The man overbalanced after a particularly vicious swing and stumbled. El put his shoulder into the dirt and spun around, kicking out with both feet. That cursedly persistent sword clanged and bounced by his ear as its owner fell heavily, grunting as the wind was driven from him. El kept spinning, bringing his feet under him and running four paces away before he dared turn to look at his foes. Where was that third Foxling?
Lying still and silent on the road, it seemed, with a white-faced, panting Immeira rising from beside him, bloody dagger in hand. Her eyes met El's through the dust, and she tried to smile … not very successfully.
El gave her a wave, then pounced on the man who had chased him with the sword. He stabbed down thrice with his own dagger, and when he looked up again, El saw that both he and Immeira were dusty, sweating, panting, and alive. They traded true smiles this time.
"Lass, lass," El chided her, as they swung each other into an exultant embrace, "I can't protect ye!"
Immeira kissed his cheek, then pushed him away making a face at him through her wild-tangled hair and the Foxling blood spattered across her face. "That's fair enough," she told him. "I can't protect you, either!"
El grinned at her and shook his head. He strode to the shade where the three Foxlings had been sitting and chuckled in satisfaction.
"What, Wanlorn?" Immeira asked. "What is it?"
Elminster held up a crossbow and said, "I'd hoped they'd have one of these. Light armor, no lances or horses... it stands to reason they'd have something to use against, say, three armsmen guarding a caravan. Here, lass...help me with the windlass. We mayn't have much time."
Immeira ducked past him to scoop up a sling bag bulging with crossbow quarrels. "We don't," she said shortly. "Their relief is riding out here. I just saw them top the last rise ... the one by Thaermon's farm. They'll be on us in..."
"Then get my chain and take it back the other side of the road," El hissed, cranking the windlass for all he was worth. "Haste, now!"
The Starneir lass showed a little haste, moving with speed and grace despite the heavy, awkward weight of the bloody chain. El crossed the road in a half-crouch right behind her, the bow just about ready.
He had one hand in the sling bag for a quarrel, with Immeira coming to an awkward halt to let him get one out, when the first rider bobbed up over a crest in the road and saw the bodies. The man shouted and hauled on the reins, bringing his horse to a snorting, almost rearing halt. His two companions drew up beside him, and they gaped in unison at the sprawled Foxlings and the trees so close and so innocent on either side of them.
"Drop the chain and run," El murmured in Immeira's ear. "Drop this bag soon and go anywhere to avoid being caught. If we lose sight of each other, look for me in that grove west of the haystack. Go!"
Without waiting for her reply, Elminster stepped calmly into the road and shot the most capable-looking Foxling through the throat. Then he sprinted back to the trees, tossing down the bow, and snatched up the chain from where Immeira had let it fall. There was no sign of her but branches dancing in the dim forest distance.
He took two running strides into the woods, then crouched down to listen. He heard the expected curses, but also fear in the furious voices, and hooves pawing as horses were turned.
A moment later, the horn calls Immeira had told him to expect rang out over the valley, fast and strident. The other dead patrol had been discovered. The bugling went on for a long time, and El used the din to cover a quick sprint through the trees beside the road, heading back the way these two horsemen would have to come. Any hopes of felling another on the way past were dashed, however, when they burst past him at a gallop, eager to return to Fox Tower before any more crossbow quarrels came calling.
The riderless mount followed them, depriving El of any chance to rummage in its saddlebag. He stared after it, shrugged, and scurried to retrieve the quarrel from the dead Foxling's throat, then the mans weapons, the crossbow, and its bag of quarrels. Luckily this man's fall had swept his night cloak from its perch on his saddle, it served admirably to bundle everything up in. El's chain, hooked to itself wrapped the bundle as if it had been made to do so.
The bundle was heavy, but Immeira was waiting for him several trees away to take the crossbow and gaa at him as if he was some great hero.
Elminster hoped she was wrong. In his experience, all the great heroes very soon became dead heroes.
The feast hall in Fox Tower had been in an uproar but frightened and angry men cannot snap and snarl at each other endlessly without breaking into a brawl or falling into tense, waiting silence.
The silence now hung as heavy as a cloak under the flickering candle wheels. Their hanging chains cast long shadows down the stone walls as the Iron Fox...a great bulk of a man, more like a rotund bear than a fox...and his eight remaining warriors hunkered down over a roast that seemed suddenly tasteless, and drank wine as if they all wanted to drown in it. Servants hardly dared approach the table for fear of being run through, and many a sudden glance was shot up at the dark, empty minstrels' gallery. The ladies waited behind closed doors in the bedchambers beyond, dismissed from the board at the first news. They were all dreading the humor that might govern their men when those who wore the fox head at last came to bed.
Nine men brooded over the long table as the candles guttered lower. The possible identity and allegiance of the lone, briefly glimpsed crossbowman had been endlessly debated, the decision long since made to lock the tower gates, maintain vigilant watch, and sally forth in armed force in the morning. Doors were barred from within, locks checked, and keys retrieved onto this very table. Now all that was left was the waiting, the wondering who this unseen foe was, and the rising fear.
An elbow toppled a goblet, and half a dozen men sprang up shouting, blades half drawn, before the disgusted Iron Fox shouted them to a halt. Men glared around at each other, black murder in their eyes, then slowly sat down again.
Fearful heads drew back from the kitchen doors before someone might see them and go for a whip. The kitchen had grown cold and quiet, but the three serving maids dared not leave.
The last time a lass had dared slip away early she'd been hunted up and down the tower and whipped until long after her clothes had fallen away and the bloody skin beneath was in danger of following it. The Iron Fox had ordered that her bloody footprints not be scrubbed away from the passage floors, so as to serve as ever-present reminders of the reward awaiting laxity and disobedience.
The serving maids cowered sleepily on a bench just inside the kitchen door, more terrified than the men in the hall. The warriors feared the unknown and what might be lurking nearby in night-shrouded Starn, but the servants knew exactly what danger awaited them in the next room and knew they were locked in with it. There'd be a lot of slapping and screaming behind those bedchamber doors soon, if they were any judge, and...
With a sudden loud rattle of chain, one of the candle wheels plunged from its customary height toward the table below. Foxlings boiled up, shouting, their swords flashing into their hands. One of them sprinted across the room with a curse, followed by another. They were through an archway and gone before the Iron Fox's shouted commands could be heard.
The ruler of the Starn had a huge, rough slab of a face, decorated with stubble, a thick and bristling mustache, and eyes as cold and cruel as all bleak midwinter. The body below it, sweating in full armor even to gorget and gauntlets, was no smaller or more dainty. The curved metal plates held in the quivering breasts and belly that would otherwise have shaken and rippled like a pale and obscene sea of flesh as their host rose to his feet and leveled a long and ruthless finger at the rest of the Foxlings. "The next man to leave this room without my leave had best keep going, right off my land and into exile! D'you know how stupid it is to rush off like that, whe..."