Two rough-looking men stared back at him. One whimpered, clutching his upper leg. Someone had wrapped a length of cloth around it, but blood still seeped around his fingers, and both the fabric and his breeches were soaked. The other sat cross-legged in the road, his face blank, fingers clinging to a broken bow.

“Well,” Jerdren said finally. “I wonder what we do with youtwo. Suppose we could gut you, same as we did for your friends, here. Or maybe you’d prefer to run for it? Of course, you’d have to go now, before I change mymind.”

The second man laughed harshly and indicated his wounded fellow with a jerk of his head. “How far do you think he’d get? How far’dI get, for all that, until you ran me down?”

Jerdren shook his head. “He’s no threat to me or those whohired me. Take him if you like, leave him if you’d rather. But go, and take amessage with you for any of your kind still alive out there and thinking caravans like this one are easy pickings. Tell them how many dead men you left behind.”

“Hah.” But the bandit got stiffly to his knees and leanedover to speak quietly against his fellow’s ear. The second man simply clutchedhis leg and watched blood seep between his fingers. His eyes were half-closed, and his face deadly pale. After a moment, the first man got himself upright, with the help of his shattered bow, and glanced at Jerdren.

“I’ll tell ’em. They won’t listen, but I’ll tell ’em.”

“Do that,” Jerdren said evenly and stood to watch as thebandit limped up the road and into the dry creek bed. He vanished into the shadows of the burned forest some distance north.

Jerdren walked to the head of the wagons, turned to look back along them, then bent his gaze to the blood-smirched road to find any arrows that were still whole and true. He pocketed three arrowheads that could be remounted on new shafts and shoved a nasty-looking, well-balanced, broad-bladed dagger into his belt. Something like that would do a lot of damage, no matter where you stuck it in a man.