by John Booth
“Admit it Samel. Torin has been going with Gef and Tom for over two years and he always came back with small gifts, teas and spices, women’s jewellery, the sort of things traders carry. We never asked him how he came by them, did we, Samel? How many deaths might we have stopped if we had?”
“No,” Samel shouted in despair. He rushed at Jalia with sword raised and brought it slashing down towards her head.
The sword never reached her as she stepped to one side and used her sword to block Samel’s blow.
A swordsman usually allows the blade of an opponent to travel its course if it is going to miss, sometimes adding to its momentum with his own sword to throw the opponent off balance. Jalia did just the opposite and brought Samel’s sword to a crashing halt in midair. Samel’s sword vibrated in his hand and he dropped it, feeling his wrist shatter in the impact.
While he clutched at his wrist, Jalia’s sword reached for his throat. It stopped, pressing lightly against Samel’s Adam’s apple.
“Kill me then. My life is over anyway.”
Jalia picked up Samel’s sword. She waved the sword at the villagers behind them.
“If someone picks up a sword they should know the consequences that come with their actions,” she shouted. “Does anyone here doubt that I have the legal right to kill this man?”
There was silence in response from the gathered villagers. Everyone knew the law.
“You still have a wife and a village to look out for.” Jalia lowered her sword. “I am taking this sword to prevent you doing anything so stupid again.”
Daniel turned to face the villagers. “You allowed murderers to reside among you. Not one of you questioned why there were no longer traders coming from Sweetwater. It was because your neighbors were killing them and you should be ashamed you allowed it to happen.”
Jalia picked up the scabbard that Samel had thrown down and put the sword back into it. Ralta rushed to her husband and comforted him.
“Here,” Jalia said throwing a gold coin at Ralta, who caught it rather clumsily. “Good gold coin for this sword. Let none of you claim that we stole it.”
Jalia went to Swift and mounted. Daniel lifted himself onto Jet. With Hala in tow on Blaze, they urged their horses to go around Samel and Ralta who stood unmoving in the middle of the road.
As they cleared the village and entered the forest, Daniel turned to Jalia.
“If you keep on paying for things like that, I am going to suspect that the real Jalia is being held captive somewhere.”
“Very funny. We seem to be constantly chased by people for the assumed crimes we have committed. I just thought I would try and avoid adding any more to the list. All this fighting is getting tedious.”
“I’m impressed,” Daniel said seriously. “I take it the sword is for Hala.”
“Didn’t I just give a lecture on the perils of letting someone pick up a sword?”
“Do you want to train her, or should I?”
“Oh you do it, Daniel. I will teach her to use a knife, but you were taught by the greatest swordsman that ever lived. You could use his methods.”
Daniel looked over to Hala who had been grinning from ear to ear since the moment it became clear she was going to get the sword.
“Her hide isn’t thick enough to survive my father’s methods. He was a cruel taskmaster.”
“It worked though, didn’t it?”
“I cannot deny it.”
Daniel urged his horse faster. They had a long way to go to catch up with Hadon and his men. Jalia smacked Blaze on the rump and the horse broke into a gallop with Hala clinging on for dear life. Jalia pushed Swift into a gallop as she chased after the others.
Daniel slowed Jet to a trot as the light of evening faded. Asking a horse to gallop when it can’t see its own feet is a good way to get the horse killed. Not to mention the likely death of the rider on top of said horse. Hala took a deep breath and sighed with relief as Blaze came to a halt behind Jet. Horses are not so stupid as to risk their lives unnecessarily. Jalia pulled Swift up alongside Jet a few seconds later.
“That was fun.” Jalia had a look of exhilaration on her face. “We should do that more often.”
“Are we going to eat soon?” Hala asked. Her tummy was making growling sounds and the race down the road hadn’t helped it at all.
“They can’t have got much further up the road than this,” Daniel opined. “They are probably camped at the next place with water.”
“Which would be over that rise where the land dips,” Jalia explained to Hala. “In lands like these, there is always a stream running into every valley; however small they are.”
“Quiet,” Daniel commanded. They brought their horses to a halt and tried not to breathe. Somewhere off in the distance, they heard the whiney of a horse.
“Off the road, to the right,” Jalia whispered. Jalia and Daniel dismounted and Daniel helped Hala off her horse. Daniel signaled the girls to stay where they were while he moved up the road and over the rise.
Hala heard an owl hoot and nearly jumped out of her skin. Only the moon Anvil was in an evening sky turning black. Anvil’s light caused long shadows to be cast from the trees, obscuring the road. Hala was astonished how quietly Daniel could move. She didn’t think anyone could walk in a forest without breaking twigs, but he appeared to be able to do it effortlessly.
Daniel came out of the darkness as one of the darker shadows turned into his form.
“The camp is just up ahead, in a small hollow. There appears to be a large pond beyond it. There’s a large horse in the camp. I think it’s the one that Cara rode yesterday.”
“Was that what we heard?” Jalia whispered back.
“Not a chance. Someone is hiding in the bushes off the road to the right. I’ll go and investigate while you and Hala wait here.”
“I could do that,” Jalia protested.
“You make more noise in the dark than a wild boar in rutting season, Jalia,” Daniel reminded her. “I’ll go.”
“It’s only because I can’t see the twigs and things,” Jalia protested in a louder whisper.
“I never have any trouble.” Daniel flashed his teeth at Jalia. They caught the moonlight, giving his face a skeletal look. Then he vanished again, as silently as he had arrived.
“Show off,” Jalia whispered into the darkness after him. She grasped Hala by the shoulder and led her to a fallen tree trunk where they could sit. A few moments later, Jalia offered Hala some hard cheese wrapped in cloth.
“Otherwise the sound of your tummy is going to give our position away,” she explained to the puzzled, but grateful girl.
Daniel moved in a semicircle around where he heard the horse, seeking for the best approach. Whoever was there lay on the ground with his horse behind him. Daniel could have walked right up to him and tapped him on the shoulder without being heard, if it hadn’t been for the horse. Horses listen for suspicious noises in the night and they panic easily.
As it was, Daniel had to go all the way around the horse to get to the man on the ground. Then Daniel saw the reflections of moonlight off the metal winding mechanism of a crossbow. That changed things and he had to act immediately.
Daniel glided silently past the horse, which whinnied in alarm.
“Quiet Dawn,” Don whispered to his horse without losing his aim on the camp. “Why isn’t Cara fighting anyone?”
Daniel’s sword point slid into the small of Don’s back, pricking him hard enough to get his full and undivided attention.
“Remove the bolt from your crossbow very carefully and drop it onto the ground,” Daniel said in a tone of voice that brooked no argument. He pressed his sword a little deeper into Don’s back to remind him that this was not in any way a request.
Don had run his horse long and hard to catch up with Cara. It was more by good luck than by design that he had slow down to rest his horse at the same time he reached the top of the rise.
He saw Cara entering the camp below and imme
diately retreated out of sight. Cara was going to need a backup man when she killed Jalia and Daniel, and he planned to be that man. Don took his horse into the forest. He moved forward until he got a view of the encampment.
It had still been light and he was able to choose a good spot where he could lie and aim his crossbow. Cara was in conversation with Hadon Mallow and the man was nodding his head vigorously. There was no sign of Daniel or Jalia and Don suspected they were out of the camp somewhere in the forest, probably hunting game. In any case, they would certainly not discover him. He was far too well hidden.
He settled down for a long watch. By the time Daniel came up behind him, he was getting fretful. Cara had been talking to the traders in the camp and though Don couldn’t hear the words being said, he heard the laughter. Cara appeared to be telling them jokes. What was his sister up to? Surely, she couldn’t be thinking of defying their mother. She would never be allowed to return to the family if she did that.
Then the distinct and unforgettable feeling of a sword blade poised to cut into Don’s spine took his mind completely off his sister. He felt the cold chill of fear grip him and did what he was told.
“Put your hands behind your back and clasp them together,” a voice that Don suspected was Daniel ordered. He moved his hands into the position specified and a few moments later felt a noosed rope slip over them. Seconds after that he was bound so tightly he knew he had lost. The fact that there was no longer a sword blade in his back was of little comfort. Daniel could kill him any time he wanted to.
Don was dragged to his feet and made to march to the road. It wasn’t an easy thing to do with his hands tied behind his back. He stumbled in the undergrowth many times, cutting his face on the sharp brambles and twigs that littered the ground. Don was dragged back to his feet the moment he stumbled and then prodded again until he walked forward. The journey back to the road was a nightmare that seemed as if it was never going to end.
“Don Marin, with a crossbow aimed at the camp,” Daniel briefed Jalia. He had brought Marin’s horse with him, but nobody offered to let Don mount his horse as they mounted theirs. Daniel tied a second rope to the ones binding his wrists and Don was made to walk in front as they rode into the camp.
There was considerable commotion in the camp as they made their way into the firelight. Cara gasped when she saw her brother stumble in front of her. She ran to help him to his feet as he had fallen heavily onto his face.
“What have you done this time?” Hadon exclaimed. “I have just hired Cara as a guide and now you bring her brother as a prisoner.”
“Sorry Cara,” Don said as his sister lifted him to his feet.
“Don, why are you here?” Cara tried to adjust to the new situation.
“I was trying to provide cover for you when you fought them. Mother sent me.”
“I’m not going to fight Jalia and Daniel, Don. I never was. They did the right thing with Bril, and Mother’s ideas of vengeance and mine are not the same.”
“Then why are you here?”
“It was time to go out and see the world and I’ve always wanted to travel to Slarn.”
“But Mother will never allow you to come home.”
“It’s not a home when you are ordered to do wrong, Don,” Cara tried to explain, but Don was not taking it in.
“This is all very interesting,” Jalia said in a voice that implied exactly the opposite, “And I for one, welcome Cara into our camp. But what are we going to do with him?”
“Come with me, Don. See the world with me,” Cara urged hopefully, but Don shoved her away from him as best he could, given the fact that his hands were tied behind his back.
“And leave the family? You are mad, Cara. Mother will never let this rest. When I get back and tell her what you’ve done, she will come in force after both them, and you.”
Hadon blanched as her realized that the threat was as much against him and his friends as against Jalia and Daniel.
Daniel dismounted while Don was talking and moved over to Hala to help her to get down from Blaze.
“I, for one, am hungry and weary,” Daniel told the camp. “Let us drink, eat and wash the dust from the road before we consider this matter further. It’s not as if Don is going anywhere.”
There was much discussion in the camp as they ate. Wilf and Tred Denger thought that they might buy off Brila Marin with a payment of blood money. Nobody disputed that Bril brought his death on himself and there was no sympathy in the camp for him. However, if a small amount of gold could end the dispute, it was worth considering. Dav, Perder and Balaf favored letting Don go as a goodwill gesture and in the hope that Brila would see sense. Tonas kept his own council, offering nothing and looking to his father for direction.
“It’s you two got us into this mess and you should get us out,” Hadon finally announced, looking at Jalia and Daniel.
“I told you we should have let the robbers kill them,” Jalia said to Daniel. “But no, you insisted on getting involved.”
Hadon scowled at Jalia’s implication. He didn’t like to admit, even to himself, that they would have died at the ford if not for the fortuitous intervention of these two adventurers.
“Well I am grateful that you did intervene,” Grilt said, entering the conversation for the first time. “It seems to me that Cara is the only one who can judge what her mother will do, and it is her we should turn to for advice.”
Cara had also been keeping quiet during the discussion, offering no advice when blood money had been suggested. Don snorted at that suggestion, but otherwise said nothing. His feet were now tied and his hands free to allow him to sit and eat with the others.
“Mother is as rich as she wants to be and she would see an offer of blood money as an insult,” Cara said slowly. The Denger brothers grimaced. Both were fond of an easy life and were regretting ever agreeing to this trip.
“She would see you letting Don go as an admission of weakness. I thought we would be on the boat to Slarn before she realized I wasn’t coming back. Don being here makes that less likely. While I might take my time coming home after killing you, he always races for home the first chance he gets.”
“We can’t afford to travel with a prisoner,” Hadon pointed out, though everyone around the campfire already knew it. “He could slow us down and sabotage would be a constant threat.”
“Tie him up and leave him here,” Wilf Denger suggested, still looking for the easy way out of the problem.
“You can’t do that,” Cara protested, “It’s worse than murder.”
“He has to come with us willingly, or he must die,” Jalia stated without the slightest trace of emotion.
“Do your worst,” Don joked and then felt a chill run through him as he looked into Jalia’s deep blue eyes and saw no mercy in them.
“You want me dead,” Jalia asked Don, though it was not a question.
“Mother wants it and that is the same thing to me,” Don said slowly, wondering what Jalia was leading up to.
“You carry a sword. Are you any good with it?”
“I could kill you with it,” Don replied almost eagerly
“Would you be willing to accept a wager?” Jalia continued. “We fight and if you win I die and you go back to your mother avenged. If I win, you will accept your sister’s offer and go to Slarn without protest.”
“Won’t I be dead if you win?”
“Will you take the wager, on your honor and your mother’s name?” Jalia asked coldly.
“If I yield to you, then it shall be as you say,” Don stated carefully. He had no intention of losing, and if he did, he would die at this woman’s hands rather than yield. That would force Cara to fight Jalia and mother’s wishes would be carried out. Don grinned at his cleverness.
“Cut him free,” Jalia ordered and Wilf stepped forward with a knife. Jalia removed her throwing knives, putting them in front of Hala.
“Has Jalia gone crazy?” Cara asked. “Don is a skilled swordsman.”
Don ran on the spot to get the stiffness out of his legs. Daniel handed him the sword that he had found on Don’s saddle.
A space was cleared on one side of the fire, with the members of the camp sitting on the other side. Surreptitious bets were placed, most of them on Don, who was bigger and stronger than Jalia and held a longer sword. Those bets were happily being taken by Grilt and Tel who knew of Jalia’s reputation.
The fighters took up stances a few yards away from each other. Don grinned as he saw how anxious Cara looked. He thought this fight was going to be simple. Daniel sat cross legged next to Hala. Daniel gave her a comforting smile before turning his attention back to the fight.
“Well, what have you got, Don?” Jalia asked and Don raised his sword upwards in a classical swordfighters salute. Jalia grinned and raised her own sword mockingly in the same gesture.
Don struck as she was doing it, slicing the air with his blade as it whizzed towards her.
When Don’s blade reached where Jalia was supposed to be, she wasn’t there. She moved back and made a complicated move with her blade which resulted in her pushing Don’s blade with the flat of her own, adding to its momentum.
Don was caught off balance and partially recovered by turning his motion into a twirl. As his back was turned, Jalia stabbed Don between the shoulder blades with the point of her sword, just sufficiently to draw blood.
“That’s once,” Jalia remarked cheerfully as Don brought his sword back into a defensive position.
“One what, bitch?” Don snarled at her as he launched into a flurry of testing attacks.
Jalia was too busy to answer as she retreated from Don’s blows, parrying every attack. Don was stronger than Jalia and his sword longer so she was forced to retreat.
Cara saw that Don was outclassed by Jalia. He tried to kill her with a sneaky attack, but Cara saw that Jalia had anticipated him. She was moving before Don struck, having probably seen the tensing of his muscles. Cara felt her heart miss a beat as she recognized that Don’s only hope for survival was Jalia’s mercy.
