Her hand went to the knife on her hip, but his other hand wrapped around hers and squeezed in warning. “Well, what do we have here?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Anna dangled from his fist without struggling too much. Each movement hurt her scalp. To defend herself and warn the attacker of her fighting skills would only make him wary as he held her tighter. Better to hold off until she stood a better chance of success by surprising him. For now, she would act younger than even the twelve she pretended to be. She wailed and protested. She cried. She moaned loudly. When none of those worked, she screamed loud enough to draw the attention of the coyotes she left behind in the drylands.
He slapped her across her face, but not too hard. It was a warning.
While one of his hands was tangled in her hair and holding her up, he had let go of her hand—the one resting on the hilt of the knife--to slap her. She tensed, ready to pull the knife free, but recognized something was wrong. It was a trap. His eyes were watching for her to make a grab for it. So instead, she cried louder again, and in the process allowed her hand to move away from her knife. She could reach for it later, but her hand fell to her thigh, and her thumb touched the thin hilt of the other knife under the material. When the time is right, don’t hesitate.
“Your purse. Don’t be telling me you don’t have one.” The sour reek of his body was only over-ridden by the putrid stench from his mouth.
The pain of being suspended in the air by her hair had increased as she wriggled and twisted, but her actions were more for effect than to escape. From the corner of her eye, she saw another figure lurking in the dark. Her chances of escape were nil. Two of them would make escape impossible, so she reconsidered how she might make it work. Maybe she could turn one against the other.
“Hold still, girl,” he growled, and another slap followed across her mouth, this time, hard enough to draw blood.
Anna said, “I’m just a poor girl from a dirt farm. I don’t have any coins.”
He hit her on the side of her head with the heel of his palm, causing her to black out for a second. Then he shook her until her eyes crossed and refocused. His hand went to her waist, stopping at the bulge of the small purse inside the waistband of her pants. He didn’t know enough to feel the hem of her shirt or the straps of the backpack on the ground. “No coins, huh? Then what’s this?”
“Let me go! My big brother will hunt you down for this.”
Oddly the second man in the shadows hadn’t spoken or taken part in the attack. He had stood in deep shadow under the edge of the trees and had now moved closer, behind the man holding her. His movements were stealthy and careful. He held something in his hand. A piece of firewood? A short branch? He lifted it as he moved closer, and she started to scream for him not to hit her. But something in his actions made her hold off.
The first man was trying to pull her purse free didn’t seem to know the other man was there. As the idea formed in her mind that they were not working together, the firewood was raised higher. She couldn’t take her eyes off of it, even though it risked warning her attacker. Then the firewood swung down. A solid thwack sounded as it struck the back of his head.
The fingers in her hair relaxed as his knees collapsed and he fell forward on his face in the damp dirt. Anna felt herself being dragged to the ground with him, but as she landed, she twisted and brought the large knife up to defend herself from either of them.
Her attacker did not move. Neither did her savior. “Who are you?” she hissed into the darkness where he stood. If he wanted her or her purse, he would have to fight for it. She dropped into a fighting crouch, the blade of the knife held upward so she could slash instead of stab.
“Thief.”
“What? Thief? It’s you? Why are you here?”
“I followed.”
She stood upright, breathing hard and only now realizing the danger she had been in. Her heart pounded as she wiped the blood from her lip where he had slapped her. That small action brought the incident to reality. She had been attacked. Thief, the stranger from the desert had saved her, but anger welled inside. Thief was the only one near enough to strike out at. “I thought I told you to go off into the drylands and leave me alone.”
“I came. To watch you.”
“Well, I’m glad you did, but you shouldn’t have! Do you know who that man is?” She waved an arm at the figure on the ground.
“Bad man.”
Anna pulled herself together and dabbed the blood from the corner of her lip. She couldn’t tell if Thief had known the man before, but it made little difference. He’d saved her.
She knelt at the side of the bad man, as Thief called him. Placing the back of her hand in front of his mouth, she determined he still breathed. He lived, and he might wake any time and attack them. Digging into her backpack, she found a shirt she could spare. Her knife cut it into strips, and she tied him hand and foot, resisting the impulse to slap him as he’d slapped her, only more so. She really wanted to punch him. Maybe a few kicks to make her feel better. Her hands shook with emotion.
Thief removed one of the strips she’d tied and retied it more securely. The material was thin, and the ‘bad man’ could rub it against a tree or rock and eventually set himself free, but not so fast that he could follow her. On impulse, she checked between his shoulder blades and found a knife, reasonably sharp and well-made, too large for the kind usually hidden there by those who needed a secret weapon. She smirked and remembered she also had a knife hidden.
“You take this knife, Thief,” she said, holding it out to him.
“His knife.”
When Thief made no move to accept the other man’s knife, she shrugged with understanding. It didn’t belong to Thief. Pulling hers from the scabbard at her side, she held that one out to him. “Then take my old knife. It has served me well. I would consider it a favor if you used it. Otherwise, I may have to throw it away because of keeping his.”
The smile reappeared as he reached for her knife. Pulling it from the scabbard, he checked the edge with his thumb and nodded in appreciation. She felt the edge on the other, and it was dull and chipped. But she’d have the other knife sharp as her old one as soon as she had time to work on it. She remembered there had been a metallic jingle when she had removed the knife from her attacker. In the dim light, she felt his waistband as he had felt hers.
Her fingers located it. A leather purse came free. Inside were two thin copper coins and one full copper. Enough for a loaf of bread, a meal, and a few mugs of ale. She slipped them into her purse, not because she needed or wanted them. It just felt like justice to take from him what he wanted to take from her. She found her purse beside his hands and replaced it inside her waistband.
Standing, she said to Thief, “Hungry?”
Thief nodded, and slid the knife into his new scabbard and pulled it free again, a smile still intact, his hand touching and retouching the hilt of the knife as if he couldn’t believe it was his. Thief wore no belt so she unbuckled the one from her attacker and said, “Put the scabbard on the belt and wear it. No argument.”
He stood unmoving, as if not knowing if he should obey her.
She impatiently snatched the knife from his hand and slipped the belt through the leather loop on the scabbard. Then she reached around Thief with the belt and buckled it in front. “Come with me,”
Anna found her way in the darkness to gather her things. The road lay just over a small rise. Once on the road, she started walking, Thief at her side. She set a quick pace, wishing to be well away when the man woke, freed himself, and tried to follow. Or maybe he was not that stupid.