Keep on the Borderlands

Two rough-looking men stared back at him. One whimpered, clutching his upper leg. Someone had wrapped a length of cloth around it, but blood still seeped around his fingers, and both the fabric and his breeches were soaked. The other sat cross-legged in the road, his face blank, fingers clinging to a broken bow.

“Well,” Jerdren said finally. “I wonder what we do with youtwo. Suppose we could gut you, same as we did for your friends, here. Or maybe you’d prefer to run for it? Of course, you’d have to go now, before I change mymind.”

The second man laughed harshly and indicated his wounded fellow with a jerk of his head. “How far do you think he’d get? How far’dI get, for all that, until you ran me down?”

Jerdren shook his head. “He’s no threat to me or those whohired me. Take him if you like, leave him if you’d rather. But go, and take amessage with you for any of your kind still alive out there and thinking caravans like this one are easy pickings. Tell them how many dead men you left behind.”

“Hah.” But the bandit got stiffly to his knees and leanedover to speak quietly against his fellow’s ear. The second man simply clutchedhis leg and watched blood seep between his fingers. His eyes were half-closed, and his face deadly pale. After a moment, the first man got himself upright, with the help of his shattered bow, and glanced at Jerdren.

“I’ll tell ’em. They won’t listen, but I’ll tell ’em.”

“Do that,” Jerdren said evenly and stood to watch as thebandit limped up the road and into the dry creek bed. He vanished into the shadows of the burned forest some distance north.

Jerdren walked to the head of the wagons, turned to look back along them, then bent his gaze to the blood- smirched road to find any arrows that were still whole and true. He pocketed three arrowheads that could be remounted on new shafts and shoved a nasty-looking, well-balanced, broad-bladed dagger into his belt. Something like that would do a lot of damage, no matter where you stuck it in a man.

Most of the dead and dying robbers were well away from the road. One wounded hill pony lay thrashing feebly in the ditch south of the road. “Save poor Blor the pain of this,” Jerdren muttered as he found the big neckvein and drove his dagger in deep. The animal fell back and lay still. His brother hated seeing a horse suffer but hated having to dispatch one even more.

“And how we’re to get you moved,” the older man toldthe dead beast, “I don’t know.” A dead horse wasn’t as nasty a mess as ten ormore dead men, but he’d rather not leave any bodies behind.

He climbed back onto the road. The hired men were making a pile of swords, daggers, spears, and the like behind the last wagons, and one of the hide merchant’s apprentices was helping stow the cache. Jerdren wiped hisshort sword and sheathed it, then checked his bay gelding over carefully before mounting. Blorys rode up to join him.

“Ready, Blor?” he asked.

Blorys shrugged. “Almost. Lhodis and his woman will probablyhave bad dreams for a while, but they didn’t actually see anything, and theyweren’t hurt.”

“They’ll be fine,” Jerdren said shortly and gave the sign forthe wagons to start. “I warned that man about bringing his woman.”

“He’s no worse than most of the merchants, Jers,” Blorysreminded him. His gaze stayed on the north side of the road, searching as they rode. “One reason they hire men like us for journeys into the wilderness. Likethis one, remember?”

“Yeah. I know.” Brief silence. “There’s blood on the road,but there’s not a thing we can do about that.”

Blorys grinned briefly. “Pray for rain.”

“Hah. By tomorrow, it’ll be buried under dust anyway.”

“That pony-”

“Be realistic, Blor. The dead men and horses will all be gonebefore we reach the branch in the road at the foot of the Keep. Captain of a band that ill-manned won’t last long as captain if he doesn’t bury his dead, andthey’ll want the horses for the meat.”

His brother merely nodded.

Perhaps another hour of steady riding, with no sign of pursuit or another ambush, and the lead men relaxed a little, slowing the pace to give the horses some rest.

“You owe me a pair of silver pence, Brother,” Jerdren finallysaid. “Remember? You bet me we’d never see a fight the whole way to the Keep,with all the men we hired.”

“Hah,” the younger man replied sourly. “You owe me asilver. For throwing yourself into the thick of things back there and trying to get yourself killed.”

Jerdren eyed him sidelong.

“I keep telling you, Jers, I like being a youngerbrother. I’ve gotten used to it, nearly thirty years’ worth, and I don’t mind ifyou leave me behind when we’re tottering, white-bearded old men, but-”

“What? You think I was in any danger from those footsore…those hacks?”

“They had the advantage of numbers and a sneak attack, Jers.Some of them were pretty good-how do you think I got cut?” The cut on his facestill seeped a little blood, but it wasn’t deep or very long.

Jerdren grinned. “All right, a few of ’em. For the most part,they were underfed, scrawny brutes, probably not much good at hitting a standing target and lousy at moving ones.”

“So what? Men like that hunt in packs, Jers! To make up forthe lack of skill! If there had been another twenty waiting out there-”

“Well, there weren’t,” Jerdren broke in. He glanced sidelongat his brother and grinned. “Besides, you were close enough, guarding my back,right?”

It was an old joke, but Blorys wasn’t smiling.

“You know not to count on that, Jers. I had my hands full-weall did.” He touched the drying cut, winced.

“I’ll clean that when we get in,” Jerdren said.

“I can manage.” A tight little silence.

Jerdren turned away from him to look out across the southlands, beyond the frost-killed meadow to the thick forest, the steep hills and the purplish hint of mountains beyond. Same unchanging thing day in, day out. Year in and year out. He sighed faintly.

“I’ll be glad to see the last of this one,” he murmured tohimself.

Blorys heard him of course. The man’s hearing was extremelykeen. “Glad? Why, brother? It’s a long ride, but we have decent horses, and thistime at least the clients are friendly folk-unlike some we’ve guarded. It’s goodpay, and Lhodis didn’t even argue the additional coin for the extra wagon andfor the hired men. And he suggested the hazard fee, which we just earned, I think….” His voice trailed away. “You’re bored again, aren’t you, Jers? Likeback home in Sedge when we were growing up, and later in the army.” He waited.His brother shifted his gaze from the south hills to the road and said nothing. “Jers, I thought we’d worked it out. There’s enough variety in hiring out, wetake different routes-I thought this time you’d last at something.”

Jerdren opened his mouth and closed it again. Finally he shrugged. “Maybe I’m not done with it yet, Blor. After all, you still enjoythis.”

“Yes, but we also promised each other that one wouldn’t tiethe other down. Doesn’t matter if I enjoy hiring out if you’re bored with it.”

Jerdren sighed faintly and shook his head. “We’ll talk aboutit once we reach the Keep.”

“We’ll do that,” Blor replied mildly. He glanced around. “Weshould take a proper break here. Eat a little, finish off the water bottles. The land’s a lot more open than at the branch-off to the Keep.”

Jerdren chuckled.

“What?” Blorys asked.

“You don’t really think someone would be fool enough toattack us at the base of that road? After the damage we just did back there? Besides, the castellan may not send armed parties out into the wilds any more, but his men can see most of that branch road from the walls. Not likely he’d let anyone get away with jumping their trade right at the front door!”

“Maybe,” Blorys said evenly, “but it’s gone from bad to worseout here, just in the three years we’ve guided caravans, and he keeps pullingback closer and closer to the walls every year. He hasn’t much choice.” Hegrinned crookedly, patted his brother awkwardly on the shoulder. “Sorry. Youknow all that, same as I do.”

“Never mind,” Jerdren replied easily.