“Fool!” she snarled and lunged. The sword went deep into his belly, and the hilt was torn from her hand as he fell. She set one foot on his chest, fought the weapon free, and brought it down in a hard arc across his throat. He shuddered, went limp. Cursing steadily, she shifted the blade to her left hand and felt her face cautiously. A long cut ran from her jaw nearly to her nose. It stung, and her ear throbbed. Most of the blood came from a small nick at the base of the lobe. Messy, a little uncomfortable, but nothing more.
The clatter of fighting ceased, as suddenly as it had began. Jerdren had one of the men by his leather jerkin, a thick-bladed dagger held against the fellow’s throat. He looked at her in sudden concern.
“Much hurt, there, Eddis? You’re all bloody.”
She shook her head.
“Good. Hey, the camp! Coming in!” Another glance at Eddis. “Need my help?”
“You deal with him. He clipped my ear, that’s all.”
She checked the fallen men. The one who’d been wounded just as they came up was huddled in on himself, moaning pitifully. She shifted the sword back to her right again and tapped the back of his head with it. “You’re not dying. You’re making too much noise to be hurt badly,” she said harshly. “Get up. You wanted in our camp? Fine, let’s go.”
It took a little prodding, but he finally edged away from the tip of her blade and fumbled to his feet.
She gazed at him. Dirty, ragged. “You attacked us a couple nights ago, just inside the forest, didn’t you?”
Silence. He stared at her slack-jawed.
She nudged him with the flat of her blade. “Go on, move it.”
There were three other ragged, thin men already in the clearing. One lay on his side, eyes closed. His shirt was soaked with blood, and he seemed to be barely breathing. The one Jerdren had by the jerkin wasn’t injured that she could tell. The other two bore cuts but weren’t much hurt. Two of the Keep men took the man Eddis was guarding as Blorys came across the open ground, his eyes wide.
“You’re hurt!”
“It’s not bad, really,” Eddis said. She was suddenly very tired and wanted nothing more than to just collapse. “My ear,” she added with a smile. “You know how ears and scalp wounds bleed.”
“Your face—gods, Eddis!”
“It’s shallow, just a cut. M’Baddah can—”
Mead came up and took her arm. “I have a charm, Eddis. We’ll heal it.”
“You might need that later,” she began, but Blorys and the mage both shook their heads.
“It would be bad for morale,” the elf said, “to have our only swordswoman scarred. Besides, it is my charm, and therefore my decision.”
“All right,” she said, “but later. There’s some unfinished business first.”
One of their men lay facedown in the clearing, an arrow protruding from his back, and three others had been injured, though none badly.
Jerdren, M’Baddah and Willow had already begun questioning their prisoners, and the wounded man Eddis had brought in was stammering out answers, despite curses and threats from the man Jers had disarmed and dragged in. Two Keep men stood over him with drawn swords, which Eddis thought was all that kept him from throwing himself on the fellow.
“Yeah, we were with those guys that ambushed you the other night. But how’d we know you were gonna be down here by the road? Couple fellas followed your tracks the next morning, and you were going north.”
“If you’d been smart,” Jerdren said evenly, “you’d all have kept going the way you were running when we were done with you. Why didn’t you?”
The fellow gave him a sullen look. “Because he said he knew where we could find these men.” He pointed to the loud man under guard. “And because we’re city men mostly, not hunters, and we haven’t had a decent meal in days! We’d never make it back into the realm, so why try? What else was there—go up to the gates of the Keep and beg for bread?”
Jerdren was quiet for a long moment. The wounded man watched him warily. “Eddis,” Jers said finally. “All of you. You know what we have to do here, right?”
Eddis nodded. “It was a mistake letting any of them go the first time. We do that now, and they’ll attack us again. Or—”
“Or they’ll get lucky, find the men they’re looking for, and use the information about us to get into that camp,” Blorys finished.
The wounded man paled “You—you can’t just… !”
“Can’t just kill you?” Jerdren’s lips twitched. “Would you rather we tied you up and left you here? There’s a mountain lion out here, and there’s orcs, and worse things. The castellan of the Keep’s given us a charge. We have the right to execute lawless men like you.” He turned and caught hold of the fellow he’d brought in, dragging him cursing and snarling to his feet. “You first. At least it’ll shut you up.”
M’Baddah came across. “Two men to hold him for me. I have done this before.” He glanced at Eddis. “Let us do this and be done, quickly,” he added. He turned and walked into the woods. Two Keep men came after with the ragged prisoner between them, and two others with drawn bows, in case he somehow broke free. The wounded man gazed after them, stunned, then buried his face in his hands and wept harshly.
Eddis took a deep breath, and Blorys wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded, not trusting her voice at the moment.
The sun was nearly down by the time the last of the bandits was taken away—the wounded man, still weeping, had to be carried because his legs wouldn’t hold him. The other bodies were dragged off into the brush. M’Baddah was gone for some time after that, dealing in his own way with coldblooded killing, Eddis thought. Mead had tended to her face, and she was grateful for the sudden lack of pain, though all the fuss seemed foolish.
Jerdren looked around the clearing finally and sighed. “All that for seven miserable coppers. It seems we keep piling up dead enemies around the campsites, doesn’t it? I say this time we leave ’em right here, and we move on.”
“No argument,” Eddis said, when it became clear they were all waiting for her. “And don’t fuss over me, please. I don’t ask it or need it. It wasn’t cut that badly to begin with, and it’s healed.” The shoulder and sleeve of her shirt were stiff with blood. She’d have to change into her spare and wash the thing before she slept.
Jerdren gave his sword one more wipe before sheathing it. “Once we get settled, if there’s still time, I’d like to send M’Baddah out with his pick, four or five men, to see if there’s any sign of those men along the river.”
The dark man merely nodded, and moments later, they were on their way.
Eddis found herself in the middle of the party, with M’Whan at her side, and Mead a few paces ahead, two of the Keep men a distance behind. M’Whan was quiet, his brows drawn together. She touched his arm to get his attention.
“Anything wrong?” she asked quietly.
M’Whan sighed faintly. “It’s Father,” he said. “This scouting party. I… he’ll ask for me to go with him, I know he will. Though after what happened on our way up to the Keep, I wish he wouldn’t.”
“After—oh. Odd. I’d nearly forgotten about that ambush. M’Whan, it was not your fault that your father was wounded. Maybe one of us would have been killed, if you hadn’t taken care of that man on the road.”
Silence, which she finally broke. “You aren’t as good as he is, but that is only because he’s had more years of practice. Someday—”
“No, Eddis. He will always be my Nehuah, and I will always be his student. He has the greatness to be a master, a true Nehuah, and I do not. It is better that I accept that, don’t you see?”
His voice was like M’Baddah’s, Eddis thought—low and non-carrying.
“I don’t believe that’s true, M’Whan,” she said, as quietly. “Remember, your father chose you as his Nehuelo, and he explained it to me. Nehuelo doesn’t just mean apprentice. It means ‘the one who guards the back of the master.’”