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Her protests were verbal, instead. “But we could help!”
“No.”
“You've been teaching me to fight.”
“I said no,” he snapped.
Thea caught the edge of the doorway as he tried to drag her outside. She anchored her feet against the frame and hauled back until she tore her arm free of his grasp. Had she not been clutching the doorway with all her might, she might have fallen.
He turned to stare at her in surprise.
She leveled her eyes with his and rubbed her arm. His fingers left a red mark behind, betraying how urgent he found the situation. “We have to do something.”
For a long moment, he held her gaze. Then, inexplicably, he cracked a smile. “Leave the bags.”
She hadn't thought he would change his mind. One after another, she slid them off her shoulder, depositing all their belongings and the basket of sewing supplies just inside the door.
Gil looked past her to the innkeeper who had grown ashen. “Barricade the door. This won't take long.” With a flick of his wrists, daggers appeared in his hands.
Thea followed him into the street. With his token left behind, she knew he was sincere. She drew her knife and oriented herself to the sound of voices. Men she'd seen about the village the night before clustered near the smoldering remains of the night's fire. They wore armor, though sparsely, and the weapons they carried were not befitting of any sort of guard. Simple villagers, then; those who had risen to the call to protect their homes.
Gil approached them, though he was already pointing a dagger toward the southern foothills. “There are fourteen on the slope. That will be the main attacking force. Others will come from the sides.”
A man at the head of the group turned to squint toward the hills. “Fourteen?”
Thea couldn't count them, either, though she saw the muddled shapes of people descending toward the village. “How can you see them?”
“Moreover, who are you?” the man asked. He hefted an axe in his hands that was better suited to cutting through wood than men. It was an obvious threat, but Gil ignored it.
“Travelers who arrived yesterday.” He nodded Thea's way. “We encountered a number of brigands in the mountains and she wishes for us to help.”
The man scoffed. “Ranorsh women don't fight.”
Gil smirked. “Which is why I married a Kentorian. There.” He pointed west and the whole group followed the gesture. “Thea, assist with them.”
She drew her dagger. “What about you?”
“I shall disable the others. What these men do with them afterward is none of our concern. And then,” he paused and raised his eyebrows, “we will depart for Danesse?”
“Yes,” she promised.
“Very well.” He flowed toward the oncoming raiders with his green cloak fluttering at his back.
“Blasted fool,” the armored man grumbled. “Your husband's off to get himself killed.”
Thea suspected he would be all right. “You're welcome to assist him,” she suggested as she brushed the pad of her thumb across her knife's edge. It rasped across her skin, sharper than her best scissors had ever been.
He grunted. “We're safer in numbers, and you're safer inside. Your knife is pretty, miss, but we can't spare anyone to protect you.”
Part of her wished she could say she didn't need protection, but she wasn't sure. That was why Gil had left her with the villagers, wasn't it? So there were more people around to aid her while she fought? She tried to appear confident as she pointed out motion to the east. “I'll be no trouble, but they might.”
The armored man swore. Another group advanced from that direction and Thea added them to her mental tally. Fourteen for Gil. Seven from the east, eight from the west. To the north, where the sheep roamed, the fields were clear.
“So many,” someone else whispered. “Have Kentoria's guards gone slack? Letting so many through?”
“We've never needed Kentoria to protect us,” the armored man growled. “We don't need them now. Go hole up with your family if that's what you want. Those of us with spines will chase them off!”
A shout went up from the eastern group of bandits, a discordant show of bravado that struck Thea as forced. It didn't mask the sound of clashing weapons or the panicked cries that came from the south. She gripped her dagger and dared not look, but she knew what those sounds meant.
