Alea went cold inside at the thought. “All right, I’ll run. What do I do if they follow?”
“Hide if you can, fight if you can’t. Choose the best ground you can before you’re completely exhausted,” Gar told her, “ideally, a place so narrow they can only come at you one at a time. Then fight—but only if you have to. Remember, the woman is always at a disadvantage, so run if you can, and fight if you can’t.”
Alea decided she had also better pray to Dumi.
Gar had begun to teach her how to fight five when the bandits attacked.
They were walking through a birch forest. The trees were wide apart, with little or no growth between them, so they could see a fair way around themselves. The bandits took them completely by surprise, dropping from boughs and leaping out from behind the few thick trunks with bloodthirsty howls. “Back to back!” Gar snapped. “Run if you get the chance!”
“Run to where?” Alea cried. Then the bandits were on them.
She heard cracks and howls behind her, and grunts of pain from Gar, but she could scarcely pay attention because of the swinging quarterstaves with grinning, lascivious, unshaven faces behind them. A staff swung down at her from the left; she parried it with the tip of her own, but the impact nearly wrenched the stick from her hands and left them aching. She didn’t have time to worry about pain; she kicked the man in the knee as she fended off another strike from the right, then swung the end of her staff into the stomach of the man charging from the front. She reversed, spinning the top of her staff up to block his stroke, and a strike from the left sent pain through her head, making the world swim about her. She fell to her knees, heard shouts of triumph, and swung her staff up to the left, felt it jar against something that shouted in pain, then swung it above her head to the right. Another man grunted, and the world stopped swimming long enough for her to see three attackers writhing on the ground around her, but a fourth and fifth stepped over them. She struggled to her feet, holding her staff up to guard, still unsteady—and the bandit to her left swung like a windmill. The two staves met with a sound like a thundercrack, whipping Alea’s staff out of her hands to bounce away across the ground.
The bandit on the right shouted victory and stepped in, his staff swinging around at her belly.
12
Alea seized his leg the way Gar had shown her, digging her fingers in and pushing. The man fell, screaming. She let him go and turned to the other man, who charged her full tilt, swinging his staff down to choke her. She fell back, catching the staff and drawing her legs up, then pushed hard with her legs as she pulled with her hands. The man went somersaulting over her head with a howl of surprise, letting go of his staff. Alea used it to push herself to her feet and looked about her, wild-eyed and panting—and saw all five of her assailants on the ground, three curled around pain and moaning, two straggling to their feet.
Run! her panic screamed inside her—but it screamed in Gar’s voice, and one glance showed her that he was still beset, whirling his staff one-handed, half a dozen outlaws on the ground before him—but another half-dozen still confronted him, and two had bows. If either of them gained a shot at his back, he was dead.
She couldn’t leave his back unguarded. She turned to face her attackers, her back to Gar’s, even though every sense of caution within her screamed at her for a fool.
The two who managed to struggle to their feet stalked about her, staves up and ready, bruises purpling on one man’s face, both breathing hard and glaring harder. Her heart went faint; she remembered Gar saying, The second time, they’ll be ready. But she held her ground, on guard and waiting—and waiting, and waiting. Neither man seemed eager to strike. Finally she realized that each was waiting for the other; then he would finish what his partner had begun.
At last they thought to look at one another. Both nodded, and they turned to Alea, sticks swinging back.
They were wide open. She lunged, stick straight out, butt jabbing one in the belly. He doubled over in pain, mouth wide in a shout he had no breath for. She snapped her whole body back to guard, turning to the last attacker. He froze, stick high, then realized he was unguarded and yanked his stick back in front of him.
“Hold!” a voice shouted, and it wasn’t Gar’s.
Her attacker froze, still on guard, but looking relieved. Alea risked a glance behind her, turned back in time to see the bandit raising his stick to strike. He saw her eyes and froze—but she had seen a man with a sword, shield, and iron cap facing Gar and looking indignant. He was almost as tall as Gar. The shortest of them was as tall as Alea.
“We struck you with a dozen, and you’ve beaten down ten of us!” the bandit chief exclaimed in injured tones. “How in Hela’s name have you done that?”
Alea shuddered at his invoking of the Queen of the Dead. “Not by Hela, but by Thor and Dumi,” Gar said, sounding mild. “I’ll be glad to teach you. If you’d like another lesson, swing!”
There was a pause. Panting, Alea locked glares with the bandit—but two of his mates staggered to their feet with the aid of their staves, giving her poisoned looks.
“No, I’ll seek a more peaceable way.” The bandit leader sounded as though he would dearly have loved to beat Gar’s brains out, but was forcing himself to be placating. “No one’s ever proved himself so strong a fighter as you—and I’ve never seen a woman fight at all!” He didn’t sound happy about it. “Except a giant’s woman, that is.”
“Aren’t we giants?” Gar asked, still mildly.
“No, but we’re a far sight better than the Midgarders!” the man said, with such bitterness that it startled even Alea. Then he forced his voice to mildness. “Come home with us and pass the night as a pledge of peace, for we must honor a fighter like you.”
“Why, thank you,” Gar said smoothly. “We’ll be pleased.” Alea stepped back so that her shoulders jarred against his, leaned her head back, and hissed, “Are you mad?”
“Yes,” Gar hissed back. Then to the bandit leader, “I need some guarantee of our safety. What’s your name?”
“Zimu,” the man said warily. “Why?”
“Because I’m a wizard, and once I know your name, I can use it to work magic that will hurt you.”
Alea spun to stare at him, then looked quickly at Zimu—but the man was glaring at Gar with anger and fear. Then she remembered to look back at her opponent, but he was busy staring, too.
“I’ll give you some chance of evening the odds,” Gar told Zimu. “My name is Gar.”
The bandit leader relaxed, still frowning, “Then I can work magic against you.”
“If you’re a wizard, yes.” Suddenly Gar’s voice took on a weird tone and the rhythm of an incantation. “Zimu, Zimu, tell me the names of your men!”
Zimu’s eyes glazed. “There’s Bandi, Cuthorn, Dambri…” He gestured at each as he spoke the name, listing the whole dozen before one of them shouted, appalled, “Chief!”
Zimu shook himself, his eyes clearing, then glared at Gar. “How did you do that?”
“If you have twenty years to learn, I can teach you,” Gar said, “if you have the talent. Well, I can be sure we’ll be safe among you now. So thank you for your invitation, Bandi, Cuthorn, Dambri…” He chanted the list of names. Even the men who were only now staggering to their feet looked up in alarm—to find Gar looking straight at them as he spoke their names. They shuddered and looked away.
“…and Zimu,” Gar finished. He gave a slight bow, seeming to lean on his staff. “We’ll be glad to dine with you.”