Was it a smile or a sneer that flashedacross the face of the older man, the man who seemed to be in charge?And while they looked, neither spoke, but t...ey seemed to be waiting for meto say the first words."Good afternoon," I said with a stiff smile, "I'm Danny Tobin," and Iextended my hand, first to the older man, who shook it with no welcomingpressure, and said his name was Bradley, and then to the younger one, whoidentified himself as Alex."Thank you for coming."There was a long pause. An. Fifteen minutes later we were all up on the road to Lufkin, including the displeased Asian woman. I wondered what her problem was for about half a second and then I forgot about her altogether. I had more important things to deal with. The travois for Nimue had been rigged up and she was lying on it. The gnome was sitting on the travois with her, watching over her and the dwarf was seated on the back of the horse, between the two poles. Seeing them and then the mass of people we had with us. She was a healthy and hefty young woman who weighed ten stone at least. I kissed her and her tongue flicked into my mouth."Hurry," she said, snorting and wiggling.I tore her corset open, and she wriggled it over her wide hips and then stepped from her huge skirt. I tossed her into bed, flipped away her shoes, got out of my boots and britches as she peeled off her stockings, and then was on her, oak hard and stallion ready."Please," she said up at me as my hard-headed prod battered at her narrow. I agreed that was a winning combination. We rode the horses we had and used the saddles with stirrups, so the trip was reasonably pleasant. I had my gun, and Helgor had her crossbow with 20 explosive bolts. I hoped like hell that she didn't need that many, but she was more comfortable with them, so I didn't say anything.We had gone about 15 klicks when we spied some barbarians. At that distance, I could not identify them, so we prepared for trouble. When they got close enough, I recognized them.