Binkton nodded, and together the Warrows stepped out to the coach and climbed atop and unlashed their chest enough to open it. Binkton took up a bow case and quiver, while Pipper grabbed a pouch and looked inside. Satisfied, he tied the pouch to his belt, and then he and Binkton closed the chest and lashed it down once again.
Early the next day, a candlemark before dawn, the Red Coach pulled out from the station, trailing horses behind. Two additional footmen were atop, and all were armed.
And up through the remaining foothills they fared.
Sometime just after sunrise, the sky began spitting tiny flakes, for even though the days were not quite verging upon mid autumn, at these heights winter came early.
“In a fortnight or two,” said Brekka, “this pass will be closed by snow.”
“What’ll happen to the Red Coaches then?” asked Pipper, and quickly, before Binkton could say ought, Pipper added, “What I mean is, how will they fare between Caer Pendwyr and Challerain Keep?”
“Up the Gap Road and through Gunar Slot,” said Brekka, “and then along the Old Rell Way to Luren, until that route becomes snowed in, in which case the coaches will not cross through the Grimwall at all.”
Just then they reached the jagged maw of the pass, and one of the footmen atop swung down and rapped on a window, startling Pipper and Binkton along with other passengers. As Brekka lowered the sash, “Be alert,” said the footman, and then scrambled back up as Brekka cocked his well-tempered, steel-armed crossbow and loaded a quarrel.
Brekka and Binkton were the only ones with bows, and so they took stations on opposite sides of the coach.
There was one female among the nine passengers, a nineteen-year-old named Rebecca, slender and black-haired and blue-eyed and quite pretty. They placed her in the midmost position, and two of the men mistakenly tried to place Pipper beside her, but Brekka said that a Warrow with a sling was almost as valuable as one with a bow. “Besides, I would remind you that the most deadly warriors in any combat are Waerans.”
Pipper nodded sprightly and said, “Tuckerby Underbank slew more than eighty Foul Folk in just three days.”
The men looked at wee Pipper and Binkton in wonder, and none made any further suggestions that the buccen remain anywhere but at the windows.
And as they entered the looming dark walls of the slot twisting upward through the mountain chain, Pipper looked out at the grim frowning stone and said, “Lor, but I wish we had Bane with us.”
“Me, too,” said Binkton, his bow in hand and an arrow held loosely.
“We left before dawn, and it will be after nightfall when we reach the far end,” said Brekka, “but most of the journey will be made under the sun, and the Grg hate the light of day. Nevertheless, be on guard.”
On they fared up into the pass for mile after mile after mile with sheer stone rising to either side, and the sun rode up into the sky. And still no threat appeared. Exhausted by remaining so alert, Pipper fell quite asleep, and he slept until the coach stopped to change teams partway along the rise. Here the passengers, cautioned to be vigilant, were allowed to debark and stretch their legs and take care of other needs, Rebecca given her privacy behind a large boulder while Brekka stood ward in front of it.
Soon the horses had been fed and watered and exchanged-the fresh ones now in harness, the others tethered behind-and the coach started out once more.
“You sleep, Bink,” said Pipper. “I’ll call you should the need arise.”
Binkton looked at Brekka and received a nod, and so he curled up next to Pipper. But he tossed and turned-“Gah! I can’t sleep!”-and after a while gave up and resumed his watch at the window.
It was a mark or two past noon when they crossed the crest of the pass, where again they took care of needs and changed the teams, and then started down the opposite side.
Pipper fell asleep again, and Binkton looked at Brekka and pointed at Pipper and said, “Some sentry, eh?”
Brekka smiled at Binkton and said, “In the never-ending war against the Grg, I have fought alongside comrades who could fall asleep at the drop of a helm, even though combat was but moments away. This I would say: a well-rested warrior is much better to have at hand than one worn down by fatigue. I believe your Pipper will make good account of himself should there be a need.” Then Brekka looked at Binkton and said, “Not that all should sleep, for we do need those who remain on watch to signal should the foe draw nigh.”
Down the long slope of the pass the coach went, the teams working nearly as hard on the descent as on the climb, and the driver stopped a third time to make one more exchange.
Soon they were on their way again, the sun sliding down the sky, and dusk fell as the pass widened and they came in sight of the foothills below and the plains of Gunar beyond.
Even so it was full dark when they came to the way station. And as the passengers debarked, one of the men looked back toward the Grimwalls and said, “Well, that was nothing.”
Brekka looked at him and gritted a warning: “Be glad that this time it was nought. Also be glad not only were there four stage guards atop, but also three warriors inside. And when next you fare through such, I advise you to come well armed-with bow and arrow and a sword or axe-else, somewhere within, you might not live long enough to regret it.”
Two days later in midafternoon, in a small stretch of woods on the way through Gunar, five brigands, armed with clubs and knives, stood afoot by a log they had felled across the road to stop the coach.
As the passengers debarked at the command of the leader of the bandits, Brekka loosed a quarrel to slay that sneering brigand; Binkton took down two more with his bow; Pipper killed one with a sling bullet; the fifth brigand fled, only to be brought down from behind by an arrow from one of the coachmen.
Brekka then looked at the man he had warned and said, “Waerans three, the rest of us two.”
27
FIRE AND IRON
MID AUTUMN, 6E6
Brekka stepped to one of the fallen outlaws and- thuck! – pulled out his quarrel. He also retrieved one of Binkton’s two arrows; the shaft of the second had broken when that man had hit the ground. As for Pip’s sling bullet, there was no chance of retrieving it, buried in the third deader’s skull as it was.
Both Binkton and Pipper looked a bit nauseated, for ere now they had never slain ought but rabbits and other such small game. But even though these were brigands, still they were men, and their deaths sudden and violent, the battle over almost before it had begun.
“I-I never killed anyone before,” said Pipper. “It’s awful.”
Pipper glanced at Binkton, only to see someone whose face was as stark as his own might be. Binkton nodded without looking at Pipper, his gaze fixed on one of the two men he had slain.
“I mean,” said Pipper, “one moment they could be laughing and talking, and the next, they’re just-just dead.”
“Forget it,” said Brekka, holding Binkton’s arrow out to the buccan. “They are nought more than Ukhs.”
“But, Brekka, even Rucks, or Ukhs as you call them, are a walking, talking. .” Pipper’s words fell to silence.
“All Grg are vile,” said Brekka. “They have no conscience, none of them, and act as Gyphon made them long past. And these foul men are even worse, for, unlike the Grg, they have a choice. Hear me, Chakka justice against the Squam is swift and sure, and these”-Brekka made a dismissive gesture toward the slain men-“these dregs deserve no better.”
Binkton took the arrow from Brekka and stared long at it, and finally swallowed, and looked up at the Dwarf and nodded. Then he stepped to the side of the road and cleaned off the shaft and point in the grass.
The driver called for all to climb back into the stage.
