Age of Iron (16 page)

Not too soon. Already an overhead sword swing was coming at her from the nearest soldier. She parried, but she had Arthur’s sword in an awkward, wrist-bent grip with the blade pointing back over her left shoulder. The blow smashed the sword onto her head, knocking her into a crouch. She rammed her fist up into her attacker’s balls. He doubled up. She whammed the heavy sword hilt into his face. His nose crunched. She pulled him over, then, anticipating another swing, leaped over him in a diving roll. She came up onto her feet, facing the body of the tavern, sword in both hands, ready.

Dug was tossing his hammer from hand to hand in the middle of the room, facing Weylin, who had acquired a heavy iron sword. Smashed furniture and the three other Maidun Warriors lay around them. Two were out cold or dead. One was groaning and rolling, his head in his hands.

What the Bel?
She reckoned she’d dispatched her two pretty quickly, but it looked like Dug had taken out three of Maidun’s finest while she’d been busy.

Lowa raised her own sword and took a step towards them. She didn’t fancy her rescuer’s chances again Weylin, who was a good deal taller, and maybe twenty years younger. Dug was probably about the same weight, but Weylin was all muscle.

Weylin drew his sword back, but it was just a feint to entice Dug to move in, which the idiot did, looking at Weylin’s sword. Lowa shook her head as Weylin’s left fist swung, unseen, towards Dug’s head.

Without taking his eyes off the sword, Dug flicked his hammer one-handed to meet Weylin’s wrist. Weylin yelped. Dug darted in, grabbed Weylin’s sword arm and spun the larger man like a father might spin a daughter in a Beltane dance. It ended with Weylin kneeling in front of Dug, his ponytail in one of Dug’s hands and the pointed hammer shaft pressing into the small of his back.

Dug looked up at Lowa. “We’d better go.”

Lowa leaped a body and slashed open her bundle of reeds. Her bow and quiver came tumbling out. She tossed the sword aside, grabbed the bow as it fell and slung her quiver onto her back.

“I’d wondered what that was,” said Dug. “What should I do with this one?” He nodded down at Weylin.

“Kill him.”

“That’s a bit too … Well, he’s done nothing to me.”

“He killed my friend. But fine, I’ll do it.” Lowa reached into her quiver.

“Oh no, don’t waste an arrow. If he killed your friend…”

Dug pulled back on the ponytail. Weylin strained to escape. Dug let go. As Weylin fell forward, Dug whipped his hammer round to clunk into the side of his shaved skull. Weylin went down.

“Right, let’s go.”

“You! Northerner!” The barmaid’s voice sliced the air. She was still leaning on her counter.

“Yes?” Dug turned back.

“That was good.”

Dug’s eyes widened questioningly.

“Your fighting. I appreciate things like that. I see enough, and that was the best I ever saw. Next time you’re here, the beers are on me, and I’ll give you the stew that we eat, not the shit we give the customers. In fact, why not stick around now? I could talk to the boss about guard work?”

Dug looked lost for words.

“Come on!” said Lowa, walking out of the door.

“T
hat way!” Dug squinted in the sudden brightness and pointed across the market. Lowa nodded and set off at a jog. Dug followed. He hoped it was the best way. He’d come from the other direction and never been to the town before, so it was something of a guess.

As they passed the post with its nailed hands a shout came from behind: “Stop the blonde woman and the man! Zadar will reward you! With … big rewards!” It was Weylin, lurching out of the pub, one arm dangling, one hand holding his head.

“Sorry,” Dug said. “He must have a thick skull.”

“Never mind. Run!”

They never got started.

A dozen market guards barred their way, armed with knives, swords, cudgels and slings. Dug turned, but half a dozen more guards had closed in behind them.

“Badgers’ scrotums!” He must remember, if he got out of this, to give himself a massive kick up the backside for breaking his rule about helping people. It was never, ever worth it.

He readied his hammer. Lowa plucked an arrow from her quiver, nocked it and half-drew.

The guards took a tentative step towards them. They were a handy-looking lot. A couple wore Warrior ringmail, which made sense. Dug had done some market guarding himself. It paid well.

“What’s the reward?” Dug shouted to Weylin, keeping an eye on the guards. “Is it worth dying for?”

As he said “for”, Lowa loosed an arrow. It went through the upper arm of the nearest guard, ten paces away. Before his dropped knife had hit the ground, Lowa had another arrow nocked and the bowstring drawn.

“I don’t want to kill any of you,” said Lowa, “but we are going to leave. If you try to stop us, the next shot will be through someone’s head. So drop your weapons and move to the edge of the square. We’re going to walk out of here and you’ll live to see the sunset.”

Dug looked at her. She was a cool one.

“Catch them, or Zadar
will
kill you and your families!” shouted Weylin.

That, it seemed, was more of an incentive. The guards charged.

One of their attacker’s heads exploded with the promised face shot.
Badgers’ helmets, what a bow
, thought Dug. Then they were too close. In half a heartbeat Lowa had jammed her bow lengthways into the ground to bend it, flicked the string off the end and gripped it in two hands. It was thick enough to make a decent fighting staff. Dug readied his hammer.

The five guards stopped in a line, three paces away, weapons raised.

Dug hoped Lowa knew that they needed to attack together. He took a step forward and she mirrored it. Good. Dug felt battle excitement bubble in his blood. Two on five suddenly seemed like reasonable odds.

“Come on, you horrible wee fuckers!” he grinned.

“Drop your weapons!” came a shout from behind.

Dug glanced over his shoulder.
Badgers’ arses.
Quite an oversight. He’d forgotten the dozen or so other guards. Amazing how stupid battle made him. Half of them had blades and mêlée weapons, half of them slings, loaded and whirring round. There was no chance. He lowered his hammer a little.

Weylin walked over from the inn, swinging Dug’s lime-bark rope in one hand. Despite his injury, a white-toothed grin cracked his face. He had them and he knew it.

“We’re caught,” whispered Dug.

“We are not,” Lowa said, jaw clenched.

“OK. We’re about to be caught. We have to surrender.”

“No.”

“There are twenty of them and two of us. We fight and we’re definitely dead, or at least injured. We submit unharmed, we can escape later.”

Lowa looked around. Dug could feel the rage boiling in her. She was about to make a move.

“It’s not a choice,” he whispered. “Surrender is our only hope.”

She took a step, jabbing towards the guards with her bow. Dug heard the whirl of leather slings preparing to loose behind him. He raised his hammer in two hands, slipped the shaft over Lowa’s shoulders and trapped her arms.

She stamped hard once, then again. He danced his feet out of the way.

“Stop!” he hissed in her ear. “You’ll need me. I’ll be more use without broken feet. Trust me.”

She was stiff in his arms, humming with frustrated energy. She smelled fantastic and felt even better, but he tried to think about something else. He didn’t want to weaken his image as a noble hero by nudging a boner into her back.

“We will get out of this,” he whispered.

“We’d better,” she said, “or I’m going to find you in the Otherworld, and I’m going to get you by the balls and—”

“Disarm yourselves!” shouted Weylin.

Dug heard Lowa’s bow clatter to the ground. He let her go and put his hammer down.

“Well thank you, northerner!” said Weylin. “You wanted to join Zadar’s army? Looks like you’re going to get your chance – as a practice dummy!”

Weylin looked about for laughter, but there was none.

“What do you mean?” said Dug.

Weylin’s smile faltered. “I said you’ll get your chance to join the Maidun army as a practice dummy!”

“Sorry, I can’t see what you’re driving at.” Dug’s smile grew as Weylin’s dissolved into anger. His fist swung back. Dug saw the blow coming. He tensed his stomach muscles and shifted his gut sideways. The punch was ineffective.

“Ooooofffff!” he said, falling onto his side. He lay there breathing like an ill horse.

“Please, no m-more,” he stuttered. Bravado was all well and good, but when caught he’d worked out it was less painful if you came across as pathetic as possible.

“There’ll be more when I say so!” Weylin took a running kick at Dug, who rolled so that it glanced off his back. That seemed to satisfy the tall young man. “Lowa, on your knees!” He shouted. Lowa knelt. “Right you lot.” Weylin addressed the guards. “Anybody good with knots?”

“I am,” said Dug.

Weylin punched him in the face. Dug rolled his head with it, but this one did smart a bit.

“Anyone else?” Weylin asked, shaking his bruised fingers.

The guards discussed how best to tie up the captives. In the end one of them made a large noose with the rope. Weylin made Dug and Lowa stand back to back with their hands crossed on their chests. Dug held a big breath and tensed his arm and chest muscles as Weylin looped the noose over and wound the rope around them.

He was nearly finished when there was a shout from the other end of the square: “Weylin! Got the chain!” A Maidun Warrior was lumbering up from the road to the north-east gate, weighed down by a length of chain.

“Drop that, Tristan. Go and find a cart.”

“A cart? Where from?”

“Find one! I don’t care – There! That one!”

Well, that’s odd
, thought Dug as a cart came into the square driven by a girl who looked an awful lot like Spring.

“Y
ou can
borrow
the cart but only if I can drive it.”

“I’m taking it. Get down now, or I’ll—”

“You’ll what? You’ll hit a girl? Maybe you’ll kill me? Is that the kind of man you are?”

Weylin rubbed his temples. Lowa smiled. This had been going on for a while now. It didn’t take much to confound Weylin, but Lowa was enjoying the girl’s pluck. She reminded her of herself at that age. There was something else familiar about the girl that she couldn’t quite reach in the recesses of her mind.

“Weylin,” said Dug, “how about you drive with your man Tristan up front, and let the girl sit in the back with us? That way she can take her cart back when you’re done borrowing it.”

“I’m
taking
the cart. Not borrowing it.”

“Oh come on,” said Dug. “You can’t take a girl’s cart. Her Dad will—”

“We took a whole tribe yesterday! Of course I can take a fucking—”

“Language!” said the girl. Weylin looked at her, mouth open. She smiled at him. “Now of course you can use my cart. I’m very glad to help with whatever’s needed to get these horrid ugly criminals out of this lovely town. But I can’t lose the cart and the oxen! My father is
such
good friends with Zadar that he’ll probably get Zadar himself to punish me. Please can I come too? I promise I won’t do anything wrong. I’ll sit up front with you so you can keep an eye on me?”

“He’s a friend of Zadar’s, your dad?” Weylin asked, taking a step back.

“I say friend. They’re actually cousins. But they act more like friends – you know, drinking beer and making plans and things. My dad has his own little army, so they talk about fighting a lot. It’s really boring. They go on and on about different ways to torture people who annoy them or take things from them.”

“OK, OK. All right.”

“Weylin,” said Tristan, “what if she’s in league with them?”

“Good point. Are you trying to help them?”

“Why would I try to help them? He looks like a bear that needs a wash and she’s got a criminal’s face.”

“Maybe you’re in with the northerner?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Dug. “Every ageing northern Warrior has a wee southern girl for a partner.”

Several of the market guards laughed.

“All right! Fine! You can come in the cart, little girl, and you can have it back afterwards, but you ride up front with me. Tristan, you guard these two. Now get them onto the cart.” Weylin eyed Lowa’s bow covetously. “Throw their weapons in too, but out of their reach.”

“Maybe you should have tied us up after we’d got into the cart?” Lowa said. They were trundling out of the market, the girl driving. Weylin sat next to her, his broken wrist in a sling. The cart was a simple thing consisting of wooden planks nailed together into a platform surrounded by a rectangle of thick boards half a pace high. She and Dug were sitting on its bare boards, facing away from each other with their torsos tied together. It had taken almost all the market guards a long, expletive-filled time to lift them in.

“Keep talking,” said Weylin, leaning back to look at them. “You’ll quieten down soon enough once Zadar has you. Keep a close eye, Tristan.”

Tristan was in the back with them, holding Lowa’s long knife. Her bow and Dug’s knife and hammer were out of reach at the front. Behind them walked a press-ganged squad of market guards. They weren’t happy to be there and the merchants hadn’t been happy to let them go, but Weylin had promised them payment to guard the captives and threatened their masters with Zadar’s wrath if they didn’t.

Lowa had tensed all her muscles and breathed in when they were bound, so there was a good bit of give when she breathed out and relaxed, but not enough for her to wriggle free before Tristan would be able to stop her. She was about to ask Dug if there was any give on his side when the carter girl piped up, “By Bel and Danu and Toutatis’ brother! Is that a gold necklace lying on the road there?”

“Where?” Weylin leaned forward like a curious pigeon.

“Oooh, it’s just gone out of sight. We’re going to run it over. It’s on your side. If you lean…”

Weylin leaned out. “I can’t see it.”

“You’d better grab it or those guards will get it. If I hold your belt?” The girl gripped Weylin’s belt. He leaned farther. The girl let go of his belt and shoved, at the same time whipping the reins with her other hand and shouting, “Yah!”