Sword Bound

Chapter 31

HARITH’S HORSES, EDDRITH EXPLAINED, were not the only ones present, but five of many. The horse areas were at the far end of the winding double line of wagons, which formed a huge semi-circle. There were no markers to direct the horse traders to specific areas; everyone, as they came in, simply took the spot they preferred. Apparently, most knew one another; there were friendly arguments over who had the best horses, and outlandish claims about what the horses could do.

Eddrith led us to the last wagon before the horse area. The three of us gathered there, trying to look as if we were in a casual conversation. Already customers walked the horse lines to see what was available before they began asking questions and haggling.

“Only five horses?” I asked. “I’m certain Harith had more. The corrals and paddocks were empty, their poles and planks broken in places. Any number of horses may have been driven out.”

Eddrith nodded. “But they would be fools to bring all of the horses to one fair. It would look too suspicious. A few this time, a few next time.”

That was probably the smartest thing Eddrith had ever said. I eyed him. “Have you seen this band of raiders before?”

He shook his head. “To my knowledge, no. But not all men draw attention to themselves with hair color, height, or memorable faces. You would be remembered. But I may even have met one or two on earlier visits. How can I say? It’s only your red-haired man who might be noticed.”

“Is he likely to come?” Del asked. “Surely he knows people notice him.”

“But how many are aware he’s a raider?” Eddrith asked.

“Well, that’s true,” Del agreed. “They stable their mounts in a livery well out of the way. It is likely the men don’t stay together while here. They are just men. People in town for Marketday.”

I looked beyond Del and Eddrith. Horse-boys, at their employers’ orders, walked out specific horses when asked to do so by potential customers. Some mounted, rode the horses in tight patterns. “Where are Harith’s horses?” I asked.

Eddrith indicated the direction with a lifted chin. “Four places down. The red-haired man I have not seen.”

“Go there,” Del suggested. “Ask about the horses. Tiger and I are too memorable, as you say. But if those men are engaged in haggling with you, they will be blind to us until our breath is in their faces. We need only one. He can tell us where Rashida is.”

“Zayid,” I said. “That’s the man we want. The others are incidental. But I expect we’ll have to kill them.”

“Divide them,” Del told him. “Have one bring out a horse. Ask him to show what the horse can do. But lead him in this direction. When he’s close enough, we’ll take him.”

“And have a little conversation,” I added. To Eddrith, I said, “Where is your horse?”

“Tied at my uncle’s wagon. He’s a tinsmith. He always sells wares on Marketday. He does well. I used to be his apprentice.”

“‘Apprentice?’” I echoed.

“Istamir is my home,” Eddrith explained.

“Is it likely these men are camping here, or elsewhere?” I asked.

“Here,” Eddrith answered. “They’ll hold the horses close.”

“Do you know where that happens to be?”

He shook his head. “Close. But if we capture the one man you mentioned, he’ll tell us, won’t he?”

“Maybe,” I said grimly.

“Let’s go,” Del said. “We’ve been here too long. Two of the men with Harith’s horses have already noted us standing here. It may be nothing, but we shouldn’t risk it.”

No. We shouldn’t. I looked at Eddrith. “Walk ahead of us to Mahmood’s wagon.”

Eddrith sighed deeply, then turned and began walking. Del caught my eye and nodded very slightly. Eddrith might be exactly who he claimed he was, a resident of Istamir once apprenticed to a tinsmith, but he was also one of an uncountable number of Northerners present. And all of them looked similar with pale hair, blue eyes, height matching or approaching mine. He was definitely a sword-dancer, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a raider.

Del and I kept our distance from him as he walked. We wanted room to unsheath should Eddrith swing around and attack. But to carry bared blades as we walked would draw too much attention, so we left them riding above our shoulders. Anyone looking at us would see three sword-dancers; it was not worth comment that we were together. Probably we knew one another, they’d assume, just as merchants knew one another.

Eddrith stopped at a wagon. A sorrel horse was tied to one of the rear wheels; as we did, Eddrith used a rope halter. Pulling on the end of the rope would quickly undo the tie. With the stud, I didn’t have that luxury; I had to use a more assertive tie.

“This is my horse,” he said.

“Bring him to Mahmood’s,” I told him. “Walk, don’t mount.”

One tug undid the halter tie. Eddrith was beginning to look resentful. It was an expression a man would show when he wished only to help, yet was treated like a potential opponent. He was young. I doubted he was experienced enough to portray himself as an innocent when in truth he was a raider.

We arrived at Mahmood’s. Del and I untied our mounts as Eddrith waited with his horse. I flipped the lead-rope over the stud’s shoulder, tied it to the pommel. The odors of various meats, bread, spices, and pastries served notice that my belly was unhappy, and I remembered Del and I had not had any breakfast.

Later, I told my belly. After.

“Wait,” I said to Eddrith. “Wait until Del and I have mounted.” The last thing I wanted was for him to be above us holding an unsheathed sword.

His expression now was mutinous. He glared at both of us. He mounted after Del and I were settled. “I’m here to help you!” he said in a simmering anger. “Did I not find the raiders? Did I not take you to them?”

“You did,” Del said, but nothing more.

That did not satisfy Eddrith. “I told you what happened to me, to that caravan! I told you about the raiders and what they did! Why won’t you trust me?”

I leaned forward, palms on the pommel, stretching my back. “A girl’s life is at stake. Would you trust us if it were the other way around?”

He opened his mouth. Shut it. “No.”

“Then let’s go,” Del said. “All this talk-talk-talk.”

She had a point. “Remember,” I said to Eddrith. “Distract one of the raiders. Once he is distracted, mount. Ride down the line and cut the lead-ropes on all five horses wherever you find them. Send them away. As they go, other men may appear from Zayid’s encampment, and we’ll be able to see where it is. That’s where Rashida will be.”

What I didn’t say, what Del didn’t say, was that we hoped Rashida was there and had not been sold away. But this was our best opportunity of locating her.

“That wasn’t what you said before. You wanted a man to question.”

I smiled at him. “I thought of a better plan. Go. Del and I will be watching.”

“You can’t see the horses from here,” Eddrith said, frustrated.

Del asked lightly, “Who said we’d stay here?”

He glared at us a moment. Then turned his horse and walked down the front line of wagons. Del and I rode behind the other row, shielded by conveyances. At the end, we halted, watched.

“So, you changed the plan because you don’t trust him?” Del asked.

“I figured it wasn’t a bad idea. If he is trustworthy, he’ll do what we suggest.”

Eddrith, leading his sorrel, walked to one of the raiders. By his gestures, it appeared he was indeed discussing horses. And as the discussion grew quarrelsome, the other two men holding horses watched as well.

“Now,” I said quietly, watching Eddrith closely.

And as if he heard me, he turned, began to walk away. The raiders watched after him a moment. Then he was moving, swinging up into his saddle. He spun his horse back toward the men as he unsheathed his sword, and rode right at them. The blade swung in morning sunlight as Eddrith rode the line and cut the lead-ropes. He shouted like a maniac to drive the horses away.

“There,” Del said.

A tent we had not seen the previous day disgorged two men who ran to help. Only three of the horses had run at Eddrith’s behest. Two were left behind and two of the raiders quickly knotted the free end of the halter ropes to use as reins and swung aboard. Bareback, they unsheathed swords that had been hanging at their waists.

Eddrith made his horse dance in front of them, easily avoiding the raiders. But that only lasted a moment. With the five men mounted, he’d lost most of his advantage. Wisely, helpfully, he wheeled his horse and rode away into the line of wagons, shouting for Marketday people to get out of the way. One of the raiders went after the loose horses; the coin on four feet were worth too much to lose.

“And now,” I said.

From behind, Del and I rode up to Zayid’s tent. Many of Zayid’s horses were picketed there. Del took one side, I the other. We cut the picket ropes and sliced through tent guy-lines, where saddled horses waited close to the door flap. But there was some kind of interior framework; the tent wobbled but did not collapse.

I gestured. Del nodded. Behind the tent, she swung off her gelding. With infinite care, she made a hole in the oilcloth, then cut a line through it from top to bottom. She ripped fabric aside.

I took the front, doing much the same thing. I could not trust the door-flap; it’s what Zayid and anyone else inside the tent would use to exit. So I made a new opening. As Del went in the back, I jumped down from the stud and broke through the front.

Zayid had a knife at a girl’s throat.

As he intended, Del and I stopped moving. Our swords were ready, but so was Zayid’s knife. He had not run out with his men. Why should he? They could always steal more horses, and the girl was his protection.

She had, as described, gold streaks in dark hair and Neesha’s eyes. Young, but on the verge of womanhood “Rashida,” I said. “Rasha.”

With a knife at her throat, she did not speak aloud. But her eyes said all that she wished to say. Tears ran down her grimy face, making narrow white rivulets. Zayid had tied her wrists in front of her. He held her close against his body, one arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders. The knife was in the other hand, poised at her neck, free to bite into flesh.

Zayid did not waste his breath on words. He knew why we were there.

Del stood lightly balanced at the cut she had made, at least two long strides away from Zayid. I was closer. I could take him if he held no hostage.

From outside, I heard men calling out to one another. A flicker in Zayid’s eyes, a twitch of his lips told me what I needed to know. Eddrith’s distraction was no longer a distraction; the others now returned to report to Zayid.

He watched us closely. He assessed us. He had seen us work at the caravan, witnessed our skill, our competence. Yes, his men had returned, but he was one, and we were two, and if he killed his hostage he’d be dead the next instant. He knew it. We knew it.

Zayid put a hand on Rashida’s back, and shoved her toward my sword. Then he dove out the doorflap.

Del was there. “Go!” she said. “I have her.”

I went out the opening I’d cut, not through the doorflap—that’s where they expected me. Zayid was on horseback, already galloping away. I swore, thrust my sword through one man and jerked it free. I heard Del say something urgent to Rashida, heard a man cry out, then another. The stud was a step away. I took that step, mounted as hastily as I could while holding a sword, and kicked him hard. He leaped forward, running as the lead-rope beat against the ground. I had one hand full of reins, the other full of sword. His lead-rope had come untied. It was dangerous to ride with the lead-rope or reins hanging. If the stud stepped on either, he might go down, and I with him.

Eddrith had gone down the central walkway. Zayid had gone through the wagons. The people, thanks to Eddrith, had moved, pressing against wagons and trade stalls. I took that route, faster, free of flesh-and-bone impediment. I wanted to kill Zayid. I did not wish to kill innocent people.

The ground was mostly dry on top, mud stiffening beneath the sun. But horses are heavy, and the stud, as he ran, dug up clumps. It slowed us. More fair-goers had walked here, digging hollows. The stud broke through into damper mud beneath. I could feel it in his gait: a heaviness in his hooves, occasional slippage.

Zayid broke out of the wagons well ahead of us. I swore as the stud stepped on the lead-rope. It didn’t foul his legs, it didn’t jerk his head down when he came to the end of it. He did not fall. But it slowed him nearly to a stop.

Swearing, I leaned forward, set my blade under the lead-rope as he moved, and tossed it toward the saddle. I took no time to tie it to the pommel; I grabbed it in my left hand and added it to my reins. Now we were free.

We had lost momentum, and Zayid was farther ahead of me. He glanced back once, saw me, quickly turned his mount back into the wagons. I did the same, hoping to catch up to him if he emerged again. I held the sword crosswise over the stud’s neck, keeping it out of the way, yet close enough to swing it back at need.

Three wagons ahead, Zayid once again took a sudden turn between two of them. I heard a crash of metal pots, bowls, mugs and couldn’t help but wonder, oh so briefly, if that wagon belonged to Eddrith’s uncle the tinsmith.

I rode one more wagon down, cut right, sent the stud down the main avenue again. Zayid crashed through wares for sale, but the stud had gained on him by a length. Across the walkway Zayid charged through stalls on the other side. He, too, held a sword in his right hand, guiding his horse one-handed as he dug into his mount’s ribs with his heels. Unlike me, he wore boots; kicking would have greater effect.

“Go on,” I told the stud. “Go on, boy. Let’s catch that son of a Salset goat.”

The stud responded. I reined him right, rode through two wagons, broke out on the other side. We’d gained a length. I saw the flash of Zayid’s face as he glanced back. He dug in heels again to gain more speed.

“He’s yours,” I told the stud, who had killed a man before. “All yours, old son.”

Zayid once again rode through the tight spaces between wagons, this time to the left. I did as well, swearing as the stud made a misstep and crashed through stacks of wooden fruit basket containers, all full. We were back on the main walkway. We cut the corner closely and my head collided with hanging windchimes; some came down while others rang crazily.

By that sound, Zayid knew where we were, knew how close. We had gained yet again, the stud and I. I lifted my sword, holding it up in the air.

The red-haired raider reined in sharply. He spun his mount toward me, lifting his sword as well.

Too close…too close to stop…

Zayid dropped off his horse. I knew what he meant to do. From below, he could take the stud by driving his sword up into the chest; going right through ribs to the heart; cutting viscera to pieces. The stud would collapse, and as I tried to save myself Zayid would have me. But he had to take the stud first, or his plan wouldn’t work.

I did not want the stud to stop. I kicked harder than ever, drove him on with words. I did not intend to avoid Zayid.

I shook my left foot free of stirrup. Clamped left hand on the pommel. Leaned down to the right, riding sideways, left leg a counter balance across part of the saddle’s seat. One hand held most of my weight, some in the right stirrup. It was a precarious position because of my size, but the chance was worth the risk. Suddenly, Zayid didn’t have the advantage of using his blade on the stud. I was in the way.

We thundered down upon him, my boy and I. I swung the sword like a scythe.

I took Zayid’s head.