The men of the Free Company rode down the fleeing carriage and its guards.
All at once the fight began when the Free Company had closed the distance and a chaos of mounted combat and battle on foot ensued. Elliot rode in the center of the formation of mercenaries and he saw the arrows of his fellows fell some of the guards and saw as they toppled from their horses and collapsed into the stirred dust of the road. The Free Company had the carriage and the guards about it completely encircled within scarce few moments. Desperate shouts came from the severely outnumbered guards as they tried to cobble together some manner of organized defense but one by one they were being butchered, struck with sabres or shot with arrows or impaled through with lances and their corpses littered the clearing of the eastward road from
Alliria.
Elliot's face was hard set. His task was to get to the carriage and secure the prize, and as the battle went on around him, get to the carriage he did. Behind him was a fellow Free Companier, Onager.
Elliot made a pass on the carriage and loosed an arrow from his Black Bow and shot the driver in the chest. Onager shot as well with his dwarven crossbow and the driver gave a grunt and a gurgle and he toppled from the driver's platform with a fresh bolt lodged into the base of his throat. The horses pulling the carriage came to a halt and shied in fright and one made a vexed sound and stomped its hoof.
Get the prize. Get out. Before
the Allirian Rangers or anyone else shows up.
Elliot circled around to the side of the carriage with Onager and now the last of the guardsmen were being slain by the others of the Free Company. Elliot jumped from his horse as did Onager and he strung his Black Bow across his back and hurried to the carriage's door. He placed a hand on the door. Gave a nod to Onager. Onager, a new bolt loaded, nodded back.
Elliot threw open the door. Saw her. Saw her and the mother.
"No, no, no, please don't!" said Alexia June, the prize of the contract.
Elliot grabbed her and pulled her from the carriage and she spilled out to the road and stood and tried to run but Elliot's grip on her arm held fast. He yanked her back toward himself and as she made to protest, Elliot punched her hard in the jaw and her legs buckled and she collapsed.
The mother was shrieking inside the carriage. Reaching for something in her dress. Elliot ducked. Said,
"Onager!"
And that was all the prompt the dwarf needed. He fired his crossbow and the bolt slammed into the mother's skull and her head whipped back and hit the window of the opposite door and the glass cracked violently. Her body went limp inside the carriage and blood ran down between her eyes and then out of her nostrils.
The mission was accomplished, and the bodies were left to rot in the midday sun.
* * * * *
"Why couldn't you just let me go?" Alexia said.
Elliot did not reply. He was sitting next to her inside the carriage as they rolled with the Free Company through the streets of Alliria en route to the Inner City. Alexia on his left, the cracked window of the carriage on his right. Alexia's cheek was swollen where Elliot had punched her. A small dab of dried blood, the consequence of her accidentally biting her tongue, lingered on the left side of her mouth.
"Why?" she pressed, somewhat distraught but intent. "My father didn't love mom and he doesn't love me. He just wanted to use us. And I'm just...a piece to be played to him. That's all. Now you're taking me back to him. Do you know what he's going to do to me?"
"No," Elliot said.
"He's going to--"
"And I don't care."
Alexia recoiled as if she'd been punched again, a certain shock in her eyes.
Elliot glanced over to her.
"Do you want to be free?"
And, immediately, a desperate glimmer of hope replaced that shock. "What?"
"Do you want to be free?"
"Y...Yes!"
"You still have the option."
"The option?"
"To fight." He dipped his head in a small gesture to her hands.
"I didn't bind them."
"I..." She shook her head. Baffled. "I can't fight you. You and all the rest of those men you're with."
"Then you'll have to find another way," Elliot said.
"But if you want to escape your father, you're going to have to fight. No one can give you freedom but you."
Alexia glanced out of the uncracked carriage window and then leaned closer to Elliot and whispered, "Can't you just let me go? If you want to help me, can't you just do that?"
"No." Elliot reached over to the side of his seat and pulled up a sheathed dagger and held it out to Alexia. It was the one Alexia's mother had been reaching for in her dress.
"Take it."
She looked at it as if it were an apple dripping with poison. "What?"
He offered it a little closer.
"Take it. If you ever want to be free from your father, if you don't want men like me being sent after you by him, then take it. And you better know the right time to use it."
Alexia hesitated. Opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it and tried to say something but didn't. She looked at Elliot and then at the dagger and then at Elliot again.
But she took the dagger, and Elliot gave her a small nod. They said nothing more on the ride to the June family's manor.
* * * * *
The Free Company was in town. One of the many mercenary
companies that called themselves the "Free Company," but as Captain Marghast said, "Fuck 'em, we're not paid to be creative." The outfit was as loose as could be, befitting the name. Any man or woman could walk in or walk away at any time. They were mercenaries' mercenaries, bound together almost exclusively by the common thread of seeking fortune through their figurative or literal sword-arms. A couple died on the raid of Alexia June's carriage, and they were probably still out there, food for the carrion birds along with the guards. A friend or two was a bit shaken by it, but otherwise, the company moved on. That was the way of life.
The Company got their payout from Peter June, the patriarch of the June family. Captain Marghast said to have a nice night in Alliria to the men, enjoy your spoils, and if you want to move out tomorrow, meet in the South Market at noon. Good enough.
Elliot took his share and found an inn (that he didn't bother to catch the name, yet unbeknownst to him it was the same one Dulthir and
Ceridwen occupied). Him along with a couple others from the Free Company--Onager included. They were something like friends, him and Onager. The dwarf had some amusing stories when he got drunk, and he was set to get drunk now with a filled pouch of coin on his belt.
Elliot got a room for himself, but didn't go to it. Not yet. Onager wasn't the only one who was going to have himself a drink.
He and Onager and a man from the Company Elliot didn't truly know went into the small tavern of the inn next to the lobby. Elliot bought the first round of drinks; Onager was an absolute slayer at Dueling Dice and he'd lost a bet to the damned lucky dwarf. But all was well. The beer didn't taste
precisely like piss, and in lieu of actual wine from elsewhere, it would have to do.
Elliot passed a beer to Onager and a beer to the other man and then sat down himself. He gripped the handle of his tankard. And saw something.
Blood. Alexia's blood. A small spot of it on his gloved knuckles.
It gave him only a small moment of pause.
And then he took a drink.
Dulthir Ceridwen