Chapter Thirty-Seven

What struck Skana the most about Speranzi was how at ease the woman seemed to be when by herself. For Skana, the hustle and bustle of a village, a villager’s home, then a city and a bandit camp, and always, always the constancy of somebody close at hand, that was where she was comfortable.

To be alone set her skin to crawling.

But if Speranzi was even lonely at her solo little fire, it wasn’t evident. She didn’t seem to feel threatened with her back to her soldiers. Few enough women that Skana knew would ever do that.

Living so completely without fear was something her idol obviously did as a matter of course, and it showed in the little things, just like this. But yet it felt wrong to Skana for Speranzi to be alone at dinner as if she had no one who would enjoy a meal with her.

‘Corwin is clearly an exception.’ She thought, and realizing that she hadn’t thought about it until just then, her estimation of him went up another notch.

But as she approached, a cacophony of noise went up from outside the camp. Speranzi shot to her feet and whirled toward the noise.

“Fall in!” Speranzi shouted and in one smooth, seamless motion, she drew her bow, an arrow, and swept it up through the flames to light the tip and shot it into the air. Her bellowed command was like a demon’s roar, and the shot of fire that went straight up into the sky told her soldiers where to gather.

Those in armor and those without, raced into position, forming up a square with Speranzi front and center.

“Ready, arrows!” She shouted the command and drew another herself just as her first arrow fell back to the ground and slowly burned up the shaft as they waited to learn the cause of the screams in the darkness.

A flurry of noise made up of armored bodies, the clink of weapons, and the shouts of the leaders of squads calling their warriors to order, the handful of magic casters raced to the back of the formation, their hands already glowing with the blue light of mana being summoned up for spells.

Speranzi’s favorite noise, that of a bow bending with the arrow’s draw, was sweet in her ears and multiplied many times over by her disciplined soldiers. The bows used by the Black Quivers were of the heaviest draws, and more than that, they could hold that draw until her command to let their arrows fly.

So hold them they did while waiting on those who raised the alarm on the outskirts of camp to alert the whole as to the danger.

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But no word came.

Speranzi’s vicious eyes narrowed as she peered deeper into the darkness beyond the light cast by the many abandoned flames.

“Should I go check?” Skana offered with a whisper under her breath.

Speranzi saw the woman out of the corner of her eye, still lacking proper armor, it was a risk… but on the other hand? ‘She’s stronger than she looks, and fast.’

“Go.” Speranzi said and held her hand up over her head while balling into a fist to keep her soldiers still as Skana broke from her place and after a crouch, she activated one of her martial arts and then sprinted like she herself was an arrow launched from Speranzi’s bow and into the night toward an uncertain target.

A woman’s shriek of terror pierced the veil of darkness beyond the last fire that was diminishing with distance at Skana’s back, ‘I really wish I’d brought a weapon.’ She blushed with embarrassment as she realized she’d gone into the formation with nothing, ‘Rookie mistake, but right now I need eyes…’

And those? Those green eyes of hers had spent years living in the darkness with Bodger’s brigands, the dark held few secrets for her any longer as the strain made her stronger.

The scream went up again, and this time with words. “Please!” It was the same voice, “We’re just trying to move on! Don’t turn us in! Let us go! We’ll do anything not to go back! Don’t hurt us!”

Skana’s sight caught up to the sound a moment later, and the outlying guards of the Black Quivers held swords level in front of a little band of a dozen elves.

Several of them were bleeding on the ground, clung to by their comrades who were mumbling spells or prayers or who knew what to preserve their lives. Others where clinging to each other, shaking in fear, the woman who spoke, did so from behind a man who swayed on his feet, bleeding from a gash to his head, his ribs were visible on his body and from what Skana could see, there were so many scars that she questioned whether his flesh had been made more by gods, or men.

“Please.” He begged, “Just… let us leave… we were just going to try to get a little food… not hurt anyone… we’re just hungry… we want to go home… I beg you… we’ll move on, take our friends… and go.”

“What’s going on, Speranzi hasn’t seen a signal yet.” Skana said as she strode into view of those with less gifted eyes than she.

“Caught them creeping toward the camp. Brigands is my guess.” A dark haired soldier said and pointed his sword toward the ones on the ground. “Them, they attacked when we called them out. Big mistake, that.” He grunted with satisfaction while the wounded lay curled on the ground clutching wounds to their bellies while whimpering figures held onto them and begged…

“Don’t die… just don’t die…”

Skana narrowed her eyes. “Speaking as something of an expert on brigands… those,” she waved her arm out to encompass them all, “they don’t look like any brigands I have ever seen. Take them prisoner, send a safe signal, unless you want your friends to have sore arms by the time we get back, let’s hurry up.”

Had what she said made any less sense, or had she not implied that Speranzi sent her, they might have argued.

As it was, they did not.

“You, you, and you, pick up the wounded. Everybody walk where she leads. Anyone running gets an arrow in the back for their trouble.” The same dark haired warrior promised. The sobs renewed, but the elven captives obeyed, grunting and groaning as they did… they slumped forward, bowed by the weight of the turning of their fortunes.

They staggered and clung to one another as much as possible, trudging back toward the encampment as the white glowing arrow shot toward the sky to alert Speranzi that all was well.

At least for them, if not for their captives.