Daughter of Prophecy (24 page)

Knowing another test loomed, Harred had worked day and night to have everything ready in half the time Ard had predicted.

On the bridge the man flung the whip down in disgust and clambered off the wagon. He stalked to the mule's face and, with arms waving, he loudly began to curse it.

Ard spat a stream of tabac juice and lifted an eyebrow at Harred, silently asking which of them should handle this. Since they were still in Arshessa territory and this might be a fellow clansman, Harred sighed and took a step toward the bridge.

Movement from behind caught his eye. He turned and saw a group of horsemen edging between the line of waiting wool wagons and the steep confines of the trail. They were well-mounted, lean men. Each led a packhorse laden with fur. Undoubtedly a company of trappers coming down after the long mountain winter to trade in Maude.

Instinctively checking for weapons, Harred noted only a long-bladed knife on each man's belt. No concern there. Then he hesitated. Lord Gillaon's words came to him again.

On the trail, overreact to anything that happens. Ninety-ninety times out of a hundred, it will be just that: overreaction. But on the hundredth, you and your men will be ready.

Harred chewed the inside of his lip. For one of these trappers to ride ahead to see what was causing the delay was understandable. But it was a bit rude for all to do so. The trappers had doubtless endured a long, hard, womanless winter. With Maude's taverns and serving wrenches virtually in sight, they had perhaps decided it would be too long a wait for twenty-eight wagons to cross ahead of them.
Or perhaps not.

Since they were still in Arshessa territory, Harred, Elmar, and the other eighteen Tarenester warriors had put their swords and scabbards away in bundles or strapped on saddles along with unstrung bows and quivers of arrows.

Stepping back to Coal, Harred slid his sword and scabbard off the saddle and buckled it on.

The act was not lost on Ard. “Trouble?”

Harred gave a quick headshake. “Trying to think like Lord Gillaon. He stays two or three moves ahead.” Harred caught Elmar's eye. “Talk to the trappers. I have no problem with them going first once the bridge is clear.” He smiled without humor. “But there's a difference between accepting a gracious offer and demanding to be let past.”

Elmar nodded. He went to his mare, buckled on his sword, and walked to where the first trapper had reined in his horse beside the lead wagon.

Harred checked the line of wa
g
ons. As trained, the other warriors stationed between each wagon dismounted and did the same. Harred grunted approval. Good preparation for tomorrow when they left Arshessa lands and things became more serious.

He strode to the bridge. The sky remained cloudless. Steep granite wet with snowmelt bordered the trail, which narrowed toward the bridge. The raging, rock-strewn stream below it made the air damp and cool.

The man on the bridge gave no heed to Harred's approach. Glaring bug-eyed at his recalcitrant mule, he showered it with colorful and inventive curses. Harred was impressed. He listened with half an ear while checking out the older girl waiting patiently on wagon seat. Dressed in a much-mended wool skirt and a white blouse with frayed cuffs, she had dark, expressive eyes that were focused over his head at the wool wagons.

“Da,” she said, “this nice man and his friends prepare to help us.” She had a faint accent and put a slight emphasis on
prepare.

Da's cursing stopped mid-phrase—which disappointed Harred. He was wondering how much longer the father could continue without repeating himself. The man darted a quick glance at Harred's waist. Turning, he stared pointedly at Harred's sword. “Why bring sticker? Mercy. Don't need. Mercy me, no.”

He cursed much better than he talked, Harred decided. Da looked in his late-thirties. He was whip-thin and stood easily on the balls of his feet. And while Harred's instincts said the man would be lightning quick in a fight, Da's expression seemed befuddled.

Harred looked at the mule and said gently, “Looks like this one's had a long day.”

Da drew himself to his full height, indignant. “Stubborn, he is. Stubborn!”

“And exhausted. Unhitch him; we'll bring one of ours.”

The man winced as if Harred's words had been body blows. Straight-backed indignation turned into cringing fear. He pressed his back into the mule and spread his arms protectively.

“I
was
unhitching him! Mercy!” Unaccountably, the man's face crumbled. Tears flowed freely as he wailed, “I didn't know until it was too late! I tried. Mercy knows I did!”

Bewildered, Harred glanced at the daughter, who had climbed down. She gave a sad smile when she halted on Harred's other side. She was taller than Breanna, but most women were. Their dark eyes were similar, but this one did not have Breanna's glow. . . . He pushed that aside.

“Two years ago,” she said, “on a day much like today, a group of Landantae clansmen followed us home from Maude. They had been drinking and made . . . inappropriate suggestions to me as I waited in the wagon while Da purchased supplies. Fortunately, some Arshessa clansmen were passing by on the street and overheard. They came to my defense, upbraided the Landantae, and made them apologize.”

Landantae!
Harred growled silently.
Typical.

“I made no mention of the encounter after Da loaded the wagon because I feared that although my father is a peaceful man, he would seek satisfaction.” Her eyes continued to search Harred's face as she stepped closer. “And I knew my wrong had been righted by the noble Arshessa.”

Just so,
Harred thought, pleased.

She lowered her gaze. “The Landantae thought otherwise. Unbeknown to us, they followed us back to our farm an hour's ride hence. I went inside while Da took the mule and wagon to the barn. When . . . when Da heard my screams, he came running, and they gave him a sword blow to the head and left him for dead.” Her voice was expressionless. “After they . . . finished . . . they rode away. I nursed Da as best I could, but . . . ” She shrugged sadly. “As you see, he is not himself. And the sight of a sword . . . ”

Harred nodded.
Poor girl.
“Did you receive justice?”

Her father began dancing about while pointing at Harred. “He draws it! Mercy! Have mercy!”

Startled, Harred eased his white-knuckled grip off his hilt. He lifted both hands chest high. That mollified Da somewhat. He slowed his prancing and stopped an arm's length away. The daughter eased closer while fingering the top button on her blouse. Harred's gaze was drawn—

Then came the sharp call of the red-tailed pheasant.

Recognizing Elmar's version of the warning all Tarenester warriors were taught to imitate, Harred stepped back and cut his eyes to the wool wagons. The narrow trail was even more crowded. A warrior itch built in him when he noted a trapper sitting directly behind each Tarenester stationed between the first several wagons.

“Stay here—”

Da lunged at him with a short-bladed knife held low and competently.

Harred had been correct. The man
was
lightning fast. If not for the step back at Elmar's call, it would have been all over.

Reflexes and years of training took over. Harred pivoted smoothly while whipping his right forearm down to deflect the thrust. Then he brought his arm up and over, trapping Da's wrist between Harred's bicep and forearm. The pressure caused the knife to fall free and clatter on the wooden bridge. Harred bore down further to break Da's arm—but the daughter had an identical knife! The steel flashed in the late afternoon sun as it swept at his belly.

Desperate, Harred kicked. The tough boot leather caught the sharp blade square on and sent the girl's knife arcing into the rushing stream below. But the kick loosened his grip on Da. Twisting like a weasel, the man broke free and tried to gouge Harred's eyes.

Harred blocked with his left arm and countered with a powerful right fist to the midsection that lifted the man off his feet.

Da
oofed
and stumbled backward before collapsing by the mule's rear feet, moaning and out of it.

Behind came the clash of steel amid Elmar's bellow, “To arms, men! To arms!”

The girl on the bridge produced another knife and waited by her father, eyes glittering challenge. Harred stepped to disarm her and join the fight for the wool, but the wagon's canvas covering flew back and out poured men gripping long curved swords!

Harred drew his sword, the worn hilt familiar and comforting. He skipped back to the front of the mule, blood singing. Attackers dropped light-footed onto the planks, three on each side of the wagon. The narrow bridge and long drop to the raging water below forced each side to come single-file. And Da blocked one side. He had struggled to one knee, white-faced, with both arms wrapped around his stomach. The daughter had a handful of shirt and was tugging him out of the way. The lead swordsman slowed to lend a helping hand.

Harred lunged to the other side, sword a blur. He noted surprise on the first man's face who was clearly not expecting such an out-numbered foe to attack. Surprise went red in a spray of blood. Harred shoved the dead man back into the second, who had been spaced too close. Before number two could free his sword arm, Harred slammed the weighted end of his hilt down on the skull and shoved that crumbling attacker back into the third—but this one had time to prepare. He retreated halfway down the wagon's length, sword ready.

Harred hesitated half a heartbeat at the mule's rump to recalculate. Six had become four. The three swordsmen on the other side had pulled Da out the way. One was clambering over the wagon tongue to join the fight while the other two raced around the mule's front. What to do? Engage the one straddling the tongue? An easy kill, but then attackers would be front and rear—Harred leaped over the bodies at his feet and charged the third attacker.

Swords clashed as the man gave good account of himself. But his curved blade was thinner, more useful for horse-born attack. Harred's superior strength and heavier blade quickly sent the man tumbling into the stream below.

Scurrying on beyond the wagon, he thought about continuing to the other side to engage without the restrictions of the bridge, but decided against it. The narrow confines favored him. Turning around, he waited in the middle of the bridge, his sword-point held low.

Shouts and howls came from the long line of wool wagons. The shrill neighs of horses rose above the din of steel meeting steel as Harred's men, aided by Ard and his drivers, fought to protect the precious cargo. But that was in Elmar's capable hands. Harred's fight was here on the bridge.

The remaining attackers gathered at the rear of the wagon. Three pairs of eyes regarded him, dark and merciless. Da shuffled up, hunched over with one arm cradling his middle. The daughter stood with a hand on his shoulder.

Da spat a curt order. As one, the three swordsmen moved forward. Boots scuffed lightly on the worn timbers as the men formed into an inverted V with the two in front spaced two arm's length apart and the third in the middle a step behind. Harred had hoped they would be foolish enough to come three abreast. The formation coming at him was designed to keep an opponent funneled into the middle where he could be flanked and all three attackers could engage and stay out of each other's way. He had faced this scenario many times in training—and died more often that not.

Harred held up a pleading hand. “You can have the wool. You can have it all. Just let me live.”

The three came on, focused and deliberate. Their curved blades glinted in the late afternoon sun.

“I can be ransomed.” Smiling sickly, Harred slammed his sword back into the scabbard and held out both hands. “See? No need to fight. Alive, I'm worth five golds. Maybe ten.” He stared hopefully over their shoulders at Da. “That's right! Ten golds.” Harred allowed his body to sag in relief as if Da had nodded assent. “Agreed! Ten golds.”

The two in front did not slow, but their sword points lowered just a fraction. The one in the rear faltered and darted a quick glance over his shoulder—

Harred leaped straight into the V as his sword left the scabbard in a silver arc. He was past the front two before they could recover, and he engaged the third, who stumbled away bleeding from a long cut to the shoulder. The front two turned and came at him with swords whistling in the mountain air. Growling in vexation, the bleeding one rejoined the fray a second later.

Things got very busy indeed. These people were not clan warriors, but they knew the use of a sword. They came at him with deadly skill and single-minded purpose. Harred fought as desperately as he ever had, striving to keep three blades away while preventing them from reforming their V.

As it did for him in these situations, time slowed. He operated within a bubble of icy calm, a quiet cocoon where every move flowed out of the one before and set up the one coming—and the one after that. The different feel of steel meeting flesh or meeting steel communicated success or failure even as his eyes sought the next opening. Thrust, counter, pivot, and parry, his sword seemed alive as he used every possible combination of the seven basic forms he had been taught. This was what he had been born to do! And he gloried in it.

He drove two of them back and then focused on the one with the wounded shoulder. Parry, slice, thrust. Three became two. Harred's sword blurred as it danced between the other two. Lunge, pivot, parry—and parry again! Block and thrust.

Only one remained.

And quickly, none.

Harred paused for a deep breath, then trotted across the blood-spattered planks, wondering if two more deaths awaited before he could join Elmar and the others. But Da was in no shape to fight. The daughter had picked up a sword dropped by one of the first three. Bravely, she moved to meet him, only to be held back by Da. Harred watched them warily as he trotted by on the other side of the wagon, but they remained still. Their glares, however, spoke volumes.