Page 76 of Swordheart
The first footpad decided to stab Sarkis while his sword was bound up in the second man’s arm. Sarkis kicked him very hard in the knee, and then in the head when he went down.
There was an unpleasant moment where both Sarkis and the second footpad were united in their desire to get Sarkis’s sword out of the man’s arm but had very different ideas how to go about it. The blade had gotten hung up in the bone, and Sarkis very much wanted it back, so he grabbed the man’s shoulder and shoved hard, while hauling backward on the sword. The man screamed a bit more. The first footpad, on the ground, tried to stab Sarkis in the ankles, which Sarkis did not approve of, so he stomped on the man’s wrist a few times to make his disapproval known.
And then, as so often happened, the fight was mostly over.The first footpad rolled out of the way, clutching his wrist, and the second one had turned gray and was holding his slashed arm, and the redhead looked at them, looked at Sarkis, and said, “So sorry for the trouble.”
Sarkis watched him turn tail and bolt down the alleyway, and wished for a crossbow or a throwing knife orsomething.For a moment he thought about charging after the man, catching him, and beating him until he spat out who had hired him.
But he had bigger fish to fry. Halla was out there somewhere with the third footpad still after her, and the great god only knew what trouble she would get into. Sarkis backed out of the alley, sheathed his sword, and went to go see if any of the ladies of the evening had noticed which way she’d gone.
The ladies of the evening proved… less than forthcoming.
“Did a woman run by here?” asked Sarkis. “About yea tall, with pale blonde hair and big gray eyes? Wearing a green bodice and dark brown skirts?”
The prostitute he was speaking to gave him a sour look and turned her back.
Sarkis was a trifle surprised by this. He tried the woman across the street from her.
“No,” she said, before he even opened his mouth. “I didn’t see her.”
Sarkis looked around the courtyard. If Halla had come charging out of the alley, it was hard to imagine how anyone had missed her. “Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
The woman spoke with obvious dislike. Sarkis wondered if she thought that Halla was another prostitute, and was annoyed at her for taking business.
“She might be in danger from—”
The woman held up her hand. “No,” she said. “I havenotseen her. Iwill nothave seen her. And you can ask every woman here andnoneof us will have seen her. Understand?”
“No,” said Sarkis, after a long moment. “I suppose I don’t.”
She shook her head in disgust. She was a pretty woman, certainly younger than Sarkis—particularly given that I am now nearly five hundred—but for a moment Sarkis felt like a callow youth being lectured by a wisewoman.
“Do you think that there’s any woman here who hasn’t run from a man with blood on his hands?”
Sarkis looked down at his hands. The footpad’s blood had spattered across him, even run down his chest in a few places. He stared at the red streaks. He’d already forgotten they were there.
I am barely a man, only a weapon.
“I see,” he said. “And if I told you that I was her guardsman, that I only wanted to keep her safe?”
The woman folded her arms. “Then I’d say that’s all very nice, but I don’t know you and I don’t trust you and I won’t hand over a woman just on your say-so.”
Sarkis lifted his hand, unthinking, to rub his face, and the woman flinched back, almost imperceptibly.
She expects to pay a price for her silence. And she’s standing up to a man with bloody hands and a bloody sword nevertheless.
He was not impressed with the warriors of this decadent southern land, but their women were tearing the heart out of him with their courage. And their compassion.
Sarkis bowed to her and said, “I respect your reasons.” And then, hoping that Halla would have the good sense to make for the hostel, he moved past her and began to jog.
He was four streets over when he caught sight of the footpad. The man did not see him, at least at first.
Sarkis put his arm around the man’s neck, held his sword against the man’s throat, and gently suggested that perhaps he wished to consider a different line of work. The footpad agreed that this was a very good idea and that he would very much like to get started on that immediately.
Sarkis released him. The former footpad ran off, presumably to start a new life somewhere far away.
He was standing in the alley, listening to receding footsteps, when Halla said, “Sarkis?”
