Faormuc, J.B. Jones [which ebook reader txt] 📗

pair a short distance off and ordered them to sit back to back.  Jonsai lopped several lengths of rawhide from the horse's reins and tied their wrists together, giving no thought to how they suffered during the experience.  The men winced but said nothing.  Jonsai and Marku returned to Col and his wife.

 

Jon scratched the day-old beard growth on his face with the point of the knife and gestured to the fearsomely wounded horse with his chin, "Col?"

 

Colryn just nodded and Jonsai moved to the horse which still galloped in futile denile as it lay on its side and puffed pained snorts.  He drove the knife into the horse's chest and pierced its heart.  The warhorse chuffed forceful surprise, kicked all four legs once more, then died.

 

Col held out a hand for the knife and Jonsai gave it over to him.

 

"Help her up, Jon.  Marku, see to that other thing over there, then get him off his ass and over with the others."

 

He traded places with Jonsai, who took Michaela's hand and cooed soft encouragement to the shaken woman until she rose, then supported her with an arm around her waist.

 

Marku kicked the bolt in the captive's foot, breaking it off, and smiled when the screech of pain rang out.  "On your feet, mutt," the crossbowman growled as he grabbed a fistful of the man's hair and yanked him up. Marku then booted the man hard in the ass and the momentum of that drove his foot off the pinioning arrow. He yowled again, whimpered and hobbled over toward his fellows. Jon cut a length of rein from the dead horse and tossed it to his partner.  Marku bound the last captive's wrists then swept his legs out from under him.  The wounded man flopped onto the ground with an agonized groan.  Marku moved off a few paces and stood watchful. He rolled a smoke, fired it and glared at the prisoners.

 

Colryn strode toward the rider in fancy dress that had attacked his wife.  Had the three been moments later on the scene, he would be a widower. 

 

Malignant anger radiated from the buckskin-clad hunter in waves that caused sudden silence around them. No bird squawked or cawed or chirped.  The horses stood uneasy, the palpable tension in the air caused muscles to writhe along their flanks, but not the slightest breath or hoof tap broke the silence.  Even the insects quieted.  For just a moment, Col stopped to listen.  He had noted this at other times; strong emotions seemed to affect the environment in ways he did not understand.  He shrugged off the musings and approached the thrown rider.

 

"Who are you?"  He asked this at the same moment that he squashed the wounded arm to the ground with a booted foot then ripped the broken arrow from it.

 

With a squeal that caused birds to wing from the nearby woodline, the Prince fainted dead away.

 

Col moved to the still horse and retrieved a canteen then coated Jon's blade with more blood from the mount's wounds.

 

Returning to the unconscious youth, he painted the wounded arm with horse blood and dumped the canteen's content onto the face of Michaela's assailant.

 

Waking, the Prince spluttered, coughed, and shied away from his large and menacing interrogator.

 

"Get back!  Get away!  You do not know who I am!  I will have your heads - all of your heads!"  He spouted noisy and vile threats until he noted the big man shaking his head with a thoughtful purse of his lips.

 

The Prince's teeth clacked together.  Cradling his arm, he discovered the wound now bleeding a copious and alarming flow.  He thought to begin his vociferous diatribe anew and what stopped him was the remorseless face and fierce gaze of the hunter.

 

Colryn pointed to the arm wound with the knife and allowed a predatory smile.

 

"Oh, I do not believe that.  Look there.  You will not live long enough to see to your threat, looks like you will bleed to death right here in my wife's potato patch, youngster.

 

He bent and the disabled Royal flinched away as Col wiped the bloodied weapon clean on the leg of the Prince's blue breeches, cutting the material in a long slit as he did so.

 

"If I do not kill you, myself, before that.  Boy, I shall not ask again.  Who in all the fiery Hells are you?"

 

Shaking so hard that his teeth chattered aloud as might bones in a bucket handled with vigor, the youth made a visible effort to restore his dignity and announced, "I am Crown Prince Italo, son of King Turgenev of Faust.  My men and I are emissaries on assignment from His Royal Highness.  You would do best to render us what care you might.  My favorable report would likely mean you escape with your lives after only a decade of forced labor followed by the amputation of your dominant hand.  Harming a Royal is punishable by death and that sentence is carried out by scourge.  Awwwp!"

 

Col cut the babble off at the roots by force, grinding the knife into the hollow of the arrogant pup's throat, drawing blood.

 

"Hush, now.  Little kinglet, hear me," said Colryn as he twisted the knife deeper.  The boy-Prince's eyes bulged.  "You and these mutts you travel with are close, so very close, to never seeing crowded Faust or Papa the King again.  These lands are sworn to no man, nor will they be.  Faust is far from here and that is suitable.  None will come to your rescue.

 

"You have a decision to make, young royal.  Live or die.  You will go on from this place,  afoot and armed with a single dagger.  Bullying scum such as you deserve naught else.  Those that threatened my wife have paid with blood.  If you survive to reach Faust, so be it.  If you balk, you die here and your carcasses will feed my swine.

 

"Choose. Now."

 

He stood over the cowering young man, arms crossed, one fist brandishing the sword-length knife.  Early afternoon sun shone on Royal blood that snaked down the blade to flow over fist and forearm, leaving serpentine streaks behind.  Colryn's dark eyes communicated the awful truth and inevitability of his bargain.

 

*****

"Follow them, Marku.  Three or four days.  If they tarry or attempt to return, kill one."  Col thought for a moment then brushed sweaty hair back with a palm and sighed.

 

"Not the pup. Faust has little reason to venture this far afield, but we cannot make of this an unforgiveable honor gripe.

 

"Make them certain they are shadowed.  How you accomplish that is up to you, my devious friend," he said with a wolf's grin.

 

"Two days out, kill a hare and leave it within reach.  Before your return, provide them two hares.  Give them reason to continue away from here, Marku - and to fear ever returning."   The bearded man smoked and nodded.

 

Colryn turned to his bookish gangboss. "Jon, see to our new hoofstock.  Have Cookies deal with the butchery of that one," he said with a nod at the dead warhorse.

 

"Come, Kayla.  Let us get you cleaned up," he said as he traced the tracks of tearfall on her dirty face with one thumb. "The spuds will have grown bigger by the morrow and that is soon enough to fetch them."

 

He returned Jonsai's blade and took his wife away.  Black thoughts swarmed like a murder of crows in his mind as he led her to their neat little cabin nestled just at the woodline of their holdings.

 

*****

Jonsai took the provisions from the horses and dumped them with unveiled contempt at the feet of the four subdued tresspassers. 

 

"Take this, you miserable whelp, and be gone from this land."

 

He spat on the Prince's boot and slashed their bonds with the gut hook of a smaller and more utilitarian hunting knife.  Jon spiked the blade between the princeling's splayed thighs and turned to gather the reins of the remaining horses to lead them to the corral.

 

With sullen expressions, and frequent bleak looks as their mounts were led away, some broke down their supplies into bundles.  Another cleaned and dressed the Prince's wounds then tended to his own puncture.  The party set off on the journey home.

 

*****

 Marku watched them go, shaping his beard into a spearpoint with both hands.  He bore a smile that had little to do with humor, at first.  He planned his campaign.  The sniping and growls and bleats of pain as they staggered under loads and wounds amused the jovial Lore Adept.  The Prince and his emissaries resumed their trek to Faust. 

 

Git along little doggies.  Your path will become more unpleasant than this. 

 

Marku guffawed a great laugh that once again had birds bursting from perches in the woods.  He pawed through what was left behind.  Most of what was there was unremarkable. Some dandy clothing suitable for audience.  He laughed some more when he thought of Col's expression should he show up at the evening meal dressed in this foppery, grizzled and unshaven, wearing his holstered throwing axe and its larger, more brutish, cousin strapped to his back, fist wrapped around the stock of his crossbow. Perhaps he should do that very thing.  He was certain that Kayla would get a chuckle out of it, as well.  The man continued to rummage through the items until coming upon a scroll tied with wrinkled ribbon and bearing some sort of waxen seal.  He would take that to Col before leaving to trail and harass the Faustians.  Marku left the discarded contents where they lay. Perhaps the hands could make use of some of them.  He headed for the bunkhouse to ready his gear and let the others know of the spoils.

 

*****

As Michaela and Colryn approached their cabin, she noticed the near-cat lounging in the shade of an awning that sheltered a small but well-made table and several chairs of similar quality.  The feline alternated lazy grooming with occasional useless swats at the airborne insects that frolicked nearby and pestered it.  Its eyes never left the two as they progressed.  When the pair was closer the animal rose and stretched then padded its way toward them.

 

Colryn stopped, his wife stepped one further pace and halted, as well.  He cocked his head in curiousity at the cat that was distinctly larger than it had been when he and his men set off that morning.  Michaela spared her husband no notice and remained focused on the feline as it closed the distance and twined about her ankles, rubbing its head against her legs.  She felt a vibration against her skin and heard the soft and comforting sounds of the continuous purr.

 

none of that, you!   we will speak of this

 

She leapt across the distance to Col and smacked him in the center of his buckskin-clad chest with a dainty palm, demanding an explanation.  The cat peeled away while it was still safe to do so.

 

"Where were you?  And what took so long?

 

Colryn laughed.  The tension of the recent events melted a bit, his crows took flight, and he swarmed his diminutive and perturbed wife into an embrace.  Michaela battered his shoulders with toy fists.

 

"Release me!  Ye will not turn away my questions.  You will not." 

 

Her protestations weakened and she grasped him about the waist, desperate for his solidity. Kayla's voice was muffled as she stood with her face buried into his chest and with a little girl's squeak told Col what he already knew but dared not say aloud.

 

"Col, I was scared."

 

He took hold of her shoulders, just now beginning to hitch as she neared tears once more.  Held at arm's length, he looked at Kayla with gleaming eyes and the tiniest of smiles.

 

"Wife, do you mean to say that facing down four armed men without a weapon of your own...nigh stomped into fertilizer...in your own garden...by a warhorse, was disconcerting?  Kayla, you disappoint me."

 

Colryn's wife tore away from him and stalked into the cabin on stiffened legs.  Before Michaela slammed the door with vigor enough to shake dust from the eaves, she spoke