The Gnomes stared at him sullenly. Spilk tossed aside his water pouch, took a firm grip on his cudgel and came around the edge of the pool until he stood at the forefront of his men.
«Who are you?» he snapped.
Again the stranger shrugged. «No one you want to know.»
Spilk smiled coldly. «Then walk away from here while you still can. This doesn’t concern you.»
The stranger didn’t move. He seemed to be thinking the matter through.
Spilk took a step toward him. «I said this doesn’t concern you.»
«Nine Gnome Hunters traveling through the Southland with a Valeman they’ve bound and gagged like a trussed pig?» A faint smile crossed the stranger’s weathered face. «Maybe you’re right. Maybe it doesn’t concern me.»
He bent down to retrieve his pack, slipped it across one shoulder and started away from the pool, passing in front of the Gnomes. Jair felt his hopes, momentarily lifted, fade again. For just a moment, he had thought the stranger meant to aid him. He started to turn toward the pool again, thirsty for a drink of the water, but Slanter blocked his way. The Gnome’s eyes were still on the stranger, and now his hand came up slowly to grip Jair’s shoulder, guiding him back several paces from the others in the patrol.
The stranger had stopped again.
«On the other hand, maybe you’re wrong.» He stood no more than a half–dozen feet from Spilk. «Maybe this does concern me after all.»
The stranger’s pack slid from his shoulder to the ground, and the flint gray eyes fixed on Spilk. The Sedt stared at him, disbelief and anger twisting the blunt features of his face. Behind him, the other Gnomes glanced at one another uneasily.
«Stay behind me.» Slanter’s voice was a soft hiss in his ear, and the Gnome stepped in front of him.
The stranger moved closer to Spilk. «Why don’t you let the Valeman go?» he suggested softly.
Spilk swung the heavy cudgel at the stranger’s head. Quick as he was, the stranger was quicker, blocking the blow with his staff. The stranger stepped forward then, a smooth, effortless movement. Up came the staff, striking once, twice. The first blow caught the Sedt in the pit of his stomach, bending him double. The second caught him squarely across the head and dropped him like a stone.
For an instant, no one moved. Then, with a howl of dismay, the other Gnomes attacked, swords ripped from their sheaths and axes and spears lifting. Seven strong, they converged on the lone black figure. Jair bit into the gag that held him speechless when he saw what happened next. Cat–quick, the stranger blocked the assault, the black staff whirling. Two more Gnomes dropped in their tracks with shattered skulls. The remainder thrust and cut blindly as the stranger danced away. A glint of metal appeared from beneath the black cloak, and a short sword was gripped in the stranger’s hand. Seconds later, three more of the attackers lay stretched upon the earth, their life blood seeping from their bodies.
Now there were but two of the seven still standing. The stranger crouched before them, feinting with the short sword. The Gnomes glanced hurriedly at each other and backed away. Then one caught sight of Jair, half hidden behind Slanter. Abandoning his companion, he leaped for the Valeman. But to Jair’s surprise, Slanter blocked the way, a long knife in his hand. The attacker howled in rage at the betrayal, his own weapon sweeping up. From twenty feet away, the stranger was a blur of motion. Uncoiling with the suddenness of a snake, he whipped one arm forward, and the attacker went rigid in midstride, a long knife buried in his throat. Soundlessly, he collapsed.
That was enough for the remaining Gnome. Heedless of everything else, he bolted from the clearing and disappeared into the forest.
Only Jair, Slanter, and the stranger remained. The Gnome and the stranger faced each other wordlessly for a moment, weapons poised. The forest had gone silent about them.
«You, also?» the stranger asked quietly.
Slanter shook his head. «Not me.» The hand with the long knife dropped to his side. «I know who you are.»
The stranger did not seem surprised, but merely nodded. With his sword, he gestured at the Gnomes who lay stretched between them. «What about your friends?»
Slanter glanced down. «Friends? Not this lot. The misfortunes of war brought us together, and we’d traveled too far, already the same road. Stupid bunch, they were.» His dark eyes found the stranger’s. «The journey’s done for me. Time to choose another way.»
He reached back with the long knife and severed the ropes that bound Jair. Then he sheathed the knife and slipped loose the gag.
«Looks like you’ve got the luck this day, boy,” he growled. «You’ve just been rescued by Garet Jax!»
Chapter Eight
Even in a tiny Southland village like Shady Vale, they had heard of Garet Jax.
He was the man they called the Weapons Master — a man whose skill in single combat was so finely developed that it was said he had no equal. Choose whatever weapon you might or choose no other weapon than hands, feet, and body, and he was better than any man alive. Some said more than that — he was the best who had ever lived.
The stories were legend. Told in taverns when the drinks were passed about in the hours after work was finished, in village inns by travelers come from far, or about campfires and hearths when the night settled down about those gathered and the dark formed a bond that seemed strengthened somehow by the sharing of words, the stories of Garet Jax were always there. No one knew where he had come from; that part of his life was shrouded in speculation and rumor. But everyone knew at least one place that he had been and had a story to go with it. Most of the stories were true, verified by more than one who had been witness to its happening. Several were common knowledge, told and retold the length and breadth of the Southland and parts of the other lands as well.
Jair Ohmsford knew them all by heart.
One tale, the earliest perhaps, was of Gnome raiders preying on the outlying villages of Callahorn in the eastern borderlands. Smashed once by the Border Legion, the raiders had broken into small groups — remnants of fewer than a dozen men each in most cases — who continued to plague the less protected homesteads and hamlets. Legion patrols scouted the lands at regular intervals, but the raiders stayed hidden until they were gone. Then one day a band of ten struck a farmer’s home just south of the Mermidon’s joinder with the Rabb. There was no one there but the farmer’s wife, small children, and a stranger — little more than a boy himself — who had stopped to share a brief meal and a night’s sleep in exchange for chores that needed doing. Barricading the family in a storm cellar, he met the raiders as they tried to force their way in. He killed eight before the two remaining fled. After that, the raids slowed somewhat, it was said. And everyone began to talk about the stranger named Garet Jax.
Other tales were equally well known. In Arborlon, he had trained a special unit of the Home Guard to act as defenders of the Elven King Ander Elessedil. In Tyrsis, he had trained special units of the Border Legion, and others in Kern and Varfleet. He had fought for a time in the border wars between the Dwarves and Gnomes, instructing the Dwarves on weapons use. He had traveled for a time the deep Southland, engaged in the civil wars that raged between member states of the Federation. He had killed a lot of men there, it was said; he had made a great many enemies. He could not go back into the deep Southland anymore…
Jair cut short his thinking, aware suddenly that the man was staring at him, almost as if reading his thoughts. He flushed. «Thanks,” he managed.
Garet Jax said nothing. Flint gray eyes regarded him without expression a moment longer, then turned away. The short sword disappeared back within the shadows of the cloak, and the man in black began checking the bodies of the Gnomes who lay scattered about him. Jair watched a moment, then. glanced furtively at Slanter.
«Is that really Garet Jax?» he whispered.
Slanter gave him a black look. «I said so, didn’t I? You don’t forget someone like that. Knew him five years ago when he was training Legion soldiers in Varfleet. I was tracking for the Legion then, passing time. Like iron I was, but next to him…» He shrugged. «I remember once, there were some hard sorts, mad about being passed
