Esther Freisner - The Chick Is In The Mail

"Not fond of your nose hairs, are you?" Lomo said conversationally.

"andtrynottobebad!"

"Get to the confessing part!" someone cried. "That's our favorite!"

"S-some of you might have been a little bit bad," Dal continued reluctantly.

Someone sniffled, then broke into howling sobs.

"But if you confess to the almighties-"

"Which one?" Lomo demanded over a chorus of wails.

"How in the blazes should I know?" Dal's voice was aggrieved. "I keep telling you oafs that I'm not-"

There was the sound of a scuffle, then a shocked squawk. "Which almighty?" Lomo repeated.

"Any of them!" Dal squeaked in a voice at least two octaves higher than before. "I'm sure it's their very great pleasure to attend to whatever you fine gentlemen care to say!"

Gerta's hand slipped and she slid half a body length back down the slope. Above, I heard a familiar whicker-Corpsemaker! She must have gotten my scent. No doubt, the bandits had Gerta's Slasher too. Once we lopped off their mangy, lice-ridden heads, we'd recover our mounts and swords, and then deliver Dal and his hymnals to Damery as promised.

I tried to quicken my pace, but my mail was absolutely strangling me. Despite the impending battle, I realized I should have taken it off when I had the chance. I was gasping for air as I cleared the final foot of cliff.

A boulder shielded me from their view, but around it, a few yards off, I could make out at least thirty bandits. As always, they were a moth-eaten, vicious-looking lot. One, dressed in a dozen ragged castoffs, was kneeling before the hymnal merchant, who was holding his abused nose with both hands. Lomo stood with his back to us, surveying the scene.

"Great Isis, I'm really, really sorry!" the bandit, a scruffy, bald-headed rogue, wailed.

"A-about what?" Dal spoke through his hands, his face pale as watered cream.

"About killing that self-satisfied, stuck-up prig of a prime minister from Mazor last week and stealing all his gold."

"And you w-won't do it again?" Dal prompted.

The bandit wiped his eyes. "Well, of course, I'll do it again. Are you crazy?"

"Next!" Lomo called.

Gerta's head eased up over the side of the cliff and she crept up beside me, panting. "Now what?" she whispered, belly-down in the dirt. "Shall we charge them one at a time or together?"

My mail tightened another notch. This time, I actually felt it contract. My hand flew to the first buckle on the side seam.

"I could kill them all myself," Gerta said, "but it seems unsporting not to let you in on the fun."

Another sinner was brought before the hymnal merchant in the wavering circle of firelight. "A-and you?" Dal quavered.

This bandit was a withered old coot who looked vaguely familiar for some reason. Had I perhaps done a poor job of killing him at some point too like Lomo? "I ain't sorry about a bloomin' thing!" he declared.

Lomo cuffed him into the ashes at the edge of the fire. "You wanted to confess. Now get on with it!"

"My-mail!" I wheezed at Gerta, fingers wrenching vainly at the buckle. "Get it off!"

Her eyes widened. "Now?"

The bandit picked himself up and brushed at the new smudges on his ragged trousers. "Well, I suppose I could say I'm sorry about impersonating a goatherd last night so I could sprinkle your magic shrinking potion on Hallah Iron-Thighs' mail."

"That was very wicked of you!" Lomo said and then the two of them guffawed.

I recognized him now, as the scene before me was being rapidly blotted out by swirling darkness of impending unconsciousness due to lack of air. He was the smelly lout who kept hovering behind my back at the tavern. Magic, I thought weakly. Lomo had used one of his bandits to magick me, the rotten bastard! I could feel my veins bulging, my face turning purple. My fingers wrenched at the buckle, but it must have been jammed in the fall I'd taken earlier and wouldn't give.

"Hallah, they're going to hear you!" Gerta whispered disapprovingly.

"Yes, ducks." Lomo walked around the boulder. "You really should be more careful."

"Don't worry, Hallah!" Gerta sprang to her feet. "I'll save a few for you to kill!"

The first buckle finally gave and my mail popped open down to the second buckle, giving me a bit more room to breathe, though not nearly enough.

Gerta charged, but her balance was off, courtesy no doubt of the lump on her head. Lomo thrust out his foot, then turned to me as she went down like a poleaxed buffalo. "What about you, ducks? Is there something you'd like to confess before we throw you into that convenient bottomless crevice over there? It's best to go out with a clean conscience, you know."

With a creak, the second buckle opened. I gulped air into my straining lungs. Gerta was sprawled on the ground at Perchis Dal's feet, a new lump on her head beside the earlier one, making a matched set. I was outnumbered thirty to one. Lomo had my horse and my sword. Even my trusty mail, veteran of years of fighting, had let me down. Maybe this was the Change of Life after all and I'd worked too long at this exhausting, dangerous business. Maybe it was time to hang up my-

"Can I go now?" Dal ducked his head. "You can keep the donkeys and hymnals."

Lomo whirled and shoved him to the ground beside Gerta's limp form. "Get on with the confessions!"

Dal's head hit Gerta's scabbard with a sharp crack. His eyes fluttered, then he sagged like a windless sail. The bandits surged forward, aghast. "Lomo, you killed our priest!" one of them cried. "Now, how are we going to confess?"

My fingers wrenched desperately at the last buckle and finally with a squeak, it gave. My mail split open along the side seam and I drew in a blessed full breath.

"You promised us hymns and sermons and confession!" A hulking brute seized Lomo's shirt and hauled him up onto his toes. "Otherwise, we'd never have followed you. Now, we've finally caught something at least close to a priest, after all these months, and you bash his blinkin' head in. I think we need us a new king!"

A chorus of assent went up on all sides. Lomo looked decidedly nervous.

"First, though," the tall brute said, "throw that meddling Iron-Thighs broad down the crevice. We was doing fine until she showed up!"

"Yeah!" They advanced on me, a reeking, unkempt mob, unsatisfied repentance blazing in their eyes.

I raised my chin, remembering whose daughter I was. No bunch of priest-deprived bandits was going to take me down! A true warrior is never without resources. If they wanted a sermon-

"Brethren!" I cried. "We find ourselves brought together by fate tonight, out here, underneath these brilliant and, I can assure you, all-seeing stars!"

They paused, slack-jawed.

"Some of you have not always led, shall we say, admirable lives," I said with as much authority as I could muster. "Of that I think we can be certain."

One of the worthless band whimpered.

"Down on your knees, dogs!" I crossed my arms and looked uncompromising. "It's time to make amends!"

Three of the closest knelt. "Wait a minute!" Lomo cried, still hanging by his shirt from the brute's fist. "She's not a priest!"

"You never take presents to your mothers, do you?" I tapped my foot.

Two more dropped to their knees. Their eyes looked suspiciously red. "This is stupid," Lomo broke in. "Don't lis-"

His captor rammed him facefirst to the ground, then knelt, folding his hands piously. Lomo sprawled limply and barely breathing in the fire's dancing shadows.

"You slurp your soup and eat with your mouths open! You curse and burp and never ever share!"

Five more knelt, openly sobbing.

Gerta stirred. I put my foot in the middle of her back to hold her in place. "Raise your eyes to the stars and confess all the nasty, dirty, rotten things you've ever done!"