Ilse Witch by Terry Brooks Page A

he leaned close enough that she could feel the heat of his breath and smell its stink. “You know what your problem is, Little Red? You need someone to teach you some manners. Then you wouldn’t be so stuck—”
    The rest of what he was going to say caught in his throat as he felt the tip of her throwing knife pressed against the soft underside of his bearded chin.
    “You should think carefully before you speak again, Sergeant,” she hissed. “You’ve already said enough to persuade me that it might be just as well if I cut your throat and have done with it.”
    The room had gone silent. No one was moving, not even the smith’s wife, who stood watching with a dishrag in one hand and her mouth open.
    The line sergeant gasped as Rue Meridian pressed upward with the knife tip, lifting his chin a little higher. The knife had appeared so suddenly that his hands still hung loose at his sides and his weapons remained sheathed. “I didn’t mean—”
    “You didn’t mean,” she cut him short, “that I needed to learn new manners, am I right?”
    “Yes.” He swallowed thickly.
    “You didn’t mean that someone as crude and stupid as yourself could teach them to me in any case, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “You wish to tell me that you are sorry for saying I cheated and for spoiling my midday contemplation of things far away and dear to me, right?”
    “Yes, yes!”
    She backed him away, the knife tip still pressed against his neck. When he was standing clear of the bar, she reached down with her free hand and stripped him of his weapons. Then she shoved him backwards into a chair.
    “I’ve changed my mind,” she said, her own knife disappearing into her dark clothing. “I don’t want you paying for my drink, wager or no. I want you sitting quietly right where you are until I decide you can leave. If I see you move a muscle, I’ll pretend the V of your crotch is the Von the back wall and try my luck with a fresh throw.”
    The big man’s eyes dropped involuntarily and then lifted. The rage reflected in his eyes was tempered only by his fear. He believed she would do what she said.
    She was reaching for her tankard of ale when the door to the smith’s shop burst open and Furl Hawken lumbered into view. Everyone in the room turned to look, and he slowed at once, aware of the unnatural silence, his eyes darting right and left.
    Then he caught sight of her. “Little Red, something’s come up. We have to go.”
    She stayed where she was, taking the tankard of ale in hand, lifting it to her lips, and drinking down the contents as if she had all the time in the world. Everyone watched in silence. No one moved. When she was finished, she set the tankard on the counter and walked over to the line sergeant. She bent close, as if daring him to do something about it. When he didn’t, she said softly, “If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”
    She dropped a coin on the counter as she passed the smith’s wife, giving her a wink as she did so. Then she was through the door and surrounded by the clamor and fire of the forge, Furl Hawken at her back as he followed her out.
    They moved swiftly through the maze of anvils, furnaces, and scrap heaps to the cluster of makeshift buildings beyond—kitchen, armory, surgery, command center, stables, supply depots, and the like, all bustling with activity in the midday heat. The sky was cloudless and blue, the sun a ball of white fire burning down on the dusty heights and the encamped army. Rue Meridian shook her head. It was the first daylight she had seen since yesterday, and it made her head pound.
    “Is Big Red upset with me?” she asked as they moved away from the buildings and into the tented encampment, where she slowed her walk.
    “Big Red is in irons and looking at twenty years’ hard labor or worse,” her companion growled, moving closer, keeping his voice low. “We had some company on our outing this morning, a couple of Federation officers. One went over the side