“Hold this, will you?” said the old woman, standing up. “Over your thumbs, young man. It won’t take a moment for me to wind a fresh ball. I was hoping someone would drop by.”
She held out a skein of wool.
The robber took it uncertainly, aware of the grins on the faces of his men. But he opened his arms with what he hoped was a suitably evil little-does-she-suspect look on his face.
“That’s right.” said the old woman, standing back. She kicked him viciously in the groin in an incredibly efficient if unladylike way, reached down as he toppled, caught up the cauldron, flung it accurately at the face of the first henchman, and picked up her knitting before he fell.
The two surviving robbers hadn’t had time to move, but the one unfroze and leapt for the sword. He staggered back under its weight, but the blade was long and reassuring.
“Aha!” he said, and grunted as he raised the sword. “How the hell did you carry this, old woman?”
“It’s not my sword,” she said. “It belonged to the man over there.”
The man risked a look sideways. A pair of feet in armored sandals were just visible behind a rock. They were very big feet.
But I’ve got a weapon, he thought. And then he thought: so did he.
The old woman sighed and drew two knitting needles from the ball of wool. The light linted on them, and the blanket slid away from her shoulders and fell on to the snow.
“Well, gentlemen?” she said.
– Vena the Raven-Haired |
Terry Pratchett, The Last Hero
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