Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [4]
"Stay back," she warned them, taking a step back herself to keep both men in view.
Stag chuckled, "Don't be frightened, red bird. We'll take what we want and if you behave yourself, you won't get-"
Feena's toes found the straps of one of her sandals. With a snap of her leg, she sent her footwear flashing at Stag's face. The bandit's sword swooped to swat it aside, but Feena was already spinning around, shifting her balance and driving her other foot hard into Drik's belly. His breath whooshed out of him and he staggered back, doubled over. Feena stepped clear, thrust her arms into the sleeves of her blouse, and jerked it on.
"-hurt?" she asked Stag. "Is that what you were trying to say?"
The swordsman growled, a pitiful sound, and charged at her. Feena met his charge with a rush of her own, throwing herself down at the last moment to knock his legs out from under him. Stag fell flat on his face and went skidding along the ground. Feena rose to confront Drik. The bandit looked pained, but he was upright again. He swung his club at her.
Feena ducked under his swing and grabbed his opposite shoulder, twisting him around with the force of his own blow. His arm came around again and she plucked the club out of his hand and drove it sharply into his already tender belly. When he doubled over, she brought it down hard against the back of his head. Drik sprawled bonelessly across the ground.
"Nice moves, missus," Stag said. He was back on his feet, his face streaked comically with dirt and grass stains. His sword, however, was held low and menacing. "Got any more?"
"Yes," said Feena. The fingers of her left hand touched her medallion while the fingers of her right stabbed at Stag. "Bright Lady of Night, stay his hand!"
Like moonlight itself, the cool power of Selune flooded through her, drawn by her faith and shaped by her prayer. Feena felt rather than saw the magic that reached out and wrapped around the bandit-freezing him in place. Feena walked up to him and stared into his startled eyes. She hefted Drik's club. Stag's eyes turned frightened and pleading. Feena shrugged.
"It is a pretty clearing, isn't it?" she said.
She slammed the club into Stag's head. Stag went down to join Drik in the dirt. Feena looked down at the bandit, then kicked his unconscious form.
"Don't you have any-" she spat, delivering another kick-"respect-"
A third kick.
"-for the clergy?"
Feena snatched up his sword and hurled both it and Drik's club away into the bushes, then found her sandals and pulled them on. She pushed a stray lock of hair out of her face and turned back toward the road and Yhaunn.
"Moonmaiden's grace," she cursed, "I hate the city!"
Yhaunn had begun life centuries ago as a cluster of crude cabins caught between the quarry where workers hewed out great slabs of granite and the docks where they shipped them out to cities around the Sea of Fallen Stars. Many great buildings in Selgaunt, Saerloon, Westgate, and Alaghon-even far off Cimbar in Ches-senta and Velprintalar in Aglarond-had been built with Yhauntan stone. By the time the quarry was played out, Yhaunn had become a city in its own right. Its buildings had spilled out of the narrow strip along the bay and right into the old quarry itself, with the city's wealthier citizens building higher and higher onto the quarry walls until habitations filled the rocky basin.
In the gathering night, Yhaunn was filled with shadows. Feena stood at the city gates high atop the old quarry cliffs and stared down at the tightly-crowded bowl of the city. Selune had risen and her silver light fell over Feena's shoulders, illuminating the streets of Yhaunn but casting darkness between the buildings. Feena's hand reached for her medallion, but she stopped it and lifted her chin. It's no different than a forest at night, she told herself. A big stone forest.
With no trees and a lot of people. She swallowed.
"Never been to the city before,