If I don’t, they’ll kill me.
Damn. What a way to end a good life. And just when I was thinkin’ about trying to settle down. He whipped his sword back and forth, strictly to make a bright flash and an impressive whup-whup noise that should give third thoughts to
Abder, who had already had second ones about this encounter.
Uh. The exertion started the wound leaking. He felt the trickle of blood, warm on his upper arm.
“You son of a bitch,” snarled the one in the grayish homespun tunic.
One more step, Fulcris thought, knowing the name-calling stage was about to end.
The homespun man was worked up just about enough. For the first time in a long while, Pulcris knew fear. One more step. Then either 1 end it or they do.
“Yo!”
Fulcris ignored the hail. He kept his gaze on his assailants. They glanced toward the source of the call. A solitary traveler was pacing his large dun colored horse toward them, trailing a pack-animal. His hair was invisible within the odd flapped cap he wore, leather left its natural shade. Fulcris could have taken out both of them, then. He didn’t.
“You two fellows need help with this mean-looking criminal?”
“No business of yours,” homespun said, while that big dun-colored horse kept coming at him, just pacing.
“That’s true,” the newcomer said in a quiet voice, staring levelly. Not menacingly, or with a mean expression; it was just a steady look.
Fulcris allowed himself a glance. He saw what they saw: a big man with a big droopy moustache, sort of bronzey-russet. A great big saddle-sword, and another sheathed at the man’s left thigh. A shield, looking old and worn and bearing no markings whatever. His dusty, stained tunic was plain undyed homespun with an unusually large neck. Its sleeves were short enough to show powerful arms.