King Pinch

3

"Dammit, Pinch, you owe us some words!" Therin hissed softly so that the trooper riding next to him wouldn't hear. Although it was midafternoon, it was the first chance any of them had to speak to Pinch. The small column-for Cleedis commanded his men like an army-had been forced to a halt by a poorly planked stream. As their escorts plodded across the narrow bridge, Therin seized the opportunity to maneuver close to Pinch while they waited. "Who are they and why'd you let us get taken?"

Pinch bristled at his underling's questions. He didn't see that Therin or the others needed to know about his past, and certainly not on their demands. His life was his own, to share as he chose and pizzle take the rest of them. Even his horse felt that anger and started to bolt, only to have the thief savagely rein it in.

"If you'd stayed in Elturel, you'd be dead by sunset." The master rogue couldn't hold back the snarl that drove his words. "Do you think the constables were just lucky? Are you that dense? They were tipped. They got sent-"

"That wa'rnt no reason to leave," the younger man countered hotly, his whispers becoming dangerously loud. "We've beat the catchpoles before. Piss and fire, you even cheated me off the gallows tree! We could've slipped the lot and hid out in another ken. Those constables ain't got the wit of us. For Mask's eyes, their idea of searching was just to bust up a few things and say it was good! There was no cause to go abroad."

"Think on it, Therin. Ain't they got the wit of us? Then how'd they find you-by twirling Tymora's wheel? It was that Cleedis found me over how many leagues distant and it was him that tipped the authorities. Do you think a few hide-holes and lasts would stop his priests from spying us out?" Pinch had had enough of the Gur's disputing and nudged his horse into the line, but not before giving one parting shot. "Besides, I'm curious. There may be a profit in going with Cleedis after all."

That left the awkwardly perched gypsy musing in his saddle, just as Pinch knew it would.

Beyond the stream and well on their way, it was time for Pinch to ask the questions. With a cheerful nod to his armed chaperons, the rogue trotted his horse up to where Cleedis rode.

In the saddle, the old chamberlain was a transformed man. His horse was a spirited gray stallion with a mane streaked charcoal black. Its eyes were clear and its bite hard on the bit. Even to Pinch, who was no judge of prancers, it was clear that this beast was the best breed of the southern lands. Under the reins of a weaker man, the horse would have ridden the rider, but under Cleedis there was none of that. Here on the roads, in the open air, and fitted in his commander's armor, the chamberlain was once again the cavalry captain Pinch had known as a lad.

Pinch reined in alongside and launched in without preamble. "Cleedis, you've got me now. What's the job and what's the booty?"

The chamberlain pulled his open-faced helmet back to hear better. "Job? Wait and see."

"Not good enough, coz," the rogue said as he brushed a fly from his face. "I need time to plan and think. And I'll not be killing." At least not by intention, Pinch added to himself.

"You're tired and not thinking clearly, Janol. I already said there would be no need for killing-not if you do your part well. As for more, you'll have to wait."

A little part of the mystery became clear. "You don't know, do you? You were just sent to bring me back. Who sent you-Vargo, Throdus, or Marac?" Pinch watched carefully as each name was mentioned, hoping for a telltale on Cleedis's part. There was no such luck. The chamberlain maintained a statesmanlike demeanor. "You must wait, Janol. You were, and still are, impatient. It will be your undoing someday. When we reach Ankhapur, what you need to know will be revealed."

But no more than that, Pinch heard in what was not said.

He did not press the issue. The gleaning of information was an art, and there was time between here and Ankhapur.

The rest of the day passed no worse than it had begun. By late day, the burden of the last two days' plots, schemes, escapes, and yet more plots came crushing down on Pinch and his companions. Their energies were sapped. While the guards jounced along uncomfortably in their saddles, Pinch and company slept. The old rogue was skilled enough to sleep in the saddle, but for the other three riding was an untested talent.

Therin, mounted on an impossibly small pony, would nod off until one of his cramped legs slipped from the stirrup and scraped the ground. Just when it seemed he might ride like this for miles, until all the leather was shredded from the tip of his boot, his toe would catch on a rock with a solid thwack and rouse him from slumber. Maeve and Sprite-Heels, the halfling squeezed into the saddle in front of the sorceress, lolled precariously and in unison from side to side until one or the other woke with the panic of a headlong plunge.

So it went until they stopped. The four gingerly massaged their sore parts while the troopers made camp, cooked, and saw to the needs of the travelers. By then, Pinch's companions were too tired to talk, too wary of their escorts to ask questions of the leader.

The fires were near embers and guards had taken their posts at the edge of the hostile darkness when Cleedis produced a bottle from his saddlebags. "When I was a young officer out on campaign," he began in the rambling way of a man who has a moral he feels he must share, "we used to spend all day hunting down orc bands from the Great Invasion. We'd ride for miles, getting hot and full of dust. Sometimes we'd find a band of stragglers and ride them down. It was great work."

Clawlike fingers pulled the cork free, and he drank a long draught of the yellowish wine. Breathing hard to savor the alcohol's burn, he held the bottle to Therin across the fire.

"After a day of butchering, we'd gather around the fire like this and drink." The old man looked at the suspicious eyes across from him. He pushed the bottle again toward Therin until the big man took it. "Drink up, boy," the worn-out campaigner urged before continuing his ambling tale. "Men need to share their liquor with their companions, because there's no telling who you might need at your back. Back then, a man could get himself surrounded by a throng of orc swine at any time, and then it would be too late to discover he had no friends. Drink and a tale, that's what kept us together. Doesn't that make sense, Janol?" Cleedis's eyes turned on the master rogue. The brown in them was burned black and hard by years of concessions and expediencies.

"A man can drink for lots of reasons, and most stories are lies," Pinch commented acidly.

"They say bad hearts sour good wine. Is it a good wine, Master Therin?"

The young man held the jug out in front of him considering an answer. "Tolerable, I wager."

"Tolerable, indeed," the chamberlain sighed, taking the bottle back. He set the bottle to his weather-cracked lips and gulped and gulped, and gulped at it some more until the yellow stains of wine trickled from the corners of his mouth and clung in sweet drops in the coarse beard on his chin. At last he pulled the bottle free with a choking gasp. The old man shoved the bottle into Sprite's hands and began without preamble.

"There's a lad I knew, must have been fifteen, twenty, years ago. He was a boy of a high family. His father was a noted captain in the king's guard and his mother a lady-in-waiting to the queen. She was pregnant when the captain was killed in the wars against the trolls. The lady wailed for the priests to beg their gods, but there was no bringing the captain back. She being a lady, though, the king and queen saw to her needs all the time she was with child. It was double tragedy that she died bearing her male child."

"Wasn't there a priest who could bring her back, what with the baby?" Brown Maeve asked. Her veined face was swelling with a whimper of tears, for the sorceress could never resist a sad tale. "Where was her kin?"

"She didn't have any," Cleedis answered after a long swig on the bottle he pried from Sprite's hands. "That's why she stayed at court. There wasn't any family to pray for her. It wasn't her wish to be raised; she hoped to join her husband. The king and queen pledged to raise the boy as their ward."

Maeve gave out a little sob.

Across the fire, Pinch glared at Cleedis in stony silence, eyes glinting amid the rising sparks.

Cleedis continued. "Without mother or father, in some other place he would've been one of those little beggars you kick away on the street. That's how it would have been, you know, except that didn't happen to him.

"He got lucky, more luck than he ever deserved-"

Pinch spat.

Cleedis persevered. "He was favored. He didn't have family, but he was taken in by nobility, a king no less. They dressed him, fed him, and educated him in the best ways. And you know how he repaid them?"

Pinch spat, ferociously this time, and the gobbet hissed and cracked in the flames. Springing up, he broke from the circle of firelight, making angry strides past the startled guard whose sword half-cleared its sheath.

The old chamberlain motioned the man back to give the rogue his peace. Pinch trembled at the edge of the firelight, hovering at the rim of the winter blackness.

"He repaid them," Cleedis slowly dogged on, pulling back the attention of the rogue's friends, "he repaid them by stealing all he could and fleeing the city. Now, what do you think of that?"

Man, woman, and halfling exchanged uncomfortable glances, their thoughts clearly centered on their tall master. He continued to scorn the warmth of the group.

"Did he make a good profit?" Sprite asked nervously, but the joke fell flat.

"Why stop the tale there, Cleedis?" murmured the upright man's voice from the darkness. "There's so many little embellishments you've left out. Like how the king thought his queen was barren and wanted a son for his throne. How he raised the boy with care and the best of all things-until one day his wife was fruitful and bore him a son, and then three more over the years. That was three more than he needed and certainly better than an orphan boy."

The man brought his anger back to the fire and leaned close to share it with the others. Perhaps the old man didn't like his story shanghaied, or perhaps he could feel the pain in the other's voice. Whatever the reason, his joint-swollen fingers knotted painfully about his sword.

"Or how he drove his queen to death once she'd whelped heirs for him. And then one day the dear old man woke up and decided he didn't need the boy he'd taken in, the one who wasn't his seed. All his life, the boy had lived in luxury, expecting and waiting, only to be pushed out by a group of mewling brats. How about that, Cleedis?"

The rogue turned to the other three-short, plump, and broad-sitting like rigid stones in dumb silence.

Smoothly a smile expanded on the rogue's face, oil spreading across the storm of his emotion. The coiled tiger's spring eased from his frame, and with a cheerful bow he scooped up the wine jug. "Good story, eh? One's as true as another, and they're both as true as a vagabond's tale."

The three still sat nervous and quiet, vassals unable to fathom their master's mad caperings.

Pinch threw back the jug and drained a long swallow, quenching the wine-dark thirst deep inside him. He then flung the uncorked jug toward his gang. "Drink and sleep, that's what you need!" he thundered.

As they scrambled to catch the jug and stay wide of his moods, Pinch quickly settled close to his old fencing master till his wine-breath whisper tickled the old man's ear. "You need me or you'd not come this far. No more tales-"

"You're forgetting the priests, boy," the other growled, never once breaking his stare into the darkness.

"No more tales or you'll not wake up some morning. Do you think your guards can keep us away?"

Cleedis blinked. "If I'm dead, there's no profit for you. That's all you want, isn't it?" The old man quickly shifted the terms.

A contented sigh swelled in the rogue. "I'm sure you've got enemies in Ankhapur. Wouldn't they pay to see your head packed in a pickle pot?"

He didn't wait for an answer, but left the old man chewing his words. "To bed!" he thundered once more as he herded his accomplices to the small ring of tents that was their traveling home. With cheerful wariness, they swarmed to heed him.

In the fading firelight, Cleedis watched as his former student never once turned his back on his supposed friends. The old swordsman smiled-a cold, dark smile like the dead winter night around him.

For the next three days, there were no more tales; not even any talk. It didn't take years of familiarity to read Pinch's mood. Even the coarsest soldiers knew there was a sour gloom hanging around the man. He spoke only when necessary and then barely more than a grunt. He ate quietly and drank without sharing. Most ominous of all was that he abided every inconvenience-the trails reduced to slicks of mud and slush, the streams of thin-crusted ice, even the stinging blows of sleet-with an impassive stare into the wilderness beyond. To his friends, it seemed the memory of Ankhapur roused in him a furious anger, like some furious scorpion retreating into its lair. If that were the case, nobody wanted to jab him lest they get stung.

Sprite-Heels, who watched his old companion as closely as the rest, formed a different opinion, one that he kept to himself. The halfling knew Pinch better than anybody and sometimes he held the conceit that he understood Pinch better than Pinch himself. Sprite was sure he could read the machinations in the old rogue's eyes, could divide them into patterns and stages. First the thief studied a guard, never one close to him, but one who was detached and unaware of the rogue's scrutiny. Sprite knew Pinch was finding the weaknesses, the passions, and the follies that the long ride betrayed in each man: Who gambled and lost poorly; who drank when he thought the captain wasn't looking; who shirked his duties; who betrayed others. All these things became Pinch's catalog of the levers by which he could move the men, elves, and dwarves of their escort.

After six days, the party came to a way-house on the southern road. It wasn't more than a rickety handful of a house and outbuildings enclosed in a palisade of sticks, but it offered protection from the icy sleet that had pelted them all day. The riders were frozen through to their bones. Even Cleedis, who by his station was better equipped than any of them, was chilled to his marrow. The horses were caked with mud and their hooves skittered across the sleet-slicked ground. It had been a painful lurching day in the saddle for everyone. The prospect of an inn, even a barn, right there in front of them, was a thousand times better than another night sleeping on half-frozen mud and pine branches.

A boy splashed through the melting snow, shouting out their arrival, so that by the time the Ankhapurans reached the gate, a band of grooms and farmhands faced them on the other side. The inn's staff was armed with a smattering of spears, scythes, and flails, the weapons of a ragtag militia. The signboard over the closed gate creaked in the wind, announcing that this was "The House of Pity."

"Where you be bound?" shouted one of the lot as he struggled his way to the front.

"We are Lord Cleedis of Ankhapur and his escort," shouted back the captain of the guard, the one Pinch knew was a brute to his men. "Who are you?"

"The landlord's cook," replied the cadaverously thin man who stepped to the front. He wore a greasy apron and carried a heavy cleaver, the uniform and tools of his trade.

"So much for the food," Therin whispered to Sprite.

"Well, open the gate, lackey, and give us a room for the night. My lord is not accustomed to waiting in the mud." The captain was flushed with impatience to be out of the foul weather.

With slow deliberation, the cook peered first into the woods on one side and then on the other, searching the shadows and the darkness for something. Finally he turned back to the captain. "Can you pay?

"Can we pay?" the officer sputtered. "Pay depends on service, lout!"

Now the cook slowly, and again very deliberately, looked over the riders, counting out the number on his fingers. When he'd counted both hands, his face furrowed in concentration until at last he nudged the man next to him with over-broad secrecy. Heated whispers flew until at last the second fellow held up his own hand and the cook continued to count. The captain barely suppressed his rage at this dawdling.

"Twelve!" Pinch yelled out when the count was clearly above three hands.

The cook and groom paused, looked at their hands, looked up, looked back at their hands, and then very slowly and deliberately began the count again.

The captain twisted in his seat to glower at Pinch, and for the first time in nearly a week the rogue beamed a wickedly cheerful smile and stoically endured the icy discomfort.

Behind Pinch a chorus of snickers and snorts struggled not to break into a round of guffaws.

When the pair's count reached three hands, every eye of the cold and wet escort turned on Pinch. The rogue only nodded and smiled.

"Three!" chimed Sprite's high-pitched voice.

The count began again.

The guards edged in closer, this time watching all four vagabonds.

At two hands, Maeve could stand the ludicrousness no longer, and a hysterical cackle burst from her lips. It pealed down the wooded lane.

The count began again.

The captain wheeled his horse back through the mud. "If they say anything-" he paused in midsnarl, realizing he could not carry out a threat against his master's guests. "Well," he finally continued with teeth chattering, "don't let them!"

Now the guards, sensing a pattern, paid particular mind to Therin. The big Gur smiled back at their fixed scowls and pointedly kept his mouth closed. The count passed one hand and he did nothing. Maeve, Sprite, and Pinch waited to see what he would do.

Two hands.

Therin didn't say a word.

Three hands.

The big man beamed in calm silence.

Seventeen…

Eighteen…

Nineteen…

Therin stretched his arms in a broad yawn. The guards reacted with the singing steel of drawn swords. The rude militia splashed back from the palisade fearful of a fight.

The count began again.

Pinch, Sprite, Maeve, and Therin all looked at each other and smiled.

It was moonset before all the horses had their fetlocks washed, their coats curried, and their mangers filled with moldy hay. The soldiers plodded back into the commons. Pinch and his crew came up last; in this, like all things, the last of everything.

In a night the color of simmered wine, the sway-backed inn breathed vaporous smoke from every crack in its wooden skin. As the men slouch-shouldered their way through the door, Therin drew off the last pair with the tempting rattle of dice. If the guardsmen expected a fair game, they didn't stand a chance; the Gur was a sharper with the barred bones. A quiet corner in the barn and a few hours of work would leave them poorer but probably no wiser.

The chairs inside had all been claimed, the benches overfilled with troopers. The small commons had little space for a squadron of troopers, but the innkeeper still managed to squeeze a few more customers into the space. Unimaginably, one more table was found for the three scoundrels. It barely fit at a corner in the back, which was all to Pinch's liking.

"Sour beer's all that's left," the landlord said, more as defense than apology. The spare man sloshed a kettle of brew onto the table, a stump-footed little creature of tin. Cold scraps and stale bread were the only choices left for dinner.

As they ate, the senior rogue let his eyes wander lest he notice the poor pickings before him. Since he was bored with the study of guardsmen, whose lives offered no imagination, Pinch concentrated on the non-Ankhapurans in the hall, a whole two tables' worth. It was clear from their seating-one table near the door, the other by the fire- that the two groups traveled apart. Those by the door Pinch had seen when he first arrived. The other party could only have arrived while he was stabling his mount.

There was a worth in studying the other guests, after all. If any were wealthy, there was always profit to be had in visiting their rooms before the dawn.

The two men seated near the door were garbed in hard-used traveling clothes, the type favored by old hands at the caravan trade-long riding cloaks waterproofed with sheep fat, warm doublets colored with the dried salts of sweat, and thick-sided boots stuccoed with yellow mud. Practical clothes for practical men with no obvious vanities that would mark them as good coneys to be snared.

The men themselves were as hard as their clothes. The first, who always kept an eye to the door, Pinch dubbed the Ox. He was huge, with a belly that rolled out beneath his doublet and quivered with any shift of his frame. The trembling flesh ill-concealed the, massive muscles of the man, though. Every time he reached for the capon that sat on the table between the two men, his swollen biceps threatened to burst the stitching of his doublet's seams. Though his face was clean shaven, it was nearly obscured by a wild mass of hair that hung in snarls and tangles.

The other man Pinch quickly dubbed the Lance-the Ox and the Lance, they were. The Lance was no more slender than Therin, though his shaved head made him look thinner. What truly distinguished him was that every move was a sharp strike using the minimum of effort for the maximum of gain. The Lance didn't tear at the capon, he dissected the choice meats from it with complacent ease.

It wasn't their dress or their frames that raised a caution in the rogue, though. There was a way about them that only those in the trade, for good or ill, would recognize. The way one always watched the door while the other discretely scanned the room; the way neither let both hands be filled at once; the way they held themselves on their chairs.

"Maeve, Sprite," Pinch whispered as he casually tore at a chunk of bread, "those two, what do you make of them? Hellriders?"

The halfling feigned a stretch as he leaned back to get a better look at them. "In disguise and come this far? Not likely."

Maeve set down her drink. "Hellriders is mean ones, Pinch, but I ain't never heard of them coming after someone on the road."

"Maybe not." The rogue stroked the rim of his mug. "Can you read them, Maeve?"

"Here? With all these people?"

Her leader nodded.

The wizard rolled her eyes in exasperation. "It ain't wise to use powers when you might get caught."

"Maeve, you know you won't. You're too good," Pinch flattered.

The woman harrumphed but was already digging out the material she needed. Pinch and Sprite pulled their chairs close to screen her from the others. The mystic words were a chanted whisper, the gestures minute tracings in the air. An onlooker would have thought her no more than a person distracted by her own inner dreams.

Without really looking at them, Maeve turned her unblinking gaze on the two men. This was riskiest part of the process, Pinch knew. A stranger staring at you the way Maeve did was always cause for a fight. When at last she blinked, Pinch was just as happy no one had noticed.

"You've got them dead on, Pinch. They're in the trade and none too happy tonight." Maeve smiled as she turned back to her dinner. "Got their nerves up, what with a room full of our handsome escorts. Don't know what they make of us, but they've set their eyes to the other company here. Ain't no more but some terrible thoughts I won't say in public."

Sprite sniggered. "Wouldn't have been on you now, would they? Or was you just hoping?"

Brown Maeve swivelled away from the halfling with a snap of her greasy, unwashed hair.

"Heel your dog, Sprite-Heels," Pinch rumbled. "You're none too sweet scented yourself.

"Maeve, pay this ingrate no mind. Those that count know your quality." Pinch put a soothing hand on Maeve's shoulder. "Now, dear Maeve, can you read me the other table?"

Her face a sulky pout, Maeve let her blank gaze wash for a moment toward Pinch, only to be warned off by the fierceness of his glare, shadowed by the curve of his tender smile.

"The other table, Maeve," he directed.

The witch-woman sighed and lolled her gaze where he nodded.

Meanwhile the old rogue studied their target. It was a small table by the fire, where sat a lone traveler, unusual enough in a countryside where few traveled alone. That wasn't the least of it, either, for the traveler was a woman-not unheard of, but just that much more distinguishing. The inn was in the land between lands, an area just beyond the reach of anyone who could claim it, and thus had been laid claim to by highwaymen and beasts of ill renown. The lone traveler who stumbled into this void was prey for any stronger ravager.

Ergo, Pinch reasoned, this lone woman was not weak, but possibly foolish.

"She's saying her words over dinner," Maeve puzzled out.

"Invoking what church? And what's her business?"

The sorceress stared owl-like before giving up with a sigh. "No good, that is, Master Pinch. She's got a most fixed mind. What only I got was an image of her roast chick and the thanks to some faceless power. Kept seeing it as a glowing orb, she did."

"Sound like any you know, Sprite?"

The little halfling's grasp of odd facts was a surprising source of answers. If he knew, it wouldn't be the first time he'd remembered some chestnut of useless lore to their mutual benefit.

This time Sprite-Heels shrugged. "Could be any number of trifling sun gods, let alone the big ones like Mask or the Faceless Ones."

Pinch leaned forward and looked at the woman with false disinterest. "What about that temple we did?" he asked softly.

"Not from what Maeve said. Scared, Pinch? She's probably just some wandering nun, set herself to doing good deeds on the road."

The human rapped his mug against the table in irritation. "She's more than that."

"He's right, you nasty little Sprite," Brown Maeve crowed. "She's tougher than some gentry mort. Got that from her, for certain."

"What more can you do, Maeve?"

Pinch was answered with a resigned slump. "No more, love. Spell's all spent."

Sprite, trying to restore himself to the pair's good graces, offered, "I could pinch her, see what we'd learn."

Her clothes were commonplace, sturdy, dusty, and dull, the mark of one with much sense but little coin. Pinch shook his head. "I'll not be your snap for the strike, halfling. Not worth getting caught. Have you forgot the rules? Never lay your coin on a lean horse or-"

"— your knife to an empty bung," Sprite finished. "I know the old rules. I just thought it would help."

"Ain't you two just the pair. Worried you're being hunted and worried you'll get caught when here we are, out where there ain't nobody and nothing! Not that we ain't got enough worries, what with your Lord Cleedis and all his soldiers, or do you two need to go searching for more?" Maeve snapped her words at them and then punctuated her tirade with a stiff drink. "One night in a decent place to sleep and all you pair do is peer at every stranger and guess which one's going to gut you. I'm telling you-you, Sprite-Heels, and you Master Pinch- to just quit peering under the bed sheets and drink!"

Both men, human and halfling, stared at her in surprise, thrown from their horses by her outburst. They looked at her; they looked at each other. There was nothing they could do but take up their mugs and drink until there was no more.

They drank until Therin reappeared with a purse full of extra coin and tales of how he cogged the dice to assure his wins. They drank some more to Therin's good luck, as if the Lady had any chance of swaying the Gur's dice. They drank until Sprite slid beneath the table and the innkeeper closed them down. Just in case, they took an extra skin upstairs, carrying it with more care than they carried Sprite-Heels, who had all the unconscious dignity of a sack of potatoes.

When the guards roused them before the too-early dawn, the four lurched down the stairs, their heads thick as mustard. They paled at the offering of bread smeared with bacon grease, and hurried themselves outside to gulp the farm-fresh air. It did little good except remind them of how miserable they felt. Trembly weak, they fitted the bits and saddled their mounts and unwillingly seated themselves for the day's ride. Even through all this, even though his eyes never quite focused and his head wouldn't stop throbbing, Pinch noticed last night's guests-Ox, Lance, and woman-were gone already. He wondered if each had gone a different route. The woman didn't matter, since she was not likely to see them again.

When all was ready, the troop, twenty-strong, plodded down the yellow-mud lane, lurching on their fresh mounts, until they overwhelmed the little track. Flanked by old tress that played father to stands of lush brambles, the group set out on the day's ride. Whether it was by word from the commander or just wicked luck, the trail was jolting and steep, rising and falling over gullies and streambeds. Every bounce reminded Pinch of just how miserable he felt.

"Don't you wonder where that priestess went?" Sprite asked with a cheerfulness that matched his name. Of the four, somehow the halfling was the only one unfazed by hangover; it was probably something to do with the runt's liver, most likely that it was a pure sponge. "Which way do you think, Pinch?" he pressed, though he knew full well the others could scarcely focus.

Pinch tried his fiercest glower which, right now, looked more like a pained squint. "What am I-a woodsman? Who knows in this muddy waste? Now shut up before I box you!" The rising tone of his own voice made the rogue flinch.

Snickering, Sprite-Heels whipped the pony he and Maeve shared safely out of the man's reach.

The ride continued, cold, wet, dull, and aching, through the morning and well into the afternoon. At one point, where the trail ran along a cut arched over with leafless elms and dead-gray vines, something coughed beast-like and the winter-dead branches rustled. The troop had to stop while a group of unfortunate soldiers slowly flanked the cut and beat the brush. Nothing came of it, but it delayed them an hour during which no one dared relax.

Perhaps it was that false alarm that caused them to almost blunder into a fight. The captain had given over command to a sergeant while he rode with Lord Cleedis to curry favor. The sergeant, in turn, was too busy with his flunkies to notice that the outriders were no longer so far out and the whole troop had closed into one small bunch. It was a bad way to travel, where one fireball could wipe them all out.

Thus it was that there was no one on point to shout " 'Ware!" when the soldiers slogged around the bend and straight into the midst of a battle. Right where the trail shored the bank of a half-frozen river, a ring of eight mud-splashed men-and then in a flash only seven-awkwardly stalked a single adversary. Armed with bills, hooks, and flails, the seven lunged with the stoop-shouldered awkwardness of peasants. Only one fought with any grace, so much that it took Pinch no time to recognize the Lance. Finding the swordsman, Pinch easily found the Ox.

The troopers were on top of the men before either side even knew it, the lead horseman splitting the ragged battle line from behind. The distance was to the footmen's advantage. A wild shriek tore from the lips of the nearest, and before the rider could throw down his useless lance, the billman swung his great poleaxe at the man. The blade scored the horse's neck, the beast reared and kicked, and ungoverned confusion erupted in the ranks. The closeness of the lane prevented any maneuver. The first man was thrown from his horse, and the panicked beast wheeled to gallop back down the lane. Almost immediately it crashed into the front rank of the troop, too close to part. Two more men and a horse foundered while a bloodthirsty war cry rattled the forest's dead leaves. The peasant bandits, for their dress of motley proclaimed them as such, sprang upon the fallen outrider, broad blades glinting wintry in the sun.

With their great polearms held over their shoulders like battering logs, two footmen rushed the broken line, casting more confusion ahead of them. The sergeant screamed orders, the captain screamed, Cleedis screamed, the dying men and horses screamed all at once and all at cross purposes. The twenty horsemen were already down by almost a quarter and showed no signs of turning the tide. Panic was in their ranks as the front crashed into the back, desperate to escape the hordes of murdering berserkers just behind them.

Equally desperate, Pinch tried to ride his own horse free of the mass, beating it toward the woods when a howling, mud-smeared bandit crashed out of the thicket dead ahead of him. With a shrill whinny, the mount reared. As the rogue flew off backward, he heard the popping crack when hoof smote his attacker's skull.

The churned mud cushioned Pinch's landing so that he kept his breath, but the man barely had time to slither out of the path of a galloping trooper. Struggling up, Pinch was immediately knocked flat by the charging flank of another horse.

"HUAAAA!" shrieked a man as he leapt forward to straddle the fallen rogue while whirling a poleaxe over his head.

I'm saved! I'm dead! Pinch couldn't tell which until the axe tore out the belly of a passing rider. While the bandit yanked to wrench his weapon free, the rogue drew the handle of his mucky dagger and without hesitation drove it upward into the soft gap at the belly of the man's ill-fitting brigandine armor. The man, all wide eyes and bearded slack jaw spitting blood, squealed in horror until the weight of the still-hooked rider pulled him over.

That was enough for Pinch. Dagger clenched in a clawlike hand, he scrambled blindly through the blood and slime for safety, dodging the flailing hooves of dying horses, stepping on soft things that he really didn't want to know about. He wasn't a soldier accustomed to battle and wasn't ready to become one, but each time one of the dirty highpads lunged in front of him the thief lashed out. He struck with all the wicked expertise of his knife-fighting, his anger and fury growing with each blow. "Cyric take you, you poxy bastard! Let 'em play hob with your skull in Hades!" He lashed invective as wickedly as he did his knife.

At the height of his rage, Pinch crashed onto the river and through the thin ice. The swift-moving water shocked up to his thighs, burning out of him the madness but not the killing passion. The blindness that had animated him was gone, and he could see the whole battle once again. The soldiers, finally rallied from their initial panic, were attacking in a dressed line, prancing their horses over the fallen bodies. Now it was the bandits' turn to panic, their previous discipline a fraud unmasked by the conflict of desire to loot and fear of death. Within moments the lot would break and run.

A squeal up the bank pulled Pinch's attention to the cause of this fracas. The lone traveler, who he knew was the priestess without having to see it, lay sprawled on the shingles of shore ice, her shoulder pricked by the blade the Lance held to her. Behind her the Ox lumbered up with a great, jagged 'berg in full press over his head, ready to deliver the coup de grace.

If he had been less passioned or there had been more time for thought, Pinch surely would have acted differently, considering his own self-interest before all. Instead, against all his sense, he reacted. With a snap, his long dirk flew from his hand and buried itself in the throat of the Ox. Croaking from his shattered windpipe, the fat-swaddled giant jerked up and back until the weight of the ice block he still carried over his head bore the man backward. With two staggered steps he cracked through the frozen riverbank and toppled into the fast-flowing water. The flow churned as it sucked the floundering man away.

The Lance goggled in surprise, which was the more his mistake. Though pricked, the traveler was not pinned. As the Lance hung in indecision between the woman and the menacingly slow advance of Pinch, the choice was taken from him. The mace in her hand lashed out, breaking across his knee. The leg popped out at an unnatural angle and, deprived of his underpinning, the Lance keeled to the side. She struck again, driving the iron into his padded gut hard enough to change his trajectory. The Lance hit the icy stones with an awful crack, jerked, and then didn't move again.

Cold, sweaty, and panting, Pinch stumbled across the ice to the woman's side. With a dripping boot, he gave the Lance a shove; the body rolled almost completely over before it twisted, the head along with it.

"May Kelimvore grant him swift justice," the woman intoned as she slowly got to her feet. A trickle of blood ran down her arm, another swath coated her face.

"More concern than he deserved," Pinch snarled. Remembering where they were, he looked about for more attackers but the battle was all but won. The bandits had broken and foolishly fled, and now they were the helpless prey of the faster riders. Here, in the land between lands laid claim to by bandits such as these, Cleedis's men showed no mercy. They were the law and they had friends to avenge.

"I'm Lissa of the Morninglord's Temple in Elturel. I think it would be right to say you saved my life."

At the mention of her temple, Pinch felt the rise of paranoia in his craw. There could be only one reason why a priestess of Lathander would be this far south, on this particular trail. She must surely be looking for the thieves who desecrated her temple. "A pleasure, surely, to meet you under better circumstance." Pinch paused to take a steadying breath and consider just what to say next. Certainly "Pinch" was not a good name to use at a moment like this. There was every chance she was familiar with the criminal element of Elturel. Finally, he put on his most valiant smile and, while leading her back to the trail, said what he never thought he would freely tell anyone. "I'm-Janol, ward of the late King Manferic of Ankhapur."

"Indeed!" The priestess was impressed.

"Why do you travel such dangerous land alone?" Pinch pressed the question while her thoughts were still unsettled.

"I'm searching for a thief, a scoundrel who robbed our temple," she confided.

Pinch smiled inwardly to himself. She'd revealed more than she should have and enough to give him her game. "What base villainy! On this road, bound for Ankhapur?" They stopped at a fallen log and Pinch began to examine her wounds.

The priestess winced as her rescuer prodded her shoulder, feeling the pain of his touch even through the armor she wore. Seeing the effect, Pinch poked her a little harder as she spoke, just to keep her unsteady.

"There was word the thief might flee south and sell his treasures there. Our proctor sent us, one to each road. I drew Ankhapur."

Pinch turned his attention to her scalp. A graze ran across the hairline, hardly serious but bleeding heavily like wounds to the head would. "You suspect us?" Pinch gave the words just a tinge of offended nobility.

"Certainly not, lord," Lissa hurriedly assured while the rogue wrapped a muddy cloth around her forehead.

As he dressed her wounds, Pinch considered just killing her and having done with it. Her dead body here would be no more than another, but with her suspicions lulled, it seemed a waste. Better to keep her around and uninformed, in case she proved useful someday.

Choosing an appropriately bold shyness, Pinch said, "This thief, if he is in Ankhapur, may be hard to find. If you should need some help, you must let me know. A king's ward does have some influence, after all."

Lissa flushed a little at the imagined generosity of the offer. "Again, thank you, my lord."

"This is nothing, priestess. But one last word of advice. Tell no one what you have told me." Pinch whispered the words in soft conspiracy as the riders slowly returned. "Indeed, you should not have told me. This is best as our secret, lest your quarry grow scared."

The priestess scooped a little handful of water from a muddy footprint and tried to wash the blood from her face. "Of course you're right. I've been foolish. Thank you, Lord Janol."

"Just Janol. I'm only the king's ward, not one of his blood. Now, I've a friend named Maeve. Let's see if she can properly tend to you."