Sister Wilemina chirped, "You must give Murdoch a chance! Please, Badger! It's only fair!"
"Fair's a funny word from a pirate, pretty thing." Playing to the crowd, Badger made them laugh. "Even a fair wind's nothing to bank on. Come on, Murdoch, pick up that pigsticker! A cask of Brycer stout goes to the winner, and it's thirsty work watching you fall down!"
Though Murdoch was in his prime, barely past twenty and sturdy as an ox, and Badger's best days had ended three decades back, it was the older man who skipped and dodged while the younger man charged like a blind bull, panting with his tongue out. Murdoch lugged a spear with a wicked barbed head. Badger had only a small round shield and a cutlass. The sergeant should have stabbed the sailor a dozen times, but Badger was only dusty while Murdoch was bloody.
Sucking wind, Murdoch lowered the spear and rushed. The old pirate seemed to stumble, and the crowd gasped, then Badger kicked backward with one foot. Suddenly he was side-on as Murdoch blundered past too fast to stop. Badger could have split his spine with the cutlass but settled for spanking the sergeant's bum. The crowd roared. Still game, Murdoch dropped the spear point to dig in dirt and whirl half-round. He whipped the spear butt back to ram Badger's gut. The pirate was gone. Gasping, Murdoch snapped his head to one side -and slammed his face flat into Badger's upright shield.
Stunned, Murdoch grabbed his aching forehead. Grinning, Badger blew a mighty puff and, with one finger, shoved the sergeant over. Murdoch raised dust when he flopped, and the crowd cheered with delight as he was dragged from the circle.
"Pitiful." Badger shook his salt-and-pepper head in mock sorrow. "If Johan fetches down another army, we'd best arm the children and our spryer dames. What say you, citizens of Palmyrans? Could our eldest crones send an army of Tirrans fleeing in terror with naught but brooms?"
"Aye!" laughed a hundred. "We'll spit Johan's head on a pike yet!"
Behind Jedit Ojanen, the disguised emperor's eyes flashed so bright he expected sparks to set fire to the tiger's fur.
"Badger, you spout wind like a split spinnaker!" called a voice. It was Simone the Siren, a buxom black woman lounging against the wall, another Sevener. "If you're done dancing with dainty Murdoch, 'haps you'd care to fight Wilemina! I've a double-eagle crown from Kalin says she dumps you!"
"Yes, yes!" shouted the crowd. "Fight! Fight!"
Always ready to show off, Badger laughed agreement. Sister Wilemina shook her twin braids but consented. Accepting an oblong shield, she drew a leaf-blade archer's sword and saluted.
People cheered and hooted and hissed in good fun as the fighters circled. Simone accepted a quick bet from a grizzled man with an unshaven jaw.
Badger and Wilemina scuffed, skipped, tagged shields, clashed cutlass and sword, all while pacing a circle like two gamecocks.
Badger, puffing now, finally waved his blade and asked, "Here, daughter, did you come to dance or-"
Quick as a cobra, Sister Wilemina threw her sword. Not at the man, but straight down between his feet. The blade bit dirt and vibrated, and Badger's eyes flew wide.
The oldest trick in the book. As the pirate was distracted, the archer coiled an arm like an oak branch. Her knotty fist slammed Badger's broad brisket and nearly dented his spine. He lost all his wind in a tremendous "Oooof!" Sister Wilemina ducked and snagged his ankle. Badger flipped over backward and banged dirt so hard his belt buckle broke.
"That'll teach you to bash a friend of mine!" snapped Sister Wilemina. No one heard for the cheering.
"Come," ordered Johan and towed the disguised tiger away. The emperor's revenge couldn't start soon enough.
Crossing the small town, the odd duo descended worn steps cut into stone to finally stand where the town's west wall overlooked the docks. Johan gazed at the silver-gleaming water, which rippled a mere thirty feet across.
Jedit murmured, "Quite a river for so parched a place."
"This puddle? Barely enough water to let a man spit."
Johan stroked his pointed chin and glared as if the river were also his enemy. As expected, the River Toloron had returned. The mighty river rolled from the watershed of the northern mountains, so it couldn't be extinguished. Flushing along its old bed, scouring away smothering sand grain by grain, the Toloron glittered in the light of a crescent moon as it again snaked around the bedrock supporting the village. The narrow channel would swell as spring snowmelt rushed down, but for now, Palmyra's docks stood high and dry fifty feet shy of the water. It might be years before the river was navigable by barges again, thought Johan. He had an army to move-or would have soon.
Turning his back on the traitorous river, Johan gazed at Palmyra under starlight, his ears aching at gay laughter. Venom dripped in his voice.
"You'd think an invasion never occurred. What are you doing?"
Still cloaked as a barbarian, Jedit descended the town wall and walked to the river's edge. He knelt and lapped water like a house cat stealing cream. Johan jerked as a pair of lovers laughed at the country bumpkin.
"Wait!" Johan's bark made the lovers freeze. "You two! Tell me! Is Adira Strongheart in town? And what of Hazezon Tamar? Where stands he?"
"Sir?" The girl's eyes were large and dark in dim starlight. "Uh, yes, sir. Adira still limps from a broken leg, but she surveys the rebuilding from a sedan chair. Lord Hazezon Tamar visits her. To advise, they say." She giggled the last, for Hazezon and Adira were ex-spouses, the two most notorious on-off lovers in all the Sukurvia.
"Hazezon too…" mused Johan. "Very good. You may go."
Bemused, but not daring to tease the ragged madman, the couple sidled away into shadows.
"Yes. Oh, yes! We'll strike a treble blow and sink the windswept ship of Palmyra forever!"
"We'll what?" Silently on masked cat feet, the towering Jedit startled Johan.
"Never mind," snapped the mage. "We must see someone who lives here. Someone who knows things worth knowing."
Chapter 5
"Johan! Uh, I mean, milord! You're-"
"Alive, yes," said Johan dryly. "Let us in, quick."
Flustered, the woman fell back from the door. Johan told Jedit to remain outside, then glided into the tiny house.
The woman's voice was a low contralto, husky from breathing incense smoke. Shifting blue clouds threatened to smother a visitor. Johan glanced about. A baby dozed with tiny snores in a cradle. The house had only one room, too small to hide anyone else. The mage bolted the door and sat on the only stool at a rickety table.
"Milord Johan, we thought you'd vanished, swallowed up by the desert."
The witch had the underfed look of a girl, though her mahogany skin was laced with fine wrinkles. Her black hair was raked back in even rows. She wore only a brown felt vest laced across her small bosom and baggy trousers of wrinkled silk. Her eyes were outlined in kohl, and her long nails were red as if dipped in blood. She was clearly nervous confronting her master, for she'd served as one of Johan's spies before the invasion.
"I did vanish, but I've returned," said Johan enigmatically. "I need your skills. Recall you your lessons?"
Back straight, the slim woman said, "Of course. What do you require?"
Johan told her.
The witch gazed at the door with dark-rimmed eyes. "That would be… very costly. I'd have to quit Palmyra for good. Very costly indeed."