Роберт Асприн - Forever After

Jord rode up to join them, Gwykander at his side like a sword, pen case strapped to Nightsky’s saddle.

“May I volunteer, General? It will free up your soldiers.”

“Do it,” she ordered. “I’ll take the full report over dinner.”

She softened for a moment, smiled. “You will join me?”

“As you command, lady,” he said with an almost correct salute, “as ever you command.”

The next afternoon, they came upon the first troop of bandits camped in a hollow near Hillville. Leaving eight of the soldiers with the wagons and other gear, Domino lead the rest after the bandits.

“They’ve been terrorizing the Hillvilleans in the same way that the old… Dennis said that they did his hamlet,” Rafe reported. “I sent Chase and Kerran into town garbed as a smith and his oaf and they brought back the gossip soon enough. That almost grandson of the old… Dennis. What’s his name?”

“Dennis?” Domino asked, puzzled.

“No, the young man,” Rafe thumped himself on the forehead a couple of times, “I’ve got it! Gus — that’s the name. This Gus is quite a firebrand. As he sees it, the bandits have either killed or kidnapped his sweetheart and he’s not for backing down.”

“Good for him,” Domino said approvingly. “After seeing what they did to the old… Dennis’s hamlet during my tour yesterday I can sympathize with his position. How did the old… Dennis survive anyhow?”

Rafe sniggered. “Apparently, he was asleep on a cot and they took him for a corpse all laid out for burial. He only woke up when they were setting fire to the place and he caught some comments about it ‘being a good deed, cremating the old stiff for the family.’ ”

Domino suppressed a giggle. “I’m surprised that the old… Dennis even admitted as much. I thought that he’d bluster by anything that humiliating.”

“That poet of yours got the story from him,” Rafe admitted, “I didn’t hear anything wrong in the old… Dennis’s tale, but Jord caught it right off.”

Looking away so that Rafe would not see how unaccountably pleased she was by the praise to Jord, she caught motion off to the north.

“What the blazes is that!” she cried, kneeling on Spite’s broad back for a better view. “It looks like a band of men with torches and spears! Those can’t be the bandits. Kerran’s report placed them to the south and west of Hillville.”

“ ’Tis a band of men, sir,” Rafe said, passing her his field glasses, “but those aren’t spears, at least not most of them. Those are hoes and pitchforks and a few garden rakes, if I don’t miss my guess. And I’d bet that the stout lad with the florid skin and the determined expression is the old… Dennis’s almost grandson, Gus.”

Domino studied the vigilante leader before returning the glasses to Rafe.

“He wouldn’t be a relative of Spotty, would he?” she said, sparing a fond thought for Prince Rango’s ever-reliable companion. “No matter. Rafe, take five of the men and stop those villagers — by force if you must. We can’t have civilians doing our job. It’s bad for our image with the taxpayers, especially in peacetime.”

“Will that leave enough soldiers for you, sir?” Rafe asked, even as he signaled his five.

“Of course,” Domino said, as Spite reared around like a cresting wave. “The day that ten of my cavalry aren’t a match for any number of bandits is the day we go into the dog-food business. Now, follow my orders, Colonel!”

Gesturing for the rest of the Company to follow her, Domino had Kerran lead them to the bandit’s hollow at a steady canter. The bandits might have had spies in Hillville and, if they had, the Company would need every advantage that time could give them.

What they found as they thundered up to surround the camp with drawn bows and ready blades was far worse than anything that Domino had expected. She had known that she would be dealing with renegade military, some from her own army, even from her own branch, but this went far beyond her ability to imagine.

The bandits had been taking advantage of the pleasant weather to camp in the open. The one structure they had taken time to construct was a loose holding pen made from saplings lashed with rope. In this cage captive women and children languished, wild-eyed and haggard, bound no doubt for some distant slave market like the one in which Princess Rissa had been sold. Domino pitied them, but her horror was reserved for the bandits themselves.

There were nearly a score of them, all armed and armored. Clearly, word had gotten to them that Hillville was attacking. Many were in uniform, but the condition of those uniforms set Domino’s blood to boiling. Boots were scuffed and mud caked; caps were askew. One fellow actually wore a nonregulation jacket over his shirt and trousers.

Trembling at the indignity of it all, Domino jerked Spite to a halt at the edge of the hollow.

“You are surrounded and outnumbered,” she announced, blithely ignoring that neither was precisely true. ‘Throw down your weapons and we may deal more gently with you.“

There was an astonished silence as the bandits traded glances. A few seemed to be counting heads and figuring the odds. Then a thin, balding man in a disreputable foot soldier’s uniform stepped forward.

“You have us outnumbered?” he said.

Domino stared back, her hazel eyes steely. “We do. Now throw down your weapons or I will order my archers to fire. I assure you — I would prefer to take prisoners.”

In the silence that followed a man’s voice could be heard saying, “Is that horse green? Damn, I’ve got to give up drinking.”

The bandits’ spokesman shouted derisively, “You wouldn’t dare fire. We have prisoners here — you won’t risk them. It’s a stalemate.”

“Oh, no, it’s not,” Domino shouted back, signaling her men and raising her own bow. “I am General Blaid and my men don’t dare to miss.”

The first volley took out ten bandits, including the speaker. The others surrendered with complimentary haste. Rafe rode up as Domino’s troops were binding the bandits and freeing the prisoners.

“We’ve secured the villagers a quarter mile out,” he reported. ‘Two had to be forcibly subdued, but Chase says that they will survive.“

“Very good,” Domino replied. “Have you ever seen such a nasty-looking lot, Rafe? Of the survivors, two thirds were in some form of uniform — many our own people gone wrong. I’m going down to speak to them. Do you want to come?”

“I’d be pleased to, sir.”

Kerran had lined the captured bandits up along one edge of the hollow, as far from the angry huddle of their former victims as possible. Domino noted with approval that the Company’s Quartermaster was already going through the captured loot with the vocal assistance of two women.

“I’ll take over here, Captain Kerran,” she said, sneering down at the sloppily clad captives. “Ride out and check the status of the main Company. We should rejoin them within two hours. You also might tell the old… Dennis that at least some of his family is safe.”

“My eyes, it is green,” came the same thin voice.

Spite snorted and Domino chucked dryly.

“You three,” she said, gesturing to the bandits in civvies, “go with Private Arlen and assist the Quartermaster. I have words for these seven that don’t apply to you.”

Unable to contain herself, she vaulted down from Spite’s back and stalked over to the first man in line. He wore the remnants of a foot soldier’s uniform with a pikeman’s insignia hanging raggedly from one sleeve.

“What do you have to say for yourself, soldier?” she barked.

“Say?” He shuffled nervously. “Well, we were hungry and the crofters wouldn’t share and…”