Wrangler Page 15

  “Thank you both,” Philia said. Then her face twisted with concern, and she dropped a hand to her abdomen. She smiled. “Praise the loam and rain. Our daughters are well.”

  “Good,” he said and leaned to kiss her on the forehead.

  Elizabeth joined them. Doal stood at the edge of the enclosure, peering over the stones with a concerned expression.

  Philia sat up and called to the stone giant, assuring him she was all right.

  Most of the fire had gone out of Elizabeth’s eyes. She stared through Philia with a dazed expression.

  Braddock put a hand on her shoulder. “You all right, darlin?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Just wish I’d killed them all. I tried, but—”

  “You did great,” he told her.

  “Yes!” Tilly agreed enthusiastically. “You were amazing, Elizabeth! A true warrior woman!”

  Elizabeth smiled weakly. She was very pale. She held up a trembling hand covered in blood to display the ugly horseshoe of a deep bite. “It really hurts.”

  “We will mend you, sweet sister,” Philia said. She sat up and touched Braddock’s leg. “Are you injured, husband?”

  Was he?

  Quickly, he took stock, discovered only bumps and bruises, and shook his head.

  “Praise the loam and rain,” Philia said. “Tilly, go fetch an elixir for Elizabeth. That’s a nasty wound, and untreated goblin bites frequently lead to infection.”

  “Yes, Meadow Mother.” The tiny sprite curtseyed and flew off to the cabin.

  “I am suddenly very tired,” Elizabeth said in a weary voice. “Should I be this tired?”

  Braddock rubbed her back. She was trembling. “That’s completely normal, darlin. You just survived your first battle, and you fought like a tigress.”

  Elizabeth offered another weak smile. “Oh, how I wish we had that wine.”

  “Agreed. But what I really wish we had is more ammo. I blew through two full cylinders. That leaves me with nine pistol rounds. How many times did you fire?”

  “I have no idea,” Elizabeth said, her eyes looking increasingly dazed with each passing second.

  “Well,” he said, giving Elizabeth’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, “however many times you fired, you made every shot count. Couldn’t have done better myself, darlin. I’m proud of you.”

  Meanwhile, his brain was estimating he had somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty rifle rounds remaining. In a minute, he would reload his revolvers, count the rifle rounds, and top off the Henry’s magazine.

  “Thank you, Mr. Braddock. And thank you for saving me from those brutes.”

  “We saved each other this time.”

  Philia stood.

  With a surge of pride and optimism, Braddock impulsively gathered both women under his arms. “We did it, ladies. We defended our meadow.”

  20

  Elizabeth smiled.

  Philia, however, sagged beneath Braddock’s arm. “Correction, husband. You three defended our meadow. I am ashamed by the role I played. I apologize for not fighting harder.”

  Braddock hauled Philia into a hug. “Don’t be foolish, darlin. That was out of your hands. You didn’t turn tail and fly off. You took an arrow and hit your head, that’s all.”

  “My husband is very kind. The next time we are attacked, I will be more like Elizabeth. I, too, shall fight like a tigress. But I need more handmaidens. If I had all seven, the meadow itself would become a weapon.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Doal, apparently satisfied that the threat was neutralized and his beloved Philia was all right, sunk slowly back into the ground.

  Tilly returned with the healing potion.

  Elizabeth took it in her mouth, gagged a little, then gasped with pleasure as her hand healed and the bloody scratches on her forehead faded away.

  Philia stared into Braddock’s eyes with a serious expression. “We must also recruit monster girls, husband. Your bonding will enlist their strength and increase your own.”

  Elizabeth glanced warily out into the meadow. “Do you think the goblins will attack us again? We should have killed all of them.”

  “If they come back, we’ll finish the job,” Braddock said.

  “I do not think those goblins will return,” Philia said. “If they were orcs, they wouldn’t have retreated. Hobgoblins, on the other hand, would have retreated, regrouped in a safe location, and learned from the rout. When the time was right, they would formulate a plan and come back wiser and far more deadly.

  “But goblins are different. They are bandits and skirmishers, not warriors. We decimated them. They will avoid us forevermore.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” Braddock said. “Think about it. They didn’t break when the shooting started. Even when half of them were down and dead, the others kept coming.”

  “They wanted our sweet sister,” Tilly said, hovering close to Elizabeth’s shoulder.

  Elizabeth looked shocked and horrified. “Me?”

  Philia nodded. “Thank the loam and rain you weren’t taken, my dear.”

  “You are a woman,” Tilly said. “A beautiful human woman, the rarest, most prized, most valuable thing on all of Tardoon.”

  “I’m not a thing, I’m—”

  “To the goblins, you are a thing,” Tilly said. “They would make a fortune selling you to the centaurs, and the centaurs would make two fortunes selling you at Crossroads.”

  This was not the first time the sprites had mentioned Crossroads. It was a strange and seedy marketplace for trading slaves and illicit items, such as drugs and components used in dark magic. Crossroads was an extradimensional space created and managed by wealthy wizards.

  Once a month, Crossroads would open for two days. The strange thing was the market had no fixed location. It appeared magically on a day revealed to interested parties, who flocked there in droves with coin and chattel.

  Elizabeth raised a hand to her lips, looking like she might vomit.

  “If what you say about goblin nature is true,” Braddock said, “that still doesn’t explain why they kept fighting.”

  “They would have sold Elizabeth for thousands of gold pieces, husband, more than these goblins would otherwise see in their whole lives.”

  Braddock shook his head, not buying it. “Greed provides only so much battle courage. A man defending what’s his will always fight harder and longer than someone who means to take it from him. Even if there’s a fortune at stake.”

  He kept talking, working it out in his head and speaking aloud. “They judged our strength and reckoned they could roll over us. But they underestimated us and paid dearly for their mistake.

  “After the guns started booming, the ones sneaking up behind us bolted as expected. But the ones in front read the situation. They understood what our guns were doing and reckoned that retreat across open ground equaled suicide. So they hung in there and kept attacking until only a few remained.

  “Point is, those goblins adapted. Twice, if you think about it. So we can’t be complacent about goblins or anyone else. We must assume enemies will operate to his best advantage.”

  “Wise words, husband,” Philia said, “but I still do not expect the survivors to attack again.”

  “Maybe they will, maybe they won’t,” Braddock said.

  “But we need to be ready for them,” Elizabeth said.

  “That’s right, darlin. Them and anyone else. They come back,” he said, “we’ll kill all of them. Next time, it could be centaurs.”

  Elizabeth shuddered.

  “Or orcs,” Philia added.

  Braddock nodded. “Or hobgoblins or that big bear from the canyon or the roc or that woolly dragon that chased me off the cliff this morning.”

  Tilly glanced across the meadow with nervous eyes.

  “I don’t mean to frighten you girls,” Braddock said, realizing this was veering in the wrong direction. “Point is, we can’t take anything for granted. We need to stay watchful, and we need to be bet
ter prepared for the next threat. Eventually, I will build a high palisade fence. But that will be a huge job, and with Doal preparing to hibernate, now is not the time to begin.”

  Elizabeth nodded in agreement. “Our barricade isn’t enough. They came right over it.”

  “We need to cover the gap with a gate,” Braddock said. “A gate wouldn’t do much good against any of the huge predators, but it would slow down humanoid attackers.”

  “I will draw some designs,” Elizabeth said. She glanced thoughtfully at the corpse-littered barricade. “Castles in the old country had murder holes. That would work well here.”

  “What’s a murder hole?” Philia asked.

  “Picture a rectangular gatehouse jutting out from the gap with heavy palisades walls slightly shorter than the stone slabs. If attackers managed to break through the front gate, they would cram into the rectangular section and find another heavy gate blocking the far end. Then, when they were jammed up between the gates, they would finally see the hole overhead.”

  Braddock saw what she was getting at. “A trap. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

  Elizabeth nodded, smiling slightly as her eyes glazed, picturing it. “A murder hole would serve us well, Mr. Braddock. Even if we don’t have the time or materials to construct a room overhead, adding a platform near the top of the inner wall would allow us to attack with spears and arrows and boiling oil.”

  “Boiling oil?” Tilly shuddered. “That sounds frightful.”

  Elizabeth smiled. Battle had changed her.

  “An excellent suggestion, sweet sister,” Philia said.

  “It is, darlin. Draw it up. You gave me an idea, too. I want scaffolding around the wall. We need to be able to defend on all sides.”

  “A circle has no sides,” Elizabeth said.

  “Exactly. That’s why I want scaffolding across the entire enclosure.”

  “Big job,” Elizabeth said, “but we can do it.”

  Braddock nodded.

  “It will be good to have defenses on all sides,” Tilly said. “I was terrified when one of the goblins reached the top of the wall.”

  Tilly recounted how, when she had zipped over to help Philia, she heard a clanking sound from above. Looking up, she saw the metal claw of a grappling hook. A second later, an ugly face appeared.

  “I was so frightened. I set off a snapdragon in his face.”

  “What’s a snapdragon?” Braddock asked.

  “A burst of light and sparks,” Philia explained. “Watch.”

  Pop!

  An explosion of sparks and green smoke flashed and faded.

  “They aren’t very powerful,” Tilly admitted, “but apparently, they are good for startling goblins coming over walls. He lost his grip and fell to the ground.”

  They went out and checked behind the enclosure. They could see where the goblin had fallen, and on the western hillside, Braddock spotted the trail they had used to approach and retreat.

  They might still be lurking down in that scrub, but based on Braddock’s gut, what he knew about goblins, and how this bunch had reacted once the lead started flying, he didn’t think so.

  “Look,” Elizabeth said, pointing toward the corral.

  For a second, Braddock saw nothing. Then his eyes found the boots sticking out from the stable.

  He walked over, rifle at the ready, and found a goblin lying on the ground. He was stone dead, his skull smashed like an old gourd.

  The buckskin whinnied and whipped his dark tail back and forth as if swishing flies.

  It was easy to see what had happened. The goblin had crept in there to steal the mustang, and the stallion had kicked him in the head.

  Braddock patted the buckskin’s shoulder and told him he was a good horse and dragged the corpse out of his space.

  “How dare these goblins come here and attack us?” Philia, now fully recovered, was suddenly livid. “How dare they violate our meadow?”

  “I don’t reckon they gave the meadow much thought.”

  “Well, they should have, because now they will feed it. The meadow is awakening. We will pile the corpses upon the grass. Let the meadow taste our enemies and grow strong on their blood.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Elizabeth said, “but let’s move the bodies to the other side of the field. They already stink. Imagine how bad they will smell when they decompose!”

  “We’ll search them first,” Braddock said. “Anything that might be useful, keep. But wait for me to check them before you start looting. Some of them might be playing dead. Even a half-dead goblin can stick you with a knife.”

  They went about the grisly business.

  The dead goblins’ armor was too small for Braddock, but pieces would fit the girls, and he reckoned he could use one of the shields as a buckler. The rest would be broken down for its leather and metal and repurposed later.

  Braddock had hoped to salvage clothing, but the stink was unbearable, and most of the garments were threadbare, deeply stained, and crawling with lice.

  They recovered short swords, daggers, spears, bows, and slings. Most of the weapons were too small for Braddock’s big hands, but he threaded a large dagger and its sheath onto his belt, reckoning it would make a good frog sticker.

  Philia handed him a bow, and he tested the draw. “It’s short for me, but given the state of our ammo, I do need a good bow pronto. I’ll figure out how to make one.”

  “Chundra will help,” Philia said.

  Braddock nodded, figuring he could learn a lot from their furry, little friend.

  “In the meantime,” Elizabeth said, taking the bow, “I will use this. You need to teach me to shoot, Mr. Braddock. You need to teach all of us to fight.”

  The sprites nodded, and all three women stared at Braddock with expectant eyes.

  “You’re right,” he said. There was so much to do. “We’ll begin tonight.”

  “You fight like a war god, Meadow Master,” Tilly said.

  “How many goblins did you kill, husband?”

  “As many as I could.” Truth be told, he wasn’t sure, but he reckoned it was a number a touch north of a dozen.

  “You struck one goblin’s head from his shoulders like a daisy from its stem.”

  “Ugly daisy,” Braddock said. He unsheathed his sword and smiled at the glowing blade. “This is a beautiful weapon. And sharp. It sliced through his neck so easily I barely felt it.”

  Philia’s eyes brightened. “A blade of enchanted sharpness. I have heard of such weapons. They are the sharpest blades on Tardoon.”

  “Meadow Master,” Tilly said, “having shed blood with a magical sword, it is customary to name the blade.”

  Braddock held out the blade, remembering how easily it had sliced through the meat and bone and gristle.

  “Cleaver,” he said, smiling at the glowing sword.

  21

  They started the drive at first light.

  Philia entranced the old bull, drew him partway up the slope, and set him to grazing within sight of the herd, which Tilly was doing her best to soothe.

  Braddock waited north of the drive, hidden where the wooded slope met the valley floor, watching and waiting and scanning for threats.

  Since the goblin attack several days earlier, things had been quiet.

  Quiet and busy.

  After looking at Elizabeth’s designs, he decided to put off building the murder hole. With Doal winding down, Braddock wasn’t sure they could finish before the bargle hibernated.

  Also, they’d had heavy rains every day. The meadow was swampy and muddy, which would make working with heavy timbers dangerous.

  So instead, they built a simple but solid gate to seal the enclosure. With Doal’s help, Braddock dug a footer in front of the gap and buried the big stones they had formerly used as a barricade, creating a miniature porch of sorts, jutting out a few feet from the circle, making it impossible for anyone to dig under the gate.

  The gate itself they made by standing
a three-foot-thick timber against the circle on each side of the gap and flush against the buried stones. They buried the bottom third of the logs, leaving ten feet above ground, and drilled a large hole a foot down from the top of each log.

  Braddock coated the holes with wagon grease, then slid the ends of the axles into the holes, creating a swiveling, five-foot beam from which they hung the swinging door, a panel of lashed-together sapling trunks three inches in diameter and straight as arrows, nailed to interior crossbeams.

  The door was designed to swing easily in or out, but they could brace it from inside with a sturdy log that rested in iron brackets Elizabeth’s father had brought along for use in the cabin he’d intended to build them. These heavy brackets were bolted to the backs of the big timbers to either side of the door. Short chains connected bolts in the door to bolts in the timbers and would keep the door from swinging outward.

  The gate wouldn’t stand up to a battering ram or even a few determined attackers with axes, but it closed the gap and provided an opportunity to defend from above.

  Elizabeth drew up plans for a sturdy platform around the whole wall, but for the time being, since they lacked time and materials, they instead threw together a pair of portable ladders.

  Braddock happily worked from dawn to dark, wishing only for more hands and more hours of daylight. Mostly, he focused on food and fuel, a never-ending task that made him excited to plant crops in the spring.

  But first, they needed to survive winter, avoid getting eaten by creatures like the woolly dragon, and survive their meeting with Hortensia.

  Today, with this cattle drive, they were taking an important step toward insuring survival.

  It started to rain again. Heavy drops pattered off Braddock’s hat and coat as he sat atop the buckskin, watching Philia lure cows uphill one by one. Once a few older cows joined the bull, the rest of the herd began eating its way up the slope.

  Tilly was a blond-haired blur, weaving between the cattle, soothing them as best she could with sprite magic.

  The small herd, eighteen head in all, including the old boss bull, three young bulls who would battle for supremacy in the spring, and six healthy-looking cows. The rest were young stuff, fat and healthy and shaggy as buffalo, already sporting dark coats of heavy winter fur.