As soon as the first of the men eased their horses out of the woods and onto the road, Lizeth turned her horse and started cantering back toward the wagon. She gave a long toot on her whistle as she looked back along the terrain she’d just come past. Is there a defensible location for the wagon in the landscape just ahead of it? she wondered. Then she heard Tarc’s two whistle-toots. Before and behind, bandits for sure.
Now she knew how a carriage came to be broken down out in the thicket off the road. These bastards probably work this stretch regularly and the poor, stupid SOBs in the carriage tried to escape by leaving the road.
She glanced back over her shoulder for a quick count. Probably eight of them in front, she thought.
Turning back toward the wagon she saw Daum turning his horse as well. Lizeth called out, “Bandits, eight in front. More behind us.”
Daum glanced back over his shoulder. “Nine of them in front,” he said, pulling his bow off his back and starting to string it.
Nine? Lizeth thought, glancing back herself. How can he be so sure with them all in a clump back there? Especially in this dim light? She saw better than most and found it hard to believe that a man in his mid to late thirties could see better. She shrugged to herself, Eight or nine, it probably doesn’t make much difference.
She pulled up next to Daum and they rode together. “No good location to defend ourselves.” She glanced over at him, “We should get everyone mounted. Then if it all goes wrong, a few of them might escape by riding out through the brush and swamp while they’re plundering the wagon.”
Daum gave her a grim look but didn’t disagree.
As she neared the wagon and started to slow. Lizeth bellowed “Mount up!” at the rest of their party. Seeing Tarc approaching the back of the wagon, she called out, “Tarc. How many back there?”
“Five,” he shouted.
Thirteen or fourteen against three, she thought, counting only herself, Tarc, and Daum as fighters. Henry Roper thought of himself as a better fighter than the rest of the women. However, he didn’t think of himself as a real warrior, and Lizeth wasn’t sure he’d actually be any better than Eva if it came to it. Of course, we’ve got Tarc and Daum as archers, but if those guys get close I’m the only one who’s worth a damn with a sword.
Lizeth looked to the front and back, wondering if she should tell Daum and Tarc to start shooting preemptively. That’d be horrible if these guys actually turned out to be innocent… But, if their intents were benign, they wouldn’t have come out onto the road just in front of me. And there wouldn’t be another group behind us. Turning to Daum, she said, “I think you should start shooting. Do you think you might hit a few of them, even in this dim light?”
Daum had just been wondering the same thing. He guided his arrows with his ghost, but he’d always guided them to targets he saw with his eyes. He knew Tarc used telekinesis to guide arrows to targets he could only see with his ghost. Tarc had used his ghost to shoot a raider who’d launched arrows at the caravan in the dark. The raider’d been able to see the caravan by its fires, but Tarc had shot him with only his ghost to tell him where the man was. Giving Lizeth an inscrutable look, he shrugged and said, “I’ll try.”
Daum swung down off his horse for a more stable shooting position.
Lizeth saw Daussie up on one horse and leading another toward her mother at the lead mule. Lizeth reached Eva and told her, “Tie the lead rope to a bush then come back to the wagon.” Addressing both mother and daughter, she said, “We’re going to do what we can to fight them off, but there’s a lot of ’em. If things go badly, scatter into the brush on horseback and try to catch up to the caravan on your own. If we separate they won’t be able to catch all of us.”
In their eyes, she saw a grim understanding of what that would mean, but they nodded without saying anything.
Lizeth said, “Don’t push your horses too fast in the brush, there’s swamp out there you don’t want to founder in.” She rode on. Henry was lifting saddles onto horses while Haley helped strap them on and Kazy applied bridles. Lizeth called, “Tarc. Start shooting at the guys behind us.” If you can see the bastards, she thought. She had another thought and called again, “Even if you can’t see ‘em, send a few arrows down the road just to give ‘em second thoughts.”
Daussie arrived back at the wagon and jumped down to help Kazy and the Ropers tack up the rest of the horses.
Lizeth looked to the front. Daum had taken a stance in the road and was sending out an arrow. He paused a moment, apparently watching to see where it went, then drew another. Lizeth looked down the road after the first arrow herself but couldn’t see anyone in the dim light. Did he hear me tell Tarc to shoot blind down the road? she wondered.
Then a horse came visible out of the dusk.
Lizeth drew her sword, waiting for more to appear.
She glanced at Daum to be sure he was trying to shoot the horse’s rider.
Daum did shoot another arrow, but Lizeth would’ve sworn he’d aimed too high—far over the horse. A second glance at the horse showed it was riderless! The beast slowed and turned aimlessly off to the side.
Daum must’ve gotten lucky and shot one of them out of his saddle, she thought. She reconsidered, Or, not just lucky, she thought, remembering Daum’s astonishing accuracy when the caravan had fought off the raiders back near Walterston. But how could anyone be accurate in the dark?
She looked back to check on Tarc. He was walking toward the front.
He’d just drawn an arrow.
He stopped and shot an arrow toward the front!
“Tarc, stay in the back. Defend our rear!” Lizeth said, hardly believing that he’d left their backs completely unprotected so he could shoot wild arrows at targets in the front he couldn’t possibly see.
Tarc was standing motionless, staring toward the front. When he started moving again his first movement was to draw another arrow. As he did, he said bleakly, “The ones in the back are all dead. I’m helping Daum.”
As Lizeth’s eyes widened at Tarc’s bald statement she wondered, How in the hell can he say that? He can’t even see what he’s shooting at!
Then Daussie let out an alarmed squeak.
Lizeth’s eyes were still on Tarc so she saw him start turning toward Daussie. When her own eyes reached Daussie, Lizeth was dismayed to see a stranger behind her. Daussie was in front of the wagon and up on her toes, suggesting the man had her arm twisted up behind her. She arched as if he had a knife in her back.
Lizeth surmised the man had come out of a hiding spot in the swampy brush on the other side of the road. He probably crawled under the wagon, then lunged up to grab Daussie by the arm. She wondered if there was any way to get Daussie free. Is Tarc so confident in his throwing that he’d try to hit this guy in the eye when the man’s head’s just behind and beside his sister’s?
Then she remembered how some of the guys Tarc’d hit in the eye that night had flailed around violently when the knife entered their brains. If that happens, he might break Daussie’s arm! Or, worse, stab her with the knife during his convulsion.
She looked at Tarc and saw he’d reached up behind his neck as if to scratch. Lizeth thought of telling him not to throw, but then realized there might come a moment when the man looked like he might stab Daussie and it would be the only choice.
In that event, Tarc throwing his knife could be the lesser of two dangers.
In a calm steady tone, Tarc said, “Daussie, disc, humerus.”
As Lizeth blinked, wondering what could possibly be humorous about the situation, Daussie stared at her brother.
Suddenly, the man behind Daussie cursed. A large knife fell to the ground beside his right foot.
As Lizeth wondered who’d thrown the knife, Daussie danced away from the man.
The man staggered back against the wagon, grasping his right arm with his left.
From the corner of her eye, Lizeth saw Tarc spin around. She thought he might’ve thrown his knife—when sh
e turned to see, there was a man falling bonelessly back off the verge of the road behind them. He had the handle of one of Tarc’s knives protruding from his eye.
Tarc’d thrown again, and another man climbing the bank of the road convulsed, flopping end over end back into the brush behind him.
Tarc bent and picked up his bow from where he’d dropped it when the man grabbed Daussie. A moment later, he sent another arrow over Daum’s head.
How’d he know those two men were behind him—us? Lizeth wondered. And what the hell happened to the man who had Daussie?
Thinking of the man who’d had Daussie, Lizeth turned to look. He still had his back to the wagon. Daussie held him there at the point of that big knife that’d fallen to the ground beside him… Was that the knife he’d been holding against Daussie’s back? If so, why’d he drop it? Lizeth took in the way he was holding his arm and realized it was deformed halfway from the shoulder to the elbow. His arm’s broken!
Which would explain why he’d dropped the knife and let Daussie go.
For a moment, she wondered how his arm got broken… Did someone throw a rock that hit his arm and broke it? That’d make him drop the knife, but… Or, did someone throw the knife at him and it broke his arm?
Or… what the hell did happen?
Lizeth shook her head and forced her thoughts to return to her duty. First, she looked to the rear to make sure—despite Tarc’s assurance—that no more men were creeping up from behind. Then she looked out at the area around the wagon and the mules to be sure no one else was creeping up out of the brush. Finally, she looked to the front.
Daum and Tarc were walking back toward the wagon, talking earnestly to one another and paying no attention to the road behind them. Lizeth called out to them with intent to remind them of possible dangers, “What’s going on with the bandits up front?”
In a flat unhappy tone, Tarc said, “They’re all dead.”
First of all, Lizeth thought, puzzled, that’s good news and a reason for an excited tone. Second, there’s no way to be sure of that since it’s so dim they can’t see far enough to know! She wanted to tell them to go check, but they wouldn’t be able to tell anything without a lantern. She said, “Those guys had horses. See if you can catch them. We’d just as well make some profit from this fiasco.” She thought to herself, They’ll have to get a lantern to go after the horses and that’ll let them get a better look around.
Then she thought to herself, I don’t know why I’m calling it a “fiasco,” so far it’s turning out pretty well.
Lizeth turned back to the wagon. In the dim light, she saw shadows she assumed were the two Ropers near the back. Eva and Kazy stood with Daussie who continued to hold the man who’d attacked her up against the wagon at knife-point. She thought of telling Daussie to just go ahead and run the man through but didn’t think Daussie’d have the gumption for it. Instead, she called out to the Ropers, “Henry, Haley, we need lanterns lit so we can see what’s going on.”
Lizeth glanced down the road both directions as she walked over to the man Daussie held. She didn’t see anyone, but she couldn’t even see as far as she had a few minutes ago.
Getting close, Lizeth saw the guy was young—probably mid-teens. He looked scared—which he should. “What happened to him?” she asked.
“Broken arm,” Eva said. “The humerus, between the shoulder and elbow.”
Lizeth blinked, remembering Tarc saying, “humerus,” right before the man’s arm broke. Was he telling someone to throw a rock… or that big knife? Lizeth glanced toward the back of the wagon. Roper was back there. Does he have some skill for throwing rocks or knives I don’t know about? Lizeth eyed the knife in Daussie’s hand, Big, clumsy knives?
No matter, she thought, and spoke to the young man, “How many bandits in your group?”
“Um…” the young man said, looking terrified.
Lizeth stepped closer and reached toward his right elbow, “Would it help your memory if I jiggled your elbow?”
Eva gasped, “Lizeth!” at the same moment the young man gulped, “Seventeen.”
Since it obviously wouldn’t be necessary anymore, Lizeth cast an eye at Eva and said placatingly, “I wouldn’t’ve.” Then she thought, Actually, I definitely would’ve, but Eva doesn’t need to know that. She looked around, thinking, Five bandits behind, three coming from the bushes to the sides, and eight in front… That’d be sixteen. If Daum was right about there being nine in front, it’d be seventeen like the kid says.
Henry came up with a lantern. Lizeth took the lantern and adjusted its reflective shade to cast a beam. She drew her sword and asked Henry to get her a pole for the lantern. Meanwhile, she shone the beam out into the brush on either side of the wagon. She didn’t see any more men. Unfortunately, ten or fifteen more could be hiding in those bushes, she thought. Next, she turned to check the road behind them since Daum and Tarc were still toward the front.
She started down the road, sword in her right hand and lantern held a short distance away on the pole in her left hand. She sincerely hoped that—if there were any archers out there in the dark—they’d shoot at the lantern and miss her.
Between thirty-five and sixty meters behind the wagon, she found five dead men. Each one had a freaking arrow through his head! Fifteen meters beyond the last body, she found five horses grazing the grass along the verge.
She retrieved the arrows—all damaged from going through bone—took the men’s weapons and purses, rolled the bodies off the road, gathered the horses and started back toward the wagon.
When she got to the wagon and disposed of what she’d collected, she was astonished to find Daussie, Eva and Kazy helping ease the young bandit down into a sitting position against the wheel of the wagon.
Aghast, she said “What’re you guys doing?! He attacked us! Once we’re secure, I’m just going to march him out into the brush and run him through.”
Eva drew herself up and, even in the light of the lantern, Lizeth could see her appalled determination. “You are not! That’d be cold-blooded murder. You’d be no better than the bandits.”
“What are you wanting to do?” Lizeth asked derisively. “March him to the next town and ask their magistrate to hang him?”
Hotly, Kazy said, “He didn’t want to be with those men! They’ve got his sister in their camp. They’d been making him work for them.”
Lizeth turned to Kazy and said, “And you know this how? Did he tell you this tale of woe?”
Daussie, the one attacked and the one Lizeth thought would most want the boy dead, said, “I could feel him trembling when he was holding me.” She shook her head, “He didn’t want to be doing what he was doing.”
Lizeth snorted her disgust at their soft-headedness and turned toward the road in front of them. “I’m going to go check on Daum and Tarc. We’ll talk about it when I get back, but it’d sure be nice if you’d figured out something for us to eat.” After she’d walked a few paces, she turned back to them and said, “We’re going to camp here on the road. No one can attack us from the sides because of this swampy brush so we’ll only have to keep watches on the road. Start a fire. Make a good meal. Take care of the animals.”
She met Tarc and Daum coming back toward the wagon with nine horses. They still didn’t have a lantern! How the hell did they track down the animals? she wondered.
Like Tarc had before, Daum said all nine of the bandits who’d been blocking the road were dead. Trying not to show her discomfort, she told them the five behind the wagon were dead as well. And that the boy they’d captured claimed he and the sixteen dead bandits constituted the entire band.
She explained her plan to camp in situ on the road that night, then said she wanted to go look over the dead bandits herself. “Get a feel for them, collect their weapons and so on. The boy may claim there were only seventeen of them, but I can’t help worrying.”
Daum said, “We got their weapons and other things of value. It’s all packed on one of their hors
es.”
Lizeth eyed him for a moment, then said, “I still want to see for myself.”
Tarc said, “I’ll come with you. Show you where they are.”
It was a good thing he did. Tarc and Daum hadn’t just pushed them off the edge of the road the way she had. They’d dragged the bodies far enough out into the brush that Lizeth would never have found all of them without his unerring guidance. They dragged these bodies out here in the dark. Even with me carrying a lantern this time, how does Tarc know so where they left the bodies so well that he can guide me to them? She looked around. The muddy ground was soft, but it was also extensively disturbed, so following tracks in the dim light of the lantern had to be nearly impossible.
Three of the bodies had arrow wounds in their skulls. The other six had been hit in the trunk. Three of those had been finished off with a knife. At least Daum doesn’t harbor any romantic notions these men can be saved, Lizeth thought with some relief. Besides, even if we leave that teenager here in the woods—rather than killing him—he won’t survive long with a broken arm. Killing him will be doing him a kindness.
Telepath (A Hyllis Family Story #4) Page 5
