The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series) (24 page)

“We lost young Dionne. It’d already got the smith and his girl.” Corey glared at him. “And where were you?”

“Me and the steerswoman did in another. Over at Choley’s place.”

“What, two of them in town?”

“Looks like.”

“Where’s Steffie?” Rowan asked.

“With the monster. He says you’ll want to see it.” He noticed the blood now soaking through her borrowed shirt. “You two took on that other one alone?”

“That’s right.”

“You should’ve seen us,” Arvin said. “Fast and smart.”

A handful of people were straggling up New High Street, cautious and curious. Corey called to them. “All over! Taken care of! Go on home!” He waved them off. “Let’s get Lark over to Jilly’s.”

Most of those he had called to hesitated, turned back; one did not. A single figure continued up New High Street at a dead run. Rowan recognized Janus.

He arrived, breathless. “Where was it? Is anyone hurt?” He had one hand pressed against his side, as if at a stitch; the other held a naked sword. Irrelevantly, Rowan remembered where and when he had acquired that weapon during their training, remembered sparring against him under the eye of the sword master.

Corey planted the butt of his pike against the ground, set a fist on his hip, shouted up into Janus’s face. “Can’t have everyone running every which way! Leave things to those as know what to do, and that’s the militia! You want to join, fine— we practice once a week, show up if you like, but . . .”

Janus was not listening. His gaze went past Corey’s shoulder.

The guard leader noticed, stopped with his mouth still open. And then, with the greatest reluctance, he slowly turned to look behind.

In the far distance, one person, moving fast, coming from the area of Lasker’s plantation. As the figure grew nearer, Rowan recognized her: one of the evening feeders from Lasker’s sheds.

Abandoning Janus, Corey began walking toward the approaching woman, slowly, almost as if against his will.

Arvin glanced at the shuttered houses, stepped up to one, yanked open the door. A woman and two men were startled: they had been peering out through a crack. “You, you and you; take Lark down to Jilly’s house.” The injured fighter was transferred to their care.

Arvin came back to stand at Rowan’s side. They traded a glance; then all present waited for Corey and the woman to meet.

They did not need to hear the words. The woman fell against Corey, clutched at him, gestured frantically. “Three,” Rowan breathed. “That makes three.”

“No . . .” someone said, in a voice that cracked.

“Come on!” Arvin led the fighters forward at a jog in a straggling line that rapidly formed into a close group. Rowan was among them, toward the rear.

Abruptly, someone pushed past her, broke through the militia, passing Arvin: Janus. Arvin noticed at the last moment, reached to pull him back, missed, then increased his own pace to catch up.

Janus got there first. “Where?” Rowan heard him shout, “where is it?” She could not hear the answer.

He tried to go on, ahead, alone, but Corey spun him around, shouted at him. The militia reached them. Corey did not release his grip on Janus. “It’s in the fields,” he told the fighters, “coming this way from where Loho creek has that bunch of crab apples. Land’s open and the field is cut between us and it. Nothing for us to dodge behind, but nothing for it to, either— ”

“Let go of me,” Janus spat at him, struggling.

“I want an arc, about a third of a circle, facing the monster, and we’ll just pour arrows at it— ” A wordless noise from one of the militia; Corey needed no interpretation. “How are we fixed for shafts?”

Archers spoke up. “Two.” “Three.” “None.” “Two.” “Five.”

“Four,” Arvin said.

“I said, let
go!
”

With casual brutality, Corey fisted Janus full in the face. Janus fell, sprawling to a seat in the dirt, his sword beside him. Corey turned away. “Marga, you give three to Arvin, two to Bert. Then get back to the monster we killed, grab all the arrows you can, bring them here. Watch out for the burn-juice. Go.” His glance found Rowan and flicked once, down to her bloody shirt, back to her face. “How about it, lady? Ready for more?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Good. Stick by Arvin. You just might have to show us how one bow and one sword can kill a demon.” He found the shed worker, who had quieted but was still gasping in pure panic. “Get to town. Spread the word. Some of the militia’s gone home— I want them back out. Go.” She fled.

He looked about at the road, the fields, the darkening sky. “We can’t wait for Marga. We need to move. Light’ll fail soon. Can’t fight it in the dark.”

“Torches,” someone said.

“What, so it can see us better?”

“Maybe it hates fire.”

“And maybe it loves it. Goblins do.” The look on Corey’s face told of past experience with goblins. “But if we can’t finish it off by full dark, we’ll set the field on fire. Burn it to death.”

“Lasker’ll kill you.”

“He’s welcome to try.”

The troop moved, passing around Janus as if he were a stone. Only Rowan paused when she reached him.

He still sat, half stunned. His dark face was streaked with blood, a red weirdly bright in the pale light of the falling sun. “Janus, don’t be stupid. We know what to do. You don’t. Go away.” And she left him behind.

They were halfway across Lasker’s eastmost field when they heard the demon-voice. The demon itself was difficult to see against the backdrop of the twisted crab apple trees— until it moved. Then Rowan found the sight strangely shocking, as if one of the trees had moved, the demon’s own body so much like a smooth gray trunk, its arms like low-hanging bare branches, all, impossibly, in motion.

The militia stopped well out of range of the demon’s spray. Now silent, using gestures only, Corey directed his archers into position. The men and women hurried to their posts, each moving in an awkward stoop along and across the rows of mulberries, trying to gain as much coverage as possible from the trees. But this field had been stripped of leaves, and the trunks and branches were trimmed waist high.

Rowan found that she could tell when the demon noticed a person; its arms lifted suddenly each time, almost to attack stance, then dropped. But it did not approach, nor try to spray. Perhaps it could not decide on one target.

Corey kept Rowan and Arvin beside him, along with the pike bearers, all in the center section of the curve of archers. Rowan analyzed this strategy, comparing it to one where each pike bearer stood by one archer, and found Corey’s choice to be better.

Especially if Corey did exactly what he did next.

Leaning the shaft of his pike against one shoulder, he cupped his hands about his mouth. “
Hey!
Hey, you, monster! Over here, damn you! Come
this
way!” Rowan thrust two fingers in her mouth, whistling loud and shrill. Behind her, someone drew a deep breath and let out long, earsplitting ululations. The other pike bearers joined with hoots and yells.

The demon noted the sounds, lifting and dropping its arms, over and over. But it did not approach. “Maybe this one’s smarter!” Arvin shouted to Rowan over the noise.

“Or weaker! Starving! There’s no food for it here!” She returned to whistling.

Left and right, Corey gestured broadly. The entire line moved forward— still well out of range of demon spray but also still out of accurate bow shot. They closed the distance slowly.

When Arvin lifted his bow, Rowan knew the demon was within at least his range of accuracy; and as the line moved near, the other four archers, one by one, nocked and lifted.

Corey stopped shouting; the fighters in the center silenced. In the sudden quiet, the demon’s voice seemed loud and near.

“Go!” Five archers let fly. Two of the shafts struck home. And the demon ran.

Straight for the center. “Go!” Corey called again. Four arrows struck, one missed. The demon came on, rotating a quarter turn.

“Someone got a vent,” Rowan commented.

“Lilly,” a woman said in fierce glee. Then she shouted, “That’s for Dionne!”

Rowan glanced right, left, to see three archers drop back, their arrows gone.

“Go!” Lilly and Arvin both struck. Demon spray, but it fell far short. Only Arvin had arrows remaining. “At will,” Corey told him; then, to the pikes, “Spread. To the right.” The disabled vent was to the right. Rowan and the pike bearers ran.

Corey and Arvin remained in place. Corey readied his pike, yelping to bring the demon to them. Arvin shot; the creature turned again as it moved. “Another vent,” Rowan said.

“What’s that?” The fighter spoke in quiet tones.

“What?”

“There.” He pointed. Past Corey and Arvin.

“Marga?”

“No . . .”

Rowan cursed in a whisper: “Oh, gods below . . .

She knew him by his height, his shape, by how he ran, by the bright sword in his hand. “He’s on the wrong side.”

“He’s a dead man.” And then they were too far to speak.

Corey spotted Janus, shouted his name. Janus continued, angling right— and then he was squarely between Arvin and the demon and, an instant later, in range of the spray.

Corey silenced, placed a hand on Arvin’s shoulder to stop the next shot. Not protecting Janus from Arvin’s arrows, but logically if cold-bloodedly using Janus, allowing the creature to take him for its target.

Rowan stood, swaying helplessly, agonizingly, from the pain of holding every muscle locked against the wild need to move, to run, to attack the monster herself before Janus was hurt.

No. Useless. Too far. Too late.

Incredibly, Janus slowed to a walk, then stopped. Even more incredibly, the demon did the same.

They both stood, some forty feet apart, Janus perfectly still, the demon with arms raised and waving.

Then Janus continued forward, at a slow and deliberate walk, his sword held wide to one side. Rowan could not see his other hand. “Use both hands,” she said, her voice choked behind clenched teeth.

The demon moved again— but slowly, to the left. Janus angled to intercept it.

It stopped once more. It dropped its arms from attack stance. Then, slightly faster, it headed right.

Janus broke into a run.

He crossed the gap, reached the demon, swung one-handed, struck once, twice.

The creature pulled away in staggering steps. Janus closed in, stabbed hard.

Abrupt and utter silence.

Voiceless, waving its arms wildly, the demon took another step away.

Janus swung once more, slicing deep into its body. It dropped, flailed, trembled to motionlessness.

All was still.

Rowan’s body unlocked so suddenly and completely that she fell, sprawling back into the sharp, cut branches of the waist-high mulberries. She thrashed stupidly, then regained her feet.

No one else had moved. Then a pike bearer began to laugh— the odd, weak laugh of one amazed and still disbelieving. Then another laughed, brighter, triumphant— and all broke into shouts and hurrahs.

Rowan found the noises unreal. She could not integrate these events. This made no sense.

The pike bearers scrambled across the field toward Janus and the demon, the archers doing the same. Janus stood silent. His sword, point on the ground, shone red in the last rays of the sun, as if painted with human blood.

Rowan found herself not by Janus but beside Corey and Arvin, who had not joined the others. Both stood dumbfounded. Finally, Corey spoke. “Stupidest thing I ever saw. Taking a chance like that.”

“It never sprayed,” Arvin said.

“Damn lucky for him.”

“That,” Rowan said, “is exactly what it was.” And she pushed her way through the mulberries toward the crowd.

The fighters were gathered around Janus, slapping him on the shoulder, making laughing comments. He stumbled a bit under one particularly strong thump, but otherwise seemed unaware of their presence. They began to quiet as they noticed this, and silenced when, without even one comment to them, Janus turned and walked away down the row of bushes.

Rowan intercepted him. He stopped, only because she planted herself directly in his path. “You were
lucky
,” she said with unexpected vehemence.

He seemed only at that point to recognize her. He took a breath to speak.

She flung out both arms. “Yes! I know! ‘Go away!’ But you’re going to listen to me, you incredible fool!” She stepped close, spoke up into his face. “You were
lucky
. Those animals can’t eat Inner Lands food, and that one was starving, or sick, or out of whatever mind it had. It didn’t have the sense, or the strength, to kill you— and that was a stroke of fortune you can’t depend on next time.” He tried to pass around her; she did not permit it. “If you ever try anything so stupid again, I think you’ll find it’s a very good way to kill yourself!”

She heard herself say these words, and then stopped, stunned.