Magda toyed with a bowl of the powdered porridge. She was curious, but asked no more questions. It went against the grain to pretend friendliness with a woman she might have to kill.
Soon after, the other women rode away, leaving Magda and Jaelle alone. While they were saddling their horses, Jaelle discovered that hers had a loose shoe.
“I wish I had discovered it before Gwennis left,” she said. “She is no blacksmith, but I have seen her make emergency repairs. Well, we must stop in the nearest village. Just look at that!” She handed the shoe to Magda, who stood weighing it in her hand as Jaelle bent to examine the horse’s hoof.
I could stun her with it and get away now . . ..
But she waited too long; Jaelle turned back and held out her hand for the shoe, dropping it into her saddlebag.
It was a bright morning, almost cloudless, with a brisk cold wind blowing. Jaelle sniffed the wind, started to throw a leg into her saddle-and at that moment Magda heard a savage yell and two men rushed them from the woods, knives drawn. In split-second shock, Magda recognized two of the bandits from last night: the black-bearded bandit leader, and the big man with the mustachios whom Jaelle had wounded. Magda heard herself shout a warning; Jaelle whirled, half out of her saddle. Then she was fighting, backed up against her horse, the two men almost hiding her from Magda’s sight. Magda thought, Run! Get away now; they’re saving you the trouble of killing her.
But already she had her own knife out, was running toward them. Blackbeard whirled and Magda felt his knife graze her arm, a pain like fire, as she plunged her own knife deep into his chest; felt it turn on bone and slip. He slithered, with a groan, to the ground. Jaelle was still fighting with the other man; she saw that Jaelle was bleeding from a long slash on the cheek. Then she heard Jaelle scream with agony as the bandit’s knife drove down toward her breast; she fell to the ground and at that Instant Magda felt her knife sink into the man’s back.
He fell with a harsh sound, air escaping from lungs already no longer breathing. Slowly, feeling sick, she pulled out the knife.
/ haven’t fought anyone since combat training, ten years ago. Now I’ve killed one and wounded another. She looked at Jaelle, unconscious on the ground, almost under the body of the man Magda had killed. Is he dead? The thought did not bring relief, but a wrenching agony. She fought for me, last night. And 1 would have betrayed her. .
Jaelle stirred, and Magda knew that Jaelle’s life still stood between her and her mission. She was still holding the bloody knife with which she had killed the bandit. She saw Jaelle’s eyes move to the knife; she lay still, looking up at Magda without a word. Magda suddenly knew that she could not kill anyone in cold blood; above all she could not kill this woman who lay bleeding and helpless in the snow at her feet.
What good is Peter’s life if I buy it with another death? I will save him honorably if I can; not otherwise. She knelt beside Jaelle. Her face was covered with blood; more blood was soaking through her shoulder. She lifted the sticky clothes clinging to the wound.
The bandit’s knife had gone under the collarbone and sliced down toward the armpit; a bad wound, painful and dangerous but not, Magda thought, necessarily fatal. She got out her knife again and cleaned the blade, saw that one of Jaelle’s eyes was open-the other was clotted shut-and that she was watching the knife. Magda said irritably, “I’ve got to cut these clothes off so I can, stop the bleeding.” She slit Jaelle’s tunic and eased it gently away from the skin; Jaelle gasped with the pain but did not cry out. She only said, wetting her lips, “Did you-kill them both?”
“One is surely dead. I don’t know about the other, but he isn’t in any shape to harm us,” Magda said.