“Hold it there!”
He seemed to halt, but instantly sprang, too quick for the thrust, stooped, swiveled, his right leg swinging viciously to crack into the knee of the man next in line. Striclan was drawing his sword. Saranja had disappeared.
There were yells, shouts, hoarse coughing from someone with pepper dust in his face.
Maja was grabbed from behind, her arms pinioned, was dragged kicking and struggling, lifted like a sack, and slung across Levanter’s shoulders. Almost she managed to wriggle free as the man mounted, but his grip on her wrists was too strong, and then he was up and wrestling one-handed with the reins as Levanter skittered and shied, and with the other hand still round her wrists, forcing her hard down into the gap between Levanter’s neck and the pommel of the saddle.
Twisting her head sideways, she caught a glimpse of the struggle. One of the bandits was on the ground, one on his knees, retching and choking. Ribek and Striclan were engaged in individual duels, Saranja up on Rocky, her quarterstaff raised to strike at the man who had grabbed her bridle, and Sponge was leaping to attack the remaining man as Benayu stumbled back before him. Then Levanter wheeled and her captor’s knee blocked her view.
He was yelling at Levanter, urging him into a gallop. She could tell he knew about horses. Now she could hear two sets of hooves. He let go of her wrists. She shifted her knife in her fist, found the catch, heard the click as the blade slid out, raised her head to gauge how and where to strike.
In the instant he gave her she saw, close in front of her, his hand unhooking his slasher from his belt and beyond it Saranja bearing down on them, half standing in her stirrups, her hair streaming behind her, her quarterstaff raised two-handed, ready to strike. Then the butt of the slasher slammed into the back of Maja’s head.
Blindly in the roaring, agonizing dark her hand and arm finished the movement she’d begun, swinging up and round behind the man’s back. She felt the wicked little blade bite deep into the softness below the rib-cage. The man’s yell was cut short by the heavy thwack of Saranja’s quarterstaff. She grabbed the pommel of the saddle to save herself as he toppled, lost her grip and fell too, landing with a thump on top of him. His body juddered as a hoof crashed into it somewhere.
The jar of the fall half cleared her head. She staggered up, gasping, saw the man’s slasher at her feet and grabbed it. The man himself lay sprawling. The left side of his shirt was already soaked in blood. His other leg was bent sideways at the knee. Saranja was pulling Rocky out of his charge, turning him.
“I’m all right,” Maja yelled, though her head seemed ready to split with pain from the blow the man had given her. Somehow she hefted his slasher onto her shoulder, and held it there, poised to strike.
Saranja waved in acknowledgment and sent Rocky charging back, with Levanter now not far behind. The pure pain eased to a heavy throb. Maja shifted round the fallen man to where she could watch and still be ready if he tried to get up. Benayu was down, with Sponge standing over him, snarling and watchful, as the enemy’s spear-point neared. Ribek’s left arm was red with blood, but he was still dancing round his opponent, light on his feet as a fawn, feinting, dodging, looking for an opening while the man stood stolidly waiting, with his slasher held two-handed across his body, ready to swing to left or right. Striclan’s man had a pike, with which he could outreach Striclan’s sword. It looked like stalemate, but the man who’d been blinded by the pepper dust was on his feet and staggering toward them with his hatchet in his hand.
Only Striclan’s opponent saw Saranja coming. The distraction was fatal. Striclan’s blade was into his throat and his own blood stifled his cry of warning. As he toppled, Saranja drove Rocky straight into Benayu’s attacker, struck viciously down with her quarterstaff as he reeled away, and charged on. Ribek’s man turned to face her, but Ribek was in and floored him before she reached him. She reined to a halt and gazed around. Sponge and Benayu between them had their man down and helpless. The last man had turned to run, but Saranja sent Rocky hurtling after him, barred his way and drove him back, then circled menacingly, herding the men into a group round the man Striclan had killed. Maja lowered the slasher, knelt and plunged the blade of her knife several times into the dusty earth to clean the blood from it. She slid it into its sheath and then used the slasher to prod the man who had kidnapped her until he rose groaning to his knees and crawled to join the others. That done she gathered the dropped weapons, handed Ribek a long knife and piled the rest together.
Benayu was standing a little to one side, so she offered him another knife. He gestured it away. He was white and shaking—not, she realized, with shock, but with anger and shame.
“I could have stopped them,” he muttered. “I could have stopped them with a word. Look!”
He raised his right fist. For a moment something seemed to be struggling to escape between his fingers.
Just in time she snatched Jex out of her pocket, but still reeled as Benayu flung what he was holding toward the men. Wind shrieked from his opened palm, became a single, concentrated gust roaring out into the hot stillness of the day, picking the bandits up and whirling them away like chaff before the winnow.
He flipped his left hand dismissively toward the pile of weapons. The steel splintered, the wooden hafts crumbled to dust.
He bowed his head and stood shaking it slowly from side to side. She tried to put her arm round him but he pushed her away….
The Watchers! He’d been so angry with himself he’d forgotten about the Watchers! Jex had been growing stronger day by day, but she knew from the way that she had staggered that he’d nothing like absorbed the whole of the shock of power. Even now the force of the magic suddenly woken in Benayu came strongly through.
And Striclan too! He’d forgotten about Striclan! Striclan wasn’t supposed to know about…
She looked. Striclan was getting something out of a saddlebag. His mule was standing there stolidly, looking as if it hadn’t noticed anything unusual happening. So did Striclan when he turned and offered the bandage he was holding to Ribek. Ribek stared at him, for once at a loss for words. Saranja dismounted and joined them.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said quietly. “I think we’ve all just saved each other’s lives, and I can’t go on pretending. You’re a Sheep-face spy, aren’t you, Striclan?”
He blinked, that was all.
“Agent,” he corrected her, sounding as sad about it as she had. “But perhaps before we discuss it we should deal with Ribek’s arm. He’s losing a dangerous amount of blood in my opinion. Sit down, old man. I’ll need to cut the sleeve off.”
He eased Ribek onto the ground and knelt beside him. Only now did Maja notice how pale Ribek was. And he oughtn’t to need to be helped to sit down, for heaven’s sake! Anxiously she peered over Striclan’s shoulder as he peeled the sleeve away. The wound was right at the top of the arm, a deep, ghastly-looking slash, right to the bone, like a half-open scowling mouth turned down at the corners. Blood was still streaming from it. Striclan pressed the lips together. The flow weakened but didn’t stop.
“Trouble is, it’s too close to the shoulder for a tourniquet,” he said. “I don’t know how you kept going, fighting that chap—remarkable what adrenaline can do…”
He chatted on, not doing anything, just holding the wound closed, watching the blood-flow. Maja concentrated, and sensed that beneath the surface he was as anxious as she was. And there seemed to be only one inward Striclan now, all of him intent on Ribek’s wound. She nudged Saranja’s arm.
“Can’t we use Zald?” she whispered. “If you give me the healing stone, he won’t know it’s got anything to do with the demon-binder.”