“Let me go! You let Blot go! Lemme go!”
Mead’s fingers began to glow as he murmured a spell. The child went wide-eyed and quiet, and it tried to back away, but Eddis had it.
“Be quiet,” the mage said evenly, “or this spell will turn you to stone.”
Blessed silence. The elf mage looked around them, his angry gaze sweeping across the prisoners. “What is a human child doing here and in such pitiful state? Where is its mother?”
“Maybe this fellow could tell you,” Jerdren replied sharply. “Seemed awfully interested when you two hauled it out of hiding. Captain here, aren’t you? Captain of this camp?” he asked.
Silence, broken by the sound of a hard kick and a grunt of pain. “I only ask nicely the first time,” he said. “What about this child, eh?”
The child twisted half-around to screech at Jerdren. “Don’t you hurt ’im. You got no right!” It tore at Eddis’ fingers. “Lemme go!”
The swordswoman gave Mead an exasperated look, locked her other hand in the dreadful hair, and shouted, “Mead! Use the spell! Anything to shut the creature up!”
The child caught its breath in a gasp and cowered away from her. Eddis felt ashamed of her outburst and angry because of it.
The captain cleared his throat. “Leave the brat alone. It’s done no harm. It’s ours, honest like. Not stolen, it ain’t. Born to us.”
“Who’s its father, and where’s its mother, then?” Jerdren demanded. “Brat that size ought not to be without parents.”
“It—which is the child? Boy or girl?” Eddis asked angrily. Her knuckles stung where ragged fingernails had torn at them, and the hair she kept in a tight grip was disgusting to the touch and smelled dreadful. “I can’t keep saying ‘it’!”
The man closed his mouth tightly.
She eyed the filthy child, bit back a sigh, and essayed a smile. Tried to make her voice soothing. “Little one, I’m sorry if we scared you. We don’t mean to frighten children.” Silence. “What’s your name? Are you a boy, or a girl?”
“Told you, I’m Blot,” it replied sullenly. Large tears pooled in the dark eyes and ran down thin cheeks all at once, leaving pale tracks in the dirt.
Eddis was suddenly furious with this captain and all the men who’d camped here with him. To so neglect a child… how low were they?
Blot spoke up, voice thick with tears, “What ye’ll do with Blot? With ’im?” Her eyes went toward the captain.
“Is he your father, Blot?”
“Don’t know what that is. ’Im’s just Captain. Lets me live here, sleep in the tent there with ’im ’n ’is brother. I gotta do what they say, get wood for the fires, ’n keep ashes cleared proper like.”
Eddis met Mead’s eyes, nodded to let him know she’d take control of the situation. She caught the child’s shoulder gently as the mage released it and brought the suddenly quiet creature over to where the prisoners had been gathered. Her eyes were hard as they met those of the bandit captain.
“Suppose you tell me, then, Captain! Since the child doesn’t seem to have any idea?”
He eyed her stubbornly.
“Fine! I guess I’ll let Jerdren kick it out of you—be still, child!” she ordered and tightened her grip on Blot’s skinny shoulders. The child twisted in her grasp, realized it was no use, and went still again.
The prisoner glanced at Jerdren, looked at the child for a long moment, finally shrugged. “Told you true, Blot’s ours. We had a few camp women, last place we were. Bad idea, I knew it then, and so it proved. Women like that set the men against one another, always playing little games. And y’get by-blows like that all too often.” His gaze moved expressionlessly over the child and then beyond her. “Mother died when it was a year old—maybe two. I forget.”
“It?” Eddis asked. The man glanced at her, away. Shrugged again.
“She. M’brother took to it—her. Kept her about, can’t think why. Was it left to me, I’d’ve had it exposed and there’s an end to it. Men like us got no use for something that young and useless.”
Eddis’ eyes narrowed.
The man went on, clearly unaware of her rising fury. “Turned out a useful creature in its way. We taught it to tend fires, fetch water—things like that. Taught it from the first that it didn’t dare give over its chores, whatever it thought of ’em. Turned out my brother was right. Blot frees up a man or two when they’re needed on important tasks.”
Eddis drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. The poor child was probably expecting a beating. Clearly it was all she knew. She wouldn’t understand the swordswoman’s anger was for the man who’d so ill-treated her.
“She,” Eddis said evenly. “So—how old is she?”
He considered this briefly. “Ten—twelve summers? Man loses count.”
“Ten or twelve.” Eddis stared at him. “And you kept her here, openly? Living with all these men?”
He scowled up at her. “Now, listen, there’s none of that! Wouldn’t ever have been, either. I run a clean camp! Didn’t I say we was rid of loose women? Time came,” he shrugged, “and Blot was old enough, we’d give the child a chance to learn weapons and join us.”
“And if she didn’t want to become a bandit, what then?” Eddis’ voice remained soft, but the captain edged away from her, until Jerdren’s boot stopped him.
“What d’ye think? We’re not savages! My brother would’ve taken her to some town and turned ’er loose!”
“And, trained as you’ve trained her, of course she’d be able to find an honest way to earn her way,” Eddis replied sourly. “Jerdren, get him away from me.” She walked off, bringing Blot in tow.
“What’ll ye do with ’im?” Blot asked in a small voice. “Y’ can’t kill ’im. ’E swore ’e’d protect me!” Another thought occurred to her. “Where’s ’is brother? Where’s Hosig?” She pulled against Eddis’ grip, but in vain.
“M’Baddah?” Eddis turned to look for her lieutenant. “M’Baddah, where are—? Oh, there, thank the gods,” she added as the man came out of the gloom to join her. “She’s after the captain’s brother—the man with the horses, down at the river, wasn’t he?”
M’Baddah’s eyes shifted toward the canvas shelter, where the more gravely wounded had been moved, and he shook his head minutely.
“Not yet,” he said quietly, “but soon.”
Eddis shifted her grip on the child’s shoulders and went to one knee to be on her level. “Blot? We’ll take you to see him. But… well, he’s hurt.”
“Hurt? ’E won’t die, will ’e?”
Blot asked fearfully. Eddis looked up at M’Baddah, who knelt next to her and met the child’s eyes.
“I do not think he is so badly hurt. Eddis tells you this only so you will not cry or look afraid when you see the bandages. He is your friend?”
Blot didn’t seem too sure about “friend.”
“’E lets me have one of ’is blankets when it’s cold out, and sometimes ’e helps me with the heavy pots and the wood and stuff.”
“That is a friend,” M’Baddah said gently. “Because he cares for you. Come. We will take you to your friend.” He held out a hand.
Blot searched his face, sniffed quietly, and suddenly held out one of hers. Eddis bit back reservations of her own and released the child, who went quietly with her lieutenant. The swordswoman glanced at Jerdren, held up a hand when he would have trailed along, and went after the two.
The wounded man lay a little apart from the others. Someone beyond him moaned nonstop, though all the men here had been tended to. At first, Eddis thought he looked no worse than his companions. His leg had been splinted with a long stick of firewood. There was a spreading bruise on his forehead and a ragged, oozing cut that crossed his right hand. His face was tight with pain. M’Baddah spoke first to the robber and then softly against the child’s ear before he gave her a gentle shove forward. The man made a clear effort to focus on her, and even managed something of a smile.