I instantly slipped off the road and into the thick forest. A woman’s voice snarled, “Goddammit!” accompanied by three quick clangs. I followed the sound to its source.
Three men, rough-clad ambush robbers by the look of them, surrounded a fourth figure. The bad guys had huge battered swords and wielded them with casual, vicious skill. They stood around their quarry in a practiced pattern that kept one of them always out of their victim’s field of vision.
In the center of this triangle stood a slender, red-haired girl, as tall as me but with that willowy quality so many country girls possess. She had short hair and was dressed like a man, which actually made her look more feminine. But this was certainly no helpless maiden.
As I watched, one of the men grabbed for her jacket. She spun, and something smaller than their weapons flashed in each of her hands. They were too big to be knives and not wide enough to be swords, but they clearly did the job. The man howled and jumped back as the girl blocked not only his awkward sword thrust but the straight-to-the-mark jab of another man now directly behind her.
She aimed a kick at the backstabber’s knee, but he dodged it. She used her momentum and spun, catching the third man’s sword in the crossed blades of her own long, thin weapons. She rolled her weight onto her back foot and slammed her other one into his crotch. As he fell, she kneed him hard in the face. He dropped, out cold. Then she whirled on the other two, trying to keep them both in sight.
“Who’s next, huh?” she demanded. There was no fear in her voice.
She was, however, outnumbered, and these guys were pros. They’d already slipped up by underestimating her, and they wouldn’t make that mistake again. They slowly circled, moving into opposite positions so she couldn’t watch them both at once. Neither of them had noticed me, however, and I used the trees and shadows to cover my approach.
“Look, fellas,” the girl continued, “this doesn’t have to get any uglier. I don’t have any money on me, so this is just a waste of your time.”
“You got something on you, all right,” one of them said. “It may not be money, but it don’t mean we can’t sell it somewhere.”
“Yeah, I bet you’re awful cute under all that,” the other agreed. “And I know one way to find out.”
She snorted. “What you see is nothing, I got a Falinese dancing girl tattooed across my back.” Then, surprising me as much as them, she attacked.
She feinted toward the weaker-looking of the two, and when the bigger man tried to take advantage of this, she was ready for him. She kicked him hard in the nuts, then spun and slashed him across the throat. It wasn’t just a casual blow, either; she windmilled at him, so that if the first blade missed, the second would not. In this case, neither did.
But even the best plans can be foiled by sheer dumb luck. The bigger man was so big, his momentum carried him forward faster than she could react, and he plowed into her, blood gushing from his neck. His weight drove her to the ground, and the remaining thug lost no time stepping forward to take advantage of this.
That is, he would have if my throwing knife hadn’t struck him in the heart. He never knew what hit him or where it came from, and he stumbled a few feet before collapsing. I waited to make sure he wasn’t faking before strolling over to the scene.
The girl, still pinned beneath the big man, looked up at me. “So are you gonna do anything other than gawk?” she gasped in annoyance. “I could use a little help here.”
“I already gave you a little help,” I said, and retrieved my knife from the dead man’s chest. I wiped the blood on his clothes and slipped it back into the side of my boot. “I figure you can get out of there on your own.”
She glared at me, but didn’t ask again, and after a couple of moments of concerted wriggling, she emerged rumpled but unhurt. Blood streaked her clothes, but none of it was hers. The first man moaned, and she kicked him in the head hard enough to knock him out again. Then she faced me, and I got my first close look at her.
She had wide shoulders and the kind of trim, narrow body that spoke of hard muscle beneath her baggy clothes. A deep scar cut through her right eyebrow and touched her hairline, where a streak of white sprang from it. She was cute rather than pretty, and I just bet she knew that and it bugged the hell out of her. “So what happens now?” she snapped, challenge in her voice. For all she knew, I was another bandit.
“Can I see that tattoo?” I asked with a grin.
“Is that why you jumped in?”
“Nah. You looked like you needed a hand. Hand given. We’ll leave it at that. See ya.”
“That’s it?” she exclaimed as I walked back toward the road.
“That’s it,” I tossed over my shoulder.
She made an exasperated noise. “Will you wait a minute?”
I stopped.
“Where are you headed?” she asked as she caught up with me.
“Nowhere,” I said honestly.
She paused for a deep, calming breath before she spoke again. “Here’s the thing. You’re pretty good with a knife. I assume you’re good with that sword. And you seem to be a decent guy. At least, you didn’t try to get into my money bag or my pants.” Then she stopped, scowling as if her openness embarrassed her.
“Either say it or don’t,” I prompted.
“Well, it’s just… I’m not a fighter, I’m a delivery man… girl. Woman. I’m new at it. And I’ve had six fights like that one in five days, most of them not even over the package I’m supposed to deliver. They were over this package.” She gestured at her body. “Know what I mean?”
“Ah.”
“And damn it, I don’t want to have to either pretend to be a teenage boy for the whole trip or just ‘lay back and enjoy it,’ as they say.”
“Understandable.”
“So…” Again she paused, working up the nerve to say what she wanted. “I would like to hire you to go with me the rest of the way.”
“The rest of the way to where?”
“I’ll tell you when I know I can trust you. Until then, all you’d have to do is just tag along and look unpleasant.” She put her hands on her hips and waited for my reply. Her skin was flushed from exertion, and it made her freckles stand out.
“You don’t even know me,” I pointed out.
She rolled her eyes. “No, I don’t, and I don’t have time to check your damn references, either. I’m a pretty good judge of people, and my fast decisions tend to be my best ones. If you’re in, let’s go; if not, say so.”
“Okay, so what’s in it for me besides your charming company?”
“I have half my fee in advance. I’ll give you half of that, which means I’m out a quarter of it.”
“I can do math, you know. But how much actually goes into my pocket?”
She told me, and it was certainly a respectable amount. I didn’t have to think about it for long. “Okay, you got a deal. Where are we going?”
“Uh-uh. I’m the boss, so we’re in the world of need-to-know. Until, like I said, I know I can trust you.”
“It ain’t very smart to hire a bodyguard you don’t trust,” I pointed out.
“You’re not a bodyguard,” she almost snarled. “I can guard my own damn body, thank you very much. You’re just along to expedite things.”
“So I’m your arm candy,” I said with a grin.
She scowled, but I saw amusement in her eyes. “I’d say you were arm spinach. It’s good for you, but nobody enjoys it.”
“In case you stop eating healthy, then, maybe I better get half my fee in advance.”
She shrugged. “If it makes you feel more secure.” She took out a handful of money and counted out half of the agreed amount.
“You can trust me now,” I said as I put the money away.
“Only halfway,” she fired back, but she grinned when she said it.
And so I met Cathy Dumont, proprietor and sole employee of Dumont Confidential Courier Service. Since we were far enough from Arentia that she’d probably never heard of my family or my own connection to scandal, I gave her my real name, and we shook hands on our bargain. She told me nothing about our destination, or about the “package” she carried in her backpack. As for where we were headed, she said only that we had to cross the Wyomie River sometime within the next three weeks. We could’ve made better time on horses, but neither of us had the money to buy them or was sleazy enough to steal them. So we walked.