Another mountaineer bellowed; Allouette looked up, but the attacker was to her right. She gave a quick glance, saw a staff blur, heard it crack on the man’s skull, and saw him falling. Three women screamed with rage on her left; Allouette turned to look and saw them charging her defender. She swung, hard and quick. Her club struck a shoulder and its owner staggered with a howl, clutching her hurt—but the other two fell back, their shields gouged with massive cuts.
Suddenly there was silence, the ring of mountaineers glaring at the women with hatred, looking for an opening, a weakness. Allouette cast a thought at a woman’s ankle, tugging, but she still hadn’t recovered from the blow that had knocked her out, and the mountaineer only glanced down in irritation.
Then one of the mountaineers’ clubs swung to her left, hard, striking the cheek of the man beside him. “Owoo!” the man howled. “What did you do that for, Castya?”
“I didn’t,” the woman protested, “I only—”
But another man howled as a club struck his shoulder and a third bellowed as still another club struck a knee.
“ ’Tis witchcraft!” a woman cried, her eyes huge. “Flee!”
They all turned and ran—except one hulking brute who snarled and waddled toward the three women, club swinging high—and higher and higher, jerking out of his hand, then tumbling end over end in front of his face. His eyes went round as platters and he turned and ran too, his own club chasing him.
“Enough, sister-to-be,” one of Allouette’s rescuers panted. “He will not come back.”
Allouette recognized the voice. With foreboding, she turned to face her rescuers. “I . . . I must thank you . . .”
“Must you indeed!” Quicksilver cried. “Does that mean you would not if you did not have to?”
“Oh, don’t badger the poor woman, Quicksilver!” Cordelia said. “Can’t you see that lump on her head? And the way her arm is hanging! Here, Allouette, let me see!” She stepped forward to take hold of Allouette’s limp arm and bend it, moving her hand toward her shoulder gently, tentatively, slowly . . .
“There!” Allouette gasped.
Cordelia held the arm still, gazing off into space as her thoughts probed the bruise; then she nodded. “Only some little damage to the muscle and a swelling in the cartilage of the elbow. Hold still, Allouette.” She gazed at the elbow.
Allouette caught the distinction—that Cordelia called her by name, but Quicksilver “sister-to-be.” Still, what could their would-be assassin expect?
Cordelia released the arm and stepped back. “It will serve you now. Use it lightly if you can—the tissues must still do some healing of their own.”
“I—I thank you,” Allouette stammered. “How—how could you have so much compassion as to save me from those brutes?”
“We shall all be of the same family soon,” Quicksilver said with a shrug, “and kin guard kin.”
“So I shall,” Allouette promised fervently.
“Why then, you owe us a life now,” Quicksilver said with a smile, “or at least, your liberty.”
“I owe you far more than that!”
“We shall collect in good time, I doubt not.” Quicksilver looked around the campsite with a frown. “How came you here, and in such bondage?”
“Gregory and I learned from a peasant family that three ogres had come out of a most strange mist,” Allouette explained.
“They were only of witch-moss, I hope?” Cordelia asked.
“Aye, and we turned them back into the jelly from which they’d come.”
Quicksilver made a noise of disgust. “What a waste of a good chance for a fight!”
“Aye, but quicker, I am sure. So when they were undone, you sought along their backtrail to discover the mist from which they’d come?”
“Aye, and blundered into a bog for our pains.”
Quicksilver grinned.
Allouette blushed. “Your fiancés pulled us out.”
Quicksilver and Cordelia exchanged a glance of surprise. “We have come faster than they, then.”
“Either that, or they have gone astray in their search.” Quicksilver frowned. “Could they not track by thought?”
“Not mine,” said Allouette. “The knock on the head those mountaineers gave me has sorely diminished my powers.”
Quicksilver looked up in surprise; then a calculating look came into her eye and Allouette shuddered, knowing that the woman had cause to want revenge—not as much cause as Cordelia, but enough.
“ ’Tis also possible that these mountaineers may have taken you closer to our route than to the men’s path,” Cordelia mused. “You were unconscious, were you not?”
“Aye, for some hours.”
“Time enough,” Quicksilver said drily. Then her face darkened. “What use had they for you?”
“Only as a hostage,” Allouette assured them. “Indeed, they drank so heavily that I doubt they could have managed anything else.”
“Drank?” The former outlaw’s eye kindled. “Did they talk while they were in their cups—perhaps to tell you why they had set upon you?”
“They did as they were bade,” Allouette replied, “by a sorcerer named Zonploka.”
Quicksilver frowned at Cordelia, who frowned back. “I have never heard that name.”
“Nor I,” Cordelia confessed.
“ ’Tis strange to me, too,” Allouette admitted, “but whoever he or she is, he has hoodwinked the mountaineers into thinking that they act for the good of their people. From what these raiders said, they wish to clear this county of peasants.”
“Wherefore?” Quicksilver demanded.
“As a staging area for the sorcerer’s army,” Allouette replied. “When it marches off, the sorcerer has promised the valley to the mountaineers, who believe their ancestors held it.”
Quicksilver shrugged. “That may be so; it would not be the first time that peaceful people have been driven out by warlike and learned to become warriors in their turn.”
“Perhaps,” said Cordelia, “but they are fools to think a conquering army will give up territory once they’ve gained it.”
“That is so.” Quicksilver turned to Allouette, and there was an edge to her voice. “You who were chieftain of spies and assassins—would you yield what you had gained?”
Anger surged in Allouette, but she contained it. “I am no such creature anymore—but villain or householder, I would fight to keep what is mine!”
“Right and proper,” said Quicksilver, “but what if you had stolen it?”
“ ‘What if’ indeed,” Allouette asked, “O bandits’ chieftain?”
Quicksilver gave her a toothy grin. “Never in a thousand years yield what I had gained!”
“Only a thousand?” Allouette retorted. Her stomach sank—she felt she was losing any chance of Quicksilver’s forgiveness—but her pride wouldn’t let her back down.
Quicksilver only shrugged. “A hundred would do. I would not live to see it. Let my children fight for what I’d gained!”
Allouette stared, amazed that the warrior hadn’t loosed a torrent of insults. Then she recovered and said, “I do not doubt that the brood of so redoubtable a dam would fight for every inch.”
“What if it were not rightfully theirs?” Cordelia asked quietly.
“Rightfully?” Quicksilver asked. “We speak of an army of conquest, lady! Wherefore would they speak of right or wrong?”
Allouette nodded. “To those who come in conquest, ‘right’ means only their self-interest.”
Cordelia shuddered. “Alas, poor land—and poor mountaineers, who shall be so rudely betrayed! We must discover who this Zonploka is, who has promised them and will betray them!”