If I was a little less chivalrous, I would hit her over the head. But that might kill her and she isn’t attacking me, so I suppose I’m doing this the hard way.
He lifted his arm over his head and swung it in a short circle, hoping Erlick could see him.
“Attack!” the woman finally screamed, taking to her heels. “We’re being attacked!”
The gabble immediately changed in tenor. Shane sheathed his dagger and drew his sword.
He hacked through the first man that came charging to see what the problem was, empty-headed and empty-handed. Shane might have felt guilty for taking down such an obviously unwise opponent, but he remembered the faces of the children at the stream and yanked his sword loose with a vicious twist.
Three down. Who’s next?
It was two of them this time, and they were smart enough not to simply come barreling around the corner. They stayed well out of range, took his measure, and one spat on the ground. “Who’re you with?”
“No one you know,” said Shane pleasantly. The black tide was rising inside his head, drunk on bloodshed, and he knew that he could move forward and take the larger one in the gut with the sword, grab his shoulder, turn and block the smaller one’s blow with the big one’s body, throw the dying man into his companion as he pulled his sword loose, and then whichever way the small one went, Shane would be waiting with a blade…
The world jogged sideways and he discovered that he’d already done it and the smaller one was on one knee, staring up at him in astonishment. Unfortunately Shane’s sword was hung up on his collarbone and since the other raiders might be right behind him already, Shane was forced to slam his knee into the man’s face and pry him off the point. Four…five…
Something went zzzip! and Shane turned to find that yes, there was another man coming up behind him, and behind that man was an archer. Fortunately Erlick had gotten his shot off before the archer
had. Shane noted this and appreciated it for half a heartbeat before he threw himself at the next opponent.
Time jumped sideways around him. There was a body at his feet. Which number was it? Was the archer out completely? He’d lost count. The tide didn’t care. The tide flowed forward, carrying him with it, and he heard another arrow and something hit his shoulder and it hurt but pain didn’t matter and it was the left shoulder, he didn’t need the left, he could still swing with the right, and the swing went through a raider’s face who had an axe but didn’t use it nearly as well as Wren did.
Darkness swept in on both sides as he entered one of the huts. Empty. He tried the next one. The center of the holding was full of bodies. Someone in the distance was still screaming. Shane should probably go see why they were screaming. That was his job, protecting people who were screaming and running away. Yes. Another hut. There was a man in this one. He had a table. He seemed to think that the table would keep Shane back. He learned his mistake too late to have much time to contemplate it.
More empty huts, and then another pile of furniture and he pulled it away and someone was there and the tide hissed and he raised his sword and Wisdom’s voice stabbed through his chest like a white-hot needle saying, No.
Shane froze.
The tide receded like water down a drain. Shane listened for a moment and heard nothing that sounded like an attacker.
He looked down at the person before him. A young woman or an old child, or both. Her hair was matted and her nose had been recently broken, but he could see the resemblance around the eyes.
It worked. It really worked. Wisdom stopped me.
He did not know if what he felt was horror or exultation or both together. His mind was full of red threads.
The girl moved and broke his thoughts. It was wrong of him to stand lost in his own head while she waited to be struck down.
Shane lowered the sword, reached out a hand to help her up, and said, in a voice that shook only a little, “Forgive me, but would you happen to be Erlick’s niece?”
MARGUERITE WOULD GIVE the Dreaming God’s people this much—they didn’t try to shut her out of the planning. Possibly it was simply expediency, since they needed Wren and anyone with eyes knew that Wren would tell Marguerite everything, but she suspected that it simply didn’t occur to them to leave her out. Paladins everywhere, it seemed, were cut from the same straightforward cloth.
Somewhere on this earth is a paladin of an order of twisty-minded little bastards, and if the gods are kind, I will meet them before I die. Just so I can say “Ha! I knew it!”
Simmering in the back of her mind was a suspicion that she much preferred her own pair of
uncomplicated paladins, but she refused to drag that out into the light of conscious thought.
The council of war was held at noon in the hall where they had dined the night before. Davith and Ashes were there as well, and the only thing Marguerite had to contribute was to help Wren draw a map of the keep, as best they could remember it.
“It looks like a maze inside,” muttered a heavily bearded priest named Burnet. Marguerite had been a bit surprised to discover that he wasn’t a paladin, given that he exuded the air of someone with multiple knives stashed on their person at all times. Then again, even their priests must frequently encounter more than just spiritual combat…
“It pretty much was,” said Wren glumly. “We saw one way in and one way out, but there could be dozens. And I suspect I’m missing a couple of cross-corridors, but we didn’t get a lot of time for sightseeing.”
“Any approaches to the keep that might be less guarded?” asked the senior paladin, whose name, judging by how others addressed him, might as well have been “Sir.”
“If so, we didn’t see them,” said Wren. “They spotted us a long way off, too. I suspect they’ve got either very good sightlines or a lot of sentries.”
“They have a lot of archers, anyway,” said Marguerite.
“They’re all carrying those little horn bows the locals use,” Wren added.
Sir and Jorge both grimaced at that. Burnet nodded. “Those have range all out of proportion to their size,” he said. “The local shepherds use them against wolverines. Even if the archers aren’t otherwise warriors, those bows could stop us before we get anywhere near the keep.”
“A night attack?” asked Jorge.
“I hate night attacks,” said Sir. “Everyone tripping over everybody else’s feet. Half the time you end up doing more damage to your side than the enemy does.”
“We may have no choice, sir.”
“Dawn by preference, then. If we can close the distance before the archers can take too many shots at us, then we’ll at least be able to see what we’re hitting before too long.”
“Well,” said Ashes, speaking up for the first time, “if you can get me a hundred gallons of horse piss—”