The women looked up as the men whirled around to face the newcomer, snarls covering male faces, hope covering female ones. They all saw that Kylin stood with his sword in his fist, point down but ready to be brought up, body loose and easy and set to move in any way it had to, no sign of tension at the numbers to be faced alone. The man who had done all the talking, unshaven and dirty and slow-looking, glanced around to see that his new opponent was alone, let
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that fact sink in, then jumped forward to end the challenge as fast as possible.
There have been endless arguments on the subject of a man with a sword facing a man with a quarterstaff, the point of contention being, of course, which one would win. Those who argue always seem to assume true skill on the part of both fighters, which usually means those backing the quarter-staff insist that the swordsman doesn't have a chance. The staff has longer reach, two ends that are equally effective, and most often is made of ironwood, which a sword won't split. A capable quarterstaff user should be able to take a capable swordsman with only a little effort—but the key word there is "capable."
The man jumping at Kylin was about as far from capable as you can get while still being alive. His hands began lifting his staff even as he moved, but what he did was raise it all the way to his left and then swing it down fast, almost as though he thought he was holding a cudgel instead of a staff. Kylin ducked under the attack with no effort whatsoever, a brief hesitation at first showing he didn't really believe the stupidity of what was happening, and then his own weapon swung toward the extended body of the fool who had left himself wide open. Homespun does very little to stop the advance of quickly moving steel, which means the fool screamed once before following his swing away and toward the ground.
The remaining men shouted and howled at having lost their leader that quickly and easily, but instead of being smart and giving up on something that had become a bad idea, they proved they were even shorter on brains than the First man had been. They all began charging toward Kylin, their staffs raised and swinging, and then followed after him as he backed away to give himself adequate fighting room. If they had formed a circle they very well might have had him, but a semi-circle was as close as they came, and they followed along as though they were on a string.
Which, of course, gave me time and room to move forward fast to the late fool on the ground, and appropriate his staff for my own use. 1 wasn't the best ever trained with a quarter-staff, but 1 knew how to use one and the feel of a weapon in my hands again was like rain after a drought. The staff was
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smooth-grained and heavy, just the way it should be, far too good a weapon for the fool who had been carrying it. I let my palms slide over its surface in what was almost a caress, and then I turned to those who were looking for a fight.
My former road companion was doing more ducking and jumping than standing and fighting, but only because there were four of them. If he had kept at it long enough he might have been able to take every one of them, but there was also the possibility that one of the four could have gotten lucky. With me behind them, however, the possibility was no longer in sight, which the first of them discovered when I tapped him on the shoulder with the tip of my staff. He whirled toward me with his weapon in both hands, frowned when he saw who it was who had challenged him, and might have turned back to his original fight if I hadn't used my staff to rap him sharply on the left shin. He howled with the pain of the blow, getting mad at the same time, but he also committed the stupidity I was expecting. He lowered his staff in reflex reaction to the blow that had reached him, leaving his head open and unprotected by either end of his weapon. Flicking my left arm forward I rapped him hard on the head, and that was the end of his anger and his efforts.
My first opponent was only just folding to the ground when one of the remaining three turned and saw what was going on, and decided I would be easier to deal with than the man with the sword. He must have thought I'd come up from behind and gotten his friend that way, and it took a minute or two before he learned better. He actually turned out to know something about the weapon he held, and I had to do some fast swinging, blocking and moving of my own to keep from getting flattened. After the minute or two I feinted at his head, did it again, then swung the tail of my staff into his groin, nearly lifting him off the ground with the force of the biow. He choked as his arms and legs turned to water, and my head-blow must have come as a great relief to him. No longer feeling the pain, he crumpled into a heap and lay still.
I turned then to see how the last two were doing against Kylin, and discovered that they weren't, at least not any longer. While my attention had been diverted they had both ended up on the ground, and were lying unmoving with bloody wounds in very unhealthy spots. Their former oppo-
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nent was between them and the site of my own battle, as though he'd been on his way to me when the action had abruptly ended, and even as I looked around he completed the journey.
"I'm not going to waste any more breath making polite, roundabout comments on the way you take orders," he said when he reached me, his voice low but a definite growl, his angry eyes matching. "The next time you ignore a direct order you're in trouble, and you won't be able to say you weren't warned. You're just lucky you weren't hurt, or I wouldn't be waiting for next time."
The only thing that kept me from telling him off then and there was the fact that I couldn't decide which of his imbe-cilic comments I wanted to tear apart first. I stood there spluttering in outrage, my right hand a fist around the staff as he wiped his sword on his trousers before resheathing it, and men we were surrounded by a horde of laughing, gratefully relieved women who kept me from showing an idiot what real staff-work was like.
"You two were absolutely wonderful," the woman who had spoken to the attackers said from the middle of the women all around us, as happy as they were but slightly calmer about it. "I don't know where you came from, but I don't doubt that Evon guided you in this direction. Thank you, thank you both."
"Believe me, it was our pleasure," the idiot answered, daring to smile at the woman as he said it. "Trash like that is always in need of sweeping up. Can you tell us what they were after?"
"Apparently they were after us," the woman said, losing a good deal of her happiness. She wore a long print dress much like those worn by the other women, but the way she spoke showed she wasn't entirely village-bom and bred. Although the gray in her hair said she was into her fifth under-decade, she appeared strong and better kept than a village woman would be expected to be. She wasn't my size but was fairly tall, had dark hair and eyes, and a plain but very alive face. "Our village has recently been blessed with the arrival of a new priest of Grail," the woman went on, her words quieting the other women as well. "Our old priest was a man who was loved as well as liked, and many of us were shocked when he
was told he had to leave here. Some tried arguing the point but he didn't; all he did was pack the little he had and then he left. He obeyed the demands of his order without question, and we were left with his replacement."
The woman made a face when she said that, and although the others didn't go quite so far as to do the same, they all looked as though they wanted to.
"The new priest was not only younger, he was also filled with an arrogance unusual to those who serve Grail," the woman said, gesturing with one hand as she tried to clarify the picture her words evoked. "He made no effort to get to know the people of the village individually, but instead called everyone to a meeting and announced the changes he was there to make in everyone's lives. 1 don't think we have the time to list all those changes now, and they aren't the main point anyway. The point is that the changes weren't suggestions—they were orders, and everyone was to obey without question.
"Needless to say, not everyone went along
with obeying," the woman said with a sigh. "Many of the people felt that the changes were an affront to Grail and his teachings, decided that the new priest was either insane or just plain mistaken, and tried to go on with their lives the way they'd been before the man got here. No more than a day or two went by, and then those who had refused to obey the new priest began having—accidents. Or they were attacked by the trash every village has a few members of, and were badly beaten. In one or two instances it was the family of the man who suffered, like the family of our blacksmith. His wife had gone out herb and berry gathering with two of her friends, three men came across them, the friends got away—by the time help reached her, the three men had already—hurt her badly—"
The woman fell silent for a moment, to quiet the choking fury rising in her, I thought, and then she took a deep breath and went on.
"The new priest gloatingly told everyone that the people who had been having trouble were having it because they refused to obey the demands of Grail. Most of those who had defied the priest were suddenly afraid that that was so, and began changing their lives the way they'd been told to do. Some of the men, though, supported by their families and
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wives, still refused to go along, saying they didn't believe Grail had had anything to do with what had been happening! The priest was furious, but there was nothing he could do to change their minds, not when his threats didn't work. That was a week or two ago, and with the peace and quiet we've been having we thought the trouble was all over whh. And then this morning the priest sent messages to all of us, asking us to meet him here to discuss the problem of "returning lost sheep to the flock,' as he put it. He wanted to appeal to us for our help, his message said, but when we got here there was no sign of him. What we found in his place, you already know."
"And enjoyed dealing with," I said, leaning on the staff I still held. "I have the distinct impression, though, that you aren't just another part of the victim group. You thanked Evon, as I recall, and the leader of that pack said something about the proposed punishment being 'especially' for you. What did he mean?"
"He meant that my punishment was going to be a special message for my father," she answered, annoyance beginning to rise in her dark eyes. "I'm Indris, attd my father is a priest of Evon who came here to live with me a few years ago. I was a Blade when I was young, but I left that life to marry and settle here with my husband. He died a few years ago, and shortly after that my father came to live with me. He's never tried preaching in this village, and he got along well with the old priest of Grail. The new one wants him out, but he's refused to go. This was obviously supposed to give him reason for going."
"if he's anything like a priest of Evon / know, it would have given him reason to do something else entirely," I remarked, then looked around at the women. "Is there anyone here who doesn't believe their village will be much better off without this new priest and his new ideas?"
"Of course not," the woman Indris said while the others shifted in upset. "But the people here believe that to do anything to him would be terrible sacrilege. They don't want him, but they can't bring themselves to raise a hand against him."
"As long as my hand is now available, they don't have to," I said, straightening where I stood. "If what he says
goes counter to all of Grail's teachings, then he can't be considered anything but a pestilence that needs eradicating. Let's all pay him a visit, and let him know what we learned from these helpers of his. Right after that I'll send him on his way."
"I think someone else should get to do the sending," a voice said, a male voice that hadn't spoken for the last couple of minutes. "To keep me from feeling unneeded, you understand."
"But you are unneeded," I came back, turning my head to the fool who now stood a good deal closer on my left. "If you don't believe it, step out with me away from these people and I'll prove it."
"I'm too hot, tired, hungry and thirsty for games," he returned, giving me a pleasant smile. "We'll go on to the village, take care of putting out the rest of the trash, then sit down with a cup of brew and discuss anything you like."
1 was about to point out that a discussion wasn't what I had in mind, when I realized something really infuriating. My right hand had automatically begun lifting the staff, but begun .was as far as I got. Another hand was on it from behind me, a much stronger hand that was holding it down. I'd let the woman's story distract me enough to give my enemy a chance to get a grip on the staff, and I'd had enough experience with him to know that that meant the weapon was no longer mine. I wanted to tell him how much I despised him, but the woman Indris was suddenly right near me, her hand reaching for my arm.
"What's wrong with me—of course you two must be tired and hungry," she said, closing her hand on my arm in a gentle but firm way. "You save our lives, and all we do in return is stand around bending your ears without once offering any sort of hospitality. I know my father will want you to be our guests, and I certainly do. Just come with us; the village isn't far."
Her grip on me began urging me along, the other women adding their agreement and encouragement, and there was really no reason to stand there arguing the possession of something I'd already lost. After no more than the briefest hesitation 1 let go of the staff and simply went with them, taking along no more than a truth I finally understood com-
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pletely. No enemy can ever be nice, no matter how they twist things to make it seem otherwise.
It took only a few minutes to walk to the village, and all the way there Indris refused to let the conversation die, using the willing cooperation of the other women in an attempt to lighten my mood. They didn't know what trouble there was between their rescuers, but they seemed determined to try smoothing it over. I let their words simply float around me as 1 walked, hating the man I'd briefly fought beside, wishing the attackers had managed to do for him instead of the other way around. It was more than clear that he was afraid of me, afraid to let me get permanent possession of a weapon he knew damned well I would not hesitate to use on him. I'd been a mindless fool not to use the weapon while I had it, and would be sure not to be that stupid a second time.
The village we came to was bigger than 1 expected it to be, and when someone mentioned its name, Binder's Down, I suddenly knew where I was. The city of Gensea was about half a day's ride to the south, and the villagers were my father's people. We drew stares as we walked up the main dirt street past the store, the tavern and the smithy, and then we drew more hurrying men than stares. Questions demanding answers flew in our direction, replies were quickly given, and once the whole story was out, we found ourselves in the midst of a furious mob instead of a simple group of people.
"It's more'n time something was done!" one man shouted to the rest, his hand a fist in the air. "Are we gonna wait until the small children are attacked next? Are we men, or are we spineless cattle?"
"How c'n you talk about doin' somethin' to a Servant o' blessed Grail?" another man demanded in turn, as angry as the first but considerably more upset. "We don't want our village damned to th' end o' eternity! We can't do nothin' more'n ask th' priest t* leave."
"And if he won't go?" a third voice demanded, and then Kylin of Arthil was making his way toward the muttering men. "If he refuses to go, all you'll have to look forward to is more of the same. Is this what you people really want?"
"You c'n afford t' talk," the second man came back, glaring at the stranger who was mixing into village business. "You don't live here, an' it won't be you 'n yours who're
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damned. An' a follower o1 Evon don't have no right talkin' t' them who follow Grail."
"Why shouldn't those who follow Grail have the same rights as those who follow Evon?" Kylin countered, looking around as he spoke. "If a priest of Evon arranged what this so-called priest of
Grail did, he'd never live long enough to decide he'd made a mistake. And would a real priest of Grail ever have done this? Doesn't this insanity go against everything Servants .have ever taught before? You know your religion better than I do. Is sending men to attack helpless women something you've been taught to do by every priest you've had?"
"It never happened before this new one came," the first man spoke up, looking around at his fellow villagers. "I know it and you know it, and there ain't nobody who can say different. What I say is that he ain't no real priest of Grail, and we gotta get rid of him."
"You gonna take a chance o' bein' damned forever, Aik?" the second man asked the first, looking more as though he wanted to be convinced rather than wanting to argue. "Y* go against th' priest, that's wh't c'n happen."
"If he's here talking for Grail, Limis, it don't matter none if I am damned," the first man answered, looking straight at his friend. "If Grail ain't Grail no more, I don't want nothing to do with what he changed to. And if he ain't no real priest of Grail, leaving him here has gotta be the sin and blasphemy. I'm going, and it don't matter to me none if you come or stay."
The man Aik turned away then, but he didn't walk away alone. Most of the other men followed him without hesitation, and one of them was his friend Limis. Kylin graciously let them move ahead and then followed after, willing to let them see to their own affairs as long as they could. I took my own rum at following with Indris beside me, and the rest of the crowd came behind us.
Grail's House had obviously been the modest construction it was in most villages, but as we came up to it I was able to see signs of rebuilding and enlarging going on. The new priest apparently wanted more in the way of comforts than his predecessor had required, and was having his followers make the necessary changes. Five men glanced up from the work
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