The Warrior’s Way 2.2

You can read the first part here

Lyssa led Bouda back to the stables, where some of the sweet local fruit, a brush down and a few words whispered in the language of the centaurs were enough to settle her down. Of course the horse still gave her a few playful nudges and her own version of looking Lyssa over, which involved a lot of horse saliva on the warrior’s face and a few new bruises.

By the time Lyssa made it back to the village centre, most of her suggestions had been followed but not to the extent they should have been. Wooden barricades barely at chest height had been erected to block the main path into the village and guards stood boldly behind them, as if they couldn’t be picked off by enemy archers from the trees. At least they had given those villagers selected for guard duty proper armour. She had doubted this village contained anything professional or that the blacksmith would have the skill to make it.

The lookouts had been arranged on rooftops to cover key lines of sight. Only a few of them had bows but she highly doubted many of them would be able to kill a person if given an opportunity. They would find aiming to take a human life was very different from hunting. People rarely became killers unless they were forced into it through self defense.

The placement of the few archers they had wasn’t effective, they needed to be where they could do the most damage and still have cover from returning fire. Ideally they should also be hidden from sight, the enemy should never be sure of the source of the attack or where they needed to defend from, but this was a village not the high towers of a city and they would have to make do.

Despite all of that, it looked like if they were attacked at this moment they had a chance of holding the defences. From what she had seen the bandits weren’t the most organised and she doubted they would continue to attack if met with much resistance. Their previous plans for a siege had involved them trying to hold the entire village with very little change to the surrounding area. Her first suggestion of cutting down the trees to separate the village from the forest had been met with outrage. One particular little man had come very close to being introduced to the hilt of her sword but his age and stooped frame had stopped her taking any action against him.

So she’d held her temper and tried to make her orders sound more like suggestions. The next suggestion was to protect less of the village. This had reignited their previous outrage, led by the old man who seemed determined to get into a fight with her. She had kept her calm while they raged and had made sure the important people had seen sense. Those people being the Mayor and Kyla. That hadn’t won her any friends but they weren’t going to like her anyway.

This was when she had found out they had no plans to retaliate other than waiting the enemy out. Archers had been the compromise with the promise they were only to be used for self defence. Agreeing to that had been hard but with the ferocity they had for protecting their village she had no doubt, that if it came down to it, she could lead these people to fight back. They would see wishful thinking didn’t end war.

Not that they would need to fight back today because another attack wasn’t going to happen just yet. This had been an opportunistic attack and very unlikely to result in anything more, especially when they hadn’t been expecting as much resistance. The next attack would come another day, no matter how much Lyssa itched for another more challenging fight, so she could burn off all her restless energy. Anything other than the forced slow march through a forest while trying to keep an overly aggressive horse, fresh from battle, calm.

Still, the village was more chaos than it should have been for people who had been under attack for months. When they had first got back it had looked like an ant’s nest that had been kicked. People had been running in all different directions, getting in each other’s way while others tried to shout orders over the noise.

Now that chaos seemed to have melted into some sort of order but the structure wasn’t obvious. This was more people than the village ever contained during the day and they had no idea how to handle it. Calling everyone in wasn’t necessarily a bad idea, there was strength in numbers after all, but there had to be a plan. Lyssa reminded herself for the hundredth time that these people weren’t soldiers. They were just farmers in a very bad situation.

The village green had been made into a field hospital for the injured and dying. What previously had been a large open space dominated by one large tree was now made useful with tents and people churning up the perfectly green grass. At the center sat the triage tent the healer had set up. At least half the mercenaries were injured and needed tending to.

She found the Mayor near the edge of the tents and surrounded by a group of people he was trying to keep calm. That was another thing that needed to change. People shouldn’t have such easy access to the leader. He had more important things to do than reassure the masses. There needed to be a clear hierarchy of leaders but she had a feeling that implementing that might be more difficult than cutting down the damn trees.

Lyssa scanned the group of people being sorted by the doctor into those who could wait and those who needed to be seen now. Eventually she found Abi helping to stitch a minor wound to the arm. Her usual fidgeting was gone and had been replaced by an intense focus that Lyssa never thought could be applied to Abi.

Nearby Kyla had joined the mayor in dealing with the hysterical civilians. It had been enlightening to see how the older woman dealt with these people. The woman was after all an outsider, no matter how many years she had lived here. Even if her darker skin didn’t mark her out in a crowd then her accent made it clear she had been born somewhere else. Lyssa had seen people with her blue black skin much farther south, but had never heard her accent before. Despite her heavy accent she could switch between the dialects of Ghanda and Cahan very well. They shared a language but Lyssa found it a lot harder to understand these people than those on the other side of the river. It shouldn’t have been that hard but the Ghandan people were stubborn and less accepting of outsiders than any people she had ever met. Especially the people who didn’t want to be understood. She’d had to hold her temper a few times and not just knock them out of her way.

The crowd around the Mayor dispersed revealing the trader sat slumped on a bench with her head in her hands, muttering something under her breath. Her long grey hair was still secured at the back of her head but more than a few strands were being blown by the wind when they weren’t falling down her shoulders to her waist.

Lyssa approached the group and stood by Kyla.

“Any sign of more bandits?” Lyssa asked, despite knowing what the answer would be.

“No. I don’t think they’ll attack now because of our numbers. Although I worry that they might be tempted to with the trader’s wagon here.”

“How long until they can travel?” asked the trader gesturing to the mass of injured mercenaries.

“It’ll be a few days, at least.” a man approached them. Lyssa recognized him as the healer who had been trying to run and organise their makeshift infirmary while instructing people how to treat the injured. He had short brown hair and the stance of someone exhausted but had to keep upright. There was blood splattered on his shirt and trousers but none on his hands. That was a sign of a good healer who knew enough not to spread disease around a camp.

“You’ll be able to pick them up on your way back.” The Mayor said.

“Way back?” The Trader sat up like someone had stabbed her.“After you’ve delivered the rest.”

“I’m not going out there, have you lost your minds?” The Trader shrieked and gestured wildly to the forest. That caught the attention of a few nearby villagers on guard duty. They eyed the forest nervously and shifted so they weren’t as out in the open.

“You’re going to stay here forever?” Abi asked appearing at Lyssa’s elbow. The warrior had wondered when she was going to turn up again. It had been surprising she hadn’t been followed to the stables but judging by the state of Abi’s clothes she had helped a lot more than stitching one arm.

“No.” The trader glared at Abi before turning back to the mayor and Kyla. “Tomorrow I’m going back the way I came and getting out of here.”

“With a lame horse?” Lyssa couldn’t help the contempt at the cowardice in her voice.

That shut the trader up but a look of despair came over her face and she was back to slumping over with her head in her hands. She’d need the cooperation of the village to go anywhere and that meant helping them first.

“The other villages need those supplies for winter, we have to get it to them.” Abi raised her voice and flung her arm in the vague direction of the other villages.

Lyssa noted how Abi had said we but now wasn’t the time to challenge her on where she thought she was going.

“We will help them but we have to take it one step at a time.” Kyla put her arm around her daughter.

“You don’t understand. I’ve never been attacked this close to the river before. The ambush usually comes further in, that’s why I have so many mercenaries for these trips. But it keeps getting worse.”

“I’ll escort you to the other villages and safely back across the river.” Lyssa promised.

“Thank you, but that does not solve the problem of the danger. It’s becoming too high of a cost to come here every season. I’ve just lost a horse. Not to mention all the people.”

“We’ll give you two horses.”

“Kyla.” The Mayor said. “We can spare one horse. If the warrior is going with you then that massive creature can pull the wagon.”

“That is not a good idea.” Lyssa shook her head, trying not to laugh.

“You can have our family horse as well.”

“You don’t have to do that.” the mayor regretted making it an issue now. “take two and as long as one is returned we’ll call it square. Your horse should be healed by the time you get back.”

The trader looked as if her death sentence had been signed.

“We can take the wagon without you.” Abi offered.

“No.” The trader’s skin lost it’s last little bit of colour. “I’m not trusting any of you with my wagon or what’s inside. It’s all I’ve got.” she looked over at the injured mercenaries and her head guards being bandaged up. “Fine. I’ll do this one more time but I can’t take this stress anymore.” she sat back down on the wall and clutched her chest. The lead guard came over and put a hand on her shoulder crouching besides her. He had long blond hair that had come undone from it’s fastenings. He had a cutlass at his hip and walked like a man who knew how to use it. If she had to guess he had been a sailor with that sword and his bearing. Behind him a bare chested man stood, his shirt open to display the bruising of the fight. His muscles were big and he carried himself with a confidence that said they weren’t just for show. At his waist a scimitar hung. He eyed her as she eyed him before his gaze moved to take in the others and then the treeline.

The message was clear, they may be mercenaries but they would stand by the trader if this turned into a confrontation. She might respect their loyalty but at the moment these people were under her protection and if it came to a fight she would win. It wouldn’t be an easy fight, they had been more than effective against the bandits.

While the warriors were sizing each other up, the mayor and Kyla were whispering furiously at each other. They were trying to keep their voices down but unless they went inside it was a futile attempt to keep their disagreement secret.

“We can send three people with them. That’s it. That’s all we can spare.” The mayor’s tone said this was the end of the discussion while the smile on Kyla’s face said this was what she had been aiming for. The mayor sighed and walked away to go check on the make shift hospital.

“We have lost more mercenaries than just three.” the lead guard stood to face them.

“We can’t spare more.” if he was expecting Kyla to agree with him then he was mistaken. “The village and farms need to be protected and we still need to tend to our fields so there can be a harvest.” her tone was final and she arched an eyebrow as if waiting for him to challenge her on this.

“It will have to do.” He conceded and walked back to the tents where the Mayor seemed to be arguing with yet more villagers. His muscled shadow followed him.

“Before we leave I need to see a map of the area and the route that you usually take.” Lyssa said, watching the trader haul herself to her feet, heave a sigh and walk away. Hopefully to find a map but the warrior wouldn’t be surprised to find her hugging a bottle of wine.

Lyssa turned to Kyla. “Who’s coming with us?”

“I already have two volunteers and I have a feeling that we all know who’s going to be the third.” she smiled at Lyssa.

The warrior looked to where Abi had been standing. At some point she had left the area and Lyssa hadn’t noticed. The warrior was more tired than she thought if one girl could sneak past her. Abi’s coming and going unseen would be a very useful skill if she could keep the girl still long enough to teach her how to use it.

“She’s helping with the injured.” Kyla said, smiling as if she knew Lyssa’s thoughts.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

If Kyla thought it was a good idea to let Abi go then Lyssa couldn’t really argue against it. She knew her daughter better than Lyssa did.

Previously 2.1 Next 2.3