“What’s the feeb doing?” the sergeant demanded irritably.
“Counting feet,” Alea explained. “You said there was no seven-footer here. Please excuse my brother, Sergeant. His brain never grew much.”
The other riders were grinning, but the sergeant looked disgusted. “Tell him he can stop—that we were looking for a man who’s seven feet tall, not one who has seven feet.” He looked Alea up and down and grinned slowly. “You’re tall enough, though. Not seven feet maybe, but not far short either.”
“I’m not a man,” Alea said quickly.
“No, she sure ain’t—is she, Sergeant?” the rider beside him asked, and the others chuckled.
“They don’t see so many women,” the sergeant explained. “You’re a bit tall for my taste, but we got to take what we can get.” He leaned down to hook a finger under her chin and lift; her skin crawled at his touch. “General Malachi says we can take what tolls we want from anyone on the roads.”
7
Not off from me you can’t!” Alea swung her staff, knocking the sergeant’s hand away.
“Well now, you shouldn’ta done that,” the sergeant said, aggrieved, and sudden hands caught her shoulders and arms, yanking the staff out of her hand as the sergeant bent to seize her hair and drag her head back, laughing low in his throat as his broken-toothed grin came down over her lips.
It never touched. Gar erupted, roaring, yanking the sergeant off his horse and swinging him around in a circle, knocking the others away. He was a terrifying sight, eyes bulging, face swollen with rage, teeth flashing white in a space-tanned face, huge muscles rolling under naked skin as he threw the sergeant back across his horse and caught up Alea’s staff to thrust it back into her hand, then crouched behind her, holding his staff like a baseball bat and bellowing, “Go! Leave sister ‘lone!”
The sergeant pulled himself upright in his saddle, face white with fear—but as he felt his spear in his hand again, his courage came back and his look darkened. “Hold her, Arbin!” he snapped, then rode around to level his lance at Gar. “Ye don’t strike Gin’ral Malachi’s men, y’hear?”
Gar crouched cringing but roared defiance wordlessly—and clearly gathered himself to spring.
Even the sergeant took an involuntary step back, but he said, “Look around you, moron! There’s four spears pointing at you and another three at your sister!”
“Not at sister!” Gar tensed, foam at his lips, the light of murder in his eyes.
“You didn’t tell us that, now, did you?” The sergeant made it sound like a threat. “If we’d known she was your sister—well, we’d never trouble a sister where her brother had to watch, would we, boys?”
The bandits chorused doubtful nays, but Alea heard their thoughts and clamped her jaw against the bile that tried to rise in her gorge.
“We might stay to have some fun with you, though,” the sergeant concluded.
Gar growled low in his throat, lifting the staff a little higher over his shoulder, and the light in his eyes turned to madness.
“Sergeant,” one of the men said uncomfortably, “this ain’t what we’re sent to do.”
“No, it ain’t,” the sergeant told Gar grimly, “and lucky for you that is, for we can’t take the time to punish you now. But if you see the Gin’ral’s soldiers again, you do what they tell you and do it quick, you hear?”
Gar’s growl rose, his muscles bulging.
“I don’t think he can understand so many words at once, Sergeant,” Alea said quickly.
“Well then, you take your time and explain it to him, woman,” the sergeant said with heavy emphasis.
“It would be too bad if he went and skewered himself on our spears, it would.”
Gar rose slightly from his crouch, the staff still high, the growl still in his throat. .
“You’re warned!” the sergeant said, and turned his horse. He trotted off down the road; his men followed, looking back with glances that were either lustful or fearful, then turning away to ride on behind the sergeant.
Alea watched them go, trembling with relief and fear—of them, the fear had to be of them, and as soon as they were out of sight she turned on Gar. “You interfering lummox! I was afraid I was going to see you turned into a pincushion! Didn’t you realize you could be hurt?”
“I was more concerned about you,” Gar said gravely.
Something melted inside Alea, but she coated it with steel and ranted on. “I would have survived—and you don’t think I would have let them really do anything to me, do you? Believe me, every one of them would have paid dearly for what he did!”
“I don’t doubt it,” Gar replied, “but I would rather they didn’t do it in the first place.”
Alea ignored him. “Never mind that you straightened up! They must have seen how tall you are! By now they’ll have realized you’re the man they’re hunting and be calling up a hundred more to bring you in!”
Gar gazed off into space a moment, his face going blank; Alea could have screamed until she realized he was listening for the patrol’s thoughts. She tried it herself and caught a jumble of accusations and counteraccusations, of denials and insults; none of the men would admit having been afraid of the mad halfwit. All agreed he should be locked up, not allowed to wander the roads. None, however, volunteered to go back with a net and chains.
“It never even occurred to them,” Gar told her. “I went from being a toad to a gorilla and back to a toad. None of them thought I might be the man and warrior for whom they’re looking.”
“They were ready to kill you on the spot!”
“None of them could admit they were afraid,” Gar explained. “They had to threaten me enough to prove it, but they weren’t really about to push the simpleton so hard that he might attack again.”
Alea frowned. “How could they tell?”
“I didn’t explode until they threatened you,” Gar explained. “They knew ‘poor Gar’ wouldn’t mind what they said about him, only about his sister—unless they actually attacked.”
“You don’t really think you drove them away, do you?”
“Not really, no,” Gar said. “I only made them realize that the cost of their fun would be higher than they wanted to pay.”
“But they might have stabbed you six ways at once! You could have left it to me! I could have talked them out of it without coming to blows—I’ve done it before!” But she remembered the terror she’d felt when the hands seized her from behind and wasn’t so sure.
Gar frowned, studying her, then said, “I’m sure you could have. Very well, I’ll try to be a little more circumspect in the future.”
Alea eyed him narrowly. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’ll give you a chance to talk them out of it,” Gar said, “and if they won’t talk, I’ll use telekinesis to make them have accidents, such as two of their horses stumbling at the same time and throwing their riders into each other—coincidentally, of course.”
“Of course,” Alea said dryly. “Well, thank you for trusting me enough to let me try—and for trying to protect me this time.”
“You helped me escape General Malachi’s camp,” Gar reminded. “You guard my back, I’ll guard your back.”
“That sounds like a good bargain,” Alea said, relenting. “Just wait until I need it, all right?”
“All right,” Gar agreed, and fell in beside her as she turned away to take up the journey again. She found his presence very reassuring, and felt a secret glow within her knowing that he had tried to protect her.
They were welcomed in the next town with the delight with which everyone greets a break in monotony. The trade was brisk; this village’s specialty’ was exquisitely carved figurines of several different kinds of hardwood, and they were all eager for new pans, beads, needles, pins, and even some of the pottery from the village only a few miles away—Gar found that amusing, and Alea, raised in a hamlet herself, wondered why.