The next day they requested, and after many penetrating stares and threats to hunt them, their children, and their children’s children down if they ran off, received one of the infinite waterskins. They rigged it up inside a keg and strapped to Zipper’s back, for appearance sake.

The refugees had continued to trickle in overnight. But most, who had been on the road, had sheltered for the evening. Once the sun was up, they started moving again.

It was much easier to reassure people with cups of cold water to refresh them. The stories they told weren’t that much different. The walls had been shut and some sort of siege started. Mostly they told of fear, fear of fire, fear of troops, fear of thieves. There were less stories of actual atrocities.

They saw their first soldier just before noon. He was young, dazed, and missing his helmet and shield. He welcomed the water and became slightly more coherent. He had been trapped outside the city walls and become separated from his troops. Everyone was asking him what to do and he didn’t know what to say. So, he ducked whatever enemy troops he could see, tried vainly to find his unit, and somehow ended up staggering down the road with the other refugees.

He seemed somewhat resigned when they said that the enemy was ahead, but if that he surrendered, they would give him food and shelter. They relieved him of his sword so his good intentions would be obvious.

It wasn’t until the early afternoon that they had their first trouble. It was pretty clear from some distance off. There was a cluster of carts, and a number of people along with them. A few soldiers could be seen perched on the leading one, which looked piled high with belongings. Several of those following argued, pleaded, and begged them, but their entreaties and the soldier’s contemptuous responses were lost to the wind.

“Trouble?” asked Zipper.

“Probably”, said Delta. “Keep the horn ready. Do you remember the sequence for ‘send reinforcements’?”

“Sort of”, said Zipper.

Delta stepped forward and waved her hand for the cart to stop. They ignored her. So, she took the reins of the lead horse and brought it to a standstill.

One of them, a Sargent if she understood the rankings right, jumped down and sidled up to her, chest puffed out and swaggering. She could smell alcohol coming from him. He came up very close to her and stared down at her. “You’d best get out of the way”, he said.

She looked back levelly at him. “There seems to be a dispute here. I’ve been asked to ensure that…”

“I don’t care what you’ve been asked to do”, he snarled, interrupting. “You’d best get out of the way”, he growled, and shoved her back.

She was ready for it, and instead of letting it put her off balance she used it to move back into a ready stance and brought the glaive down level. She continued to look levelly at him. Zipper shucked the keg off her shoulders behind her and lowered her spear as well.

“Are you going to cooperate, or do we have a problem?” Delta asked.

He laughed and slapped his thighs. His men joined in. “Do we have a problem?” The rest came down off the cart, settled their helmets and pulled their weapons out. Most were armed with swords that were waist height. The big one had a sword that came up to his chest and needed two hands. Several of the others had shields. “I don’t know. Do we have a problem?”

“I think we have a problem”, said Zipper, in an undertone to Delta.

“Yep”, she said. “Let the others know we have a problem.”

Zipper took a horn from her belt and sounded a couple of faltering notes.

The troops looked to their leader uncertainly, but he looked down the road and back to them. “Nice bluff. If you want to play a tune, let’s dance.” He lunged forward and swung his sword in a wide arc. Delta had her glaive choked back, to parry more strongly, but at the expense of range. She did a tilt deflection to direct his sword past her and continued the momentum into a swing back at him.

He jumped back and sneered at them. “Go wide, boys. These ones have some fight. But that will make them more fun to play with afterwards.” The rest started edging around them while the big one secured his helmet.

“Why can’t they do one of those easy-to-poke stationary tortoises”, complained Zipper.

Delta switched to goblin. “On mark. Quick rush left. Me high. You low. Then back. Defend.” Zipper grunted her acknowledgement. The soldiers were walking casually, giving their boss time to get ready.

“Mark!” cried Delta and skittered off to the left. The soldiers hadn’t gotten into a position where they could be on all sides, so they couldn’t take their rear while they focused in one direction. That left the mercenaries to bring both poles to bare against a single opponent. Delta closed the distance, switched her grip to further down the pole, and swung it high towards his head.

The trooper cursed, ducked, and brought his shield up to defend against it. In doing so he both blinded himself and exposed his legs. Zipper did a step and thrust past Delta’s side and planted her spear in this thigh. He had not been wearing all of his armor while on the cart and the strike told true. His curses turned to screams, his leg gave out, and he crashed to the ground.

The two mercenaries immediately backed away before the others could recover and try to circle in from behind. That had brought them further away from the cart. As the soldiers started to advance on them again, some of the others started to quickly rifle what they could from the cart.

The leader gave them a few more signals, and this time they went very wide before circling around.

“Rush forward”, said Delta. “Defense only. Get past. Turn and engage. Then back.”

She gave them a moment more, to let them achieve the net they were trying to make, but before they could close it, then she called the mark.

Delta rushed forward, just to one side of the boss. She held her glaive, ready to deflect any swing he made as they closed. Zipper was in lock step with her, but with her spear held at length, to deter the closest shield from closing too quickly as it rushed in.

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The man swept, as expected, but kept his momentum and recovered quickly, bringing his blade around close as Delta was right on top of him. She intercepted its trajectory with her lower haft knocking the momentum out of it. She stopped there, nearly belly to belly with him, at a range neither of their weapons were good at. She felt Zipper at her back, crying and lunging, and heard the spear tip clatter on the shield. It probably wasn’t closing, figuring it had a few moments to wait for the other shields to rush in.

Delta kept in close, both of them moving for leverage to try to get around the other’s weapon, but to block the other from doing the same. She pivoted, though, moving around him on Zipper’s side, until her back was facing the direction of the cart.

“Two steps back”, cried Delta. Zipper immediately followed her. The gap between them and the soldiers opened up, and the boss and his shield pressed forward to close the distance before they got range advantage. This, however, also impeded the arriving far shields from directly entering the fray. They had a few seconds.

Delta feinted for the big man, let him deflect her glaive, and continued the deflected arc to bring the spike down on the shield to his left. Quick as an adder Zipper thrust at his face and, unable to raise his shield, she got a lucky shot through the eye slit. The Sargent had recovered and was coming down with a strong swing, but Delta was already backing away, lock step with Zipper. He took a step, but then thought again about facing off against two by himself.

The two stopped backing when they were just out of sword range, but still within their own. They feigned a few times to keep them jumpy. The two shields had come up, and the Sargent was questioning the shield on the ground who had been stabbed in the face. He moaned and howled about losing an eye and the Sargent gave up on him.

He growled orders at the two shields in an undertone, and they moved to close formation with him looming over them. They took some tentative steps forward and didn’t flinch at the feints this time.

“They remembered their brains”, said Zipper. “Not good.”

“Split”, said Delta. “I’ll try to bait two of them to follow me. If one splits off against you, take them. If not, hit their rear.”

“You can handle two?” asked Zipper.

“Best I’ve got”, said Delta. “Go so the sun is in their eyes.”

They pivoted again, away from the cart, putting their backs to the sun. She could see them getting ready for a quick charge. But, at that moment, Zipper shouted, did an extreme length thrust, and then backed quickly at an angle. Taking the bait, the Sargent growled at one to go run her down and pushed the other forward with him.

Delta skittered back. Two steps back, one turn, just like in training. To try to keep them at her range and her out of their range. But they were too quick and came on fast. She harassed the shield, and snagged it with her tip, but there was no spear to take advantage of that. So instead she used it to try to pin him down, and pivoted around her snagged opponent, trying to keep the shield between her and the Sargent with his long sword.

He had just got around the shield and was getting ready a swing when an egg hit him in the face, surprising him. The moment was lost, and Delta pivoted again to keep the shield snagged and interposed.

A couple of vegetables followed the egg. An incensed older woman screamed at the Sargent, as she held a basket full of smashed and broken things. They had come right alongside the cart, but all the other civilians had fled at their approach. But it was all too much for the woman who vented her anger and frustration at the man.

With a deeply insulting curse, he took one step forward and smashed her in the face with the guard of his sword. She went down like a lead brick and was still.

A sudden, white-hot rage infused Delta. She had been told to never get angry when she fought, as it robbed you of thought and reason. But the sudden silence and stillness of the woman, and the outrage done to her, got past her control. It was almost as if time went into slow motion. She did not want to defeat this opponent, she wanted to kill him.

She stepped forward, and with a two-handed thrust shoved her haft against the center of gravity of the shield, sending him down and over. With a second step she closed further on the Sargent, who was just turning back to her. The point on the tip of her glaive was curved, which made it useful as a second hook. But in this case the angle was right for bringing it up from low to high just under the edge of his helmet. The point hit the gap just right, and with two solid feet on the ground, and two firm hands in the middle of the haft, she drove it upwards, past the gorget and into the flesh on the other side.

His scream was immediately occluded with gurgling as he dropped his weapon and clutched for his throat, his knees already buckling. Delta turned from him, cold fires still burning in her to the shield. He was recovering and had just got his legs under him but hadn’t got back on his feet. His shield was low, and Delta could see his wide eyes through the eye slits as he watched his boss fall.

Delta pivoted, like in treacle, sliding her right hand down to the base of the haft, body tilting in his direction. She stepped out with her right leg, twisting her right hip forward, and using that to put every muscle of her legs, back and arm into thrusting the glaive forward, straight at the man’s eyes. It entered its target perfectly and the blow drove into him, knocked him back and to the ground, all of Delta’s weight pinning him there.

Time rushed back in. She staggered around and saw Zipper returning, her pace slowing, having just seen the last few seconds. Heedless Delta dropped her glaive and sank heavily to her knees next to the woman. “Water!” screamed Delta. She flung off her gauntlets and grabbed the woman, feeling her face and head. Blood was pouring down her forehead and Delta moved the hair, looking for the wound, but there was too much blood to see.

She looked up to scream for water again, but Zipper was already there, water streaming from the keg. Delta rinsed the woman’s head and the cold water brought her around. She took one dim look at them and started to scream and thrash. “Hold her”, said Delta, and clawed at her helmet straps. After three tries she got if off and thrust her face in front of the woman.

“Easy, easy”, she said. “They won’t hurt you again.” The woman seemed to fixate for a moment on Delta’s face, and then burst into sobbing. The fight went out of her and she succumbed to their ministrations.

“Put pressure, right there”, said Delta, guiding Zipper’s hand to the gash on the woman’s forehead. “Hold the flesh together, try to stop the bleeding. I don’t think her skull is cracked, but it’s not good.”

Others had clustered around, gawping. One woman was cutting cloth strips from her clothes. “Use his”, snarled Delta, indicating the Sargent. He still gurgled, but his twitching was getting weaker. The woman swallowed heavily, and then opted for the shieldman, who hadn’t moved since Delta struck him.

They had a soaked compress pressed hard to the woman’s head. She was watching them anxiously with the one eye that wasn’t covered. “Hold this” said Delta, and when Zipper had the compress Delta backed off, took a deep breath, and vomited to the side. She kept going until she had nothing left. Then she took the keg, rinsed her mouth out, and just sat there, eyes closed.

A few minutes later hoofbeats were heard. Major Kanni, Sir Chardon and a few others had come from the camp. Evidently, they had heard the horn. They circled once, taking in the situation, and then dismounted.

“Casualties?” barked Major Kanni.

Delta opened her eyes, looked to Zipper, and looked back. “We’re good”, she said.

“One ran off”, said Zipper. She nodded her head at the two nearest her. “You can throw these two into the swamp.”

“We’ll bury them, same as the rest”, said Kanni, shortly. “I can guess what happened here. Sir Chardon, if you please. Can you adjudicate with these good citizens and ensure that what is rightly theirs is restored to them?”

Another horseman came up leading the soldier who had run away behind him. Kanni nodded at him and said to another. “See if you can contract with one of these fine folks for room on their cart to transport the wounded, dead, and anyone else who needs it.”

Delta got to her feet, stiffly, pushing herself up with her glaive. She saluted and said, “Sir. I request permission…”

“You are granted the rest of the day off”, said Kanni, cutting her off. “Take the cart if you need it. You’ve certainly earned your pay today.”