"Boys are only little men, sister," Martin returned, eyes still on Geoffrey, "and if we limit our mayhem, 'tis to bring less disaster." He drew his sword. "Nay, make it squirm in my hand now, if you can! I will hold it fast!"
"Will you indeed," Geoffrey said softly, and the sword suddenly wrenched itself out of Martin's hand and flipped up high in the air, turned over, then stabbed down into the earth at his feet, where it stood quivering.
Martin blanched, staring at it. Then he looked up slowly, his face darkening.
"Bid your men stand," Geoffrey said softly.
"All of you, ground your weapons and stand fast!" Leander called out. "This warlock and I must settle our difference!"
"Aye, ground them!" Quicksilver shouted. "You too, brother mine! I would not see you slain!"
"I shall not be," Leander grated, but Martin wrenched his sword out of the ground.
Geoffrey drew his blade in a single clean motion and stepped forward, on guard.
"Not either of you! Hold! Put up your swords!"
"'Tis even as your brother says," Geoffrey told her. "It has gone past you now." With that, he thrust. Leander parried; Geoffrey riposted and thrust again, then again and again, advancing.
"The young bulls are pawing the ground," the tallest bodyguard told Quicksilver.
"Nay, Minerva—they are done pawing, and charge at one another to lock horns! Separate them!" Quicksilver raised her voice. "Separate them, all of you!"
With a gleeful shout, the quarterstaff men hefted their staves and waded in.
"Hold!" Leander shouted, jumping back.
"Aye," Geoffrey agreed, and swept the bandits with one quick glare. The staff went spinning from one man's hand and knocked the staff from another's. Both men fell back with a cry, but Stowton shouted, "He cannot disarm us all! Charge him!"
A fallen staff leaped into Geoffrey's hand. He spun it like a baton, and all the other quarterstaves twisted in their owners' hands, trying to imitate Geoffrey's. They shouted and dropped their staves, some clutching bruised wrists.
The archers howled, brought up their arrows, and loosed.
"No!" Quicksilver shrieked, and leaped in front of Geoffrey.
The arrows all looped, curving, shooting back to their owners, who yelped with superstitious fright and broke ranks—but one arrow shot straight on to Geoffrey. He caught it and stabbed it into the ground. All the other arrows plunged down and lanced the earth in imitation.
The bandits crowded back, white showing around their eyes—but Minerva beckoned to her bodyguard and stepped forward, eyes cold.
Geoffrey didn't even notice. He was looking down at the beauty in front of him. "Thank you for your protection, but I will not see you pierced. Why did you leap to guard my body with your own?"
"Why ... why..." Quicksilver stammered, and blushed, looking down. Then she spun about to him, chin up. "Why, because I gave my word! That none of my band would harm you! But I did not say that, once yielded, I would stay yielded! If any shall strike you, it shall be me!" She leaped back, holding out her hand, and Minerva slapped Quicksilver's own sword into that hand.
"You gave parole," Geoffrey reminded her. "You said you would not seek to escape."
"Aye, but I did not say I would not fight you again! On guard, warlock! This time, our fight shall have a different ending!"
"It shall indeed!" Minerva gestured and jumped in front of Quicksilver. Six other young women leaped in beside her, their swords raised.
"Brothers," Leander snapped, "it seems we are done with the ways of honor."
"Even so," Jory agreed, and stepped in behind Geoffrey. Geoffrey opened his mind to awareness of them, of each tiniest motion they might make, as he kept his eyes on the bodyguards in front of him. The wolfish smile tugged at his lips; it would be a battle royal. True, he must not injure any of the women, at least not seriously—which gave him no compunction about using magic ...
A shout went up. Geoffrey swung about to see an arrow speeding toward him, knew it was already too close to divert, and was just beginning to duck when...
... the arrow turned down and plunged into the earth. It was almost a right-angle turn, not the drop of a smooth trajectory that was just a little short.
Geoffrey turned to face Quicksilver, blocking a blow from Minerva almost absentmindedly as his eyes met Quicksilver's, and held with surprise on his part—but on hers, thin-lipped with the knowledge that she was unmasked. She raised her voice, crying out, "I bade you hold! I said that none of you should harm this knight!"
And she had kept her word, Geoffrey realized—for it was not he who had made that arrow plunge to earth. Quicksilver, however, didn't seem to want her band to know that, because she said, "Adroitly done, warlock! But how did you know the arrow had been loosed?"
"My mind is alert to yours," he answered, "and to those of all your band."
It certainly would be from now on, for Geoffrey knew better than any that it was not his mind that had deflected that arrow. Still, it had been a great lapse on his part, to let himself be so distracted by the Amazons that he had ignored the rest of the band, and so had missed the archer loosing the arrow. Fortunately, Quicksilver had not.
Suddenly, he understood much better how she had managed to carve out her own little kingdom here in the forest, and expand it to include the whole county—because Quicksilver was herself an esper.
That did not mean she was any less a general, of course. She was still expert at tactics, and probably at strategy, too, though her campaign had been cut short before he could be sure of that. Certainly she was magnificent with a sword—but he suspected that she had made more than a little use of magic when she was outnumbered, and exercised it subtly but very effectively in her battles. More than anything else, though, it explained how she could be so effective a leader, why her fire and enthusiasm reached out to envelop her fighters. She was no doubt a projective telepath, at least in a small way, quite possibly in a larger. At the very least, it gave her a great deal of charisma. And she knew that he knew. He probed with his mind and came up against a mental wall—her shields were up—but felt also the questing alertness of another telepath, reaching out to him. He smiled, letting his mind be unshielded on the surface, letting her read not his long-range plans or deeper motives, but at least his current intentions and yearnings...
She blushed, and her gaze faltered for a moment, but came back to meet his with level candor. "You have broken your word, Sir Knight. You have used magic."
"Break causes break," Geoffrey countered, "whether it was your doing, or not." He turned to the three brothers. "Must I fight you all again?" He wasn't at all sure that he wanted to, now, though—his courage was so vast that he scarcely even noticed fear, but he knew a losing fight when he saw one, and battling might not be the best way to win this prize. Quicksilver might be able to counter all his magic with her own. At the least, she would slow him down so that he might well fall prey to the weapons of her outlaws—but he would take at least half of them with him, to death. He was struck with admiration at how adroitly she had prevented just that calamity, by persuasion and maneuvering. And he had not even known he was being maneuvered! How dextrously she had hidden her powers!
The chance of losing, or even of losing his life, would not stop him from battling, of course—not if the cause was worth his death. But he had a notion that Quicksilver was far more worth his life.
If she had hidden her powers so well, though, she could have taken him by surprise. Surely she could have defeated him with the loss of only a quarter of her fightersand if she really hungered for power more than anything else, she would have done just that.