Rune Guard 03

He nodded his head back at the girls, riding in the back of the wagon, and said, "You've turned those two into valuable assets. I look back and wonder, now, why I never did this before." He laughed and said, "... and then I walk into a common-room filled with smelly, loathsome scoundrels and thieves - and I remember why."

"Don't forget rapists," Lolla added. "Thanks for giving me a chance," she said.

"You are more than welcome, Tempest," he replied.

"We need a nickname for Mirra," she told him.

"I'll think about it," he told her.

We were about an hour past the first nameless town when my stomach churned.

"I think we've got company coming," I announced. "You girls want some loot - or do you just want to scare them off?"

"Let's fuck 'em up!" Mirra shouted.

"Fuck, yeah!" Lolla yelled.

I turned to Emmit and said, "I think we've created a couple monsters."

He laughed.

"I'll reel them in," I said. "Stay down until Emmit gives the word. Then jump up and pick them off."

"Roger, wilco, over and out," Mirra replied.

"What the fuck does that mean?" I asked.

"Beats me," she said.

I hopped down from the wagon and ran up next to Grizzle, giving his forehead a scratch.

"You want in on this?" I asked him.

He curled his lips back and smiled.

"I'll see what I can do," I told him.

I trotted ahead. There was a small gulley with trees on either side. It was dry but the wagon would have to slow to a crawl there. I looked back at Emmit. He nodded and pulled Grizzle to a stop. I jogged ahead. Whoever the thieves were, they were patient; I'd have to give them that. They still hadn't appeared.

I stood in the dip, peered to the right and the left, and yelled, "I don't know. I don't see anything. I'm getting a funny feeling though. Should I check the left first or the right?"

Screams roared out of both wooded areas and I booked-it back towards Grizzle, yelling, "Oh, gods! Oh, gods! I don't want to die. I don't want to die!"

It took them a second to give chase but they all followed me. I kept my back to them, checking them in my peripheral vision. I stopped to scratch the mule's muzzle, telling him to hold still so I could cover him. He nodded his head up and down and eyeballed the advancing thieves.

Emmit was still laughing from my theatric retreat and I had to watch his eyes to know when to turn around. I felt an arrow coming towards Grizzle and I turned to intercept it.

When the melee fighters were in range, I yelled, "Well, hello girls!"

Within a few seconds, two of the swordsmen dropped. They were only a few feet from me. One had an arrow sticking out of his chest. The other was holding his burnt face, rolling on the ground. I pulled out my belt-knife and sliced through the big vein on the side of his neck. He quit moving soon after. I wiped the blood off of my blade on his pant leg and put it back in the sheath.

"I thought you couldn't attack," Lolla yelled at me.

"He was dying already," I yelled back, "I just eased his suffering."

I darted between the other two swordfighters, leaving the girls to deal with them, and headed towards the two archers. They fired shot after shot at me. I ran between them and kept running. They continued firing at my back. I heard the girls take them out about the time I got to the trees.

I ducked through the low-hanging branches of the copse of trees on the right but immediately reversed directions when I heard a horse snort behind me. I ran across the road and headed into the other set of trees.

I got to the horses in time to find a youth trying to climb onto one of the mounts that had been picketed to wait for the thieves to return. The whole arrangement showed that this operation had been done multiple times before.

I grabbed the teenager's ankle and dragged him off of the horse with one hand; I caught the horse's bridle with my other. Mirra - whose legs were longer - reached me first. I handed the kid off to her.

"Give me any trouble and I'll slit your throat," she told him. "The others are all dead."

"I know," he grumbled.

"Kin of yours?" she asked him.

"One was," he told her angrily.

"Violent lives end violently," she told him. "I've a mind to let you go but you need to find some other way to make money."

"Can't," he told her.

"Strip," she ordered.

"Nekid?"

"Down to your skivvies," she said. "I want everything out of your pockets."

"Ain't got nothin'," he said.

"I'll decide that," she replied. "Start now or die. I'm tired of hearing excuses."

He began disrobing. "What do you know about hard livin'?" he asked her.

"Ever had your nipples carved off with a serrated blade, shithead? It hurts like hell," she growled.

His eyes widened and he looked up at her.

"The only reason that I'm even THINKING about letting you go is so that you can have a second chance - cuz this fucker, here, gave me one - four days ago."

He looked at me and then handed his clothes to Mirra. She checked through his clothes and returned them to him. She handed his eating knife back to him as well.

She pointed to a spot several feet away and said, "Carry your shit over there. Take the bridle of the horse Derik is holding. We're taking the rest of them in compensation for your ignorant relative and his pals trying to kill and rob us. You can leave once we're gone. If you can't make a new life for yourself where you're living now, then I would advise you not to return there. Ride somewhere, sell the horse, and disappear. You only get one shot at this. I catch you messed up in this shit again, I'll end you. You got me?"

He nodded his head. I handed him the horse's bridle. He walked over to where Mirra had pointed and waited.

"Can you ride?" I asked Mirra.

"Yeah. You?"

"Never tried," I told her.

She laughed and said, "Well, then, Bucko. I guess it's time to learn."

Mirra looked over the horses and pointed me towards one, hiding a smirk. "Mount from the left," she told me. "Put your foot in the stirrup, launch yourself into the air, throw your leg over the saddle, grab the reins, and you're good."

I walked up beside the animal she'd selected and brushed my hand over his shoulder. His head dropped and I knew he was going to try to bite me on the thigh. His teeth snapped shut right after I moved my leg. He tried twice more while I untied the reins from the picket-fence and brought them over his head. I stuck my foot in the stirrup and then had to dance around while he snapped at me.

The whole time I was trying to get onto the animal's back, Mirra was laughing. She'd fallen into the dirt and was rolling on the ground. The boy she'd spared was laughing as well.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Lolla asked me.

"Showing the bitch I can mount this spiteful beast she picked out as mine," I told her, dancing away from another bite.

She joined the others, laughing at my many failed attempts.

I took my shirt off, tied it over the horse's eyes, jogged around behind it, and used my staff to vault over his ass and into the saddle. I peeled the shirt from his eyes, evaded two more bite-attempts while putting my shirt back on, and took hold of the reins.

Mirra got to her feet and Lolla helped her dust herself off. The archer boosted the mage onto one horse and handed her the reins of another - then she untied the last two, used the stirrup to vault onto her mount, and led the other behind her.

We skirted around the trees to rejoin Emmit and Grizzle. My trusty steed kept trying to side-step to dislodge me. He didn't buck, but he spent most of his time trying to unseat me. Mirra called out a final warning to the teenager before we lost sight of him.

Emmit looked irritated but it's hard to argue with the golds that would come from five horses and their tack - in addition to the items Lolla had cleaned off of the corpses.

As we got underway, once more, he finally joined the girls in having a laugh at my misery. I was determined that I was going to stay on the malicious creature until she declared that I'd won.

When Emmit told me that it would probably be easier if I just belted the thing in the jaw, Mirra finally told me that I could dismount, and we'd sell the thing to the renderers at the next town.

I suddenly had an idea. I talked the girls into bringing me the two extra mounts - one on either side. I tied my staff across the three saddle-horns and let the reins fall free on the spares. I drove the team from the middle.

Every time the biter tried to side-step to throw me, the horse on that side nipped at him for pushing them off of their stride. After about fifteen minutes, he gave up and behaved. I looked over at Mirra and smiled. She shook her head at me and grinned back. I kept them tied that way for the rest of the trip.

It was well after dark by the time we got to the town we were stopping in. The delay with the thieves - and the belligerent animal - had cost us an hour or so.

Emmit sent me in to deal with the innkeeper while he talked to the stable-master about unloading the horses. Mirra had selected two of the mounts that she liked - and that seemed to be acceptable to Grizzle. We would keep those. She and I would ride the horses. Lolla would ride with Emmit.

I stepped to the counter and waited.

"Help you?" the innkeeper asked.

Based on the goings-on in the common-room - as well as the vibe I got from the inn's owner - I decided that Emmit was right to think that the hayloft would be the better choice for the night.

My stomach twinged and I stepped back as a rough-looking gentleman pounced onto the floor in the place I'd just been standing in. I stepped forward (onto the back of his hand) as I addressed the innkeeper.

"Wagon, mule, two horses, three sleeping in the hayloft. I'll sleep with the wagon."

"Two silver," he said, grinning.

"That so?" I asked him, knowing he was overcharging me because I looked young.

He nodded.

"Never mind then," I said, pivoting - on the foot that was on top of the hand - to face the door."

"One and five," he offered.

It was still about twice as much as I thought it should have been. I turned back to him.

"I'm a little short," I said. "Oh! Just a moment."

I reached down, grabbed the belt of the guy on the floor and flipped him over. I fished around in his coin purse and found two silvers. I stood, handed them to the innkeeper, and said, "Keep the change, you filthy animal."

"What?" he asked.

"It's from a Christmas movie," I told him.

"Christmas?"

I shrugged my shoulders. I had no clue what it was either.

He handed me all of the chits and I turned and headed for the door. My stomach twinged again, and I bent down to the floor beside my ankle and grabbed the boot of the guy who had just swung at my head. I stood, bringing his foot with me. That unbalanced him. He toppled and hit his head on the floor. I walked to the door and let myself out without further incident.

I stepped off of the stoop to the left and held my staff across the doorway. The door swung open and the two men who'd already gone after me tripped over my staff to topple down the stairs, onto the hard-packed dirt of the courtyard.

I stepped back onto the threshold, grabbed the door handle, nodded at the crowd in the common room, and closed it, turning to deal with my two new friends.

Ten minutes later, they were trussed up, naked, with their own belts. I had their weapons, money, and a necklace with a drawing of some woman inside of it. It had been around his neck instead of in his pocket - so it was either his mother or his wife. I kept it. She wasn't very pretty but I was starting to get a little pissed off and I was feeling spiteful.

I handed the chits to Emmit.

"Trouble?" he asked.

I looked at the stable-master, who was eyeballing the two gentlemen that I'd hog-tied in the middle of the courtyard.

"Nope," I replied.

"What do you think?" he asked me.

"You sell the horses?" I asked him.

He shook his head 'no'.

The town was small. I had wondered if we'd be able to unload extra horses after dark.

"We're headed to the city next?" I asked him.

He nodded.

"Give me a few minutes to switch the horse with the attitude out for Grizzle. Then I say we ride on."

He nodded.

Mirra helped me and we got done faster than I had expected. Grizzle bumped me with his forehead. I threw the tack from the biter in the wagon and left the mule to run free. The girls mounted up. We tied one mount behind the wagon. I climbed onto the last one and we headed out.

Once we were well out of town, Emmit said, "They gonna come after us?"

"I thought it was just a drunk to start with - then it was a drunk with a buddy."

"How'd the innkeeper feel to you?"

"Greasy. He tried to overcharge me so I turned to leave. His second price was still twice too much. I took the coin from the first knucklehead and paid him. That may have escalated things."

"Still kind of funny," Emmit said.

"I thought so," I said, "at least at first. I wonder if he had family in there with him and I took things too far and made several enemies. How far to the city?"

"It'll be midnight before we get there."

"Inns?"

"At that time of night, nobody wants guests arriving," he replied.

I nodded and said, "Let me look for a row of briars we can camp behind - then I'll have less directions to guard."

"We'll take turns," he told me.

"I'll be fine," I said. "The staff will wake me."

He nodded.

We traveled for another hour before I found a spot I liked. From the tracks I saw, I wasn't the only one who had decided this was a better choice than staying in that last excuse for an inn. We were off the road, in a copse of trees behind a broken stone wall. The gate was long gone - and the wall was in shambles - but horses (or men) would have a tough time coming across it with any speed.

After I helped the others get settled - including rigging the hammock for Emmit - I spread my bedroll out by the gate and snuggled with my staff. I was a little wet with dew the following morning but, otherwise, I had slept soundly. If anyone had come after us, they had missed seeing us.

I stepped behind a tree to do my business and was startled to hear a female peeing nearby. I leaned back to spy Mirra, squatting to empty her bladder. She grinned at me.

"You come here often, cowboy?" she asked.

"Just passin' through, ma'am," I replied.

I finished up and stepped away to wait for her. We walked back to help get breakfast ready. Emmit held up four eggs. I got to work. I asked what had happened to the steaks from the mountain cats. He said he'd worried they'd spoil before we ate them, he'd given them to Cookie - along with the other items that wouldn't keep.

When the scramble was done, Grizzle ambled over to beg a few bites of mine. I let him try one bite and then sent him off with a mushy apple.

As we headed west, to the fiefdom city on the peninsula, Grizzle cantered along next to the horse with the attitude, taunting him as he did the mule's job. I called him off but he ignored me. Emmit suggested I let him torment the beast to see if we could get him to submit to being ridden again.

Two hours later, we stopped and I switched Grizzle back into his old spot. I gave the horse a look, told him to stay put, and went to get his tack. He let me saddle him without incident.

Once we were underway again and he was still behaving, I fished an apple out of my pocket and leaned forward to give it to him. He took it from my hand. I looked over at Emmit and shrugged. He laughed.

Another hour later, we rode into the capitol city for the fiefdom and I whispered to the horse that - if he wanted to dodge the renderer's pot - he needed to continue to behave himself after we sold him off.

We found a horse-trader. I tasked Grizzle with deciding who we should keep. To everyone's surprise, he picked the one who had started this trip with the worst attitude first - and then the mount that Mirra had been riding. When I asked the mule if he was sure, he shook his head up and down and brayed at me, bumping the horse in the neck with his forehead. I scratched the mule's muzzle and gave them both another mushy apple. Mirra's mount came over, then, demanding equal treatment. I went to the wagon and returned with the last apple, warning our four-footed friends that we were going to have to restock.

Shortly, Emmit returned with the coins from the three mounts and their tack. We loaded up and headed south, easing through a smaller city gate towards the lake.

We found a shallow area and Emmit dug out an armload of wooden spikes about a foot long. He used my staff to draw lines in the mud to show how he wanted the spikes arranged. He cautioned me that there were biting fish in the water and told me to figure out how to get the trap built without getting eaten. He said that he'd always just used an old pair of boots and tucked his pant-legs into the tops.

I asked him if he had the boots. He handed them over. There was mud caked inside of them. I shed my boots and tugged on the old pair. The dried mud hurt my feet. I ignored it and got to work. Soon enough, the mud in the boots was malleable enough that it no longer bothered my feet.

After several minutes, I had the trap built. Emmit reached into the wagon and brought out a burlap bag that I thought I had never seen before.

"Do NOT," he told me explicitly, "open the bag until it's under the water. Under no circumstances whatsoever, are you to lift the bait out of the water. It must remain submerged at all times. Do not reach into the bag, always keep the bag between your hands and the bait. Once the bait is in the middle of the trap, wad the bag up under the water and keep it that way. We'll burn it when we're done but keep it away from the wagon and the animals."

As I eased the "bait" out, I figured out what it was - based on the shape. I made sure to faithfully follow Emmit's every instruction.

I took the bag downwind of us, gathered sticks, made a fire-plough, and got a fire going. I burned it and returned to check the trap.

The girls were cautiously sneaking towards the trap to try to identify the "bait". I knew Mirra wouldn't figure it out. She hadn't joined us until after we'd used this last.

"Is that," Lolla finally asked, "the ham-hock that we used to fish for leeches - like a week ago?!"

Emmit laughed and said, "Yes."

"You kept it?!" Lolla asked.

"Oh, that's so gross!" Mirra gasped, backing away.

The fish had, apparently caught the "scent" of the putrid flesh. They were swarming around the trap, trying to find their way inside.

"How many of these do you need?" I asked Emmit.

"That should be more than enough," he said.

"Stun the water - or one at a time?" I asked.

"Stunning the water has always worked for me. Don't let them bite your hand," he warned, "but they should be distracted enough by now."

I lowered my palm into the water near the largest congregation of the sharp-toothed carrion-eaters and sent a stun-pulse into the water.

Lolla wouldn't bring the clay jar all the way over to me, forcing me to take several steps to get it from her. Mirra had a second one and waited as I went to grab the stunned fish from the water before they woke back up. I filled the first jar, handed it off to Lolla and claimed the second from Mirra. I filled it and returned it to her. I looked up at Emmit for further instructions.

"Honestly, at this point, I usually find a tree branch, shove the spikes over, and leave the whole mess for the rest of the razorfish to clean up."

I found a stick that would work, knocked the pegs over so the razorfish could get to the nasty treat, and threw the branch back where I'd found it.

"Walk to your right several paces and see if you can get some of that mud out of those boots," Emmit told me. "I got rushed last time I was here and couldn't really get them cleaned out well. Sorry about that. Make sure you scrub your hands clean with some sand."