Comet Fall (Wine of the Gods) (31 page)

Jin spotted a pair of tin canteens with about a gallon capacity and promptly bought them. Walking back out he turned away from the men now mounting their horses, glancing back he saw the god mounting a very still palomino, beyond him the boys turning down a side road.
Good. Out of sight
. He strode back to the barn, and managed to saddle and bridle the mare with minimal problems. He tied the canteens onto the saddle, empty. She could get used to things bumping and flopping a bit . . . Once out of the confines of the barn she bucked, but he pulled her head around and circled her until she gave up. He looked both ways and couldn't see either Pax or the four men with their under-loaded high-quality pack horses. The mare walked nervously down the street past the dry goods store and the mayor's house, with Jin taking a good look down each cross street. They were all pretty short, most of them dwindling away into the desert. The third street had several people standing in the middle gesturing. Jin turned the mare who perked her ears at the sight of open spaces beyond the last building.

One of the men in the street glanced at him. "Careful mister, there's some bad actors gone ahead of you. Grabbed some boys right off the street."

"Boys? Three of them? Blond, brown and black hair, eighteen, nineteen years old?"

"Yeah, they yours?"

"One of them." Jin reached for his new canteens. "Have you got water? I think I'm going to be going a bit further than I'd planned today."

***

The mare was happy to gallop out for a bit, but he pulled her up after about three miles. They weren't more than an hour ahead of him, and would have slowed when there was no immediate pursuit from town.

Lucky Strike was twenty miles south of the southern boundary of his land grant, so he was not familiar with the region. But it would have the same north-south faults, some with lava filling gaps, the same strips of Ashstone, with varying degrees of weathering and breaking down into soil. The ridge ahead would probably be a strip of ashstone standing a bit higher than the lava he was on now. The people in town had described both Pax on the palomino and the four men with the pack horses as the people who had grabbed the boys. A woman had been with them, they'd said. He had no idea where they were going, or if they were meeting other people. He needed to find them before that. So he made the mare walk decorously up the slope, scanning as he could see over the slope. The terrain was rough, with columns of harder ashstone standing randomly around the gullied and broken land. Pockets of soil hosted brush and stunted trees, grass. He leaned forward and studied the unmarred ground. The mare was leaving tracks, so with a mental coin flip he turned south along the edge, looking for tracks.

Half a mile south he found a regularly traveled path. Jin wasn't an expert tracker, but he could read the sharp clear edges of the recent hoof prints, and the multiple overlapping hoof prints well enough to turn and follow them. He kept the mare slow, but saw no sign of his prey.
A God, a goddess and four other men. I'm going to need to split them, tackle them one or two at a time . . . Ambush them. Wish I had my bow.

And about a dozen men.

The path dropped off the far side of the ashstone strip, down to a lava strip only a hundred feet across. There was no path on the far side, but horse droppings to the south. He turned and followed the faint occasional clues down the boulder and sand filled strip, which obvious served as drainage during the winter storms.

The clink of a shod hoof was his only warning
. The rear guard charged down on him. The mare spooked as he ducked the first sword swing, bucked and dumped him neatly over a rock that knocked his breath out. He rolled off and managed to grab his sword as the guard spurred around for another pass. The mare gave a last buck and bolted back north. The guard's horse jumped to avoid the last kick, and the rider raised his sword arm for balance. Jin lunged and slid his blade in between his ribs. As the man collapsed, Jin made a grab for the reins, missed and the horse galloped after his wild mare. Jin cursed under his breath, and turned quickly south. How far behind had the rear guard been? Had the fracas been heard? The guard had been mounted, so was probably not guarding a camp. Wheezing a bit and rubbing his ribs, Jin hustled to the nearest large boulder, looked around it, trotted down to the next. Damn it, he wasn't going to be able to do this. He needed the canteens on the mare's saddle. Had she divested herself of the saddle? Could he find it?

He trotted across a wide open stretch. The riders emerged from the rocks when he was halfway across. He scanned them quickly. Three men and a god on horse back. The woman, the Goddess of Mercy on a small horse. The boys, astride three of the pack horses, their hands tied to the front cross posts. The man with the pack string wrapped his lead line around a knob on a boulder and advanced with the rest. Jin saw Luz raise a foot and get his fingers down his boot to extract a knife.
Ata boy!

The god stopped his horse beside the goddess, and waved his men forward. "I suppose I should have expected you to follow. Pity the boy has to see his father killed, though."

"Goddess of Mercy," Jin raised his voice. "Why have you kidnapped these children?"

"They are young men, and they were not getting their proper training." She answered.

"And why do you think they will get it from this sadist who abuses horses?"

The palomino bounded forward
, ears pinned, as he was spurred. "I do not abuse this horse. He was rescued from certain death, and I have had trouble befriending him."

"Befriending? Old Gods! You should at least get a saddle that doesn't rub his withers, and loosen the nose band."
Jin scowled. "Why are you even here? I thought you were cozy with the Amma?"

Pax stiffened. "I do not get
cozy
with anyone. I am here to acquire gold, which is quite valuable where I am going, hire some swords who are loyal to me, not the Amma, and recruit a few young magicians to offset some other allies of mine. I appreciate your providing the last. I thought I'd need to travel up to Gemstone to find some of the Scoone Wizards' spawn."

"You were talking politics, in town."

Pax snorted. "A reflex I have. Handy, if the comet misses. But enough talk." Peace waved his men forward.

Three men acting together. Not a go
od place to be.
"Peace, my ass. You're nothing but a warmonger and a kidnapper."

The spurs drove home and the horse squealed as it jumped forward. The guards' formation
fell apart as their horses shied away from the palomino.

Jin dodged the palomino, reversed his direction suddenly and lunged at the nearest guard. His sword was battered down, but slid between the saddle and leg to stab deep into the man's thigh. Blood spurted, and Jin threw himself backwards to avoid the man's return thrust. He dodged behind the horse as the string of pack animals crashed into the fray, still tied together, barely steered, as Luz had only the lead line and his heels. Jin ran up behind a guard that turned to strike the boy, and slid his sword under his backplate and up. He withdrew the sword and was knocked spinning to the ground. The palomino reared, and he tried to bring his sword around. Hooves crashed to the ground on either side of his head, and he stabbed the sword up between the horse's front legs and back to cut the girth. The horse reared, and he rolled frantically out of the way as the horse threw his rider, and in a tangle of rear girth and breast straps and dangl
ing saddle, turned to savage the god. A hoof sent the man flying and the palomino pounced. Jin had one glimpse of the bloodied god staring at the descending hooves, then the god disappeared. Jin ran around the crazed animal and found himself facing the last guard. Card, with a manic grin, drove his mount forward to crash into the ridden horse's hind quarters. The horse scrambled to stay on his feet and Jin jumped in and grabbed the guard's sword arm and dragged him off the horse as he slashed his sword across his neck. A quick scan showed the other two men he'd stabbed both down on the ground. The first was still conscious, hands clamped to his thigh to stop the bleeding, desperation in his eyes.

Jin
quickly grabbed a pack horse, and yanked him to a halt. Luz had them well tangled, but he quickly untied them and sorted them out, cutting loose Deni and Card as he got to them. Staying wide of the palomino, they caught and tied all the other horses. Jin was keeping an eye on the woman. And turned to her as soon as the rest of the situation was under control.

"
Are
you the Goddess of Mercy?" He approached her. Stopped halfway.

She turned a still face to him, eyes blazing in fury. "How could you attack the God of Peace?"

"He kidnapped my son and his friends. They are injured. Can you help them? Will you help them? Goddess of Mercy."

"They are only a bit sore. If they had co-operated, we would not have been forced to bind them. Two wizards, and a mage, what would you do with them?"

"
You
hurt them?" He edged closer, and she looked at him with contempt.

"Take this," she pulled a bottle out of the air. "It will heal them." She threw it, and he dropped his sword to catch it.

"I'm glad to see you value healing over your weapon. Or is it just that it is wine?" She disappeared, leaving the horse.

"Who was that?" Luz walked up behind him. His wrists were chaffed, but he looked all right otherwise.

"One of the old gods. The Goddess of Mercy. Sometimes their names are not very good indicators of their inner qualities."

"No kidding." Deni was holding his wrist tenderly. "Good move with the pack horses, brat. Guess you've got some balls after all."

Card's wrists were bleeding. "I thought we were going to get killed being rescued." He blinked around the clearing. "Gosh, Mr. Genero, you beat all three of them." He edged away from the live one.

Luz threw up his head in alarm.

"Four, actually, I got their rear guard first." Jin contemplated the palomino. It was standing still, shivering now. "Keep back boys." He walked carefully up to the horse. "Hey guy, you want that saddle all the way off?" he reached carefully for the back cinch, and popped it. The horse backed up a few steps hobbling on three legs and stopped. "All right, now the bridle, and everything can come off over your head." The horse held still while he unbuckled the nose band, the throat strap, and even kept his head down as Jin pulled the twisted breast band up and over his ears with the bridle and dropped it all as he stepped away.

"All right boys, let's see what we can do about your injuries. Deni," he probed the wrist carefully. "Broke. Well, let's just see if the Goddess of Mercy has joy juice as potent as the other gods." He dug the cork out of the wine bottle with his dagger then contemplated medicine from unfriendly gods.

He hesitated and looked at the palomino. Jin's slice at his girth had hit more than tack, and the animal was obviously very lame. He had most likely injured himself fighting the tack. Jin approached again, found a hollow in the lava and poured about a cup of wine into it and backed off. The horse sniffed it cautiously, then hobbled up and drank it. He shook himself, took a couple of steps, then bolted for freedom. Without a limp.

Jin
nodded in satisfaction and let Deni have just a sip. Card got another, but Luz shook his head cautiously. Two of the horses had been slightly injured in the confusion, but they'd heal easily on their own.

He
eyed the man on the ground. Walked over. "I'm going to give you a sip of this. Then you're going to walk out of here, headed south. And you'd better not let me catch sight of you."

The man's head jerked in a tense nod. Jin put the bottle to the man's lips and tilted it briefly. He backed away. The man cautiously removed his grip. No spurt of arterial blood. He hitched back to a boulder, and used it to climb to his feet. He hobbled carefully away.
Jin watched him out of sight, then turned back to the mess around him.

"Well boys, the spoils of battle. Nine horses, eleven if we can catch the other two. I think we should each choose one to keep, and then sell the others and split the money."

They gawped at him, then started grinning as they looked at the horses.

Jin quickly stripped the bodies and dragged them to a low spot and started rolling the smaller boulders and stacking rocks on them. The boys joined him, suddenly quiet. The armor, weapons and money they loaded onto the pack horses, and the three boys mounted the three big riding horses.