above his head. He wheeled and took three strides with the Veruna bladesman waving and kicking helplessly in midair before he rammed the man headfirst into a big barrel full of rainwater that stood by the corner of the store. The man’s feet kicked and scissored in the air, but it was a big barrel, and it was full; it rocked but didn’t tip.
“Stay there as long as you like!” Geran snapped.
He heard the rasp of steel against wood and leather behind him and turned to face the second Veruna man hurrying down the porch. Geran swept his elven backsword from its sheath, flinging water from his wet sleeves, and bounded forward to meet the man. The mercenary aimed a high cut at Geran’s head, but Geran batted the blade over his head and then laid the man’s swordarm open from elbow to wrist. The mercenary’s sword clattered across the cobblestones, and the man hissed a curse as he jerked his arm back. With the last glimmer of his strength spell, Geran seized him by his good arm with one hand, spun in a half-circle, and propelled the wounded man headlong into the side of the building. The Veruna man hit hard and went down in a jingle of mail, splattering blood from his wounded arm all over the whitewashed timber.
Without even pausing to think about it, Geran leaped up the steps into the Erstenwold storefront. Two more Veruna men were inside. One-the mercenary sergeant Bann, whom Geran had seen in the store the last time he visited-had dragged Mirya out from behind her counter and stood holding her with his hand knotted in her dark hair. The other man was systematically breaking every jar of goods on the shelves behind the counter.
“Let go of her,” Geran said coldly.
Bann looked up in surprise as Geran stormed in, but the big mercenary recovered quickly. “You know, I’ve been waiting for this,” he remarked. He dragged Mirya out of his way and shoved her violently to the floor, then slowly drew his own blade. “I wonder if you’re man enough to meet me steel to steel, or do you need to lean on your damned elven witchery?”
“Mirya, get out of the way,” Geran said. He waited a moment for her to pick herself up from the floor. Her chin was already beginning to bruise, but her eyes blazed with an icy fury, and she threw her shoulders back and walked proudly to the doorway leading back toward the rest of her storehouse.
“He’s strong, but he’s slow, Geran,” she said. “Try not to kill him in my shop if you can help it.”
“Done,” Geran said. He glided forward, point low and guard high, and stamped his lead foot down as he started with a series of short slashes at the mercenary’s legs. Bann parried the first and the second, then just missed the third and earned a quick cut above the knee. He swore and beat Geran’s point up into the air, then put his size and power into a whistling backhand cut that Geran caught with a sliding block and stepped away from. Steel rang shrilly on steel as the two men traded cuts and parries.
“You ain’t that good without your magic, are you?” Bann grunted. But a trickle of sweat beaded at the man’s brow, and his breath grew heavier.
“I’m not in any particular hurry,” Geran replied. He let his momentum circle him around and attacked the lead leg again as Bann turned to follow him. This time he buried three inches of his point in the meat of Bann’s thigh just under his mail, and the Veruna bladesman grunted and hobbled back, beating Geran’s point away again. “I’ve got hours to slowly cut you to pieces.”
“Cyric take me if you do!” Bann swore, and he suddenly lunged forward, bulling straight for Geran to catch the blades breast-to-breast. The bigger man grinned and pressed down, shoving the swordmage back three paces across the old, smooth floorboards. Geran’s boots slid without giving him purchase, and he started to stumble-but he caught his back foot against one of the posts in the center of the room, bent both knees a bit, and shoved back and up with all his strength. He might not have been as big as the Veruna man, but he was quick and strong, and he knocked Bann’s sword up over his head.
Before the mercenary could recover, Geran simply slugged him hard in the mouth with the heavy hilt of his sword. He felt teeth shatter, and the Veruna man spun away from the blow, blood splattering from his mashed lips. Geran cut his back leg out from under him, and Bann went to the floor heavily, at which point Geran kicked his sword away and struck him senseless with another kick.
“I was a pretty good swordsman before I went to Myth Drannor, you ox-brained fool,” he said to the unconscious Veruna man. Then he glanced around for the other, the one behind the counter.
The last mercenary glared at him and started to edge his way around the counter, moving to get clear. His hand settled on his sword hilt as he moved to put the open door at his back.
“You-get out of here now, or I’ll feather you right in the eye, eh?” Mirya spoke in a voice that was deadly and certain.
Geran glanced around. Mirya had quietly slipped back behind the counter to retrieve a small but efficient- looking crossbow, which she’d leveled at the other Veruna man. Evidently the fellow had been so caught up in watching his sergeant fight that he’d forgotten to keep an eye on her.
The man spat once on the floor and backed up a step. “You’ll be sorry for this,” he said.
“Drag that thickheaded fool with you when you go,” Geran said, nodding at Bann. The last Veruna man scowled, but he grasped the big sergeant under his arms and dragged him to the door.
Mirya kept her crossbow trained on him until he backed out of the door then slowly lowered it. She shuddered and set the weapon down on the countertop. “May demons carry off those brigands and all their kin, straight to the bottom of the blasted Abyss. What have I got that’s worth their trouble?”
Geran motioned for her to wait. “Just a moment,” he told her. He turned his back on Mirya and stepped out onto the porch, sword still in hand; a small crowd of townsfolk stood and stared at him. The last Veruna man had Bann upright, aided by the mercenary with the wounded arm. The two of them shot murderous glances back at the swordmage as they retreated back down the street. Geran glanced over to the corner. The water-barrel lay on its side, and there was no sign of the man he’d dropped into it. The swordmage looked at the nearest person, an old dwarf in a crumpled hat. “The other one ran off?” he asked.
“Aye, m’lord,” the dwarf grunted. He smiled crookedly at Geran. “Half-drownded he was, but he tipped himself over an’ crawled out.”
“My thanks,” Geran replied. He wouldn’t have wanted to drown the Veruna man, which is why he came out to make sure the sellsword had actually escaped from the barrel… but coming within an inch of drowning the fellow did not bother him at all.
He drew an oilcloth from a small pouch by his scabbard and wiped down the fine steel blade as he stepped back inside. With a graceful flourish he sheathed the sword and faced Mirya in the wreckage of her business. She stood with her arms hugged close to her body, watching him with an absent frown creasing her brow.
“Are you hurt, Mirya?” he asked quietly.
She reached up to touch her jaw and shook her head. “I’ve taken no hurt. But if you hadn’t come along when you did, I’ve a feeling it was going to get a lot worse.”
“I wish I could promise you that they won’t trouble you anymore, but I can’t.” Geran stooped down to right a small keg of nails that had been kicked over on its side. “I think you need to hire a couple of good men to guard your place. Or close up shop for a tenday or two, keep to yourself, and stay safe until things settle down.”
“I know it.” Mirya went to the door, closed it, and threw the bolt. Then she turned to study the damage to the shelves and wares and took a deep breath. “What a mess they’ve made of the place. It’ll take me all the night to clean this up.”
“Mirya, I’m sorry that I brought this on you. I thought that I could solve your problems for you with a few hard words and a show of steel. That’s what I know how to do. I suppose I felt that I owed it to Jarad… and you. But I shouldn’t have stepped into the middle of your troubles without asking.”
Mirya didn’t reply for a time. She reached up to brush her disarranged hair out of her eyes. Her braid had come lose during the struggle. “Thank Ilmater that Selsha’s back at the house with my mother,” she finally said. “If she’d been here… I haven’t the heart to even think about it.” She sighed and found a seat on a heap of grain-filled sacks. “Whether you were here or no, the Merchant Council would still trouble me, Geran Hulmaster. They aim to drive all the smaller merchants out of town to make more room for Veruna and Marstel and the other important companies. They’ve already arranged the harmach’s laws to suit them, and that’s not enough, so they mean to ruin the rest of us. Maybe you’ve got the right of it, and it’s your stubbornness as brought those brigands back to my shop today. But I’m beginning to think that your way of things might be exactly the change that’s needed in this town.”
“I’m only one man,” Geran answered. He shook his head. He never would have imagined that things could turn so ugly in Hulburg in just a few years, but if Mirya said it was so, he believed her. He found an overturned barrel, rolled it up on its end, and seated himself on it. “Listen, Mirya, I came to see you for a different reason…
