When Tarc arrived at the crossroads, Lizeth was already there. Daum was a little farther away, but already in sight. Lizeth said, “Just another farm down my road. The farmers say they haven’t seen any raiders. This road doesn’t go past their place.”
Tarc said, “They’re down this road.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder, “I couldn’t tell if they’ve got Daussie though.”
Daum jogged up, short of breath. Lizeth said, “See anything?”
Daum shook his head despondently.
Lizeth said, “Tarc says they’re down his road. Hopefully he’s right. Now the question is, what to do?”
Tarc’s eyes widened, “Go after them!”
Lizeth shook her head, “Three of us? Against twenty to thirty of them? We already talked about that.”
Daum sighed, “I think it’s more like forty to fifty.”
Tarc frowned at his father, then realized that Daum didn’t know about the ones they’d killed last night. For that matter, Lizeth was only sure of the six guards they’d killed. She wouldn’t know that all twelve of his arrows had actually hit men in their tents.
To Daum, Lizeth said, “Tarc should keep an eye on them while you and I go back to the caravan and try to get us some reinforcements. You’ll have more influence on Norton, and I’ll have more influence on Arco.” A muscle twitched in her jaw and she sighed, “I can tell you that we’ll have a hard time convincing them. The caravan won’t want to go unguarded when they’re worried about the raiders attacking them.”
Aghast, Daum said, “They’d leave a young girl in the hands of those animals?!””
Lizeth looked at him and spoke like she was quoting, “The good of the many outweighs the tragedy of the few.” She tilted her head, “They’d already decided to leave the farmers’ women with those animals, remember?”
Daum swallowed and looked away from Lizeth’s eyes as he remembered saying something much like that to Daussie, was it only a day or so ago? “We’ve got to convince them!” He croaked out
“Yeah we do,” Lizeth said. “‘Cause there’s no way we’re going to get your daughter away from those scum by ourselves.”
Daum turned and hugged Tarc, “Stay well back. Don’t take a chance that we’ll lose you to them as well!” He turned to follow Lizeth, but was restrained by Tarc’s hand on his quiver. He turned to see what Tarc wanted and realized that Tarc wanted the extra arrows. Daum turned and saw Lizeth striding away. He shrugged the quiver loose into Tarc’s hands and trotted after Lizeth.
***
The pain in Waxman’s abdomen eased suddenly when the duct gallstone passed out of his bile duct and into his abdomen. He sighed and relaxed for a blessed moment, then began to wonder what Peters was doing to the girl. She hadn’t been screaming like he’d expected. Heaving himself to his feet, he started down the trail in the direction that Peters had dragged her.
To Waxman’s utter astonishment, he shortly came upon Peters lying at the side of the path in apparent agony. The man curled around his abdomen gripping it with both hands. His teeth clenched and his skin pale, Peters shook his head, but didn’t answer when Waxman asked him what had happened.
Waxman knelt and lifted Peters’ shirt, assuming that the girl must’ve gotten his knife and stabbed him somehow. There were no wounds on the man’s abdomen, nor when Waxman checked, on Peters’ back
Waxman chewed his lip for a moment, wondering if there was anything he could do for Peters. He’d never liked the man, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t provide whatever aid that could be easily and simply applied. Without knowing what was wrong with him, Waxman decided he didn’t know of anything to do. Even getting him a drink of water might be bad for him.
“Where’d the girl go?” Waxman asked, wondering if Peters would be able to answer.
Peters didn’t answer, but did point on down the trail, away from where Waxman had been when he’d been incapacitated.
Waxman rose to his feet and started down the trail after the girl at a shambling trot that he could keep up all day. He would catch the girl if she hadn’t strayed from the path. He was betting she wouldn’t think to do so.
***
Having ascertained with his ghost that none of the raiders were out and about, Tarc moved slowly up to the edge of the woods and looked out over the farm. While he’d been trotting back this way, Tarc’s mind had raced around the problem of how to free the raiders’ captives, but his thoughts hadn’t gained any traction.
He studied the layout. The raiders hadn’t set up tents, probably because they thought tents would signal their presence. With them inside the walls of the house and the barn, they were safe from Tarc’s arrows. Tarc couldn’t really approach them either. They might not have very many bows or people who shot them well, but surely he would be at great risk approaching over the open fields.
Worse, they had hostages. All they had to do was threaten the women to bring Tarc to a standstill.
He studied the situation. As opposed to the farm last night, there were no convenient bushes or small trees, nor any low swales to approach the farmhouse on. This farmhouse sat on a slight rise above the surrounding land and the only cover was a cornfield which, should Tarc crawl through it, still stopped fifty feet short of the house.
Having no better ideas, Tarc began circling around the farm inside the wood’s edge. He hoped that a different perspective on the problem might give him an idea, but none had come by the time he’d reached the far side.
Frustrated, he simply stood and watched for a while, hoping that the raiders might do something that would give him an idea. With an “aha” sensation, he realized that if he crept through the cornfield closer to the house his ghost could give him a better idea where the men were located and where the women were being kept. He started back around the farm through the woods to where the cornfield came near. He’d just arrived when the door of the farmhouse opened and one of the men started out along the road.
At first, Tarc thought of shooting the man. It was a long shot, but he could probably do it. Then he decided that he shouldn’t because it would warn the raiders of his presence. The man had reached the edge of the woods when Tarc realized he must be going to relieve the guard Tarc had already killed. When he found the dead guard he’d be returning to warn them anyway. With a curse, Tarc started after the man.
Initially, he intended to catch the man and try threatening him in order to obtain information. Then, he decided he didn’t have many questions for the man.
Tarc got close, drew an arrow and took a bead on the man’s back.
Tarc relaxed his draw on the bow. Without Lizeth there to tell him to do it, he found himself unable to simply shoot the man in the back without warning. He stood, dithering. His mind went down a path in which he captured the man. If I capture him, what am I going to do with him? Tarc didn’t have any rope to bind him with, but if he solved that problem it still seemed likely that the man would get himself free since Tarc couldn’t guard him. And if I do succeed in keeping him captive, then what? There aren’t any authorities out here to turn him over to, but if there were, there isn’t any doubt about his guilt. Once they judged him, they’d simply hang him. If they didn’t hang him for his participation in the raiders’ atrocities, it would be a miscarriage of justice.
Tarc drew again, and this time he sent the arrow on its way. A few minutes later he dragged the man’s body out into the woods so no one would stumble across him.
***
Daussie gave up on untying her wrists with her teeth. The rope had swollen with her saliva and seemed unlikely to ever come undone. She needed a knife and she wouldn’t get one until she’d found someone else. She returned to trying to make her best possible time even running clumsily with her wrists tied to one another.
She heard something behind her.
She looked back.
Waxman!
Daussie started running as fast as she could. After a moment she glanced back and felt gratified to see that she
’d gained ground on Waxman. Shortly however she began to get tired and could no longer keep up the pace. She glanced back again.
He was gaining on her again.
Resolving not to be the terrified and hopeless girl she’d been sometimes in the past, Daussie gathered her inner strength and tried to remember the calm she’d held before. She stopped and turned to face Waxman, breathing hard to get her strength back. As he closed the last distance, she stared fiercely and said, “Did you see what happened to Peters? I can do the same to you!”
Waxman didn’t slow. He cuffed her to the ground as he ran past, then stopped, scrambled back to her and put a knife to her throat. “If you really did that to Peters, let me warn you. The first thing I’ll do if I feel the least bit uncomfortable, the very first thing…” he held her eyes with his own, “is cut your throat.” He slid the knife slightly across her throat before lifting it away and Daussie felt a trickle of blood run down her neck.
Damping down her terror, she channeled her emotions into incandescent hate, but tried not to let it show. Instead she dropped her eyes. As Waxman jerked her up and around, then started her back down the path again, Daussie’s mind began working steadily on the problem of finding a way to use her talent to kill the man instantly. Before he could cut her throat.
There must be a way…
***
At a crouch, Tarc moved slowly through the corn field until he reached the corner closest to the farmhouse. To his dismay, he found four bodies had been unceremoniously dumped there. They appeared likely to have been the farmer, his wife, their son, and a grandson. With a sick feeling, Tarc surmised that the son’s wife had likely seen her loved ones die, but now was being held captive.
Or worse, there might have been a granddaughter.
Tarc sent his ghost out into the farmhouse. He was close enough now to tell men from women. There were eight men and six women in the small four room shack. Two of them were having sex.
It didn’t seem consensual.
Tarc sent his ghost over to the barn. It held three draft horses, eleven men, and seven women. One of the women lay unmoving, spread eagled in a stall. With horror, Tarc suspected she was tied into that position.
The farmhouse had small windows, probably made from re-melted ancient glass like many other homes had. As Tarc sat there watching and sensing, one of the men walked from window to window looking out through them. Presumably he was acting as some kind of sentry to make sure no one snuck up on them across the farmland.
Tarc considered shooting the man when he looked out the window toward the cornfield. The arrow would be deflected as it broke the glass, but with the man’s head just a few inches behind it, there was little doubt that the arrow would kill him.
Tarc cast out with his ghost in all directions at its farthest distance to make sure that no one was approaching to surprise him. There were no changes.
When he focused back on the house, he realized that one of the men inside had gotten up. He and one of the women crossed to the door of the farmhouse and opened it. At first Tarc couldn’t figure out what they were doing, but then they headed toward the outhouse and it became obvious.
The woman looked to be about twenty-five to thirty years old. She was pretty, or would have been if she didn’t appear so beaten down. She opened the door to the outhouse, stepped inside and reached back to try to pull the door shut behind her. However, the man held it open, denying her that small scrap of privacy.
Seething, Tarc drew an arrow and slowly nocked it, careful not to push the cornstalks around. Motion like that was all too likely to intrude into the man’s consciousness.
He waited. Best the woman be allowed to finish her business.
When a flash of motion in the door of the outhouse told Tarc the woman had finished and was about to leave, Tarc slowly drew his bowstring. As the woman stepped outside, Tarc loosed the arrow.
When the arrow crunched through the man’s skull he convulsed violently. The woman clapped her hands to her mouth and crouched, but didn’t start screaming. She looked frantically around.
Tarc parted the cornstalks and waved to her, then pointed at the woods in an effort to get her to run. Instead she ran to him, diving into the corn right next to him. Tarc urgently sent his ghost into the house to see whether the man peering out the windows was looking out on their side. Fortunately he was looking out a window on the opposite side of the house. Tarc turned to the woman, “Go!” He pointed, “Hide in the woods!”
The woman shook her head, “They’ve got my daughter in the barn. She’s only twelve.” The woman looked Tarc up and down and frowned, “You’re the archer?”
“The archer?” Tarc said, feeling a little confused. He wondered if the woman had heard of Daum. Daum had been called “the archer” for years.
A little impatiently, the woman said, “Yes. The one who shot all those horrible men in their tents last night. I’ve heard them talking about it. Someone shot them right through the walls of their tents.” Almost reverently she said, “Not a single arrow missed!” She looked over at the body lying near the outhouse. “You shot him in the head rather than the body, why?”
Tarc shrugged, “Shot in the body, even if he was dying himself, he might still give the alarm.”
She looked him over once more, “You must be awfully confident in your ability to hit what you shoot at.” After a pause, evidently having concluded that he was the archer, she continued, “How do you hit them inside their tents?”
Tarc merely shrugged and turned to look back at the house. After a bit he said, “One of them looks out this window every so often. What do you think they would do if I shot him?”
“Shit themselves.”
Tarc turned to look at her.
She stared him in the eye, “They’re already scared half to death. If you shoot one of them through the window, they’d really panic then.”
Tarc turned to look back towards the house. “Would they hurt the women?”
There was a long pause and Tarc finally turned to look at her. She was staring at the house with a troubled look that wavered between fear, hate, and desperation. Finally she said, “They might. Most likely… they’ll try to use the women, really they’re mostly girls, as hostages.” After a pause she whispered, “They’re horrible people. They’ve killed all the men and most of the women over twenty-five. If I wasn’t pretty I’d be dead too. My husband… my son…” She choked to a stop.
Tarc didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
After a while, she said in a tone that seethed with hate, “I say you should shoot him. Pretty soon they’re going to find Toler out by the outhouse with an arrow in his head. When that happens they’ll start using the girls as hostages anyway.”
Tarc studied the house. The man was peering out a window on the other side at present. He turned to the woman, “I’m Tarc.”
“Nyssa,” she said.
“When he looks out again, I’ll shoot him. Then we’ll run for the woods so they can’t negotiate with us.”
“But what about the rest of the girls?!”
“We’ll come back after dark.”
She blinked at him for a few moments then said, “Promise?”
Tarc nodded solemnly.
After a few more moments she said, “Okay. Her name’s Iris.”
“Whose name?”
“My daughter… The one you’ll be leaving there to die if you don’t come back.”
Tarc swallowed, but then gave another nod, “I’ll come back.”
“We’ll come back.”
Tarc nodded again. Then he slid out a few arrows and laid them in front of him, their butts held up over the leaves of some cornstalks so they’d be easily accessible. He nocked one on his bowstring as the man was crossing the room to the window facing Tarc.
Tarc drew.
He loosed as the man’s head moved towards the window.
As a face appeared behind it, the window exploded inward.
***
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Johnson stood and stretched. He was bored with sitting in the house all day. When they’d first arrived, panicked over what had happened to them during the night, hunkering down on this farm had seemed like a very reasonable thing to do. But after the excitement of killing farmer Yates, his wife, son, and grandson, the day had stretched dully onward. Yates’s daughter-in-law and granddaughter had provided a little excitement, but now the men were second-guessing Johnson.
Hell, he was second-guessing himself.
They should’ve gone over and attacked the caravan, killing everyone in it.
They should have stayed at the farm they had and defended it.
They should have gone further than this farm if they were going to run.
Lt. Toler hadn’t had any brilliant ideas, though the chickenshit bastard was in the camp that thought they should’ve gone further away than Yates’ farm. Johnson worried that the men were going to think he was a wimp. If so, he’d be challenged. Then he worried that if he tried to make them attack whoever the son of a bitch was that had been shooting those arrows, they’d desert.
Being captain of the company had seemed easy when all he had to do was bitch about how stupid the current captain was.
Running the company himself was driving him crazy. He’d even contemplated just walking away and striking out on his own.
Johnson sighed. He’d dreamed for years about being the captain. He wasn’t about to give it up this fast.
He decided he needed something to distract himself. He leaned down and grabbed one of the girls by the elbow. Her eyes widened and she panicked, then started to struggle and thrash around. Johnson heaved her onto the bed, feeling powerful.
Johnson spun around at the sound of breaking glass. Behind him, Everts was flopping on the floor like a beached fish, an arrow through his head! Johnson’s bowels seized in a painful cramp as he stared at the window Everts had just peered out of.
Teleporter (a Hyllis family story #2) Page 21
