Creative Commons – The Plainsrunner – Chapter Fourteen

Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license – (CC-BY-SA).

Sage meets her first city people.

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Chapter Fourteen – The Welcoming Party

There were two of them. The closer one stepped back, his hands up in a placating gesture. “Whoa!” he said. “Take it easy, girl.”

Sage raised her spear point, resting the butt of its shaft on the ground. On the street, she reminded herself. She was willing to believe that there wasn’t any mortal danger here, but she wasn’t ready to abandon all caution. She also didn’t like the way he used the diminutive, “girl,” any more than she did when the big trader used it. She put away her knife, keeping her hand close, and said, “What do you want?”

He looked hurt, or at least he tried to. His expression was plainly false. “Hey now,” he said, patting the air with his hands and edging toward her. “There’s no need for the attitude. We’re just here to welcome you to the city, you being a newcomer and all.” He stopped moving when he saw the spear tip come down a little. The other one behind him just stood, watching.

“Thank you,” she said. She could see his insincerity. It was on him as clearly as the scales on a day runner. But she was also uncertain. This was the city, which she had been brought up to believe was an evil place full of evil people. What if these two were the best she would find? Would she be better off befriending these two and at least having some allies, however dubious? She let the spear come back up and tried to look less threatening. She briefly wondered if she should have removed her necklace. The rattling talons might create the wrong impression. She tried a smile, but it felt so strange that she let it drop. She said, “Do you welcome all newcomers this way?”

He grinned and his friend snickered, then they quickly tried to turn them into friendly smiles. The spokesman said, “Not all of them. Only the ones we catch.” Seeing her expression, he added, “I mean, not all of them come into the city this way, so we don’t get to meet them all.” His attempted smile was ghastly.

She didn’t trust these two, but she didn’t fear them either. She decided to play along and see if she could learn anything. When the one in front subtly moved to her right, and the other one sidled to her left, she just as subtly backed up to the side of the building. She saw the looks they shared and smiled to herself. They want to get one of them behind me, she thought. Maybe they were predators after all. “So, what happens next?” she said. “Is there anything more to this welcome?” She looked from one to the other while their faces betrayed their mental efforts. “When people visited my village, we would feed them and give them a place to sleep.”

Looking sly, the talker said, “Are you hungry? Are you tired? We’ve got food and a place you can sleep.” He indicated the darkening street. “You should get somewhere safe. These streets can be dangerous at night. Especially for a girl like you.”

“Well, if you think so,” said Sage.

“Sure,” he said. He pointed back the way she’d come. “It’s this way. Come on.”

“I am quite tired,” she said. “And my feet hurt.”

He looked sympathetic. Or tried to. “Here,” he said, stepping forward. “Let me carry your load for you.”

She backed up, bumping into the building behind her. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I can carry it myself.”

“Come on,” he said, his patience already spent. “Let me have it.” He reached toward the glider on her right pannier.

Her spear flashed and he jumped back, looking down at the gash on his shoulder. It wasn’t deep enough to bleed freely, but it was seeping. He looked at her, anger replacing any pretense of friendliness. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “We tried to be nice. Now we’re just going to have to take it from you.” They both had knives in their hands now. Not as good as hers, but dangerous enough. They moved, angling for the best position.

She didn’t waste time on that. She jabbed with her spear, plunging it into the knife arm of the silent one. He dropped his knife. He picked it up with his other hand, but now he was less dangerous. The talkative one took advantage of the opportunity, but too slowly. He’d made the mistake of underestimating her. By the time he was ready to make his move, he had to jump back from her slashing spear point.

Now they were wary. They moved slowly, looking for an opening, eyes on her spear point. They weren’t underestimating her now. Judging from their faces, it looked more as if they were beginning to fear her. The silent one kept glancing at his partner, as if maybe they should just leave. But that one wasn’t ready to leave. Sage had injured what little pride he had, and he was going to make her pay.

The standoff looked as if it could last a long time. As it was, they had the advantage of numbers. If they rushed her she could only stab one of them with that spear, and then the other one could get in close with his knife. Neither of them wanted to be the one getting stabbed, though, and from the way she handled that knife, maybe they didn’t want to get in close, either.

For Sage’s part, she felt like it was just a matter of time before they wore her down. And what if they had friends? Things could only get worse. Stalling for time wasn’t going to improve her situation. She needed to get this over with and get out of here. The trouble was she couldn’t think of how to do that without severely injuring, or possibly killing, at least one of them. She had killed plenty of day runners, and that big flier, but she couldn’t imagine killing a person. In frustration, she rattled her spear at them.

That caused them to flinch back, and embarrassment made their faces set into a deadly blankness as they moved toward her. This looked like it, and Sage began planning which one she would take out first. Probably the one on her left, the silent one, because she had her knife on the right. She was about to plunge her spear into the poor fellow’s neck when she heard hooves to the right. Her side eye saw another person come out of the next side street and turn toward them. She adjusted her stance to manage three adversaries.

She expected her two attackers to become more bold now, but instead they appeared to become more nervous. They also turned to confront the new arrival, who calmly walked up and stopped a few meters away.

The talkative one, the one closest to this interloper, said, “What are you doing here? Get out of here. This is none of your business.”

“Hello Rat,” said the other. “Snake,” he said, nodding at the silent one. “What’s the trouble here?”

“Trouble? There’s no trouble,” said Rat, with no trace of sincerity. “We were just trying to welcome this one to the city, to show her the ropes, you know, when she pulled her weapons on us.” Trying to look dignified, he said, “You know these Runners. No manners.”

“So naturally you pulled your knives.”

“We had to defend ourselves. You know these people.”

“Uh-huh.” He looked at her and asked, “Do you agree with his assessment?”

Sage didn’t answer right away, watching them all, trying to think. Finally she said, “I think they were trying to steal my stuff.”

“That’s not true,” shouted Rat. “She attacked us.” He showed his cut and Snake showed his wound. “She could have killed someone.”

“That’s true,” said the stranger. “I watched from the corner there. She could have killed someone. Probably both of you, if it came to that.” He looked at Sage. “She didn’t want to, but she could have.”

The thugs tried to look tough. “I’d like to see her try,” said Rat.

“No you wouldn’t,” said the other. “Trust me. You wouldn’t want to see that. Why don’t you run along now, and call it a day before anyone gets hurt?” He made gentle shooing motions and moved a little closer to Sage. Now it looked like two on two.

Rat and Snake didn’t like those odds, but they had to make a show of it as they left. As they strutted away, Rat called over his shoulder, “You haven’t seen the last of us.”

From her side, the newcomer answered, “You’d better hope she has, Rat. You’d just better hope she has.” As they clomped away and around the corner, he smiled at Sage and said, “Welcome to the city.”