We reached the river, and I helped her pull a barrel from the wagon and roll it into the river with a splash. Anezka guided it to the center, her skirts knee-deep in the strong current. “Well, if they are there to be found, I will find them. And if they are not to be found…”
“Then what?” Anezka asked.
“I will kill the bastards that killed them,” I said quietly.
“That is good,” said one of the other women. “You do what few of us can. Most of us lost families to the Paikans, or our husbands. That’s why we joined the caravan. What else were we to do?”
Anezka nodded. “They cull us. Or they take our youngest to large camps on some of the islands in their harbors, and off the coasts where we can never get to them. It’s there that they teach them the Paikan ways and thoughts.”
Everyone nodded. “Paikan ways: they’re growing and growing.”
Anezka then stopped the barrel back up. I moved to help her roll it, but she pointed.
Five men had slipped out of the shadows of the trees on the opposite bank, hardly twenty feet from us, and I hadn’t noticed them. They had old, rusty swords, and were dressed in little more than rags.
Realizing they had been seen, they splashed awkwardly across the hip-deep water at us, swords in hand.
I picked up my axe. “Run for the caravan, but if they catch you, resist them any way you can,” I shouted. I saw the grins on the men’s faces as their splashing steps soaked their torn clothes. “Go!”
So much for vengeance, I thought, my heart pounding. I would die slowing these attackers down enough so that Anezka and her friends could get to safety.
Well, there were worse things to spend a life on.
I only hoped my sons would forgive me.
The men did not realize I’d picked up an axe, and I let my body shield it from their view.
Until they got close. Then I drew it from behind me and swung at the nearest man. He had his sword up already, as his compatriots ran past, leaving him to deal with just me.
After blocking his swing, I slid the axe down the blade, then shoved it forward, puncturing his stomach with the spike at the top of the axe’s curve.
We both looked surprised that it had worked, and then I shoved him free to lie in the river, crying and groaning as his stomach spilled into the formerly clean river water.
The four men had caught themselves four struggling women and were laughing.
I ran, almost tripping over my skirts, and raised my axe up into the air and buried it into the lower spine of the first man I caught up to. Anezka, pinned underneath, screamed loudly enough the three remaining men paused. They looked over as the man on top of her rolled off. He began to spasm and gush blood now that the axe had been yanked free.
The three others shoved the women away, and began to move at me.
Bojdan hadn’t taught me how to take on three opponents at once.
But he had taught me that a fight was won before the fight began. Digging deep inside I calmed myself and met their gazes with a grin.
It was an anticipatory grin. As if the first two men I had just killed were no more than an appetizer, and this was about to be a course I was looking forward to.
Never mind that I had killed one half because he expected no real resistance, and the other because his back was turned.
“Who are you, lady?” one bandit asked.
And Anezka stepped behind me. “Can’t you tell by the damned blade!” she cried out indignantly. “This is the Executioness!”
They looked at the axe, and I wiped the blood from its edge with my thumb and tested the sharpness.
When I looked back up at them, I saw I had won this battle, for there was fear there now. “The one who faced an entire party of Paikans,” one of them asked.
“Yes, that one,” Anezka said.
I walked forward, axe in hand, and the nearest man threw his sword at my feet. “I surrender my weapon,” he said.
After a moment, the others did too.
“Pick up the swords,” I ordered Anezka. She did, and handed them to the other women. “Run for the caravan,” I whispered to her. “Get Bojdan and some of his men, quick!”
“Yes,” Anezka replied, wide-eyed. And she spun and ran.
I turned back. Were there more men out in the woods? If I let these three go, would they come back for their revenge? “You three, see those barrels?” I asked.
They nodded.
“Get them aboard that cart, and pull it over here,” I ordered. They did so, quickly and with some grunting, and once the cart was in front of me, I hopped on. “Now follow those women back to the road. Do not give me any excuses to take your heads.”
They again nodded.
Sitting on top of a barrel, I watched them closely as they pulled the cart through the forest to the road. I remained calm outwardly, but inside my heart raced, my breath came short, and I was terrified of every shadow in the trees.
When we broke out onto the road, the caravan was still slowly passing us by.
Bojdan and three of his men rushed up to us. They looked at my prisoners with some shock.
I leapt down from the cart, my bloodied axe over my shoulder, and grabbed Bojdan by the arm. “I would talk to you over here,” I said, and lead him around to the other side of a wagon, dodging the aurochs.
Then I let my legs fold, and my breath come in staggered gasps. “Piss on them,” I spat, my voice breaking with fear. “There were five of them and one of me. Five!”
Bojdan held me up. “Come, you need to go lie down,” he said gently. “You’ve done enough.”
He walked me back down the road to a bunk wagon, empty of occupants. “What are you…” I asked.
But he shoved me up onto the platform. “Go inside, rest for a moment, gather your thoughts. I will deal with these remaining men.”
My hands shook, and I watched him pace along the wagon for a moment, then dart through the caravan and disappear.
I crept into the darkness and curled up on someone’s unfamiliar smelling bunk. I kept curling up until my body could bear being squeezed by itself no more.
When Bojdan finally came back, it might have been after an hour, or five. All I’d done was stare at a chipped piece of wood on the wall. I’d felt that the wagon had stopped. Maybe the whole caravan had. I knew dimly something was going on, but until that moment, hadn’t cared about finding out.
Bojdan said nothing, but sat in the back of the wagon and waited until I rolled over to look at him.
“It was different,” I finally said. “Not like the execution, or when I went for the raider in anger.”
Bojdan just sat there.
I continued. “I had to stay in control, and calm. I had to win the fight first.”
“You did well,” said Bojdan. “Never doubt it. You are a good fighter.”
“Why did the caravan stop?” I asked. “It’s not supposed to stop, right?”
Bojdan grimaced. “Our way is blocked by a scouting party. Somewhere out in the woods, north of us, a man called Jiva has been raising the discontented to fight against the Paikans. You met five of their number earlier. They’re all from culled villages and towns out there.”
“What do they want?”
“Food, weapons, anything we have that we can trade. Their stores ran low in the march south through bramble and forest. They look hungry enough to attack us for our stores. And Jal is reluctant to trade with them, as the Paikans will be upset. So… negotiation continues.”
“Ah.” I turned back over.
After many long moments I twisted around and found Bojdan still there.
“I will be fine,” I said.
But the warrior shook his head. “Few are ever truly ‘fine’ after what you just did, after what we do. We can get back to being a reflection of our former self, but it’s somehow not quite the same. And only another like us understands what we mean.”
“I know, but I want to be left to myself for now,” I told him. “Just for now.”