Roland Green: Knights of the Sword

The men-at-arms had also brought a fair amount of specially made devices and potions from the manor’s armory. These included spiked boots and gloves for climbing, grappling hooks on ropes, rope ladders, ointments for darkening the skin or concealing one’s scent, and potions to sprinkle on meat or biscuit and leave out for unwanted dogs.

Each carrying a pack with their share of the equipment, the seven men slipped in toward the Chained Ogre as clouds shut out the last light from the moons. Only a few lights showed in the houses, and not many more at the inn. The nearest festival was some days off; everyone had work tomorrow and was likely abed for the night.

Sir Niebar’s portion of the load was, apart from his weapons and some extra arrows for the archers, a large carrying sack. This was to let Gesussum Trapspringer down to the ground, in case he was in no fit state to climb himself.

As this would be put into use only near the end of the raid, and only in dire emergency, Sir Niebar found himself with the job of sentry. One man-at-arms shot a hook attached to an arrow high into the eaves of the inn. A second climbed up the rope, pulling another rope with him. A third bent onto the second rope a rope ladder, climbed the second rope trailing the ladder behind him, and hooked the ladder over the frame of a dormer window.

The window was open, and the fourth man-at-arms spat on the ground when he learned this. “Sir Pirvan wouldn’t have called this a sporting job when he was doing his former work,” the man whispered irritably. “No guarding worth the name.”

That seemed to be true, but then the innkeeper had no reason to suppose that anyone knew of valuables in the attic. He had indeed probably locked all the attic stairs just in case the kender loosed himself from his shackles and didn’t want to jump from a third-story window.

The fourth man-at-arms disappeared up the ladder, along with one of the knights. Sir Niebar and the second knight remained below, as sentries and also in case there was a trap laid in the attic. If they couldn’t make their escape with the kender, somebody had to make their way back to a keep and warn the knights.

Sir Niebar kept seeing moving shapes out of the corner of his eye, but they vanished when he looked directly toward the spots. He knew that darkness and an uneasy mind could deceive the eyes; he also heard nothing.

Which did not prove that trained adepts like the Servants of Silence could not be stalking him this very moment-

Light blazed from the attic dormer. For a moment Sir Niebar was dazzled, for another moment he thought the inn was afire. Then a small figure appeared in the window, silhouetted against the light. Without hesitating, it leaped, aiming for the branch of a tree that stood close to the inn.

A human would have snapped the branch like a twig. A kender, even a full-grown one, merely bent it down so far that he could safely drop the rest of the way to the ground. He landed awry, however, and the rough landing plus his privations had him groaning and unable to rise when Sir Niebar ran to him.

“The tattooed ones-” the kender gasped.

The warning was just in time. Sir Niebar and his companion sprang up and stood back-to-back, swords drawn, as four dark-clad figures burst from the trees. At the same time, a man-at-arms appeared in the window.

“Run!” he shouted.

Apart from waking the whole inn, Sir Niebar saw no purpose in that cry. The knights on the ground were not going to abandon their companions, and there was an end on it. There also would be no chance of taking a prisoner, if they incontinently fled.

So the two knights went briskly to work, and discovered to their mingled chagrin and relief that the four they faced were not finished swordsmen. Chagrin because there was no honor in fighting men who should not have been sent into battle at all; relief because it improved their chances of victory.

They still had to kill two of the Servants of Silence, and a third they wounded badly before he escaped into the night. A fourth might have escaped unhurt if Trapspringer hadn’t suddenly rolled over and thrust a dagger taken from one of the bodies into the man’s leg.

The man howled, missed a step, and went down like a felled tree as Sir Niebar shifted his grip and hammered the flat of his sword blade across the man’s temple. The other knight knelt immediately, to be sure the man was helpless and to bind his wound as necessary.

The kender did a little dance around the prostrate man. Sir Niebar had never seen a kender in a mood to take a blood vengeance before; he did not care to see one now.

However, the kender’s condition spoke for itself. He was now missing fingernails and teeth, as well as sporting the injuries Sir Pirvan had described. It was a minor wonder that he was as fit as he was. It was no wonder at all that he would have shed the blood of one of his tormenters if the knights had not been there.

By now the four men-at-arms were back down from the attic. One of them was thrown; when he landed in the gravel Niebar saw why. A sword or dagger thrust had pierced his heart; he must have died with neither delay nor pain.

Sir Niebar made it his business to make sure that the captive had one of the tattoos, which proved to be the case. Two of the other men-at-arms ran around to the main door of the inn and pushed a large wagon in front of it to discourage opening it. The third knight did similar work in the back, setting fire to a pile of kindling near the door.

Sir Niebar prayed earnestly to Sirrion, god of creative fire, that the kindling would burn long enough to be useful and even beautiful, but not long enough to burn down the inn and reduce innocent people to ashes.

The carrying sack proved useful in the end, for Trapspringer had spent his last strength in the dance. Sir Niebar, as the tallest of the seven companions, carried the kender. Two others carried the dead man-at-arms.

Occupants of the houses on the path back to where they’d left the horses had come awake by the time the companions passed them. But the watchdogs were mostly sleeping off potion-laden biscuit. Most of the people looking out of the houses or running out of them were going out the front as the companions passed the back, and the companions were all dark of face and clothing.

It occurred to Sir Niebar that anyone who did get a good look at them might well mistake them for the very band of the Servants of Silence they had met and defeated, the ones coming for the kender. If so, there would be all the more reason for the farmers to look the other way.

The horses were where they’d been tethered, though each one now had a kender at its head, ready to “handle” the tethers free in an instant or even cut them with daggers.

“We didn’t want the tattooed ones to have your horses and proof of who you were,” Rambledin said.

Gesussum Trapspringer’s head popped out of the sack. “Miron Rambledin! What are you doing here, if you’re doing anything useful, which it would be the first time for you if you-”

“If captivity won’t improve your manners, Gesi, the knight can always take you back to the inn,” Miron Rambledin said. “Now come along. These good folk have enough to carry without you, and Shemra will be happy to see you-no, on second thought, she won’t until you’ve taken a bath. When did they last let you within ten paces of hot water, if I may ask?”

“You may not,” Trapspringer said, but he scrambled out of the bag, swayed on his feet, then collapsed into Miron Rambledin’s arms. The other kender gathered around and lifted him, and before Sir Niebar could open his mouth to say a word in gratitude, the humans were alone with their horses.

“Well, it looks as if we have our prisoner,” Sir Niebar said. “And Rambledin nieces and nephews will soon be able to tell stories about a real Uncle Trapspringer. Although I hope they do not noise this affair about outside the family.”