“I’m so clever I even fool myself!”
Malek nodded. “Maybe the kender will turn out to be useful after all.”
Howland uth Ungen snorted, choked, and sat up. “Wine!” he croaked. “Give me wine!”
Malek, Nils, Caeta, and Wilf slowly circled around him. Holding his head in his hands, the fallen knight repeated his plea.
Malek squatted and offered him the neck of his waterskin. Howland seized it in both hands and drank greedily.
“Is this old souse really any good to us?” Wilf murmured.
Lowering the leather bag with a gasp, Howland said, “Good enough even to whip you clod-hoppers into fighting shape!”
Malek said, “Do you remember us?”
“I remember,” Howland said gruffly. He wiped his crusted lip with the back of his hand. “How many warriors have you got, so far?”
“Five, counting you.”
“Six!” Carver said brightly. “Don’t forget me!”
Malek grimaced. “Six, it seems.”
“Help me up.” Howland held out his hands to Nils and Malek. They dragged him upright. “All right, all right. Might as well get down to business. All of you, line up.”
No one moved.
“I said line up! Better you learn one thing first-when I give an order, you do it!”
Awkwardly, they sorted themselves into a single line facing the Knight. With Khorr at one end and Carver at the other, they made a strange-looking company.
“Tcha!” Howland snapped. “What a command!” He stood in front of the minotaur, fists on his hips. “You’re big enough, I’ll grant. Have you any skills?”
“I’ve memorized all six thousand lines of The Rage of Captain Edzi,” said Khorr.
Howland squeezed his bloodshot eyes shut. “Any fighting skills?”
“I’m a good wrestler.”
“A wrestler. I see. We’ll just have to ask the brigands to come close enough for you to hug them, won’t we?”
Howland moved down the line to Hume. “You look like a soldier.”
“Yes, sir. I am Hume nar Fanac, by birth thane to the mighty Khan of Khur.”
“In what were you trained?”
“Pike and halberd, sir.”
Howland nodded. “Any archery?”
“No, sir.”
The knight moved on to Raika.
“Before you ask, I’m a sailor, not a warrior,” she said dryly.
“You’re no stranger to swords, I fancy.”
She shrugged. “The sea is a dangerous place.”
Howland walked off a short way. A rake and a pitchfork leaned against one of the inner stalls. Taking one in each hand, he went back to Raika. Without warning, he flung the pitchfork sideways at her. She caught it, glaring.
“Are we going to pitch hay?” she said.
“You pose too much, woman, and you’re too free with your mouth. Let’s see what you can do.”
Raika grinned. “Any time, old man.”
Caeta stepped out of line to protest. Howland was hung-over, dehydrated, thirty years older than Raika, and six inches shorter. “I don’t want our new general injured before he has the chance to train us.”
“Get back in your place!” Howland snapped.
He drew back a few steps and beckoned Raika toward him. As she advanced, he swiftly thrust the handle of his rake between her ankles, tripping her. Before Raika knew it, she was flat on her belly, and Howland had the head of the rake pressed against the back of her neck.
“Got you,” he said.
“Yeah, quite a coup for you, old man. Trip me when I’m not looking!”
“Do you think war has polite rules?”
He let her up. She crouched low, the tines of her pitchfork level with Howland’s chest. His grimy brigandine would not keep out those sharp iron points.
“Ha!” Raika jabbed hard.
Howland’s feet never shifted. He parried, catching the tines with the rake handle and flipping the pitchfork back over Raika’s shoulder. It stuck quivering in the floor, and Howland administered a stinging blow across her back with the other end of the rake.
“Twice,” he said, coughing a little.
Raika kept her temper in check. She retrieved the pitchfork and held it in both hands in front of her like a quarterstaff. Howland made a few elementary attacks with the rake, which she easily warded off. Then the attacks came faster. Left-right-left-left-right came the blows. Raika gave ground. Right-left-right-right-left. Sweat sheened her face and arms.
Howland circled away, coughing more. “I’d shave my head for a draught of wine,” he muttered. Carver heard him, grinned, and scurried up the ladder into the loft.
“You’re strong and quick,” the old Knight told Raika, “but you must learn to anticipate the enemy’s next move. Only that way can you hope to defeat him.”
He started toward her, pivoted, and came from the other direction. The gray rake handle blurred.
Left-right-left-left-
“Ha!” said Raika. She moved to block a blow from the right, and met only air. The blunt end of the rake handle hurtled at her face. Raika flinched, but Howland stopped it a hair’s breadth from her cheek.
“And three times,” he said. “You thought you had my moves figured out, but only because I pointed out the pattern to you. Another lesson: Don’t listen to what an opponent tells you. Your enemy wants to hurt you, not help you.”
Malek grabbed his brother happily. They’d found a real leader at last!
The rake clattered to the floor. Close behind it came Howland. Sick and exhausted, he fainted dead away.
Raika caught him. Though he was filthy, she held on to him, lowering him gently to the straw.
“You surprise me,” said Khorr. “You have a heart after all.”
“He’s not my enemy,” she snapped. “He’s my commander.”
Carver returned with Amergin. The kender descended the ladder nimbly, even though he was hampered by having a squat bottle of Goodlund wine in one hand and a folded straight razor in the other. Seeing Howland stretched out on the floor, Carver sighed.
“And here I was going to shave his head!”
If the gods had still dwelt in the world, they might have granted the farmers a boon. Since history and the teachings of the wise held otherwise, the heavy fog enshrouding Robann the next morning could only have been luck.
It crept in, loose airy tendrils of white seeping through the cracks in the stable walls and roof. No one got any rest all night, save for Sir Howland, who was all but dead to the world, and Amergin, who slept soundly in his hiding place. Wilf grumbled quietly about the hunted sleeping better than his protectors, but his friends were just grateful to see the dawn.
Hume drew back the wide door. Damp coils of mist flowed in.
“This is good,” he said. “Fog will shield us from pursuit.”
They packed hurriedly. Caeta woke Howland, shaking the old Knight’s shoulder until he stirred.
“What is it?” he asked too loudly.
“Quiet,” she whispered. “Enemies are all around us!”
He opened one eye, squinting at the dull gray dawn as if it were the unbridled glare of the desert at noon. He coughed and groaned.
“Time to go, sir,” said Hume.
Howland got to his hands and knees but seemed unable to rise further. Caeta cajoled, but any attempt to stand brought on a noisy fit of coughing.
“Wonderful!” Raika said. “A commander who can’t stand!”
Hume laid Howland’s sword and scabbard on the floor a few feet in front of him. “Sir, I saved your weapon,” he said. “Rise and take it.”
“Pick it up, or I shall,” Raika added.
The old man coughed. “No one,” he rasped, “carries my sword but me!”
With a supreme effort, he pushed himself up. Reeling, he clung to Wilf and Nils for support. Hume took up the sword and held it out to Howland. With dignity, the Knight hung the belt around his shrunken waist and closed the clasp.
Amergin walked out first, a lethal star in his sling. To prevent any telltale glints from giving them away in the fog, he’d coated all their faces with candle soot.