Bea demanded that I go save him right then and leave her to die, and she cursed me as salty as a sailor when I didn’t walk away that minute. She had no strength for a prolonged argument, however.
Well before dawn, Pil stalked past us, not far off, and I called her back when I saw she wasn’t being followed. She held Bea’s hand and tried to get her to laugh at a couple of jokes. When that proved a disaster, Pil turned away and cried for a bit, but she came back around to smile her broken smile at Bea until sunrise.
Halla arrived when the sun nipped over the mountains, walking straight toward us the whole time. I didn’t know how Halla managed such accuracy, but she often could not be explained.
Daylight showed us a couple of bodies close at hand. I had killed those men. I spotted seven more lying within a quarter mile of us. Neither Halla nor I could figure out what the hell had happened.
A little after sunrise, Whistler appeared, limping toward us from the west. When he saw Bea, he staggered like he’d been hit with a club. He pulled Halla and me aside and scratched some dirt out of his hair. “I found one of those soldiers dying and convinced him to talk. Later I captured a bandit who was squatting down like a bunny rabbit behind a bush. I convinced the hell out of him too.”
I said, “Fine work. Now if you can hold off burying every dead thing on the plains until you’ve enlightened us, that would be a kindness.”
Whistler glanced at Bea. “The soldiers were moving to a new camp when Vang showed up yelling not to kill him. Another pack of bandits were headed into the bog to find out why they hadn’t heard from their friends. When they heard the soldiers shouting, they ran away from it—right into us.”
“Ah, then the soldiers investigated the noise.” Halla scratched her chin. “They walked into the fight.”
I patted Whistler’s shoulder. “It almost makes a man believe in fate, or religion, or something like that, eh?”
Whistler chuckled. Then he looked at Bea again, and his face aged five years.
Halla glanced at the sky. “Since we did not stop the rider, I think Leddie’s men will be here before noon. Maybe midmorning, if we can trust what Vang told us.”
“Which we can’t.” I scanned the area around us, but it was open, rolling land.
Behind me, I heard Whistler say, “Pil, trot over to that tree and bring me a limb for another crutch, please.”
I pointed at Whistler. “You can’t order her around. Besides, she’s on watch.”
“It will take me an hour to hobble over there and back, but Pil can do it in ten minutes. We need to be gone before those fake soldiers arrive.”
At that moment, I decided to stay with Bea until she died. I hadn’t saved her, but I wouldn’t traipse off and let her die alone. “I’m staying.”
“What?” Halla said.
“As long as Bea stays here, I stay too.”
“But she may hang on for—” Pil’s face reddened, and she looked away.
Whistler sneezed twice, hard enough to knock his hat askew. “Beg pardon. I’m staying too.”
Bea groaned. “Go. It’s suicide. Halla, tell them it’s suicide.”
“It is not suicide.” Halla examined the horizon. “It is a very stupid thing to do, but it is not suicide.”
“If it’s stupid, do something else instead!” Bea yelled and then groaned.
Halla shook her head. “If Bib fights, I will not leave him.”
“He’s not worth dying for,” Bea said more quietly. She was breathing heavier.
Halla nodded. “He is a vain, reckless, murderous person. You are a much better person than him.” She turned her back on Bea.
Pil gazed at the ground. “Bib, is this one of those times we should run, even if we’re sorcerers?”
I laughed. “This is absolutely the time to run! I’m not asking you to stay. You’d be crazy to stay.”
“Why are you staying?” she asked.
“Pride and arrogance.”
“I see.”
I grinned. “Also, if we flee, they’ll run us down by midafternoon.”
Pil nodded and started jogging toward the tree.
Halla motioned for me to follow her thirty feet away from Bea and Whistler. “Bib, since Bea cannot move, we will make a stand around her.”
“A fine battle plan, General.”
She ignored that. “I can prepare the ground. But that will be all. It is my last power, and there will be no more.”
I examined the terrain around us. “We might beat ten or twelve horsemen, if Krak himself manifests and kills a couple for us. My sense is that Leddie will bring more than that. Do what you can, darling.”
I’m glad Halla offered to spend the last of her power. We staked out a perimeter fifty feet across. Then she used sorcery to create a ditch, twenty-five feet wide and eight feet deep all the way around us.
Few horses could jump such a ditch, nor could they run down into it and back up, or scoot through it on their butts. If we stayed put, the soldiers would need to dismount, drop down into the ditch, and climb back up the other side to fight us. Halla followed that work by building up a short earthen berm just around Bea.
I hungered to ask Halla what she had traded for that power, and why there wouldn’t be any more. But sorcerers are jealous of our secrets, like whispering, squabbling teenagers who can burn things down with lightning.
Since Whistler couldn’t move well, he’d stay put at one
