Barry sneered. “If you think I’m going to explain anything to you, you’re more stupid than I thought. Now, you have two choices: you can either turn aroundand walk away from this, forgetting you saw anything, and in the morning, you’ll receive a nice check from the conservancy, or you and Mercy can join the cop here.”
“Over my dead body,” Alden said.
“Full points for dramatic elements, sweetie, but I think the less we mention dead bodies, the happier I’ll be,” I whispered to him.
“You can’t expect to fight us all,” Barry said, laughing. “You’re not that good.”
“Perhaps not, but I can try,” Alden said, the manly personification of everything brave if somewhat unrealistic.
“You are so sexy right now,” I told him. “I can’t tell you how awesome you look fending off the bad drug lords with just a shield and a sword, and I’m going to remember this moment for a long, long time. But you know, the odds aren’t terribly in our favor.”
He winked at me, actually winked at me. “Aren’t they?”
“No, they aren’t,” Barry said, and, lifting his sword, was about to charge.
And that’s when I realized that the dull murmuring that I’d assumed was the sound of the stream echoing around the chamber had grown louder. I recognized that sound; it was the murmuring of a crowd.
Alden gave a battle cry at that moment, shouting, “For the shire!” as he rushed forward, taking Barry and gang by surprise. At the same time, answering cries, muffled and somewhat dulled, sounded, as well as excited voices calling out questions.
“My kingdom for a bow!” I yelled, looking arounddesperately for something to use as a weapon as the five men all leaped on Alden.
I ended up grabbing one of the plastic tubs, and smashed it down on the head of one of the men, then used a wooden stool to beat at the back of the one who was banging Alden on the head with his shield. Bodies poured in through the narrow opening, first Vandal, then one of his students, and then three more men who weren’t in armor.
“The cavalry is here!” I shouted gleefully, doing a dance of happiness before using the stool to bash Barry on the head.
“Drug enforcement, actually,” one of the uniformed men said.
“Same difference, really.” Now that Barry was not blocking the way, I pushed past the men to where Tamarind lay, quickly checking her for injuries. One of the uniformed guys joined me. “I think she’s just been knocked out. There’s blood on the back of her head, but she’s breathing, and her pulse seems to be fairly OK. I’ve done a CPR course, if that’s needed.”
The cop nodded, and pulled out a radio, speaking into it to ask for medical aid. I left Tamarind in his charge, and returned to the pile of men. One of the guys was on his belly, his hands tied with zip ties, while the other three were in a pile, struggling with the police and the melee combatants.
Barry, swearing up a blue streak, was fighting with two of Vandal’s students.
“Alden? Where are you, my darling? Vandal, do you see him in that pile of plate? They all jumped him.”
“I’m here.” Alden’s voice came from beneatheveryone. He sounded pained, his voice thick. “Just a bit winded. Can you get them off me?”
It took a few minutes, but in the end, there were five men lying prone, their hands shackled behind them. Alden sat on the stool I’d used to brain Barry, while Vandal and I disarmed him. There wasn’t enough room for more people than were already present, so one of the Scandinavian fighters stood at the entrance and recounted everything that was going on.
“The woman is all right. She just came to,” he said through the crack in the wall. A muffled cheer followed.
“The owner of the place has two black eyes, and a split lip, but now there’s a woman in a dirty blue dress who’s kissing his face and crying and dabbing at the split lip. I think she must be his partner.”
A group “aww” could be heard.
“Girlfriend,” I told the narrator.
“Fiancée,” Alden said, his voice getting thicker by the minute as his nose swelled up. It was broken, and I thought briefly of trying to set it myself, but decided to wait for the medics that had been called for Tamarind.
I blinked at him. “Oh, really?”
“Yes, really,” he said, trying to grin, but flinching when his hurt lip protested.
“They’re engaged, evidently,” the man called to the crowd through the crack.
“No, we aren’t,” I told him, still dabbing at Alden’s lip while Vandal unhooked his chest plate.
“We are.”
