Jalia At Bay (Book 4) (13 page)

Tom sweated and moaned to himself as he primed his crossbow. The wound in his chest spilt more blood as he strained his muscles winding the handle. The pain was close to unbearable. Tom believed his wounds to be fatal and the only thought in his mind was to take revenge on the bastard who had done this to him.

Gef made a halfhearted strike at Daniel that Daniel pushed away easily with his blade. Daniel knew that fancy footwork was next to impossible on a surface that threatened to slide away with every step he took. Gef walked back onto relatively stable ground and tried to keep Daniel standing on the scree covered slope where he was most vulnerable.

Jalia saw Daniel’s predicament and wondered how he was going to deal with it. She didn’t consider taking out Gef with the crossbow, even though it would have been an easy shot. She killed her robbers without any help and it was up to Daniel to finish his targets.

Gef swung his sword at Daniel’s legs and Daniel overbalanced as he brought his sword down in a swift parry. He fell inwards toward the cliff and scuffed his hand on the loose stones. Grabbing a handful of the stones he threw them into Gef’s face. The reaction dropped Daniel against the stones and he rolled over, bringing his sword around in a roundhouse swing across Gef’s legs.

Two of the stones caught Gef in the face despite him bringing his sword arm up to protect his eyes. He saw Daniel’s continued movements as a blur and tried to step back to avoid the inevitable blow. A boulder behind him blocked his attempt to get clear and Daniel’s sword sliced into his left calf.

Gef felt a wave of pain run up his leg and he staggered as the leg lost all strength. He grunted in pain as he swung his arm to send his sword inelegantly down on where Daniel had been seconds before. Unfortunately for Gef, Daniel continued to roll down the slope and was now a good six feet away. Gef’s sword struck the loose scree with bone numbing force, the shuddering vibrations of its impact running up the sword, causing him to drop it.

Daniel got slowly to his feet. Blood poured out of Gef’s leg and it was clear the fight was over. He doubted Gef would surrender, but Daniel decided to give him the chance to do so.

Tom heard his brother’s cry of pain and he knew his brother had lost his fight. The thought of that was enough to give him the strength to stand up. His chest was wracked with pain as he staggered to his feet. Tom saw his brother leaning against a boulder with blood pouring from a leg wound. If it hadn’t been for the boulder propping him up, Gef would certainly be on the ground. Daniel had his back to Tom and was unaware he was there.

Gef stared up at his brother and saw the wound in his brother’s chest and the blood dripping from his right hand. He saw the crossbow Tom lifted to a firing position. The bastard who had killed them was going to die and that was going to make everything all right. He gave his brother a wink and slowly raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, giving Tom time to take careful aim.

Tom knew he would only get one shot as he raised his crossbow. He lined his aim on Daniel’s back and took a step forward to get a better firing position.

It was only as he stepped forward that Jalia saw him and the danger he represented. She rose to her feet, the crossbow she held swinging into position. She fired from the hip in one fluid motion.

Tonas Mallow was in a bit of a quandary. Alone of the traders, he was skilled with a hunting bow. His father, Hadon, had pushed him forward while they were trapped behind the rocks, telling his son he should save them with his shooting skills. The trouble was that in a bow versus crossbow fight at short range, it is always the man with the crossbow who wins, and Tonas knew that all too well. To please his father, he made several forays out of the rocks and fired off quick shots that he knew had no chance of hitting anyone.

A huntsman needs to be standing with his feet placed correctly and his muscles relaxed to be able to bring his bow smoothly up into a firing position, bending the wood of the bow smoothly before launching his arrow. Since the amazing young woman killed the two robbers on their left, he had been able to assume just such a position. He knew he could kill the remaining robber easily, but the woman had warned him off. It seemed that she preferred to watch her man fight a risky battle on a treacherous slope.

To Tonas’s astonishment, Daniel proved more than capable of taking care of himself. The skill with which he turned the disadvantage of the scree into a weapon was the sort of thing Tonas thought songs should be written about. He relaxed as he saw the robber put his hands up in surrender. Then he saw Tom step forward with a crossbow in his hands.

Without thinking about it, Tonas brought his bow up and fired an arrow at Tom.

Jalia’s bolt flew through the air towards its target. A crossbow bolt is much faster than an arrow from a bow and as a consequence, it flies in almost a straight line. It drove into Tom’s right eye with sufficient force to smash through the back of his skull on its way out. Tom staggered and his finger convulsively jerked at the trigger.

Tonas’s arrow, aimed at Tom’s chest, struck the crossbow and pushed it aside as the bolt was in the process of leaving. It moved the bolt’s point of aim for the bolt to fly past Daniel’s shoulder and bury itself into Gef’s groin.

Gef stared at his brother in horror. He was unaware of where the bolt had hit for almost three seconds as he watched the back of his brother’s head explode and his body fall to the ground. Then the pain of the bolt enveloped him and he slipped down the boulder into a kneeling position, eyes wide and hands clutching at his ruined genitals. He died in that position a few seconds later.

“You never leave a wounded enemy!” Jalia screamed at Daniel. He had nearly died through his stupidity and Jalia was furious.

Daniel spun to face her and then pointed to the right of where she was standing. Jalia spun around to see Bril staggering towards her, his hands holding his guts in place.

Bril recovered consciousness to endless agony, Jalia having pulled the knife from his guts before running towards Torin.

The young man cried silently for several minutes, tears washing down his face. It did not help.

Bril knew he was dying, but he found it was taking far too long. He managed to stagger to his feet, clutching at his guts as he rose. He heard Jalia’s scream and walked towards her voice. He hoped the pain would be over sooner that way.

Jalia pulled her sword and walked to Bril. The young man was hardly a threat as he could barely walk and was holding his wound. Jalia kept her sword down as they walked to within a few feet of each other.

“Please,” Bril gasped. “It hurts so much.”

Jalia stabbed Bril through the heart, turning her blade horizontal so it slid between the young man’s ribs like a knife through butter.

Bril smiled in gratitude as he died.

Up at the top of the slope, on the trail she had followed earlier, Hala appeared on Blaze, with Swift and Jet held by their reins on either side of her mount.

“You were taking ages and I’ve missed all the action,” Hala complained.

“I’m definitely cutting a switch,” Jalia muttered.

17.
       
A Matter of Donkeys

Hadon Mallow watched the two young strangers with deep suspicion. People did not arrive from out of nowhere to save the day. In his opinion, they must be after something. However, the important question was what.

Hadon was forty eight years old, stout rather than fat with a chubby face framed by short curly hair that had faded from black to grey in the last couple of years. He still felt young or he would never have started this dangerous mission.

The leader of the trading party heading for Slarn, he was beginning to regret it. With the Mine Association’s decline, he looked around for new markets and this deal with Slarn had looked like a wonderful opportunity. He was no longer so sure.

He gasped along with the others in his party when the robber appeared with a loaded crossbow. Alone of his party, he was slightly disappointed when his son and the strange woman on the ridge stopped him from killing Daniel. Hadon was sure his group could see off a woman if they had to. She was little more than a girl, from what he could see,

The party had swung around when Daniel pointed at the wounded lad staggering towards Jalia. From where he was standing, it looked as if the youth was begging for his life. When the girl stabbed him through the heart, he had gasped in horror. Hadon noted that neither of his surviving mercenaries looked the slightest bit put out by her actions. Jalia was starting to look worse than the robbers.

Then a child appeared on the road, riding a horse that was far too big for her while holding onto two others. Hadon recognized the horses as the ones on sale in Sweetwater. His mercenaries had tried to buy them and been rebuffed because they had nothing to trade. These strangers must have significant wealth if they could afford to ride such fine horses.

Grilt Born watched Jalia kill the boy with narrowed eyes. He was leader of the mercenaries paid to protect the traders. Of course, he reflected wryly, with Hal dead that meant he was leading Tel, who could be nobody’s idea of a force.

Unlike Hadon, Grilt saw that Jalia spared the boy by granting him a quick death. Many he knew would have left the robber to die in agony. Tel, for instance, would have done just that. Hal was Tel’s twin brother and Tel was at that very moment checking his brother’s body for signs of life. A futile exercise, as it was clear the man was dead, but then, in Grilt’s experience, brothers were prone to that sort of thing.

What bothered Grilt was that he thought he recognized the strangers from the fall of Brinan. Grilt, Hal and Tel had been in the pay of the Miners Association and under the command of Marcus al’Tren. When the Association’s gold disappeared from the impregnable vaults of Brinan, the three had narrowly avoided being sent to their death to search the caves.

He had been up on the city wall when a young man with a commanding voice had made it clear they could retreat or die. It had been winter and the man had been wearing a long cloak and fur hat, but he was pretty sure he was looking at the same man for all of that. In that case, it was all too clear who the woman must be.

“You are in for such a switching, Hala,” Jalia told the girl as she reached for the reins of her horse. Hala’s face paled as she saw Jalia meant it. Hala had barely recovered from her last beating and now she was facing punishment again.

“What have I done wrong?” Hala asked, though she was well aware of what the answer would be.

“Is this waiting where we told you to?” Jalia snapped at her. “Two minutes earlier and you could have been the target of a crossbow bolt. We told you to wait.”

“I was worried,” Hala protested. “You’ve been ages and I thought I’d come and help you. You can’t punish me for that.”

“Wait and see,” Jalia muttered ominously. “Just you wait and see.”

Daniel put his sword away and picked up the nearest crossbow. He didn’t try to prime it, but he did take Gef’s bolts along with the bag the man kept them in. Daniel was furious with himself. It would have taken only two seconds to thrust his sword deeper into Tom before coming after Gef. Then he would have been safe.

Fights often hinge on decisions like that and Daniel knew he had got it completely wrong, as had Jalia earlier. He was starting to wonder if the two of them had become complacent because they were so accustomed to winning. They were vulnerable without the aid of the ring and dagger and they needed to remember it.

He was not surprised when Hala appeared with the horses. He remembered what it was like to be twelve years old. How minutes could seem like hours when you were worried. Jalia would see it differently, he was sure. Daniel was never certain that Jalia had ever been a child. She did things at twelve that a woman twice that age would hesitate to do. And forgiving was definitely not in Jalia’s nature.

As he approached the traders, Daniel began to size them up. The man with the bow had saved his life, though the whole thing had been a bit of luck. However, the man reacted quickly and accurately enough to earn that luck.

Standing beside the bowman was an older man with grey hair and far too much to eat. Daniel assessed the man as the group’s leader. He had the look that comes with exercising power over men. Standing next to him was a guard of some kind. The guard frowned at him, which was never a good sign.

“May we approach the camp?” Daniel asked in formal manner. Since he was only a few feet away from the traders the request was at best a formality. Hadon smiled and held out his hand.

“You have saved us from robbers and we must express our deep gratitude to you, as I expect you will to my son Tonas, who saved your life.” Tonas looked uncomfortable at praise from his father, keeping his eyes down; focused on the ground.

“My name is Hadon Mallow, the young man with the bow is my son, Tonas. This is Dav, Wilf, Tred, Perder and Balaf,” Hadon said, introducing the men around him. “I expect you will need reminding of their names as there are so many of us. We have two men that we hired to protect us, Grilt Born and Tel Drin. I only hope they will do a better job over the remainder of the journey.”

Tel looked at Hadon from where he knelt by his brother’s body. “Hal died protecting you. What more could you ask of him?”

Jalia and Hala joined the group in time to hear the introductions. They sat astride their horses and made no attempt to dismount. Jalia had given strict instructions about that as they approached.

“Enough, Hal,” Grilt snapped, turning to face Daniel. He stood directly in front of him blocking his way, but making no attempt to reach for his weapon. “I believe we fought on opposite sides in Brinan. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Not on my part,” Daniel said and put out his hand. “A man is paid to do his job and he does the best he can. I do not hold that against you.” They shook hands.

“I trust you were not one of those who raped and tortured the local women,” Jalia said quietly. “But that is a matter for the Brinan’s to resolve, not for me. Let bygones be bygones, is what I say.”

Grilt frowned at Jalia’s words, but there was honesty in them and Grilt had been appalled by much that Marcus allowed his men to do. He understood Jalia’s position.

“Many things were done that I would wish were not, my lady. I take it that you are Jalia al’Dare and that this is Daniel al’Degar.” Grilt put his hand out towards Jalia, and to his surprise, she shook it.

“My name is Hala Taldon,” Hala told the assembled audience loudly, much to everyone’s amusement.

Hadon started frowning the moment Grilt stepped forward. He was only the hired help and he was acting as if he was the leader. There was also the matter of the people who had saved them turning out to be from myth and legend.

Rumors said Jalia was either Magician or Fairie. People claimed it this girl that spirited away the Association’s many tons of gold from under their noses.

When the remaining members of the Association ended up killing each other, rumors spread that these two were involved. Hadon considered such rumors to be nonsense, as it was clear they were just young adventurers, barely out of childhood.

“What brings two such illustrious people to our camp?” Hadon asked, trying to regain the initiative.

“Hardly illustrious,” Jalia said. She dismounted and handed Swift’s reins to Hala with a meaningful look. Hala got the message; she was to remain mounted and ready to flee at the first sign of trouble.

“We were robbed and left for dead by a man called Adon Haldon. You met him at Sweetwater where you bought some of our property from him. Adon and most of his clan are dead and we seek the return of our goods.” Jalia paused and looked Hadon in the eyes. “A lot of people died along with Adon because he made the mistake of trying to hold on to what was ours.”

“Come now,” Hadon said smiling warmly at Daniel and Jalia, though his mind raced as he considered this news. “All things can be negotiated. We should make a camp and brew some tea before we talk on such matters.”

“That isn’t the way it works,” Daniel stated. While not making anything that might be regarded as an aggressive move, the traders started to back away, while Grilt and Tel moved to stand between them and the traders.

“What items are you talking about?” Grilt asked. “We bought a lot of things at Sweetwater.”

“Those donkeys are mine,” Daniel said. He noticed that the traders had another eight donkeys behind the rocks. Ferd probably refused to hide and kept his string with him. Ferd could be stubborn, even by donkey standards, when he wanted to be.

“There are some knives and a gold ring,” Jalia pointed out. She missed her knives more than the ring. Magic always ran out at the worst possible moment, but you always knew exactly where you were with a good throwing knife in your hand.

“This one perhaps,” Grilt said, lifting his jacket to reveal a familiar hilt in its equally familiar sheath.

“That and two others,” Jalia stated. She moved forward a step on seeing her knifes. She found her mouth watering with desire and had to stop herself from assaulting Grilt to get it back.

“Hal paid a high price for his knife,” Tel said angrily. “Why should we give them back?”

“Are they worth dying for?” Grilt asked. Grilt undid his belt and removed the knife and its sheath. He threw them at Jalia who caught and slid them into the holder in her left boot. She grinned and tossed a gold coin to him.

Grilt looked at the coin and bit it. His teeth marks told him all he wanted to know. “I consider myself fully recompensed, my lady.” He gave a small bow. “Hal had the other throwing knife. Though I think he has no need of it now. The other knife is gone. I gave it to Lady Gally Sorn, who was much taken by the keenness of its blade. She left this party two days ago, after becoming annoyed by our slow pace.”

“And the ring?” Daniel asked.

“I think she bought such an item,” Grilt replied, “Though she never showed it to me.”

“Come now, gentlefolk. I am sure we can negotiate the ownership of the donkeys,” Hadon said jovially walking towards Daniel. Daniel drew his sword so smoothly that Hadon didn’t see it until he nearly walked into it. He stopped as he stared his own death in the face.

“There can be no negotiation,” Daniel said softly. “There are ours and they leave with us.”

Tel took the throwing knife and sheath from his brother’s body and held them
 
out to Jalia. He had taken Grilt’s point and decided he didn’t want to die over anything as stupid as a knife.

Jalia grinned as she took her knife from his hands. She stuck it casually into her belt. Jalia felt whole again. She threw a large coin at Tel who looked at it in astonishment. Even in Brinan at the height of the gold rush, that coin would have easily purchased both knives twice over.

Tonas saw Daniel holding his sword against his father’s throat and feared for his life. He started to raise his bow, pulling on the string. The string bit his fingers as it was cut in two.

“Would one of you people over there pick up my knife and return it to me?” Jalia asked of the terrified traders behind Tonas; one of her knives having flown between them after severing Tonas’s bow string.

Grilt smiled ruefully at Jalia. “Perhaps those knives are worth what you paid for them, in the hands of their mistress of course.” Jalia smiled at the compliment and nodded.

“Grilt, defend me,” Hadon shouted somewhat foolishly. Daniel could easily stab him before Grilt could draw his sword.

“We are undone, your grace,” Grilt replied. “Perhaps you should consider giving this man his donkeys?”

“But who will carry their packs?” Hadon blustered. “If we split their packs over the other donkeys they will be overburdened.”