Roo sprang upward, striking straight into the exposed area under the man’s right arm. The sudden thrust stunned the man, and Roo yanked him from his horse.
The horse shied, moving up the gully, past Luis.
‘What did you say?’ said the other rider.
Roo saw a dagger at the fallen man’s belt and pulled it, tossing it toward Luis. For all his fatigue and illness, Luis still managed to place his own dagger between his teeth and caught the one tossed him without missing a beat.
Luis flipped the blade in the air, caught it by the point, and pulled it back behind his ear and let fly with it just as the second rider came around the bend. ‘Hey! I asked -’ the man said just as the blade caught him in the throat.
He gurgled as Roo dragged him from the saddle. Roo dumped the body next to the first one and with a swat sent the horse after the one heading toward Karli, Helen, and the children.
Roo signaled and he and Luis headed back to where the others waited. ‘They’ll be here any second,’ said Roo.
‘What do we do?’ asked Karli.
Roo pointed to the rocks, a twelve-foot bank. ‘We climb up there. They can’t follow.’
He didn’t wait, but started scrambling up to the top of the rocks. When he got up there, he could see glimpses of the other riders through the trees, calling questions back and forth, inquiring about the two missing men. Roo motioned for Willem to climb up, and he held down his hands, so Helen, who was taller than Karli, could hand up Helmut to him. The littlest child stuck out his lip as if about to cry, and Roo said, ‘Please, baby, not now.’
As Roo took his son into his arms, Helmut cut loose with a pitiful wail, as if all the fear, hunger and fatigue he had endured for the last three days were coming out at once. Luis turned and drew his dagger, for only a moment later.
Helmut’s cry was answered by the shouts of the horsemen.
Abigail and Nataly scrambled up the rocks, pushed by their mothers. Willem climbed without aid. Luis looked up, perspiration running off his brow, and said, ‘I can’t make it.’
Roo said, ‘Climb! It’s just a short way.’
Luis had one good hand, and that shoulder was the damaged one. He reached up, gritted his teeth, and pulled. He found toeholds and took a deep breath. He let go and tried to push himself upward, grabbing frantically with his good hand, his withered right hand scraping uselessly off the rocks. Roo leaned over and grabbed his wrist. ‘I’ve got you!’
Roo felt his arms stretching as the larger man hung like dead weight. Nearly out of breath, Luis said, ‘Let me go. I can’t do this.’
‘You’ll do it, damn you!’ said Roo, yanking hard, though he knew he couldn’t pull the man up by main force.
Luis tried to climb, making little progress, as two riders turned into view. ‘There they are!’ shouted one.
‘Let me go!’ said Luis. ‘Get away!’
‘No!’ shouted Roo. To Helen and Karli he said, ‘Get the children back into the trees!’
Roo pulled and Luis struggled, as a rider came into close proximity, with a sword drawn. ‘You the bastards killed Mikwa and Tugon? We’ll settle -’
An arrow lifted the rider from his saddle and a second took the rider behind him out of his seat as well.
Strong arms reached past Roo and took Luis’s wrist, lifting him easily to the edge of the rocks. Roo turned and looked up into a strange, alien, but handsome face. The elf smiled and said, ‘You seemed troubled, stranger.’
‘You could say that,’ said Roo, leaning back on his elbows, panting. Another elf appeared, shouldering his longbow. Roo flexed his left arm and said, ‘I don’t know how much longer I could have held on.’
A man in a black tunic came to stand next to the elf and a familiar grin split a dark face as he said, ‘If you aren’t the sorriest-looking jokers I’ve had the misfortune to see, man, I don’t know nothing.’
Luis grinned and said, ‘Jadow. Glad to see you.’ Then he fainted.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ asked Jadow Shati as he knelt next to his old companion from the campaign down to Novindus.
Roo said, ‘Shoulder. He’s got a wound and it’s inflamed. Loss of blood, the usual complaints.’
‘We can care for that,’ said the elf. ‘But we had best get you and your children away from here.’
Roo stood up and said, ‘Rupert Avery.’
The elf said, ‘I’m Galain. I’m on my way to bring messages to your General Greylock.’
‘General?’ said Roo. ‘Things have changed.’
‘More than you know,’ said Jadow. ‘Let’s get some distance between us and those other riders, and we can talk.’
‘How many of you are there?’ asked Roo as he walked behind Jadow and Galain.
‘Six elves from the Elf Queen’s court, and a light company.’
Roo knew a light company was ten squads of six men each. ‘Where are they?’