Seg the Bowman Read Free Page B

blues and mauves and browns, yellow beaks and clawed scarlet feet. Plates of wafer-thin beaten gold adorned the birds. They swept in over the clearing, and their bandit riders did not bother to shoot down but landed their birds in great wing-ruffling swirls. The men leaped off, screeching, swirling their swords about their heads.
    Seg sniffed and shot a fellow through the breastplate, instantly nocked and drew again and shafted his comrade.
    Milsi said, “I am not frightened while I am with you, Seg. If—”
    “Yes, yes. I can stand here and shoot the rasts. I suppose—”
    “That is best.”
    “Until they come to handstrokes!”
    The fighting broke into clumps as the bandits rushed in. Each member of the expedition fought as custom dictated. Strom Ornol, being at least in this wiser than one might have expected, disdained his rapier and used a hefty cut and thrust sword, swishing the thraxter about with powerful contemptuous blows. Kalu and his Pachaks simply tore into the bandits, ripping them apart whenever they made contact.
    Master Exandu, as Seg had rightly observed, hauled out his single-edged sword and hit anybody who came near him. All the time he complained in his loud hectoring whine, but he kept Shanli safely tucked in behind him. Hop became most intemperate, and raged into a whirlwind, knocking bandits over and trompling them in his eagerness to get to the next.
    But these were professional bandits — drikingers — and they were used to overcoming opposition.
    They lived by terrorizing the neighborhood, and stealing what they wanted. The expedition had in their turn taken the treasures away from the mountain hideout. Located by that gruesome apparition of a beautiful evil woman on her throne, the expedition was now about to pay a price for their audacity.
    Master Exandu sliced a fellow’s arm nearly off, and stumbled back, shrieking: “San Fregeff! For the sweet sake of Beng Sbodine the Mender of Men! Cast a spell! Reduce these cramphs to jelly!”
    Fregeff replied in a somber voice, clearly heard through the tumult as a bell tolls through the lowing of cattle.
    “The Witch of Loh has negated all spells here save my own self-preservation.”
    Exandu let out a yell of utter despair, and sloshed a Rapa over the head so that the Rapa’s vulturine beak hung all askew and a gouting puff of brown and gray feathers spurted into the air.
    The aerial onslaught of the drikingers pressed on. Seg found more and more difficulty in selecting a target who was not involved in handstrokes.
    “I can’t just stand here, Milsi. You constrain me.”
    “Look, Seg,” her voice remained firm, the quaver bravely concealed. “Here come three of them to kill us.”
    “Three,” grumped Seg, and shot, flick, flick, flick. “Now, Milsi, please. Either go into the jungle or—”
    “I think,” and there was a comfortableness in her tone. “I think the jungle is much more dangerous. You will not be there.”
     
    “Women,” said Seg, and sought a target.
    He reached up to his quiver, and groped, and brought out a rose-fletched arrow. After nocking it, he reached up and felt, carefully. There was but the one shaft left, and he knew that was a blue-fletched one of the supply with which he’d begun.
    He saw Exandu, swishing and swashing, and complaining away. With a quick snap-shot, Seg disposed of the bandit about to jump on Shanli, dropping him a mere foot short of his target. The blood in Seg demanded a more direct participation... He did not nock the blue-fletched arrow. He slid the bow up his left shoulder. He half-turned.
    “Milsi! I must go to Exandu’s aid. The time for shooting is past. Now, you must—”
    “I must go with you, Seg!”
    There was no time for anything further. The sounds of combat boiled menacingly in the jungle clearing.
    The raw harsh stink of spilled blood broke through the jungle scents and the aromas of cooking. Shrieks and yells, the tinker-hammer of steel upon steel, the puddling of