Fool's Quest - Страница 105

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“No,” I told him pleasantly. “You don’t die yet. And you don’t die like a warrior.” I stood and turned my back on him, leaving him trussed like a hog awaiting slaughter.

I heard him take in a great breath. “Hogen!” he roared. I stood up and backed away from him with Verity’s sword in my possession. Let him shout as much as he wanted. I wagged a remonstrating finger at him as he yelled again and then turned back to my second target. Sword or axe? Suddenly it seemed as if Verity’s sword was the only choice for this.

Hogen had lifted his head and was looking through the forest toward the distant road. So he expected the others to return. No sense in waiting until I was dealing with more than one person.

My years of doing quiet work had convinced me that surprising my target was most often my best technique. Sword drawn, I approached him stealthily. What made him turn? Perhaps that sense that many warriors seem to develop, an awareness that might be a touch of the Skill or the Wit or both. It mattered little; my surprise was lost.

Perhaps my second best technique was to challenge a man who could not stand without leaning on the sword he had looted from my wall. Hogen saw me, dropped his hatchet, seized the sword that he had planted in the snow, and challenged me with it. I stood still, watching him balance on one good leg, holding the sword at the ready. I smiled at him. He could not fight me unless I brought the battle to him; he could neither advance nor retreat on his injured leg unless he used the sword as a cane. I stood and watched him until he lowered the sword to touch the snow. He tried not to lean on it too obviously.

“What?” he demanded of me.

“You took something of mine. I want it back.”

He stared at me. I studied him. A handsome man. White teeth. Bright-blue eyes. His long wheat-colored hair hung in two smooth plaits with a few charms braided in. Every hair stood up on my body as I recognized who he must be. The “handsome man” who had raped the women of my household. The one who had attacked Shine and in turn had been attacked by the pale folk. And now he was mine.

“I have nothing of yours.”

I shook my head at him. “You burned my stables. You hacked your way through my home. You took that sword from my cousin Lant. You raped women of my household. And when you left, you took a woman and a child. I want them back.”

For a moment he stared. I advanced a step. He lifted his blade but the pain it cost him showed in his face. That pleased me so much. “How long can you stand on one leg, holding a sword? I think we will find out.” I began to walk slowly around him, like a wolf circling a hamstrung elk. He had to hop and hitch to keep his eyes on me. The tip of the sword he held began to waver. I spoke as I walked. “I had a nice discussion with Commander Ellik. You don’t remember him, do you? You don’t remember the man who led you here. The man who convinced you to serve the Servants, to come to my home to kidnap a child and a woman. Ellik. That name means nothing to you, does it? The man who once thought he’d be Duke of Chalced.”

Every time I said the name Ellik, he flinched as if poked. I herded him now, as if I were Shepherd Lin’s dog. Step by limping step, he retreated from the fire, from the trampled snow of the campsite toward the unbroken snow of the forest.

I kept talking. “Do you remember the raid on my home? The woman you tried to rape, the pretty girl in the red dress with the green eyes? You remember her, don’t you?”

A flicker of wariness in his eyes and a droop of dismay on his lips.

“I’ve come to take blood for blood, Hogen. Oh, yes, I know your name. Commander Ellik told me. I’ve come to take blood for blood, and to give pain for pain. And to help you remember. You took that wound to your leg from your fellow mercenaries. They had sworn to you, sworn to one another, and of course sworn to Ellik. Commander Ellik. Who thought he would be Duke Ellik.”

The flinch and the lack of focus were what I watched for. The third time I said the name, I struck. The point of the sword was already drooping and, as he shuffled to face me, I stepped in abruptly, beat down his guard, and struck off three of his fingers. The sword dropped into the snow. He cried out and hugged his mangled hand to his chest. In the next instant he stooped and tried to seize the sword with his remaining hand, but I stepped in close and kicked him in the chest. He fell back in the deeper snow. I stooped, seized the fallen sword, and held it. Both my swords reclaimed. I wished I held my child instead.

“Talk to me,” I suggested pleasantly. “Tell me about the hostages you took. What became of them, the woman and the little girl?”

He stared at me from where he sat in a snowbank. “We took no little girl.” He was instinctively holding tight the wrist of his maimed hand. He cradled it to his chest and rocked back and forth as if it were his child. He spoke through clenched teeth. “Coward! You’ve no honor and no courage to attack an injured man.”

I stood both swords in the snow behind me. I drew my belt-knife again and crouched beside him. He tried to sidle back from me but the deep snow resisted him and his stiffly bandaged leg hampered him. I smiled as I waved my blade toward his crotch. He went paler. We both knew he was completely at my mercy. I shook his blood from my glove, letting it spatter him. I spoke softly but clearly in my best Chalcedean. “You came to my home. You stole my sword. You raped women in my household. I am not going to kill you, but when I am finished you will never rape anyone again.”

His mouth fell open. I touched my finger to my lips. “Quiet. I am going to ask you a question. You will answer right away. Do you understand me?”

He was breathing in gasps.

“You have one chance to remain a man.” That was a lie, but one he was eager to believe. I saw hope startle in his gaze. “You took a child from my home. I am here to take her back. Where is she?”

He stared at me, eyes wide. Then he shook his head. He could barely get words out for terror. “No. We took no girl.”

I glared at him. I whetted the blade of my knife on my leg. He watched it. “You did. You were seen. I know this is true.” Oh. Silly me. “You thought she was a boy. You took a woman, and you took my little girl. Where are they?”

He stared at me. He spoke slowly, perhaps from pain, perhaps to be sure I understood him. “There was a big fight. Many of us went mad. We had hostages …” His eyes were suddenly confused. “They ran away. The others pursued them. They’ll be back once they catch them.”

I smiled. “I doubt that. They don’t remember Commander Ellik, either, I’ll wager. I think that each man will catch whatever he can and keep it for himself. Why come back to share with you? What good are you to them? Oh. Maybe the horses. They might come back to take the horses from you. And then they will leave you here.

“Tell me about the child you took. And the woman you tried to rape.” I spoke each word in careful Chalcedean.

He shook his head. “I didn’t. There was no little girl. We took only—”

I leaned forward. I smiled. “I think a rapist should look like a rapist instead of a handsome man.” I set my knife to the bottom of his left eye socket. He caught his breath and held very still, thinking it was a threat. Foolish man. I sliced him from eye socket to jaw. He shouted and thrashed away from me. Blood began to sheet down his jaw and the side of his neck. I saw his eyes roll back as he struggled not to faint from the pain. Fainting, I knew, has nothing to do with courage. The right amount of sharp pain and anyone will faint. I didn’t want him to become unconscious but I did want him to fear me. I leaned closer to him and set the tip of my knife to his groin. He knew now that some things were not merely threat.

“No!” he shouted and tried to scoot away.

“Tell me only about the woman in the red dress and the child with her.”

He took three slow, shallow breaths.

“Truth,” I suggested to him. I leaned on the knife a little. I keep my knives very sharp. It sliced the fabric of his trousers.

He tried to crawl backward in the snow. I leaned on it harder and he grew still.

“Tell me everything,” I suggested.

He looked at his groin. His breath was coming in small pants. “There were little girls there, at the house. Pandow has a taste for them. He raped one, perhaps more. I do not think he killed any of them. We did not take any of them.” He scowled suddenly. “We took very little from that house. I took the sword. But we only took two captives. A boy and his servant. That was all.” I saw confusion grow in his eyes as he tried to assemble his memories of the raid while not remembering Ellik.

“Where is the boy, and his servant?” My knife widened the slash in his trousers.

“The boy?” he said as if he could not recall what he had just told me. “The boy is gone. With the others who fled. They went in all directions, running and screaming.”

“Stop.” I held up a hand. “Say exactly what happened when you lost your captives. From the beginning.”

I lifted my knife blade and he took a long shuddering breath. But quick as a cat I sprang closer to him. I set the tip of the blade to the hollow beneath his eye on the good side of his face. He lifted his bloody hands to defend himself. “Don’t,” I suggested, and forced him to lie back in the snow. Then I cut him. Not deeply, but enough to wring a tiny shriek from him.

“Softly,” I said. “Now.”

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