An arrow whizzed by Mac’s head, hitting something behind him with a resounding thunk. He grabbed for Kaelyn but she’d already jumped from the cart. Good girl. He followed, crouching behind her and drawing his sword. Arrows hailed down around them. As much as he wanted to take a peek and check the number of bandits, he didn’t need to risk it. He could count on being out-numbered.
Kaelyn peered around the wheel and he yanked her back.
“Now what?” she asked.
“We wait.”
“For what?”
He contemplated lying, telling her something that wouldn’t scare her, but thought better of it. “For them to come out.”
Her eyes widened then hardened with determination.
Did she think they were going to make a stand, not run as soon as the risk of arrow fire had stopped? He could get to like this girl.
He unsheathed his dagger and held it out to her. “If any one comes near you, stick them with this.”
Another volley of arrows flew by, before an uneasy calm descended. Kaelyn shifted, still trying to see around the cart.
“Stay down.” The threat of arrow fire had likely passed, but there were some chances a person just didn’t take.
“What are they doing?” she asked.
“They’re preparing to charge.”
“Why are they taking so long?”
Mac suppressed a grin. “They’re not, really. It just feels like forever.”
Someone yelled. Another took up the cry and men crashed out of the underbrush. Mac peered over the edge of the cart, counting their assailants. Not good. Eight men surprisingly well equipped for bandits. All wore well-tended leather armor, and their weapons looked like they’d received the same attention.
Maybe, in his prime, he would have foolishly taken on these men by himself. He might have even wagered on how many sword strokes it would taken to end the battle. But then, in the very least, he could have counted on his traveling companion to watch his back. Never would he have been caught alone to defend a woman.
He glanced at Kaelyn. Would she be upset if they ran? Didn’t matter. He couldn’t win. And besides, she thought he was jealous of himself. He had nothing to live up to. He snorted, startling her. He didn’t care what she thought, so long as she was alive to think it.
“Get ready to run.”
“What?”
She really had thought they were going to stand their ground. He’d just been waiting to ensure that they’d thrown down their bows.
“There are eight of them and that’s seven too many. We run.” He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet.
A bandit leapt at them, his sword sweeping toward Mac. Mac shoved Kaelyn behind him and blocked, the impact reverberating down his arm, making his elbow ache.
“Run.”
He warded off another blow. Kaelyn balked for a moment. A bandit lunged toward her, sword raised to strike.
Mac’s heart skipped a beat. He forgot to breathe and time slowed down. He was too far away. Only a few steps, but that was the difference between life and death in a battle. He yelled, but knew it was useless. She wasn’t a solider, wasn’t trained to fight. And his experience told him all he could do was watch the inevitable.
But in one fluid motion, she stepped toward her assailant, blocked the blow, wrist to wrist above her head, and thrust the dagger into his exposed chest.
Great Father! She had– She just–
A flash of light warned him of an impending stroke and time jumped back to normal. He ducked the swing and rammed his shoulder into the man. Kaelyn rushed into the forest and Mac followed, his mind whirling.
Moments later–hours later? Mac couldn’t tell–panting and wheezing, he called Kaelyn to stop. They were not as far away as he would have liked, but given the lack of pursuit and the pain in his chest, he thought it prudent they stop.
“That was . . . that was. . . .” Kaelyn glowed with a thin sheen of perspiration. “That was– Wow!”
He eased himself onto a fallen tree and tried to catch his breath. Boy, he needed to get back into shape.
She perched beside him, but stood again, and paced a ragged line between the trees. “I never knew I could feel so . . . so excited and scared at the same time. When that bandit attacked I didn’t know what to do, and then I ran and I saw the sword coming. It was so slow, like I was moving in a different time, and I got him, did you see that Mac? I just stuck out the dagger and I got him, and then we were running, and running, and– why are you looking at me like that?” She stopped mid step, arms poised in mid gesture, like an incarnation of the clansmen’s Goddess.
“Mac?”
Mac shook his head. Had he ever had that much energy? And that maneuver she’d done against the bandit. Obviously taught. Young women didn’t learn that on their own. Someone, a brother or a cousin, had taught her that. “We might have just learned something more about you.”
“What’s that?”
“You like excitement.”
“Oh.” She sat beside him and remained still this time. They sat in silence. Kaelyn probably contemplating her exhilaration, while Mac contemplated the stitch in his side.
“So we ran because there were too many of them?” she finally asked.
And she was smart, too. He could really get to like this girl. “Un hun.”
“What do we do now?”
“We wait.” Mac examined his sword, it had a nick in the blade so deep it would need the attention of a smith.
“What do we wait for this time?”
Mac bit back a grin. “The bandits to finish stealing our supplies. Then we go back and see if we can salvage anything.”
“Do you think there’ll be anything left?”
“Probably not, but you never know.”
A crow swooped to a nearby branch and squawked at them
“How long do we wait?”
“Until tomorrow.”
“Oh.”
“We should find some water and perhaps something to eat.” He stood.
Rustling in the underbrush sent the crow into a flurry of squawks and Mac swung around, sword ready. The cat, tail held high, marched into the clearing with a dead rabbit, almost as large as himself, clutched in his mouth. He picked his way through the vegetation to Kaelyn and dropped it at her feet.
“Dinner,” she said with a flourish of her hands.
“Go figure.” At least it wasn’t a rat. Not that he wouldn’t have eaten rat–or that he hadn’t eaten rat before–there was just more on a rabbit to share. “I suppose we can risk a tiny fire. I’ll search for water. You find some kindling and set up a fire pit, if you can,” said Mac.
“If you can,” she said to the cat. “If you can find food, I certainly can set up a fire pit and put together some kindling.”
The cat regarded her with unblinking greens eyes, a paw poised to wash behind an ear.
Mac shook his head and left. So the cat had caught supper. That still didn’t mean it was a useful pet. He found a stream, a little farther away than he would like, but it was manageable and they could relocate camp if need be. He returned and found Kaelyn sitting in the middle of the clearing sobbing. His pulse jumped. He drew his sword and rushed to her side.
“What is it? Did they come back? Are you hurt?”
She didn’t look hurt.
She shook her head, hiccupping tears.
He pursed his lips and didn’t press for details. If it wasn’t an immediate hurt she’d talk when she was ready. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and let her cry into his shirt. The sensation was all too familiar. There was a time when woman would have said he was a perfect gentleman. He wasn’t all brawn. He knew when to be gentle and listen. It had helped to have three older sisters. Although he was itching to know the problem. Likely the event of the afternoon had caught up to her.
When he thought her crying had abated, he eased back and brushed the tears from her cheeks. “What’s wrong?”
“I went and found kindling,” she said, pointing to a pile of branches at the edge of the glade. “I was so proud. I knew what it was and that it should be dry, and that it should be under cover in case it rained. A verse in a Mac Theselon ballad talks about him being in the north and having to use horse droppings because there were no dry branches for kindling.” She brushed away more tears. “And then I sat down here to make a fire pit–” She sniffed and swallowed hard.
“And. . . .”
“I don’t know how to make a fire pit. I don’t know if I ever knew or not. If I think about it too hard, I’m not even sure what it is. And everyone must know what it is because they’re not mentioned in any of Mac’s tales.” She erupted into fresh sobs.
Mac bit his lip against the laugh threatening to escape. The situation was so absurd he couldn’t help himself. It wasn’t that the child in his arms was crying over not being able to make a fire pit, which Mac found amusing but not uncontrollably so, it was that she was using his legends as a reference on how to survive. The laugh broke free in two short barks before he could contain it again. She pushed out of his embrace, staring at him with tear filled eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said, willing himself sober. “I’m not laughing at you.”
“I’m sure! You think it’s funny I don’t know what a fire pit is. You think it’s funny I don’t know anything any more.”
“Well, in this case it kind of is funny. You scared me to death, girl. I thought you were hurt, that the bandits had found you. And here you are, crying over a fire pit and the fact that some bard didn’t write about Mac Theselon making one.”
“It’s important to me,” she said, sticking out her chin.
“I know it is. But give yourself a break. Three days ago all you knew was your name.”
“But I was feeling so good. I could remember all those tales, and I was excited about fighting those bandits and–”
He pulled her back into a hug. He didn’t know if their strange relationship had developed into frequent fatherly hugs, but she seemed to need it. And really. He could only imagine how terrifying and frustrating it was to have no memory. “It all won’t come to you in a day. It is, after all, just a fire pit.”
He taught her how to make a fire pit, and after a bit they had a small fire to cook their rabbit.
“I have a question,” said Kaelyn and she sat back, her gaze on the flames.
Mac nodded, surprised to find himself absently scratching the cat behind his ears.
“You used your sword to break up that large branch for the fire. Isn’t that bad for it? I mean its edge or something?”
He suppressed a groan. More knowledge from the Mac Theselon tales no doubt. At least it was descent information. “Yes, but that sword, much like its owner, has seen better days. Besides, I didn’t really have an axe handy, did I?”
“I thought the older things got the more valuable they became.”
“Well, aren’t you sweet. I should hang around properly bred children more often.”
“What I mean is– I’m not quite sure what I mean any more.”
“I know what you mean. But sometimes an old thing is just that, old.”
The fire crackled and danced along the wood. Kaelyn dug a twig into the ground, picking at a stone, and the cat rolled over and curled himself into a ball.
“Do you think there’ll be more bandits?”
“Probably.” More than likely, actually. But she didn’t need to know that.
“Do you think we’ll keep running away?”
“Probably.” Definitely. He felt old. An unwanted, used up old man. Who would have thought he was the stuff of legends. Certainly not him. He’d never thought he was legendary material. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The first unexpected tales had pleased him and he’d used his fame to win his heart’s desires. It wasn’t until his heart was denied that he recklessly threw himself into heroic tasks, and then not for the purpose of gaining greater fame.
He sighed. What would Adelicia say if she saw him now?
A slow ache spread across his shoulders and through his heart. There would be more bandits–the world wasn’t a safe place–and they would run. They would run until they couldn’t run any more. And what did that mean? It meant he got lucky this time. If the girl hadn’t known enough to dodge an attack, or if there had been more bandits, the day would have turned out quite differently. He needed to do something about that, and with an inward groan he knew what that something was.
