How they were to do that was a serious question, but one that could wait. Food was one that could not.
“What about rations?” Pirvan said. “If my men have to tighten their belts any more, we might as well eat them while there’s something of them left.”
“We’ve fish and porridge,” the dwarf said, turning to address all the men at once. “Now, we want you to divide up into fifties, which is what the huts will hold. You’ll most likely have to build your own, but-”
“We’ve come a long way to be told that we have more work to do,” someone shouted from Pedoon’s ranks. Heads turned in Pirvan’s columns, too, but Haimya and Birak Epron glared along the ranks, as if daring anyone to open his mouth.
“As you please,” the dwarf said. “Any road runs two ways. If you start back now, you might be out of Istar’s reach before dawn tomorrow.”
A seabird gave a high, shrill cry above Pirvan-drowning out the whistle of an arrow that suddenly sprouted from Pedoon’s left eye.
“There, in the woodpile!” Haimya shouted, drawing her sword and pointing. Fifty sets of eyes turned in that direction, to see a tall man leap down from a woodpile, holding a bow in one hand.
“Hold!” Pirvan shouted, echoed by Birak Epron. Their men held.
But Pedoon would never give another order again, or hear one. As Pirvan watched, his remaining eye glazed and set, staring blindly at the sky. His sharp-nailed fingers twitched briefly, clawing up mud, a final shudder ran through him, and he lay still.
“Get the bastard!” someone screamed from the outlaw ranks. This time it was fifty voices that took up the cry-and then Pedoon’s band was charging at the one man toward the gate of camp.
Pirvan shouted orders to his men and curses to his horse. “Left column to the gate! Keep Pedoon’s people out while we parley. Right column, form square.”
Again Birak Epron echoed Pirvan’s orders, though not his remarks to the horse. The beast lurched in motion, staggered a few steps, then dropped dead. Pirvan was barely able to roll clear without getting his leg caught under his falling mount.
By the time Haimya had lifted Pirvan to his feet, Pedoon’s men were well on their way to the gate. The soldiers were a bit behind but catching up fast, thanks to their better condition. Meanwhile, what looked like a small army was gathering in the gateway, prepared to defend the camp against what undoubtedly seemed a serious piece of treachery.
The treachery had been on the other side, but no one would hear the newcomers’ case if they sparked an all-out battle in the camp. Pirvan’s run to the camp gate was something out of a nightmare. He’d been fast on his feet as a youth and was not much slower as a man, but now he wore boots, one leg had taken some harm in the fall, and the mud tried to suck him knee-deep at every step. Without Haimya at his side, he might have fallen three times instead of only once, and perhaps not risen again until it was too late.
It was almost too late anyway. By the time Pirvan reached the gate, the race was over and the battle begun. Several bodies already lay in the mud, and Pedoon’s men had formed a circle around the archer. He was a large man with both sword and dagger in hand, his bow now slung, and he was defending himself viciously and well.
Pedoon’s men did not dare close; most of the bodies were theirs. But the circle kept the men in the camp gateway from coming out, and also kept Pirvan’s soldiers from coming at the archer. Everybody was too close-packed to allow use of the archer’s own weapon against him. Altogether, it looked as if the matter would go on until lost temper or drawn steel unleashed general slaughter.
“Surrender!” somebody yelled from inside the camp. Pirvan did not know whom the voice was addressing.
The murderer took the cry as addressed to him. “I saved Waydol from Pedoon’s treachery! He would have sold Waydol to the Istarians. Him and the Knight of Solamnia!”
Pirvan wanted, not to sink into the earth, but to grow claws like a dragon so he could rip out the archer’s throat before it spewed any more venom. Somebody had spied on him and Pedoon the night of their walk in the woods, and brought word to Waydol’s camp. How many had he told? How many more waited to defend their chief, by stretching Pirvan in the mud beside Pedoon?
Useless questions. Now there was only honor-and anyone who thought it useless was a fool beyond all hope.
Pirvan stepped forward.
“I am Sir Pirvan of Tiradot, Knight of the Crown. I take this man into my keeping, until he can be fairly tried for the death of Pedoon Half-Ogre.” He hoped that they would find some other name for Pedoon, but better folk than he had been buried under shorter names.
The archer whirled. One of Pedoon’s men took advantage of his distraction to try closing. The archer slashed with his dagger, opening the bold outlaw’s throat into a bloody fountain. The man stumbled, then fell atop the body of a comrade.
Pirvan stared at the archer. His wide, dark eyes seemed to see everything and nothing, and the knight suspected he was looking at madness. Also looking at his own death, if he underestimated this foe.
Haimya stepped up beside her husband. “We had best go in against him-”
Pirvan jerked his head. “That’s hardly better than Pedoon’s men mobbing him. The Measure-”
“-may kill you.”
“Then take good care of Gerik and Eskaia,” Pirvan snapped. Haimya looked as if he’d slapped her. He spent no time on apologies, but pushed his way through the circle of Pedoon’s men and spoke to the archer so that all could hear.
“Now, yield to me and accept my custody as lawful, or I must take you by force.”
The man’s reply was a ragged madman’s scream. Pirvan had already drawn his sword, or he would have died the next moment, cut down in the mud. As it was, he felt the wind of the archer’s sword on his cheek, flung himself frantically to one side while parrying a dagger thrust. He avoided falling only by a miracle, then drew his own dagger and settled down to serious work.
How serious it was, Pirvan realized only afterward, when those who watched told him about the fight. It seemed an endless blur of largely defensive work, as the archer launched one wild attack after another. The man was larger and stronger than Pirvan, and driven by rage as well. Fortunately he was not as fast, and was even less polished a swordsman than Pirvan.
The knight had all he could do to stay alive for the first few minutes of the battle. His one hope was that everyone else would let him and the archer fight it out, and that included Rubina’s not intervening on his side with any spells. That would be the end of his days with the knights, if he was saved by a Black Robe’s magic!
After a time that seemed hours, Pirvan realized that some of Pedoon’s men had been dragged out of the circle and replaced by his own soldiers. That at least would help keep the fight fair. But there were more of Pedoon’s men still holding the gateway, and the risk of a bigger fight if the men inside tried to come out.
At that point Pirvan nearly lost fight and life together by stumbling over a corpse. He rolled fiercely aside from the archer’s downward cut, and, as he rolled, slashed at the man’s leg, wildly but with effect.
“First blood!” tore from a dozen throats.
Pirvan stood up. Blood was running down the archer’s left leg. He did not seem to be limping, however, but the Measure was strict in the matter of first blood.
“Do you yield?”
The reply was a stream of obscenities that would have knocked birds dead from the sky if the din of the fight had not already frightened them away. Also another furious attack.
But this one was not as fast as the others. Perhaps it was the leg wound. Perhaps it was all the strength poured into the earlier attacks, strength now gone forever. Perhaps the man’s feet weighed more heavily-Pirvan discovered that, sometime since the beginning of the fight, he had kicked off his boots and was now fighting barefoot.