Carol Berg - THE SOUL WEAVER

Though the soldiers and guards allowed us to pass through their line, they made no move to aid the panicked travelers. Those travelers unarmed or unfit we situated under the wagons, while setting the better equipped to stand in front of them. I refused to crouch underneath, but climbed atop the roped pyramid of vintner’s casks where I could see what was going on. My knife was in my hand.

I was a Leiran warrior’s daughter, and I had been taught that refusal to fight was cowardice. After Karon’s arrest, when he had invoked the principles of a lifetime and refused to harm another person to save his own life or the lives of his child or his friends, my instincts and upbringing had named him a coward. After long and painful years, I believed that I had come to terms with Karon’s convictions. But now it seemed that Gerick, too, had run away, leaving his companions to defend themselves.

As I tried to devise some other explanation - he’d detected some other threat or he was circling around to take the bandits by stealth - Radele and a single rider raced up the valley road, hotly pursued by at least twenty mounted raiders, whooping and yelling. The battle quickly engulfed us. The frenzied bandits on their squat ponies swarmed through the camp, raising a horrific din: thudding boots, pounding hooves, roars and screams of men, grunts and squeals of beasts, the clangor of weapons.

An ax-wielding man on a shaggy, thick-chested pony charged from the choking dust and noise straight toward our position, a ragged green scarf flapping about his head. Paulo stiffened and gripped his staff with both hands. I crouched low just behind him, clutching my knife. But before the outlaw could reach us, a passing soldier in pursuit of another bandit slashed at the charging beast’s legs with his greatsword. The pony squealed and skidded. The rider leaped free, twisting in the air, and crashed to the dirt just in front of Paulo.

But the now-vanished soldier had only postponed the assault, for the snarling bandit scrambled away from the fallen beast and leaped to his feet. With a blood-chilling cry, he raised his ax over Paulo’s head. Paulo lifted his staff and braced for the blow. Yet in a sudden onslaught of man and horse and flashing silver, the bandit pitched forward before he could strike, his face thudding into the ground as Radele severed his spine with a sweeping blow. Radele’s mount reared, and the Dar’Nethi raised his bloody sword in salute before vanishing again into the fray. The bandit’s green scarf had been torn away by the trampling hooves.

That was as close as Paulo and I came to harm. Paulo did not stir from my side, and though his staff remained ready, he did not have to wield it in my defense.

The raid faltered quickly. Radele seemed to be everywhere at once, appearing out of the gloom wherever the press was hardest, his fair hair gleaming, his blade shining silver in the torchlight, brighter by far than any other. One after another, he took the bandits down, while the drover and his stolid men held their line.

Night swallowed the ragged remnant of the bandit horde. As the fighters drew harsh breaths and the wounded moaned, travelers crawled slowly out from under the wagons and wandered off through the trampled grass, searching for their companions, picking up scattered belongings, lighting fires and torches. The soldiers invited Radele to join them at their fire, any disagreement about tactics seemingly soothed by victory.

“I’d be better occupied to scout the valley perimeter, I think,” said Radele, patting the neck of his panting horse. “And I need to cool this fellow down.”

I dressed the slashed hand of the stonemason as he wept for his dead assistant, his sister’s only son, while Paulo bandaged the arm of the fat Vallorean magistrate, who sat rigid with shock and uncertain how to proceed. His three companions had died at the neck of the valley. Only Radele and the stonemason had survived their venture. But everyone agreed that their efforts had weakened the bandits so they could be finished easily.

Sanger set up the watch and appointed parties to bury the dead: two Vallorean travelers and one of the vintner’s men in addition to the four lost with Radele. Nineteen dead bandits were left on the rocks for the wolves to find. Two prisoners were bound to the sides of the levy wagons and would remain there until we reached Montevial - if they stayed alive so long.

“Where’s the young Lord?” said Radele, slipping from his saddle as I set a pot over the hot little fire Paulo had built for me. Our own camp had remained relatively undisturbed in the raid. I had collected our few ripped and dirty blankets and dented pots scattered as the raiders fled.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“He had something needed doing,” said Paulo, giving a last poke to the coals and standing up. Though anxious to see to his stock, he had refused to leave me until Gerick or Radele returned. “He’ll be back.”

Radele’s gray tunic was splattered with blood, but his face was impassive as he looked around the campsite, his eyes settling on the canvas bundle that lay untouched beside the cart where he had thrown it. The young sorcerer picked up the bundle and unfolded the flaps of cloth, revealing a plain steel hilt protruding from a worn leather sheath. “I noticed he doesn’t wear a blade. Evidently my spare sword wasn’t suitable.”

Paulo bristled. “He don’t have to - ”

“That’s enough, Paulo,” I said sharply. I didn’t need them arguing. Not tonight. “We’ve a long journey still to go.”

Paulo snatched his quarterstaff from the ground and strode out of the camp.

Radele unsaddled his horse and rubbed him down before allowing him to graze, soothing him with soft words as he worked. When the horse was calmly crunching the dry grass alongside our unrattled pony, he joined me at the fire, a waterskin in his hand. He sat heavily on the ground, downed half the contents of his waterskin, and poured another good measure over his matted hair, rubbing his face and head vigorously.

“Will you eat something?” I had made up our barley porridge, but thrown in a precious lump of sugar, a handful of currents, and a thick glob of butter to make it more appetizing.

He flashed a grin. “I’ll eat my boots if there be naught else, but this smells far better.”

He took the bowl, devouring its contents before I’d set the pot back on the fire. As we talked of the dead and injured travelers and prospects for the journey ahead, he ate all that was left.

“You fought bravely tonight,” I said later, as I cleaned the pot and bowls and packed them away. “You’ll likely gain no glory in either world from this battle, but your Prince will hear of your deeds.”

Radele was cleaning his sword. “To be honest, my lady, for a Dar’Nethi to brawl with such as we met tonight takes little courage. The only enemies that measure a man are those that come out of Zhev’Na.” He ran his oily rag the length of his gleaming blade and did not look up.

Slowly the camp settled into exhausted quiet, the soft voices of men as they traded off the watch joining the shrieks of hunting birds and the distant howls of wolves. Though weary to the bone, I could not sleep. Sometime after the watch changed, I heard the creak of heavy-laden wheels and the slow scuff of boots on the hard road down from the pass. After a quiet exchange with the watch, the smith and his family moved to a patch of open ground a short distance from us. They must have dropped to the bare ground to sleep.

Blanket around my shoulders, I sat up and squinted into the darkness, hoping to see one more rider. Though I waited as long as I could hold my eyes open, he did not come.

When I woke to the drowsy bustle of breaking camp, Gerick was hitching the pony to the cart. Jasyr was nowhere in sight, back in Paulo’s string I guessed.