Jalia At Bay (Book 4)

by John Booth

  The boy gamely tried to reach for the knife before the pain of Jalia’s blow hit him. Then his hands flew to cup his injured groin and he wretched pitifully. Jalia slid the knife into her woolen underskirt and reached for one of the boy’s legs. She had taken off his shoe before he knew what was happening and slipped it on her own foot.

  “Perfect fit,” she said in triumph to Daniel, who grinned.

  When she reached for the boy’s other leg, he tried to kick her. She slapped his left inner thigh so hard that he screamed in pain. Jalia retrieved his other shoe while he writhed in agony. She put the shoe on her other foot with evident pleasure.

  “I know peasants like you can walk around barefoot all day. But more sophisticated people, who were brought up in civilization, need something sensible on our feet.”

  “The lad still seems to be alive,” Daniel remarked in surprise. “Are your kicks getting weaker these days?”

  “It was more of a push than a kick, Daniel. This little thief knows where our property is and I can hardly get answers out of him if he’s dead, now can I? Once we get the information we need, then I’ll kill him.”

  Jalia dragged the boy to his feet and pulled his leather jerkin from him. A few seconds later, she was wearing it.

  “It’s a bit loose around the chest, but this will do nicely. Do you want any of his clothes before I start questioning him? They may not be wearable afterwards.”

  Daniel shook his head. He saw comprehension dawn in the boy’s eyes and he tried to suppress the regret he felt. The boy was a thief and a murderer, or an attempted murderer at best. Justice in Jalon took no account of age in such matters, and Jalia seemed in no mood to show the lad mercy.

  “Don’t kill me,” the boy cried desperately. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, I promise. My name is Dell Taldon and this was my first time at the trap. My uncle Adon Taldon made me come along. Him and Twist Falfit set the log to fall on you. I just watched them do it. Please don’t kill me, I’m the only one my mother has.”

  “You should have thought of that before you decided to rob us,” Jalia said without a trace of sympathy. “Where can I find these thieves and where have they taken our property?”

  “The village, they’ve taken all your stuff to the village. There’s a market there today. We get people from miles around come to it. Uncle Adon said they’d make a lot of money out of your things, especially the donkeys. He said the lead donkey would make a small fortune.”

  Jalia gave Daniel a despairing look at the mention of Ferd. Daniel grinned in relief. At least the thieves would have treated Ferd well if they had recognized his worth.

  “Uncle Adon had a lot of trouble with that donkey. It kept trying to go back to where we attacked you. Uncle Adon had to whip it to get it to move at all.”

  Daniel frowned. If Ferd was hurt, somebody was going to suffer.

  “There was a small fortune in the gold in my money belt,” Jalia hissed at Dell. She wondered if forest people were stupid.

  “People of the forest have no use for gold,” Dell said quietly. “Wealth is in things you can use, wear, or eat, not in lumps of shiny metal.”

  “Wonderful. These people are too thick to appreciate gold.”

  “What is the name of your village and where is it?” Daniel asked. Jalia was being sidetracked on trivial matters and they had to get answers out of the boy before he realized he could lie and they would be none the wiser.

  “Sweetwater, sir, on account of the stream and how good its water tastes. It’s about an hour’s walk that way,” Dell said, pointing east. “I can show you if you want?”

  “Won’t be necessary and you’ll be dead by then,” Jalia told him. Dell blanched and looked into Jalia’s blue eyes for the first time. It was at that moment he knew he was about to die. His bladder failed him and a flow of urine trickled down his leg.

  “Jalia…”

  Daniel never finished the sentence because Dell chose that moment to make a desperate break for freedom. Jalia broke his left leg below the knee with a swift kick from behind. She knelt down on top of the squirming boy and locked her arm around his neck. The boy slumped and was suddenly still.

  “You could have let him live. It was his first time,” Daniel said looking at the boy’s body on the ground. Dell’s broken leg lay twisted at an unnatural angle.

  “Hah! You are going soft if you believe a lie like that,” Jalia retorted. “Let’s go and retrieve our property before those bastards sell it.”

  Jalia stalked off in the direction Dell had pointed. Since the tracks of the horses and donkeys were clearly visible, they had hardly needed Dell to tell them the way.

  Daniel took one last look at the boy and shook his head. After all their travels together, she was still the old Jalia when it came down to it.

  Jalia hurried them along the trail until the spot where Dell lay was far behind. She did not want Daniel to discover that she had only squeezed the boy unconscious. Jalia was afraid Dell would wake up and cry out while they were still close enough to hear.

  The broken leg would slow his return to the village until after they were gone. If he could not get back to his village with a broken leg, then living in the forest would kill him anyway. Jalia had given the boy a reasonable chance of survival and the rest was up to him.

  Most of all, she didn’t want Daniel to think she was growing soft. She worried she would lose Daniel’s respect if he discovered what she had done.

  3. Village in the Forest

  Jalia practiced throwing Dell’s knife as they moved along the trail. The knife was entirely the wrong shape and balance to make any kind of decent throwing knife. But then Jalia was exceptionally talented at the art of throwing anything that could be thrown. Her first efforts bounced off the tree’s and Daniel was treated to a virtuoso rendition of the best curses Jalia knew.

  He mused to himself that it could not be argued that Jalia had failed to pick up the cultural mores of the places they visited. He would have run out of curses in a few minutes, but Jalia was still going strong, without a single repetition, more than half an hour later.

  Traveling with Jalia while she was learning to throw a knife was not without its hazards. She threw the knife forward and when she was level with Daniel, it was safe. However, when she stopped to search for the knife in the undergrowth and Daniel walked ahead of her things became tricky. As she got the knife under firmer control, the blade would whistle past Daniel’s ear to embed itself lopsidedly in a tree beyond.

  “I am very fond of my ears,” Daniel remarked as one flight came particularly close. He touched his ear lobe and examined the blood on his fingers critically.

  “Don’t worry,” Jalia called as she ran past him to drag the knife from the tree it was embedded in. “I promise that as soon as I cut of them one off I’ll stop. You do have two after all.”

  “Throwing the knife will leave you defenseless. Shouldn’t you be practicing attacking moves?”

  “I don’t need to practice knife fighting, but throwing an unfamiliar knife is a quick form of suicide.”

  “And the problem of being defenseless after you’ve thrown it?”

  “Daniel.” Jalia placed her hands on her hips and blocked the path in front of him. “If I throw the knife, the person I was fighting will be dead and I’ll have the time to retrieve it.”

  “And this is why you carry two knives.” Daniel gently put his hands on Jalia’s shoulders and turned her until she was facing ahead. Jalia made no attempt to resist him, which told you exactly what she thought of Daniel, if you were to know Jalia at all.

  “Not all of us have a dagger that comes back to us,” she reminded him. Jalia swiveled and the knife shot from her hand. It ended up quivering in a tree thirty feet in front of them.

  “I don’t have one of those either, at the moment,” Daniel said and he sighed. “I had hoped our trip to Bagdor would be uneventful. I believe the King will cause us trouble enough, once we arrive.”

  �
�Brun Trep is a wapner,” Jalia said with some feeling. The word was one she had picked up in Brinan and meant someone addicted to self gratification to the exclusion of all other sexual behavior. “But you would like Bagdor, Daniel. It is the place of great culture where the major guilds of Jalon train their apprentices.”

  “If by major, you mean the guilds of the Assassins and the Alchemists then I would agree. I’ve visited Bagdor’s many times, though I never moved in the exalted company you did. I believe it would be better if kings stayed in their palaces and left the rest of us in peace.”

  The conversation petered out as they came to the top the ridge forming one edge of a small valley and they looked down at the village below.

  The great cities of Jalon had been mapped out in rectangles from the age of the Magician Kings when rigid order had been considered the height of aesthetics. Their high city walls still reflected older times and tended to be oval in shape. Villages like Sweetwater grew randomly as people built houses to be close to their families or convenient for water. Most villages followed a stream or a river.

  Sweetwater was a big village, at least thirty houses clustered along either side of a brook that ran through the valley. There were three bridges visible from their vantage point and that was two more than most villages possessed.

  On slightly higher ground was a larger and more stoutly constructed building that they assumed was the village’s Lord’s House. This was a building owned by the whole village. It was a place to make merry, to hold marriage ceremonies and take refuge in times of crisis, built large and fortified to provide a place of safety. Judging by the number of people around it, it was also the place where the market was being held.

  “We could be too late,” Daniel pondered, as they started to walk down the trail that became a hard dirt track alongside fields striped with basic crops. Most villages farmed in strips so that each villager got a share of good and bad land.

  “I expect they save the donkey sales till last. They probably get more perverts that way,” Jalia said as she grinned good humoredly at Daniel and he grinned back. They were alive and traveling together. What could be better than that?

  If anybody thought that Jalia should be wearing more than a woolen underskirt to protect her modesty they did not mention it as they strode towards the Lord’s House. One or two children pointed at Jalia and giggled, but then they often did that when she was fully clothed. The thieves had taken Daniel’s coat and shoes, but apart from that had left his clothes alone, as they were not worth stealing.

  Their horses were standing outside the Lord’s House, still wearing their saddles and packs. They were tied to a large hitching post. Jet whickered at Daniel as he got closer and Daniel smiled. Jalia had given him Jet on the Ranwin Bridge nearly a year ago. He was a horse built for riding rather than plowing fields and he was as black as his name implied.

  “It’s all right, boy. I’ll get that nasty saddle off you and give you a rub down as soon as I can.” Daniel stroked Jet’s head. Swift, Jalia’s grey nudged Daniel in the back, in an attempt to remind him that there were two horses to be tended to.

  Jalia snorted, sounding very like a horse herself. “Can we deal with the thieves first or would you rather stable and water the horses first?”

  Daniel sighed. Jalia was right; there was more pressing business to deal with. He stepped to one of the double doors and Jalia to the other. They nodded at each other and kicked the two doors in.

  4. Justice

  Adon Taldon was having the best day of his life. He and Twist Falfit had set up their stall many hours earlier piled with the fruits of their labor and they were having a day to remember. Adon was a tall heavyset man, who resembled a bear more than he did a human. His companion, Twist, was by contrast, thin and short. However, he was a superb fighter, if superb meant cunning and capable of doing anything to win, no matter how foul.

  The stolen donkeys had been snapped up almost as soon as the market opened by a group of traders on their way to Slarn. Adon traded the donkeys for the fancy clothes he and Twist were wearing.

  Daniel had packed his trade bags with spices before leaving Telmar. Those bags were in a special pile Adon had no intention to sell. He planned to share them out with Twist later that night. He would fob his young nephew off with a few trinkets. One of the reasons he had insisted that Dell keep his pointless watch on the trail was so he would not find out how much the goods they stole were actually worth.

  Jalia’s throwing knives had been traded to two mercenaries who were guarding the traders going to Slarn. They purchased them for a couple of bottles of strong liquor they had carried with them from Brinan. The mercenaries had wanted to buy the horses as well, but did not have anything that Adon wanted. They had offered him gold coin, which made him laugh.

  To stop them from creating a fuss at his stall he had thrown in the dagger he took from Daniel. The men stopped complaining when he had showed them how sharp that dagger was. It looked worthless when in its sheath, but the blade inside had an unbelievably keen edge.

  There had been a woman traveling with the traders, though she was not part of their group. She traded a tiny crystal glass bottle of perfume in exchange for Jalia’s ring. Adon was sure that by giving that bottle to a certain young woman, he would finally get her to part her legs. If Atalla had been anyone else but the village leader’s daughter, he would have raped her a long time ago. Adon licked his lips in anticipation of delights yet to come.

  Even Jalia’s gold coin had proved to be useful. He had traded half of it to a tinker for a set of spade and fork blades. He would be able to trade those back to his villagers for food later in the year. Adon hated the idea of having to work for a living.

  The only disappointment so far had been the swords. A typical villager had no use for such things. A fork or an axe could be just as effective in the hands of a skilled practitioner and could also be used in the fields on a daily basis. You could not chop wood with a sword.

  The only potential taker for either of the swords was the ten year old running around the room waving an toy oak sword his father had made for him. The child’s name was Balan and he was Atalla’s youngest brother. Adon considered giving the boy one of the swords in the hope it would buy him influence with the boy’s father. However, the possibility the child might hurt himself with a real sword had stopped him from going through with it.

  The doors to the Lord’s House flew open with force enough to smash loudly into the wall. Everybody in the room turned in shock as Jalia and Daniel strode in.

  Jalia scanned the room with the practiced eye of the thief she sometimes was. She saw their swords on a table. Two men stood up behind that table and Jalia had no trouble deducing that these must be Adon and Twist. A thought occurred that she should have asked Dell to describe them so she knew which was which, but then Jalia was never one to worry about spilt milk.

  “If you are going to rob either me or Daniel, you should make very sure that we are dead,” Jalia told them cheerfully. “Oh sorry, that advice is a little late, isn’t it?”

  “That’s a problem we can fix right now,” Adon said, sneering at this girl who dared to stand in front of him in her woolen underskirt.

  Twist picked up Daniel’s sword and grinned evilly.

  “I’ll take the man, Adon. I know you prefer to cut little girls.” Twist’s laugh was every bit as evil as his grin. He took his knife from his belt and waited for Adon to move.

  “That’s only because he’s unarmed,” Adon said as he picked up their table and flung it to the right, blocking the only other exit from the room. “But as she’s nearer to me than you, I’ll sort her out for you.”

  The villagers scattered to the walls. The exit at the back was gone while Jalia and Daniel blocked the main door. The bystanders had little choice but to back away and hope they didn’t get caught in the fighting.

  Adon pulled a long wicked knife from his belt and hunkered down into a professional knife fighter’s stance while T
wist stepped towards Daniel swinging his knife from side to side while keeping the sword pointed at Daniel’s heart. The people who had not managed to get close enough to the wall on Twist’s side scrambled and pushed against those that had.

  Balan did not understand what was going on. His view of Daniel and Jalia at the door was blocked by a group of adults and Jalia’s tone of voice had not appeared threatening.

  When the adults began pushing him towards the edge of the room, he wriggled past them and ended up standing between Twist and Daniel, still brandishing his eighteen inch long wooden sword. He faced Twist who advanced on him with a very real sword in his hand and panicked, stepping back into Daniel, who held him by the shoulders to stop him falling.

  “Do you mind if I borrow your sword?” Daniel asked the boy gently as he plucked the sword from Balan’s hand. “If I damage it, I promise I will make you another one that’s even better.”

  Daniel picked the boy up and turned to give the child to a woman behind him. She took the child and screamed in horror as she saw Twist attack Daniel’s undefended back.

  Jalia knew she was in for a fight as she sized up her massive opponent. He wore a thick leather jerkin and trousers, making him a difficult target for a knife. Leather was almost as effective as amour against bladed weapons. What would be a killing sword stroke often failed to penetrate thick leather, and even when it does causes only a minor wound.

  Leather was even more effective against knives, even a powerful slash was unlikely to penetrate. If she had been in possession of her throwing knives, Adon would already be dead. Their sharp points would slice through leather as if it was not there when thrown with sufficient skill and force. The knife she had in her hand was designed for cutting and had a blunt tip made worse by her practicing with it during the day. Given that the man she faced was the size of a small mountain, there was a strong chance that any throw she made wouldn’t penetrate his rib cage, let alone reach his heart.