“Save the argument for later,” Eddis said. “Just tell us.”
“All right,” Jerdren said. “What he said is that up until this summer, there’ve been the usual raids on travelers and caravans. You know. A few men preying on lone wagons, harrying riders. Mostly, they’ve been unorganized and easily driven off. But recently, the attacks have increased, and the raiders seem better armed, better organized. Mebros says all evidence points to a large band, a camp of fifty or more men—soldier-trained.”
“The men who attacked us this morning were organized, but I wouldn’t call them well trained,” Blorys pointed out.
Jerdren shook his head. “From what Mebros said, I don’t think they were part of this local band. He says they wear a patch or badge of some kind—a bit of dark green on one sleeve. Our bunch might have been a raiding party moving through the area, or maybe men looking to join up with the local band.” He waved that aside. “Mebros says it’s near certain there’s at least one camp close by, but it’s also fairly sure they move often. Still, a large band of men, I’m thinking they’d have two or three regular sites up in the hills they go to, near the river or across rock, so they’d leave no obvious trail. Far enough away that the castellan can’t afford to send men looking for them but near enough to keep watch on the road.”
“That still covers a lot of rough ground,” Eddis said.
“Exactly.” Jerdren grinned at her. “And most of the castellan’s men are guards. They’re best at manning the walls here.”
“So what, Jers?” his brother asked dryly. “You’re suggesting that the five of us go looking for a well-armed group of fifty or more? Track them down ourselves and bring them down? That’s high odds even for you, isn’t it?”
“Well—”
“Forget it, Jerdren,” Eddis cut him off flatly. “Those aren’t my kind of odds. Personally, I’m still happy guarding merchant carts. The money’s good, and I don’t have to answer to some captain or… or castellan, either.”
“I didn’t say just us,” the man protested. “The men I hired up north might want to join us, and there should be a few more like us here. Besides, Mebros says there’s to be a decent reward and a call for volunteers from the guard—”
“Who are men fit only to guard the walls, according to you,” Eddis broke in sharply. “I don’t like it, Jerdren. Too much ‘if and maybe’ to your story, and besides, every time we run into each other, there’s trouble. Usually started by you.”
“Eddis?” M’Baddah spoke up for the first time. “Perhaps M’Whan and I should go learn what we can before you and Jerdren argue the matter further.”
Why bother? she thought sourly. All the same, she at least needed to discuss things with M’Baddah—privately.
Jerdren nodded. “Sure, M’Baddah, that’s the spirit! Blor and I can talk to men we know in the barracks, and we’ll meet back here later. Fair enough, Eddis?”
Silence.
“Look, this isn’t like running into each other some place like Lower Vale. This would be a job. We’d plan it, like a regular campaign. What could go wrong?” The gleam was back in his eyes. “You know, when Mebros told me, all I could think was, ‘Why not us?’ Then, when I heard you had just ridden in, Eddis, it all—came together. It’s a chance for…”
“Fame, wealth and glory?” Blorys asked sourly as the older man hesitated.
“What’s wrong with fame and glory, Blor?”
“What’s wrong with living to a ripe old age?” Eddis asked as she pushed to her feet. “Look, M’Baddah’s right. Why sit here arguing over what might be wild rumor? I want to know what’s involved. What we’d have to accomplish, how much help we’d get from the Keep, what size of a reward….”
Blorys laid a hand on his brother’s arm. “Wait, Jers. You’ve had your say. I agree with M’Baddah and Eddis. Let’s go learn what we can. We could meet back here later, if there’s more than rumor to go on.”
“One more thing, Jerdren,” Eddis said. “If your rumor proves true, and we decide to go in with you, and if the castellan decides we’re what he wants—or what he’s willing to settle for, you and I are equals in this. Got me?”
“Equals—well, sure! But—?”
“That means I get equal say with you on who’s chosen to go with us, how things are planned, and who sits in on the planning sessions—all of it, all the way. I am not joining you, Jerdren. We two are working together, or you can start looking elsewhere for your fighting force, got it?”
The man nodded. She glanced at his younger brother, who gave her an apologetic smile. “Blorys, you’ll be back here maybe an hour after sundown?”
He smiled faintly and nodded. “We’ll be here.”
The wind had died away, and afternoon sun cast long shadows, warming the stone walls and paving. Eddis strode across the square and over to the fountain, M’Baddah at her elbow and M’Whan close behind. Water burbled from a central pillar, falling back into the shallow stone bowl. It was much cooler here, and quiet. Private, for the moment. Most of the local people she could see were dismantling the morning market stalls across the courtyard, while a few customers haggled over the last fruits and baskets of tubers. Eddis settled her elbows and the small of her back against the stone lip and looked at her companions.
“You hadn’t heard about this mad venture?” she asked.
M’Baddah shrugged.
M’Whan shook his head.
“This Mebros could be pulling a joke on Jerdren. He’d have friends like that. Still, say it’s true. Say the castellan would pick people like us to clean up these bandits, give us what aid we needed, and reward us if we succeeded. Say even that between you two, Blorys, and me, we can keep Jerdren in check. Are we interested?”
Silence, which she broke. “For myself—I don’t know. I’ve worked hard to build this business and a good reputation. It’s good coin, steady work. Why trade that for an unknown?”
Her lieutenant raised an eyebrow. “Because a good warrior always seeks challenge, but we could return to the road, once the task is done. For the challenge alone, I say we should go.”
M’Whan merely nodded.
“All right.” Eddis sighed faintly. “I just wish Jerdren wasn’t involved. I hardly feel comfortable sharing a table with him in the tavern, but if he went off on some wild scheme of his own out there, it could get us killed.”
“No,” M’Baddah said. “We know he is… excitable. We plan for that. As his brother no doubt must, all the time.”
Eddis looked back toward the inn and laughed. “Poor Blorys, he probably does.” She turned to her two confidants. “So then, we’re in. Let’s split up and go learn what we can.”
She returned to the tavern just as the sun was setting. Ruddy light moved quickly off the highest towers, and a chill wind swept across the courtyard, blowing dust and fine spray from the fountain. Eddis shivered and lengthened her stride.
It was warm inside the tavern and much busier than it had been earlier. People crowded the near trestles. She waited just inside the doorway for her eyes to adjust, her mind full of useless bits of information gathered over the past hour. The innkeeper claimed to be too busy to know about anything outside his own walls, but the man’s son had heard there was to be a scouting party to look for the bandit camp. Following his suggestion, she’d talked to Khalidd the trader, but Khalidd was no help. He’d merely had the tale from Mebros. Ghor the smith was busy shoeing horses, so Eddis had had no opportunity to ask him anything.
She’d picked up a dozen or more odd rumors here and there. Someone had said there were lizardmen out in the wetlands east of the Keep, and another supposedly had proof of magic armor in a cave—which was of course distant enough that its exact location was hidden. Others spoke of an enchanted mountain cat living deep in the woods and of a frail-looking hermit who turned men into logs. Two different girls told her about a maiden held by men who’d killed her family, leaving no one to ransom her, but Eddis had heard a similar tale back in her own village. There seemed to be endless speculation about the bandits, outrage over the merchant’s wife, and plenty of new tales about the attack on Jerdren’s party this morning. She’d heard that three of the bandits had since been seen here in the Keep, disguised as peddlers, and that a small invading party had tried to scale the western wall of the inner bailey and would have succeeded except for the racket they’d made falling into the terraced garden beds.