Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart (58 page)

His mind flickered to another track.

Should we tell them? Doc said they were going to sell us to Waterland as slaves. Do virgins sell for more? Would it matter to them at this point? Judging from the way they're acting, they're horny as stallions in springtime. Wonder if they've any women in their band. Didn't see any, but who can tell through winter clothes and painted faces?

The bandits were leading them up a track so steep the horses stumbled. Derian saw Roanne slip to one knee; he turned to help the mare, and one of their captors hit him across the face. Derian reeled back, cursing, tasting blood on his lip.

Damn them. They'll ruin the horses. Ruin the women. Wonder what they'll do to me and Doc? Don't like how that one guy was looking at me. I thought dying was the worst thing.

Maybe we should tell them about virgins. Might save a couple of them. Then poor Wendee…

His thoughts shied away from the image.

The bandit camp was in a hollow against a rock face, an open area sheltered from the weather on all sides and nearly undetectable until you were right upon it. The rock face itself sank back so deeply that it might conceal a cave. Certainly it was as good a shelter as some houses Derian had seen.

They were herded off to one side of the open area into a pen clearly meant for holding human prisoners. The sides were made of wooden poles set far enough apart that the captives would always be visible, but set far too close for anyone to squeeze out. The door was made along the same lines and locked with a sliding bolt.

Nothing more sophisticated was needed, for guards took position on raised platforms set against the rock face. From these they could raise an alarm or put an arrow through any who tried to escape.

Moving in the easy routine of laborers returning from a job well done, the bandits settled their loot. The horses were penned on the other side of the open area. A fire was built up in the center. No one came to meet the returning party, so apparently the entire band had gone along on the raid.

Holding one of the wooden bars in each fist, Derian counted.

Eleven. Two stripping the gear off the horses. One building the fire. One getting water
—
High-stepping Stallion. I'm thirsty
—
three guarding us. Guess I should be complimented. That's almost one for one. Of course, they have bows and short swords, and we have nothing. Bet Firekeeper's steamed about them taking her Fang. One's wrapping the bitten fellow's hand. That's nine. Where are the other two
?

His question was answered almost as soon as he framed it into thought. The two remaining bandits emerged from the sheltering rock face carrying furs and blankets. They'd heaped these on the ground near the fire before Derian realized what this meant.

They're going to do it in public. The girls won't even have the dignity of privacy. I've got to do something!

Try as he might, he couldn't think of anything. Neither, apparently, could Doc. The knight stood at the edge of their prison staring out, his expression wooden. His eyes reflected the burning fire, fueling it with hate.

He'll go mad, do something to get himself killed if they touch Elise. It's bad for me; they're my friends. Terrible for him
—
he's loved her practically since he met her and now he's got to watch her be… I've got to do something
!

Wendee stepped forward from where she'd been crouching next to Elise, subduing her own fear by comforting the younger woman. Her remedy seemed to have been effective. Elise's sobs had quieted. She sat crumpled on the ground, holding a confused and frustrated Firekeeper by one hand.

"Maybe they'll want one at a time," Wendee whispered. "Give the child some hope."

She went and leaned sideways against the fence. Despite the chill, she'd pulled back her winter coat and was showing off—as if by accident—the voluptuous curves of her figure. In the midday sun, her hair loosed from its traveling knot shone golden.

Not long after, Whiskers crossed to their prison. All the others, excepting their guards, had gathered in a semicircle around the heaped blankets. A few began a rhythmic clapping, slower than the beating of Derian's racing heart. The rest joined in, standing in attentive silence that was more horrid than any rude comments could have been.

Wendee forced her lips into a stiff parody of a welcoming smile. Knowing the door would be opened at least for a moment, Derian gathered himself to spring, saw Doc doing the same, knowing all the time that it was hopeless.

Better than being alive to watch it happen
, Derian thought, and hated himself for being a coward.

As the bolt was shot back, Derian's blood hummed so loudly in his ears that he didn't even hear the clapping. Then, as if it had grown there, the butt of an arrow blossomed in Whiskers's throat.

A shrill shriek at the same moment announced Elation's arrival. One of their guards tumbled from his perch above their pen, the peregrine still attached to his face, her talons raking to the beating of her wings.

Blind Seer attacked without a sound. Turning on his heel, Derian saw the massive grey blur that impacted the second guard, knocking him off the ledge. The wolf didn't pause, but continued his spring toward the third guard.

Doc fumbled the gate open and seized Whiskers's knife. He ran toward where the guard Blind Seer had knocked from the ledge was struggling to rise.

"Get the bows!" he blurted back at Derian.

Firekeeper was gone. No longer needing to worry about the guard's punishing arrows, she had swarmed up one side of their prison and dropped down on the other side.

Derian saw her stringing the dead man's weapon and fitting an arrow to the string, her expression calm, even thoughtful.

Derian turned to gather up Elise. The bandits were temporarily confused, but that confusion was already moderating into fear and fear into anger. Their rescuers had accounted for three guards and Whiskers. Firekeeper would doubtless kill or disable another few. Even so, that left too many, especially as they were armed and the prisoners were not.

Elise was already on her feet, her tear-streaked face curiously serene, as if shock after shock had left her with nothing but the moment. Derian dragged her out to the comparative shelter of some rocks behind where Firekeeper stood.

Blind Seer, his muzzle and chest red with blood, leapt down beside Firekeeper and crouched by her feet for just an instant. Then he sprang away and was gone.

Derian recalled watching the wolf train with Firekeeper as she had learned to handle sword and shield, knew that Blind Seer understood all too well the danger of arrows. He hoped the wolf was circling to attack from some safer angle.

More arrows than Firekeeper could have shot had found their mark. Derian looked through their former prison to where Doc had gone. The guard lay still. Wendee held the man's sword with an ease that suggested some experience with the weapon. Doc was fumbling with the man's bow.

Cursing the cage that separated them, Derian darted from cover and over to Doc. An arrow slicing just behind him announced that at least one of the bandits had regained his bow. A shrill cry from Elation suggested that he wouldn't be in a condition to fire it much longer.

By the time Derian had taken the bow from Doc and nocked an arrow, the remaining bandits had taken shelter behind some rocks on the other side of the open area. None had apparently reached the cave—a good thing, since if they got into there it might be impossible to get them out.

And like any vermin
, Derian thought angrily,
they've probably dug an escape tunnel
.

He sent an arrow across the open space, saw it shatter itself against the rock, and held his fire. The guard's quiver had been full, but there was still nothing to waste.

Again Derian counted and was amazed by the carnage a few minutes had presented. Four had died with the first attack—if you counted the one Blind Seer had knocked from the ledge and Doc and Wendee had finished. Arrows had claimed four more out in the open.

Judging from the blood trail leading from a dropped bow to the rocks, Elation had hit another, so of the three that were unaccounted for, at least one was severely wounded.

Firekeeper must have been making a similar assessment, for now she called across to him.

"Few left. They come out soon."

Derian had no opportunity to ask what she meant. A howl, loud and full, such as a wolf uses to drive the prey, sounded from behind the rocks where the bandits had taken shelter. In their corral, the horses and mules tried to run, pressing against the rails with such frantic terror that Derian feared they would harm themselves.

The bandits were no more immune to such terror. Though their own dead lay sprawled on the ground in front of them, the bandits fled from that terrible howl. Perhaps, to give them some credit, they had glimpsed the grey form that had ripped an armed man open with a single, slashing bite. Perhaps they preferred the clean death given by arrow or sword to that end.

Even knowing as he did that the howl came from a friend, Derian felt himself shudder. Pity slowed his attack, but Firekeeper felt no pity. Two arrows found their mark. Two bandits fell. The third, dragging himself blindly behind a ruined face, became the prey of the wolf.

Derian turned away, retching at the carnage, yet washed through with joyful relief. They'd survived. He hadn't had to find a solution, but somehow they'd survived.

He started, remembering that first arrow, the one that had taken Whiskers as he opened their prison door.

"Who…" he started to ask.

A cloaked and hooded figure came climbing down from the rocks behind their prison.

"Hi!" the stranger said cheerfully, pushing back his hood. "I say! That was rather close, what?"

Derian gaped. The stranger was Edlin Norwood.

E
lise saw the expression on Derian's face. Something in the redhead's astonishment cut through the numbness that had seized hold of her soul when she realized what the bandits intended for her and made her able to speak again.

She smiled. "Edlin!"

Sir Jared echoed her. "Edlin! Cousin, what are you doing here?"

"Glad to see me?" the bright-eyed young man said with a broad grin. He might have been meeting them on a dance floor rather than a battlefield.

"Definitely," Jared replied. "But how did you come to be here?"

Edlin scuffed the dirt with the toe of his boot, suddenly a boy expecting to be reprimanded.

"I heard you talking to my father," he said defiantly, "about Lady Melina and what Firekeeper was going to do. I wanted to help but I knew you wouldn't have me, so I followed along, what?"

"Did your father know what you were going to do?" Sir Jared asked incredulously.

"Not really," Edlin said. "I told him I was going out to train some of the dogs for tracking in the snow, that I'd be out a couple days. I think he was peeved because I was supposed to help with the house party, but he doesn't really want me marrying any of those girls so he let me go.

"I went," Edlin continued, taking a deep breath, then speaking all in a rush on the exhalation, "and then I left the dogs with Race Forester. He wanted to come with me, but I wouldn't let him. He says 'Hi' though. Anyhow, I left a note for my father and told Race not to deliver it until I'd been gone three days. Then I hied after. Tracked you, you know, but didn't let you know I was there."

"I'll say we didn't!" the knight replied.

Elise noted that Jared now looked torn between amusement and anger. There was something else there as well—envy? Elise wondered if she'd read him right.

"I knew," Firekeeper said a trace smugly.

She had been pawing through the bandit corpses to find her Fang and was now strapping the knife back into place.

"I knew," she repeated, "but I no say. I think it funny."

The wolf-woman looked suddenly uncomfortable.

"Now I don't." She gave a stiff bow. "Thank you, Brother Edlin."

Edlin bowed to her in return, a gallant, sweeping gesture that couldn't quite hide the foolishly adoring expression on his face.

Elise, who had been dreading another suitor—Sir Jared, undeclared as he was, was almost too much, especially given how she was feeling right now—swallowed a guilty giggle.

She hadn't realized that Edlin was besotted with Firekeeper. No wonder he'd known his father wouldn't let him join their company. Given Edlin's impulsive streak, he'd doubtless already asked his father for permission to wed his adopted sister—and been soundly refused.

A warm affection for this romantic spirit—an affection she most certainly would
not
have felt if he were pursuing her—came into her heart. Elise welcomed it all the more as it did something to press back the numb terror that flooded back into her when she recalled how close…

She shivered, hiding it in a brief bow—an odd feeling, but her riding breeches made a curtsy seem ridiculous—to Edlin.

"Thank you for saving us," she said softly. "I don't know if we could have escaped without your help."

"Oh, I don't know, what?" the young man said, but it was clear from the color that rose to his cheeks that he was pleased. "Firekeeper's friends weren't sitting on their haunches waiting for me to save the day. You might say we had the same idea."

"How did you plan?" Derian asked. "Did you talk to them?"

Edlin shook his head, removed his bow from where it had been slung over his shoulder, efficiently unstrung it.

"Nope. I just followed their lead. I figured they could get the closer ones, but not the guy coming at that cage, so I went for him. You know the rest."

"I guess we do," Derian said, looking around at the corpse strewn area. "And thank you. I was wishing I could do something—I don't know what I would have done…"

Elise saw a memory of desolation in Derian's eyes and realized for the first time that she and Wendee had not been the only ones to suffer.

Surprisingly, Edlin looked ashamed.

"I should have found some way to stop them before they caught you," he muttered. "I'm really sorry you had to go through all of that."