"I like a man who knows his mind," Nigel Loring said; which was both a compliment and a hint. He looked Havel up and down. "Good gear, by the way."
Havel nodded. "Easier to make in quantity than what you're wearing," he replied. "Not that it isn't a pretty suit."
"We took the design from museum pieces, actually," the Englishman replied, pronouncing the word as ekshually. "Now, as to what we're doing: "
Havel settled his palm-broad sword belt, bloused the hauberk above it slightly-that shifted some of the weight to your hips-and pulled a map out of Trooper's saddlebag. The well-trained horse stayed steady as he spread it against the saddle.
"I originally planned to trap Crusher Bailey wherever he jumped me," he said. "But the troops I had planned for that are now screening against the Protector's men who are chasing you. I: really don't want to let Crusher get away and rebuild his gang, either."
He looked at his party; Signe and him, Eric and Luanne, and the three Englishmen; he knew his kinsfolk's quality, and from the look of it the foreigners were good men of their hands too. That wasn't surprising, from what he'd been told:
"So we're it. Let's push them hard enough they don't get any fancy ideas, like setting ambushes."
Sir Nigel leaned over and looked at the map, then up at the country ahead. "Seems to be something that requires action," he agreed. "And we certainly owe you a debt for your hospitality, Lord Bear. Alleyne, John?"
The other two nodded, Loring's son gravely, the bowman grinning from ear to ear. "Whatever you say, sir," John Hordle said. "Never a dull moment!"
He had an accent that reminded Havel of Sam Ayl-ward's, though not so thick. He was younger, perhaps in his late twenties, with a face like a ham, hands the size and shape of spades, little russet-brown eyes above a nose something had squashed years ago, and a shock of dark auburn hair and orange-hued close-cropped beard that did little to hide a thick scattering of freckles. He wore a green-enameled chain-mail shirt, and carried a longbow in the old medieval style, a simple tapered stave of yew, a full quiver of gaudily fletched arrows across his back; a long double-edged hand-and-a-half sword and a dagger hung at his waist. Eric blinked at him, obviously not much enjoying someone looming over him the way he did over most others; the Englishman would be six foot seven in his stocking feet, and Havel thought his shoulders were as broad as a Bearkiller sword was long, scabbard and all. The battle-gear made him look like a cross between a young Santa Claus and some ancient heathen god of war.
"Let's go, then," the Bearkiller lord said, putting his foot in the stirrup.
They broke back into the sunshine, instinctively spreading out in the bright sunlight; past an abandoned sheet-metal building that bore the faded logo of a fruit-packing company, past derelict farmhouses and collapsing barns, through meadows blue with camas flowers and iris, red columbine and pale pink twinflower growing more common as they headed southeast; bird and butterfly started up as the horses breasted the tall grass and weeds. The fleeing outlaws were not in sight, but their path was obvious enough. Then Luanne cried out:
"Horse! And man too, I think."
The horse was standing with its head down and hidden in the rank growth nearly as tall as it was. The head came up as the Bearkillers and their guests approached, and it whinnied at them-or more probably, at their horses. A man struggled up too, clinging to a stirrup, falling back with a cry of despair as the horse shied, then scrambling awkwardly back into the saddle as it steadied. Luanne gave a whoop and unlimbered her lariat, whirling the loop of braided rawhide over her head as she charged. The fresher horse closed quickly. Luanne had been ranch-raised in Texas and an up-and-coming junior-rodeo star before the Change; the circle of leather rope landed neatly about the man's shoulders and jerked him screaming from the saddle as she snubbed the lariat to the horn of hers.
The others reined in; the man was lying half-stunned, weeping and cursing and trying to staunch a stab wound in one shoulder which he couldn't reach with the lariat on him. Luanne kept the tension on the braided rawhide expertly tight, backing her mount whenever the outlaw tried to get any slack on it.
Havel smiled grimly and swung out of the saddle, drawing his sword. The outlaw howled as the Bearkiller's boot caught him on the wound; he could do no more than paw feebly as he was disarmed. The cries of pain and panic died away to a frantic gurgle as he felt the prick of a sword point under his jaw. The fallen man bared yellow snaggled teeth in a dogliice grin of submission, their look fruit of malnutrition and neglect since the Change; Havel judged he'd been about twelve back then.
"Look at me, you worthless sack of shit," Havel said, pushing the helmet back so that his face was clear, he'd discarded the irritating contacts some time ago. "Who am I?"
The sweating face went even paler beneath its fuzz of mouse-colored beard. "Oh, Christ, Lord Bear."
"Bingo first time, asshole; the guy you just tried to rob and kill. You listening?" A fractional nod and a wince as it moved against the shaving-sharp point of the sword. "So you know my word's good. Here's the deal. Lead us in to your hideout-we know pretty much where it is, so don't get any bright ideas about stranding us in the swamp-plus telling us everything we want to know, and you get to live. Yes or no?"
"Shit-Crusher, he'll-"
Havel put a little pressure on the sword point, and a bead of blood appeared; the outlaw jerked fractionally, turning it into a trickle. The Bear Lord transferred the point of the long blade to the tip of the bandit's nose; it followed his movements with mechanical precision, and he stared at it with cross-eyed fascination.
"What exactly is Crusher Bailey going to do to you that I can't?" Havel asked reasonably. "And I'm right here. He isn't."
The bandit's eyes shifted to the ring of figures around him, then desperately to the bright world beyond. It would be hard to die on a spring day:
"OK, you promise?"
"Yeah, I promise."
You get to live, Havel thought. The only convincing argument I've ever heard against capital punishment is that being dead doesn't hurt much. You'll haul rock and break rebar out of concrete twelve hours a day seven days a week, but you won't be dead. If you're real unlucky, you'll still be alive and doing it twenty years from now.
The prisoner swallowed at Havel 's expression and stuttered: "OK, man, OK!"
"Signe, patch him," he said, stepping back, sword still poised.
"Do I have to?" Signe asked.
"Unfortunately, yes. Hard to get information out of his corpse. Luanne, get his horse."
The Lady of the Bearkillers ripped open the outlaw's dirty shirt and even filthier denim jacket and applied the field-dressing without any unnecessary gentleness. When he yelped, she backhanded him across the face and snarled, "You the one who yelled 'First after you with the woman, Crusher'!"
"No, ma'am, it wasn't me I swear: " He gabbled, then took another look at her and became more panic-stricken than before, if that were possible. "You ain't, you can't be-"
Signe shook her brown locks: "Hair by Ms. Clairol, asshole. And I didn't make any promise to let you live. Did you notice that, lover boy? Did you?"
"OK, I'll shut up!"
Havel grinned. How we think alike, my gentle spouse and I! The prisoner flicked his eyes away from Signe to him, but did not seem to find the expression on his captor's face reassuring. In fact, he seemed to think of it much the way a coyote would about the smile on the muzzle of the very last wolf it ever saw.
"Where's Crusher's camp in there?" he asked, flicking the sword through the air from the wrist. It made an unpleasant vwweepf sound.
"Ah: look, we, uh, they, camp a couple of different places. Mostly near the old gravel pits, you know, on the west bank downstream from Woods Landing about maybe half a mile, a bit more? There's a jetty on the east bank, Crusher keeps boats hidden both sides, sorta flat-bottomed things, so he can get stuff back and forth, you know?"