He thumped the butt of his spear into the ground and jerked his chin up, glaring with angry pride at the bowmen. “I won’t be interfered with, ilean translator!” he said. “I am Hantu Sethentha Dantu y’Dantu, son of Sapasta Hantu Pranoth y’Dantu, who was whelkran of five thousand under our lady Grendis Destu Luc y’Dantu, and a trusted advisor to our lord Tegestu. If any wish to detain me, let him state his name and lineage and I will fight him with bow, spear, and sword.”
Fiona watched as Campas struggled mentally with how much of the Brodainu’s message to translate, and in what spirit — Hantu’s arrogant, uncompromising attitude was obvious enough to his watchers, and Hantu seemed to understand enough Abessas to follow Campas’ translation roughly.
Pulling her hood over her head and tightening it, Fiona walked into the circle. There were surprised murmurs as a few of the bowmen recognized her, and a worried glance from Campas.
“He says,” Campas said, turning to the bowmen, “that he was going about his duties when he heard your corporal saying that he wanted Tastis’ government in Arrandal.”
“That’s not so!” It was the strange hissing voice Fiona had heard earlier; it proved to belong to an unshaven, gangling soldier with a pair of missing front teeth. “He didn’t say anything of the sort!”
“What did he say, then?”
The soldier scratched his chin, clearly trying to decide how much to reveal. “Many of us in this company are bricklayers, see?” he said finally. “Journeymen and apprentices. Corvas was just saying that the idea of a League of Journeymen in our Guild wasn’t such a bad idea — he’d like one in our city. He didn’t say anything about wanting that bloody Brodainu bastard Tastis in our city.” His voice rang with contempt. “Why the hell should we want to be ruled by them?” he demanded. “We don’t want a bunch of foreign mercenaries running our affairs!”
Suddenly Hantu’s eyes blazed. He took a step forward and shook his spear. “Challenge!” he howled in his bad Abessas. “I fight that man! Call me mercenary, spy-traitor-money-grubbing Hostlu!”
Fiona felt herself gasp in surprise as a sudden arrow took the Brodainu in the throat. She hadn’t even seen who had fired it. Clawing at its shaft, Hantu staggered backward into the arms of one of his men. The soldier who had spoken seemed stunned by the sudden violence, and with rising anger in his eyes he turned to demand who had drawn bow... but one of the Brodaini was quicker, lunging with the curved sword-blade on the end of his spear, disemboweling the spokesman with a practiced swipe. Fiona, her inbred reflexes taking swift charge, struck up the spear with her arm, hearing Campas shouting, “Down weapons! Peace here, in the Abeissu’s name!”, but there was a sudden chaos of motion as other Brodaini spears leaped out and arrows began hissing through the air, Hantu’s armor rattling as he slipped from his man’s arms and fell kicking to the earth, with Campas in the middle of it calling for order, trying clumsily to strike up the flickering, bladed spears until an arrow clipped him and he fell. Fiona ducked between the spears, snapping her right arm in toward her chest while rotating her wrist sharply, and felt the needle snap out through her glove, protruding from the bone of her wrist.
It was meant for hurried self-defense, and was not an accurate weapon. With it she burned down the first row of bowmen, slitting her eyes against the flash. The air, outraged by the sudden release of energies, cracked like thunder. There were screams and confusion, the bowmen falling back in a yelping body; in the stunned silence that followed she barked out swift orders in Gostu. “Pick up your officer and carry him with us. Take the ilean translator. I’m the Ambassador Fiona — I’m taking command here. Now!”
Fiona saw confusion and naked fear on the Brodaini faces as they saw what her needle had done, but they responded instinctively to the chain of orders and once they began moving they moved efficiently, gathering Campas up as he clutched at his bleeding head. Fiona caught a scent of burned flesh as she pulled the hood-mask down to protect her face, then she barked orders for the Brodaini to keep on guard and draw back, with their wounded, to their own camp.
As they began to move Fiona saw that Hantu’s prisoner was dead. In the first swift seconds of the fight, some practical Brodainu, not expecting to survive, had quietly prevented the corporal’s escape by slitting his throat.
In the hood-mask she heard the rapid rasping of her own breath, the surge of her hammering pulse as she wondered whether the bowmen would be mad enough to pursue this fight. She began to breathe deliberately, trying to force both lungs and heart to slow, telling herself that she was not as vulnerable as she felt, her back turned to hostile bowmen. She worked her way into the middle of the Brodaini and felt them move protectively around her, shielding her with their bodies as they would one of their own officers, not knowing her armor was better than their own. She fought to control her body’s instinctive reactions — she didn’t want people crowding her, but it would be unsafe to force them to disperse. Through the darkened, one-way material of the face mask she could see Campas blinking through the blood that covered his face, one hand still pressed to his scalp where the arrow had scored him. The wound, though bloody like all scalp wounds, seemed superficial, and Fiona felt a breath of relief cooling her anxiety.
Three Brodaini faced toward the bowmen as they walked backwards with their spears on guard. They passed the barn, then moved past a rubbish dump toward the parade ground. Fiona could see dust rising in the Brodaini camp as they formed to come to the rescue of their comrades, summoned by the running Classanu. Suddenly there was a cry from the rearguard as arrows hissed again from the air. Fiona felt an impact between her shoulder blades and stumbled, seeing one of Campas’ bearers fall, an arrow in his side. Rage filled her, both because of the attack and because of what she knew the attack would force her to do, and she turned to see another savage flight of arrows whistling in their direction from where archers were crouching on the roof of the stone barn. She heard an answering snarl, and realized it was her own.
A Brodainu leaped in front of her to shield her body with his own, and she cursed in her own language and shouldered her way past him. She made a fist of her right hand and pulled it toward her body, increasing the power of her weapon, then fanned her arm out in the direction of the barn, her fire tearing holes in the air with the sound of lightning gone mad, blowing the barn wall away and bringing its roof down, the insect-figures of the archers falling among the rubble. Perhaps some would survive — more, anyway, than would have been the case if she’d raked the barn roof.
She heard an awed intake of breath from the Brodainu next to her as the roof came down, then she brushed past him again and shouted at them to begin moving. The Brodainu with the arrow in his side was staggering to his feet; another took his place carrying Campas, and then the group was shambling onward across the bare parade ground.
There was no more interference. Brodaini archers came pelting up, their long, powerful steel bows ready to cover the withdrawal; and they were followed by a battalion of swiftly-marching spearmen. Fiona tore her mask back, shouting out a version of the incident to their officers, making the hurried suggestion that the camp of Captain Pantas be cordoned off immediately, but that no action be taken against them until Palastinas, Necias, and Tegestu had been informed of the situation. The Brodaini officer, uncertain of his authority and hers, frowned, considered, and then acceded.
Fiona, her heart hammering, followed the Classani surgeons who were called to treat the wounded. Hantu, drowning in his own blood, was dead by the time they arrived. The other wounded Brodainu, it seemed, would survive, and so would Campas. Fiona sat cross-legged in the dust, trying to stay out of the surgeons’ way, while the marching columns rushed past, and while Campas’ wound was washed and bound.