being ready to leave in a hurry. You were right to be careful. I’ll listen from now on.” She hesitated. “You know nobody wishes more than me that—well, that things were different.”
“I know.” Tanis sighed, then half-smiled apologetically. “Have I abused our friendship too much, or can we still share the blankets?”
“We pretty much have to,” Jael admitted. “Some of them got muddy when I had to drop them on the ground to fight.”
Tanis laughed and reached out to hug Jael.
“Best apology speech I ever made,” he chuckled, “and it was all unnecessary because of wet blankets. Come on, friend, and let’s keep warm, and let the rain pour down all night if it likes.”
IV
Jael drew her horse to a halt, staring at the front gate of Westenvale and sighing disappointedly.
“I thought it would be larger,” she said. Tanis pulled his horse to a stop beside hers. “What are you complaining about?” he asked her. “It’s almost as large as Allanmere. It’s large enough to have merchant caravans heading west from it, and some comfortable inns, so what else do you need?”
“I don’t know.” Jael shrugged. “It’s just the first city I’ve ever seen besides Allanmere. I suppose I was expecting—”
“Gates of solid gold and paving stones of silver?” Tanis teased gently. “Nobles standing on the wall and flinging jewels to the crowds below?”
“All right, all right,” Jael said embarrassedly. “I can’t help it
if you’ve been to dozens and dozens of cities and I’ve never
been farther than the Heartwood. At least I can hit my mark with
a bow.”
“What good does hitting your mark do, if you can’t point your bow at anything we can eat?” Tanis asked practically.
Jael signed again and did not reply, urging her horse forward toward the gate. Tanis was a wonderful friend, but after nearly a week in his constant company, all she wanted in the world was a hot bath, a fresh meal, and a few hours without hearing the sound of Tanis’s voice.
“Name and business,” a bored gate guard demanded, and a wrinkled scribe sitting at a table looked up at them, her pen poised expectantly.
“My name is Caden, and my friend is Acorn,” Tanis answered. “We’ve come from Allanmere. We’re looking to join a merchant caravan heading west.”
The scribe scribbled quickly on her sheet, but the
guard squinted suspiciously at Jael and Tanis.
“Two younglings like you, riding alone all the way from Allanmere?” he said dubiously.
“We were with a caravan,” Tanis told him. “Nezed was the wagonmaster. But they were set on by brigands, and Acorn and I got away as fast as we could. I don’t know what became of the rest of them. I wish we’d have gotten away a little faster.” He held up his bandaged arm. “We’ve been following the sunset since then, avoiding the road until we started seeing farms again.”
The guard raised an eyebrow, his bored expression vanishing.
“How many brigands, and where?” he asked, gesturing to the scribe. The ancient woman handed him a rolled sheet, which, when unrolled, turned out to be a large map.
Tanis dismounted and surveyed the map.
“I’d be guessing,” he said apologetically. “It was raining pretty heavily a good part of the way, and I couldn’t keep good track of the road. But I’d say here.” He indicated a spot on the map. “There were at least twelve or fifteen of the brigands, probably more, but I didn’t get much of a look at them, either. None of them used bows, but that might have been because they attacked well after dark. Oh, and they may have had a mage working with them,” he added. “The caravan’s horses had been hinder-spelled, maybe back in Allanmere.”
The guard nodded and rolled the map back into a neat cylinder.
“You’ve been a help,” he admitted grudgingly. “When you’re in the market, ask for Merchant Karina. She’s taking a load of cheeses west, or so I hear, and you can tell her I sent you. My name’s Everd. And if you’re looking for an inn, the Horn of Plenty’s clean and cheap, and you won’t get knifed in the night. He raised a hand and lazily waved them through the gate.
Dagger's Point (Shadow series) Page 8
