"What makes you think I will let you come with me?" Grimsoar hissed back.
"What makes you think you can stop me?"
Grimsoar recognized the total deafness to the word "No" that he had encountered often enough in his own life. No doubt Rubina had it from her mother.
They came up to the village from the south, and the first thing they saw was Pel Orvot's wagon, still at the wheelwright's even though it had been repaired two days ago. Or so Rubina said, but she admitted that she might not be wholly fair where the farmer was concerned. Grimsoar was about to praise her for that sense of justice when he heard the sound of riders coming up from the south, so fast that they threatened to overtake their own din.
Somebody on the road challenged. The reply was nothing any Tirabot fighter would have given. Grimsoar pushed Rubina hard. "Run out of the road, now," he ordered. "Get behind a house! Enemies coming!"
"I am the daughter of two warriors and do not obey orders to run from danger!" Rubina shot back.
But she was addressing Grimsoar's broad back, as he bent to grab the wagon's yoke pole. One heave and it moved. Another heave and sweat broke out on his brow, and the wagon rolled. A third heave and it rolled out of the wheelwright's yard and into the road.
Grimsoar had just time to use a fourth heave to center the wagon on the road when the riders came storming up. They were no Tirabot folk, looking more like cheap sell-swords, and not one of them had any command over his horse. All fifteen or more of them crashed straight into the wagon. Fast-moving flesh and bone met solid, immobile wood. The wagon tipped up on edge, then one wheel cracked beyond any wheelwright's craft to repair it, and the wagon fell over on its side.
Most of the riders and horses fell on top of it or around it. They piled up in a hillock of writhing, screaming human and animal flesh. Grimsoar came near to losing his supper at the expressions on some of the faces, both men and horses.
Then a man was before him, with an expression on his face that Grimsoar knew too well. It was the tight, angry look of a seasoned killer, one common among the old Servants of Silence. That unwholesome order, it was said, no longer existed. The same could not be said of the men who comprised it.
Grimsoar reached for his dagger, but the man struck first. Fire blossomed in Grimsoar's right arm, and the man snatched another dagger from his boot and drove in, ready to gut the old sailor like a flatfish for broiling-
– when a smaller figure leaped onto the man's back. The man was off-balance for his thrust, and, under the sudden weight, fell facedown on the road.
Grimsoar stamped on the man's wrists in turn. He wanted a prisoner, but it would help if no one had to worry about the man's daggers for a while.
Nobody would. Not only had Grimsoar broken both the man's wrists, but Rubina had reversed her dagger and knocked the man senseless with the butt.
"I told you I would not run," she said, panting. "And a good thing for you I did not. They would not come out of the houses-and you're bleeding!"
After that Rubina chattered so busily while she bound Grimsoar's wound that he could not have put a word in if he'd driven it with a shipyard maul. She only broke off when more riders loomed up. The pile of men were being bound by the villagers, and horses who were injured were being put out of their pain.
"Kiri-Jolith defend us!" came Bertsa Wylum's voice.
Then, another and more familiar, even if less welcome voice called: "Grimsoar, what in the name of the hundred ghouls are you doing taking my sister into battle?"
"Fifty brass bits that he says Rubina came herself," Bertsa Wylum whispered in Gerik's ear.
"I don't have that much to spare, and anyway, I know my sister," he replied.
He did not find this much of an occasion for jesting. The Tirabot folk had lost no men and only two horses tonight, but their enemies had a dozen dead, as many hurt, and all their horses and war gear gone. Somebody would ask a price for that-House Dirivan, out of sheer pride, if no one else-and that price might yet end being paid with friends' blood.
But Rubina stepped forward. "Brother, apologize to Grimsoar," she demanded. "He pulled the wagon into the road and brought down all the riders. He is hurt, and I did not ask to come with him."
"No, you just came," Gerik said.
Rubina nodded solemnly, then spoiled the occasion by thumbing her nose at him. Laughter rose into the night, and even Gerik had to smile. He looked up. The clouds were breaking apart, although since Nuitari was the only moon high enough to benefit, they had little light from above.
"Very well," Gerik said. "Grimsoar One-Eye, we thank you."
"We, O exalted chief?" Grimsoar said, bowing deeply, then wincing at the pain in his arm.
"My lady and I-"
"She's your lady?" Rubina exclaimed. "I didn't know you had asked her about that. And don't Father and Mother have to know?"
Gerik knew he must have turned scarlet. Bertsa Wylum was ready to fall out of the saddle in her efforts not to laugh. Some of the other onlookers were not being so polite.
Gerik finally arrayed thoughts and tongue. "I will," he said evenly, "as soon as I return to the manor, ask her to grant me the great honor of her becoming my lady. I am of age, and can ask her this without permission. If she says yes, I will write to Sir Pirvan and Lady Haimya, and hope they will be here to bless Ellysta and myself. I hope that you will all be here, too, when we take our oaths and vows, sing our songs-"
"Dance!" Grimsoar roared.
Serafina pushed her way through the mob. "If you try to dance, my old dear, you will fall down and break something important," she said. "Tonight, you lie down… and sleep, so take that look off your face."
More softly, she added, "You're full-blooded enough for five men, so this little nick won't keep you down long."
Now the laughter was bawdy. Gerik wondered if Rubina understood all this, then decided that she probably did, nor would it do her any harm.
Tonight a little war had begun in deadly earnest. How deadly, he would know when they spoke to the prisoners.
But other things besides a war had begun tonight.
Chapter 13
Zeskuk was hosting this meeting in his personal cabin aboard Cleaver, so it was hotter than usual and as crowded as could be, with three minotaurs. There was Zeskuk himself, there was Thenvor, leader of those who disputed his leadership (more precisely: those who wanted him food for sharks or magical monsters), and there was Lujimar, chief among the magicworkers with the fleet of the Destined Race.
Zeskuk would gladly have had a fourth-his sister-but her post of duty was with the humans. He had allowed himself to feel some happiness that after her feats in the battle she would have less need to guard her back. Not that she would lack enemies ready to thrust steel into it, but she now had human friends who would stand against their own kind even for a minotaur.
The chief judged that his guests were waiting for something. He doubted it was the servant bringing a second helping of supper, although Lujimar clearly suffered no lack of appetite. If he was ill, as rumors babbled, it was not in the stomach.
"We have done-"
"Not well enough," Thenvor said.
Zeskuk raised a fist as politely as one could execute that gesture. "Pray be silent until I am done," he said, "then call what I say nonsense. If you consent, you have leave to speak freely."
He hoped Thenvor would not interpret that as freedom to question Zeskuk's honor. Even here, in such privacy as a ship afforded, that meant a challenge; a challenge meant lost time. That concerned Zeskuk more than the possibility of losing to Thenvor, who was a formidable fighter and might carry the bout to the death. Whatever course the fleet might steer, it had best not wait to turn on to it until after a challenge bout.