Authors: R.A. Salvatore
Pony stood up quietly, staying low in a crouch and strapping her sword, Defender, to her waist. She reached for her soul stone, thinking to fly out to scout the area, but before she could even begin, she noted a movement down the road a bit, a humanoid shape, a large man perhaps, moving deliberately toward their camp.
Many possibilities crossed Pony’s mind; many things screamed out at her to keep her on her guard. Why was anyone out at this late hour? And why would anyone be alone on the road north of Caer Tinella at any time of day? Or was this man alone? Greystone was behind Pony, at a good distance, while the approaching man was in front of her; and yet the horse had apparently sensed his presence.
She kept all those disturbing thoughts in proper perspective, buried them beneath the confidence of years of battle experience, and she slowly rolled onto her side, not wanting to present a clear target to any archers who might be nearby. She tucked one leg under her so that she could get up in a hurry, and put her hand on her sword hilt.
The form came closer, walking with a determined stride and swinging something—a battle-ax, perhaps—in one hand.
“That will be close enough, sir,” Pony said suddenly, and the man jerked to an abrupt halt.
A long moment of silence passed, and then the large man laughed and brought his arms about, slamming his weapon against the flat of a metal shield.
“What?” Belster groaned, rolling.
“Stay down,” Pony instructed him. She rose up to a crouch, inching toward the man and glancing all about, expecting that he had allies nearby.
“Are you the friend of the fool Kilronney?” the man bellowed, that alone giving Pony a good idea of who this might be.
“And if I am?” Pony replied, as she neatly kicked at one of the smoldering branches on the fire. She slipped low and grabbed it up, giving a shake so that the breeze brought a flare of life to it. By the time she had taken two steps, the end of the branch was aflame, giving her a better view of the man—and him, and any allies he might have, a fine view of her.
He didn’t seem very old—mid-thirties perhaps—but his curly hair was more silver than its previous blond, as was his full beard. He wore a sleeveless jerkin, showing hardened, muscled, hairy arms, with leather bracers about his wrists. Even more notable to Pony, the man’s shield was battered and torn, and his axe head was notched from previous encounters.
“Seano Bellick,” she remarked casually, moving closer to the man and tossing the burning branch to the ground at her side—anything to make it more difficult for any hidden associates the man might have to get a clear shot at her.
The big man laughed.
“Who’s here?” Belster called from behind.
“Stay back, near the wagon,” Pony instructed sharply.
“Ah, you got nothing to fear from me,” Seano Bellick said. “I come to talk, not to fight, and I fight fair.”
Pony’s expression clearly revealed her serious doubts about that. There was very little this man could say to calm her, she realized, for he had injured her dear friend, and Pony almost hoped he would wade in and take a swing with that cumbersome axe of his.
“Talk then,” she said grimly.
Seano Bellick gave a great belly laugh. “A spirited one, eh?” he said.
“You could have spoken to me in the town,” Pony retorted. “My whereabouts were no secret.”
Bellick shrugged. “Well, I found you now.”
Pony didn’t blink, didn’t return her hand to Defender’s hilt, confident that she could draw and thrust before the man could take a step.
“You got quite the reputation about here,” Seano said. “Fighting goblins and powries and even giants, so it’s said about Pony.”
“Jilseponie,” the woman corrected, and Seano bowed.
“So it’s said about
Jilseponie
,” he remarked. “And now you come into town and fix the torn fingernails and the blisters and the bad-food stomach. Making a name for yourself.”
Pony wanted to argue that if he really thought she had done, and was doing, all that in the hopes of making a name for herself, that he was sorely mistaken; but she quickly came to the conclusion that this thug wasn’t worth the time to explain—and wouldn’t begin to understand her, anyway.
Seano nodded his head. It was quite clear to Pony where this was going, though she had no intention of making it easier for the man by instigating any action.
“I doubt not that the reputation is well earned, Po—Jilseponie,” Seano said. “And that makes it all the sweeter for me. Take out that fancy sword of yours and show me what you been showing goblins.”
“Walk away,” Pony replied. “I’ve got nothing for you, Seano Bellick. Not half the reputation you seem to think you can earn this night and not enough wealth to make a fight worth your time or effort. Put up your ugly axe and walk away, south to Caer Tinella or into the deep forest where a bear can take you, if that is your
pleasure.”
“Nothing I want?” Seano echoed skeptically. “Why, taking you down’d make the name of Seano Bellick feared from Palmaris to Caer Tinella, would make Duke Kalas know what a fool was Bildeborough for cutting me out before he got killed.”
The words hardly surprised Pony.
“Nothing I want?” Seano said again, even more incredulously. “Why, you got a magic gemstone, girlie. A prize most appreciated by all of them about, now that you’ve shown what it can do.”
“And know that you have no power with it,” Pony remarked.
“But others will be wanting it,” Seano snapped back, his agitation obviously increasing. “And others’d pay for it with good gold. And, besides, if I got your stone, then others’ll know I took it from you, that you didn’t give it to me agreeably.
“So give it over and save me the trouble, and yourself the pain, of me taking it from you,” he finished, flashing a nearly toothless, ugly grin.
Pony paused for a long moment, sizing the fellow up. Still she kept Defender in its sheath. “I expect that my reputation is not nearly as impressive as you make it sound,” she answered slowly and very calmly, “at least, not to you.”
“I’ve a bit of a reputation of my own,” the big man replied.
“One I know well,” Pony answered. She took a deep, steadying breath, clearing out her anger and replacing it with simple pragmatism and generosity. “Seano Bellick,” she said, again in calm and perfectly controlled tones, “while I’d dearly love to pay you back for the pain you have caused to my friend—”
“Another tough girlie,” he interjected snidely.
Pony winced, thinking that Colleen, if she had been in top fighting form, would have had little trouble with this braggart. “I choose to fight not at all with humans,” she went on. “The world is full of enough enemies without us making war on each other. So, with that in mind, I offer you now, indeed I beg you, to put up your axe and walk off.”
“Give me the gemstone and away I go,” Seano said.
Pony slowly shook her head. “Do not do this.”
“Are ye all right, girl?” Belster called. Pony couldn’t afford even the slightest bit of her attention for the innkeeper, and so she ignored the remark, her focus squarely on Seano.
“Take out your sword,” the big man said.
“Walk away.”
“Last warning.”
“Walk away.”
Predictably, Seano Bellick roared and leaped at Pony, and her sword snapped out in the blink of Seano’s eye, stabbing ahead, forcing the man to rise to his tiptoes, suck in his gut, and skid to an abrupt halt. To his credit, Seano improvised well, slashing his axe to hold Pony back, then advancing as he came across with a wicked backhand slash, and then a third straight-across slash, to hold Pony at bay while he regained his balance and took a defensive posture.
A sudden thought came to Pony to go for her soul stone, to fall into its depths and invade this thug’s mind, overpowering his will and forcing him to run off. “No,” she answered that pacific notion as Seano roared and came on again, feigning a downward chop, then falling back slightly, then stutter-stepping suddenly ahead, launching a wicked slash that missed the backing Pony. “No,” Pony said again, more determinedly, coming to the realization that she didn’t want to chase him off, that she wanted to pay him back for his treatment of Colleen, and even more than that, that she wanted to use this deserving target to unleash all of her months of pent-up frustrations.
“No, don’t you run off, Seano Bellick,” she whispered. The big man eyed her skeptically and attacked again—missing again as the nimble woman skittered back, one, two, three steps, always in perfect balance.
Seano paused and stared at her, and Pony understood, for the man had never seen anyone moving in battle quite the way she did. This was
bi’nelle dasada
; and in it, the only movement in the retreat was in the legs, while the torso remained balanced and on center. Elbryan had often referred to this forward-and-back skittering as spiderlike, an appropriate description to Pony’s thinking.
“You’re a quick one,” Seano bellowed, “but one blow of my axe will split you in two!”
Pony didn’t bother to respond, didn’t even blink. Seano howled all the louder and banged his axe head against his metal shield. Even as that clang sounded, the big man exploded into a charge, holding his shield up.
Pony’s responding thrust slipped her sword tip around to the inside of the shield, but it seemed to Seano that he had gained an advantage. On he came, shoving his shield forward to put Defender out of the way, then swiping his axe across viciously.
Pony ducked it, then ducked the ensuing backhand. By the time Seano came with the third vicious slash, she had slipped out to the side, out of his reach.
Now she suddenly had the advantage, and she stabbed ahead with Defender, forcing Seano to alter the angle of his next backhand to fend off the rushing blade. He did this beautifully—even Pony nodded her appreciation for the cunning parry—though he nearly lost his awkward weapon in the process. Then he rolled his shield arm forward, putting the defensive barrier between himself and Pony once more.
She hit that shield with three sharp raps, Defender’s fine silverel blade creasing it twice and cutting a small line in the metal on the third slash.
Seano flashed his toothless smile, but there was a wince there, Pony recognized, for the battering had likely stung his shield arm.
“You should have one of these,” the man taunted, lifting his shield.
Pony hit the metal again, hard, and then jumped back as Seano’s heavy axe swiped harmlessly across.
“Just slows you down,” she replied confidently. To illustrate her point, she launched her first real attack, sliding forward with three quick steps and coming
in with a hard thrust that got inside the blocking shield. She had him beaten with the move, but couldn’t go too deep with the cut, for Seano’s axe was quickly swinging her way again. Pony did manage to stick the man in the belly, enough to draw blood through the newest hole in his ragged tunic.
“I’ll make you pay for that!” he promised, and he came on in a rage.
Pony kept back from the first swing and backhand, ducked the second as she slipped in past his hip, reversing her grip and scoring another minor hit. She rushed by, then dropped to roll ahead of the next backhanded axe swing.
She came up in time to pick off Seano’s next cut with a neatly angled diagonal parry, so that his axe slid out and down.
And then she had him, or would have, had not a noise to the side and Belster’s cry distracted her. She told herself repeatedly that she shouldn’t be surprised to see that Seano had brought a couple of friends—both holding bows.
“You are the better fighter,” Seano admitted, “for what good that’ll do you.”
“Did you not claim that you fight fair?” Pony protested.
“And so I did,” said Seano. “But now I’m not fighting. No, girlie, now I’m thieving, so just be handing over that gemstone, and me and me friends will be on our merry way.”
Pony eyed him and made no movement to retrieve the gemstone or to put up her sword.
“My archer friend can get your companion where he’s sitting,” Seano remarked.
“Belster,” Pony called.
“I see them,” the innkeeper replied. “A pair with bows.”
“Are you clear to their aim?”
“Got a wagon right beside me,” Belster explained.
Seano gave a chuckle. “Are you to make it more difficult, then?” he asked. “More’s the pity. To think that my friend will have to take you down.”
Pony reached into her pouch and pulled forth the hematite, and Seano put a greedy hand out for it.
She didn’t immediately turn it over, but stood there, staring at the gemstone, sending her thoughts into it, accepting its magic and blending that energy with her own.
And then she came out of her body, with enough magical strength to focus her thoughts into something tangible, to project an image of herself, elongated, twisted, and demonic. That horrifying image appeared before the two archers, issuing a hellish shriek, the specter’s mouth opening wide.
The two archers fell back, crying out, and tripped over their own feet trying to run back into the forest.
“What?” she heard Seano Bellick cry, and she rushed back into her body, coming on guard immediately, and not a moment too soon; for the big man, apparently sensing some kind of betrayal, leaped forward, his mighty axe leading, a straightforward, downward chop aimed for Pony’s forehead.
Purely on instinct, and faster than Seano could have believed possible, the
woman’s warrior reflexes took over. She lunged suddenly, her sword tip meeting the descent of the axe, chipping into the wooden handle just below the head, before Seano could gain any momentum.
In the same fluid movement, Pony disengaged, retracting her blade but an inch, then slipping it under Seano’s axe and rotating her arm across and down, taking Seano’s weapon along for the ride.
The man should have let go, surrendering the weapon, but he hadn’t even really registered the parry yet, let alone the counter, and soon his arm had rotated in and down.
Pony slipped her blade free and brought Defender up over the axe handle and quickly across. And then she fell back, sputtering, as blood splashed across her face.
It had all happened in the blink of an eye, and Seano Bellick’s weapon—and the hand still holding it—fell to the ground.