The first thing Melitta was aware of was the lecherous thoughts of a group of nearby men. That was hardly a surprise, though the vague inclusion of herself in those thoughts was worrying. More worrying still was the realisation that if she was reading their minds, she must have shed some of her blood. Only then did she recollect the blow to her head, which now throbbed faintly. She had been unconscious for several hours, then, she decided.
Melitta attempted to reach for the back of her head, to assess the damage, but she found that she could not. Her hands were tightly bound behind her with coarse rope. A normal girl might've panicked, but as the daughter of a master weaver who was as experienced at untangling knots as she was at breathing, Melitta simply set to work. In a moment her nimble fingers had set her free.
She sent her thoughts out to those of the unpleasant men. There were six of them, she found. All clad in fur and leather, like the clothes of raiders from the North. The man who had attacked her was among them, and she burned with anger and the desire for revenge on the man who had hit her and evidently carried her off to this place. He would pay for his disrespect. The others… Their thoughts marked them as little better than him, given what they wanted to do to her. They sat in the middle of a sort of longhouse, lounging around a fire. Though none of them was actually looking at her, she skipped through their thoughts until she found a man who was at least looking vaguely in her direction. She lay on a straw pallet in the shadows at the far end of the longhouse. She was far enough away that if she chose to, and no one saw her, she could sneak out of the place and escape. However, that left the matter of revenge.
She took a deep breath, then wished she hadn't, for the straw she lay on was far from clean. Other captives like herself had been dragged here, she realised, and forced to endure the attention of these horrible men as they slaked their lust. That hadn't been the end for the poor girls, either – after the men were done raping them, they sold the girls into slavery. Melitta's anger blazed within her. This ended here and now. They had taken their last slave.
Conversation around the fire shifted and she was surprised to see George in their thoughts. They had shared a meal with the man sometime earlier – Melitta's stomach rumbled at the thought of the meal she had missed – and he had since fallen asleep on a bed not far from where she lay.
Melitta suppressed a smile as she realised their thoughts of him were tinged with fear. Had he fooled them into thinking he was a hero of some sort, too? They seemed to think he was uncommonly strong, carrying a whole tree to their camp, when keeping up with him had almost killed one of their number. The man in question ventured that it would be safest to kill George before he woke. Several of his companions agreed.
Slowly, Melitta opened her eyes. George was indeed asleep, just where they'd thought he was, and if she kept to the shadows, she might be able to reach him without any of them seeing. He might be a charlatan and no hero at all, but he was the only ally she had against them. And he might not be a hero but he was correct when he'd said that two against a band of brigands was better than her against all six. Besides, she might not like him, but it didn't seem honourable to let these men slaughter him in his sleep.
The men began to argue loudly. Some wanted George dead, and some feared to do the deed. Those whose voices roared the loudest had minds petrified by fear. While they struggled to decide whether it was more dangerous to attempt to kill George or to let him live, Melitta took her chance. Keeping close to the wooden walls of the longhouse, she made her way to the alcove where George lay. Remembering a trick the young squires in the castle played on one another, she pinched George's nostrils shut with one hand while clapping her other hand over his mouth. He woke with a start, just as the boys had. She released his nose but kept her hand over his mouth as she whispered in his ear, "They are planning to kill you. Quickly, bundle up your bedding so that it looks like you are still here asleep, and come with me." George did as she asked, then followed her to the darkest end of the longhouse. Melitta was delighted to discover that they'd ended up in the bandits' storeroom. Now, she could finally satisfy her hunger. The two-day-old bread she sank her teeth into tasted like ambrosia. And the first flagon of wine she uncorked… even better still. She stopped after a few sips, though. It would not do to dull her wits. She would need them as sharp as possible to achieve her ends before the night was over. She glanced back the way they had come to find the men's argument had erupted into blows. They could not reach agreement on whether George should live or die. What the others did not know, though, was that one man had already made up his mind. No matter what the others decided, he would make sure George didn't live to see morning.
After some time, the fighting ceased. Two of them headed off, muttering, even as they bundled themselves into bed. The remaining four sat drinking around the fire, until one by one, they succumbed to the potent brew.
All but one – the man who had vowed George would die. He drank sparingly, and his companions were too drunk to notice. When he was certain the others were asleep, he took his axe and stumbled toward George's bed. His head was a jumble of thoughts, the uppermost of which was anger at some trick George had played on him. A trick he suspected but did not quite understand. Disliking what he didn't understand, the man took courage from this and hefted his axe.
With one terrible blow, he cleaved the bed in two. Not content with this, he chopped at the bedclothes several more times, as if to sever George's head, feet and manhood. Then, somewhat satisfied, the would-be butcher headed for his own bed, where he curled up beside his axe like a normal man might cuddle up to a lover.
When Melitta was certain they were all asleep, she whispered to George, "We should burn this place down around them while they sleep."
"No man deserves to be burned alive!" he whispered back, his eyes wide with horror.
"They rape and kill for fun," she hissed back. "If the king's men caught them, they'd be strung up and slaughtered, like the beasts they are."
"How do you…" George swallowed, falling silent as he remembered. "Mind reader. Right. We should take some of the food out of here first, and then barricade the doors so that they can't escape when the fire takes hold."
Melitta nodded in satisfaction. Two against six would be more than enough for this night's work.