“Yes, sir! Yes, sir!” they both said, going to it with a vengeance. Within minutes, they had it reasonably cleared.
“Now—where are your horses? Your horses! Where?”
They pointed to the trees, and he went over to Mia and took the crossbow. He never liked them; one shot and then you had nothing, but if he couldn’t take one of these idiots barehanded he didn’t deserve to be out here. “Mia, go get the horses and any belongings you find that won’t have to be burned,” he ordered. She went, and soon came back, leading the horses two at a time.
“See if you can tie off all six to ours,” he told her.
”You ain’t gonna leave us with no horses!” one of the robbers wailed. “We couldn’t get no place afore dark on foot!”
“Two grown men afraid of the dark,” he mocked. “If you’re that scared, you can make the border before sunset with a good pace. Do you good. And, by that time, you’ll have no problems thinking up a good story for the nice men there. And it’ll be a doozy, I bet. Take off all your clothes!”
“Why, you can’t ask us to do that! It’s against the Rules or somethin’!”
“Ain’t fair,” the other agreed.
He laughed. “You boys want a code of honor, you better head way south,” he told them. “Haven’t you got it yet? I am robbing you!” He uncocked the crossbow almost inviting them to come at him, and tossed it away, then went again to his sword. “Now, which is it? Your clothes or your manhood? I wonder if a man could make it back to that entry station that way without bleeding to death?”
They raced each other to get it all off.
He gestured at the two men, who looked even worse in the buff than they looked in those clothes, then at the road back the way they came. “Now, run!” he ordered. “I’m going to count as high as I can, then I’m gonna pick up that crossbow and fire it right down that road.”
“How high kin you count?” one asked.
“I don’t know. Let’s see, I got one finger, two fingers…”
They were off like a shot, making a hilarious sight running down that road, and even Mia laughed at them as they quickly were out of sight.
“Anything but the horses?” he asked her.
“Saddlebags, Master. A couple of crossbows, extra bolts, and a fair amount of Marquewood silks. Also two dead men. It appears we were not their first victims of the day.”
He nodded. “Well, pack up what you can. Can you tie up the horses so we can take them all in? They’re pretty average looking but they ought to bring some money.”
She went to do that and he looked around at the four dead bodies. He felt terrific! His old confidence was completely back. And yet, he realized, he’d only been responsible for one of them directly and another by misdirection. Mia had done most of the work and as good as any fighter he’d ever seen.
Mia was soon back. “All set?” he asked her.
“But for one thing, Master,” she responded, running to the first man she’d killed and removing the knife, then cleaning it on his tunic.
“You were amazing,” he told her honestly. “Tiana could not have done any better.”
She beamed. “I was sure about the first one, Master, but not the second. It is very odd, but I had never been able to do that sort of kick before. I think my hair always got in the way or threw me off. This time I did not have to allow for the hair. Perhaps this is not such a tragedy, after all.”
“Well, don’t get too cocky!” he warned. “These guys were dangerous, yes, but they were common thieves. Professionals would have reacted without thinking, and they would not have taken you for granted.”
She spat on the ground near a body. “That sort of man always takes girl slaves for granted, Master.” She ran lightly back and jumped atop her horse, then gathered what reins she could and tied everything off. They looked now like horse-breeders on their way to market.
Joe mounted his own horse and started past the former barricade. “On the road again,” he sang. “Can’t wait to get back on the road again …”
Marge stirred from under her tarp and peered out fuzzily. “Huh, wuzzit?” She looked around and suddenly saw a whole lot more horses around her. “Where’d they come from?”
Joe laughed. “Poor Marge! Go back to sleep! A robbery and a fight can’t wake you up, but my singing does it every time!”
Marge peered blurrily at the horses, then at Mia and Joe, frowned, shrugged, and crawled back under her tarp.
It wasn’t much of a town, but it was clearly seeing better days because of the proximity of military units. There had been a lot of new and obviously slipshod construction along its one main street, probably to serve the military forces who had first passed it by, then returned in the truce and remained nearby.
The stable manager was taken aback at the number of horses. “They’re for sale,” Joe told him. “Cheap.”
The livery man, a stout, middle-aged man, with gray hair and mustache dressed in brown, who looked and smelled as if he’d been born in the stable, looked them over. “Ain’t much,” he commented. “Serviceable, though. You got clear title?”
“The men who owned them won’t be coming to claim them, if that’s what you mean,” Joe answered. “They made a serious mistake of trying to rob me.”
“Well, I’ll be swaggered! I thought that was Stirt’s horse there!”
“Scruffy man, fleas, dirty gray clothes?”
“The very one!”
“If he returns, he’ll be carrying his head under his arm,” Joe told the liveryman. “If he does and still wants his horse, I’ll refund your money.”
The liveryman looked suddenly frightened. “You shouldn’t oughta joke like that, son. Not ’round here. It ain’t all that improbable!”
“Was he a friend of yours?”
“Nope. Real backstabber. Bad from the start. It’s just that he owed me money. Not that I was gonna get it anyway, but…”
“Thirty for the lot and you put up my three for the night,” Joe told him.
“Ain’t possible! I’ll be lucky to resell the lot for twenty-five afore some nosy somebody from the military district comes in and confiscates them as necessary for the defense. Ten plus the board and feed of yours.”
“I’ll sell them on the street for more than that.” They went back and forth in traditional fashion, finally settling on seventeen gold pieces and the livery service. With the still uncounted booty from the thieves’ stash, he was beginning to take a certain liking to Valisandra in spite of its rottenness.
“The military are near here?” he asked the liveryman.
“Couple miles. Lots of train in’ and stuff, lots, of noise and marching and all that other soldier crap.”
“All Valisandran?”
He nodded. “All except some of the officers. I ain’t sure what they are. Might not even be human for all I know. There’s a Valisandran Volsan detachment, too. Big suckers.”
“Volsan—they’re of the centaurs, right?”
“Yep. Wouldn’t want to face any of them in a fight. Kinda all in one cavalry. Drink harder than a thievin’ barman, too. Mostly humans be in tonight, though. Full pack workday; won’t be many. You up here to sign up?”
“I am up here to see if there is anything worth my while to sign up for,” he replied. “Any of the stores open? And how available is the hotel?”
“Most of the stores’ll be open for a while yet, just in case the soldiers come in and want something. Used to have lots of folks here on their way to deal with the dwarf lords in the mountains. Even some tourists, believe it or not. Now, it’s just soldiers. If they hadn’t come back and stuck here, we’d ’a dried up and blowed away. Hotel’s always half or better empty because of it. The guv puts soldiers up.”