The Sword of the Lady (55 page)

The dune disappeared quickly behind them; it was hard to see features in this world of white-on-white. His mount′s coal silk blackness was the most vivid thing in sight.

Like being inside that snow globe of mother′s
, he thought.
But one the size of the world.

Epona was feeling better after a couple of days with all the hay she could stuff down, as well as their hoarded feed pellets. Her knees came up proudly as she advanced at a canter, throwing little rooster tails of light snow up and forward as she paced; it would have glittered if the sun had been out. The older layer beneath creaked and gritted under the ironshod hooves of their warhorses; now and then it creaked a little more with a different, brittle note, that put his teeth on edge like biting down on copper foil.

Epona weighed a bit over a half ton. Add in him, his weapons and armor, and the war-saddle—they′d left off the steel-faced horse-barding today—and it was a third again more. All of that came down on those dancing hooves she seemed to place so lightly and delicately, but he′d seen them punch through a prone man as if he were made of wrapping paper. The water beneath him wasn′t far away, it was extremely deep and very, very cold, and in this gear he′d sink like a rock . . . only rocks didn′t need to breathe air.

And to be sure, I
do. Drowning was supposed to be a comparatively painless way to die, but so stuffy . . .
Yet a man lives just as long as he lives, and not a day more
, he reminded himself.

The snow picked up a little more, but not enough to be called a storm; he was becoming a judge of those, in this land and in this fimbul winter of a season. After a moment he saw a line of black dots ahead. In another, they were men, tiny but distant. He unshipped his binoculars and adjusted the focusing screw with his thumb.

″Ah, as I thought,″ he said.

″Your Majesty?″ Ignatius said.

″They replaced their horses coming north from wherever they beached their ship on the Ohio, but what they′ve got are crowbait and badly trained, a lot like the ones I suffered with bringing back Ingolf′s wagons. And they′ve lost more condition than ours, besides starting lower.″

″Good,″ the warrior-priest said. ″We can control the distance of our engagement.″

″Exactly. For a while, at least.″

The fringe of troopers of the Sword of the Prophet were in a formation more ragged than any he′d seen them using before. He nodded again and recased his field glasses. Horse soldiers were only half of what made up a troop of cavalry of any sort. The other half was the horse, and its training and condition were every bit as important as the rider′s.

″Bows!″ he said.

They all pulled out their saddle recurves and set arrows to the string. All his companions save Edain were good horse-archers; Virginia was among the best he′d ever met, though she didn′t draw a very heavy stave. The troopers of the Sword were fine shots too . . . but to use bow and arrow well from a horse′s back you needed one you could guide with knees and balance alone.

Closer now. He could see one of the Cutters belaboring his mount with a quirt; it turned its neck and tried to bite him on the knee, before he popped it on the nose. That was a sensitive spot for a horse; then it bolted back the way they′d come with the trooper sawing at the reins. Rudi smiled the special smile of a man seeing an enemy′s discomfiture, but there were still an unpleasant lot of the Cutters. Closer, three hundred yards, a little less . . .

He stood in the stirrups and drew. The recurve bent into a deep C-shape as he drew to the ear. He let the string fall off his gloved fingers, and the rest of his band did likewise. Arrows arched out from the enemy, seemed to rise slowly and then come faster and faster as they went
chunk
into the hard-packed snow and the ice below, or
whipppt
as they flew past.

A Cutter toppled from the saddle, and another; he thought several more were wounded despite their armor. Closer still . . .

″Retreat!″
he called.

They turned their mounts; there was a
crunch
as Epona turned, and black water leaked out of star-shaped cracks where her left rear had pivoted. He ignored it and shot again, Parthian-style, backward.

″Keep it at this range!″ he said, as the group spread out into a line.

Bang
.

A shaft struck the long triangular shield slung over his back. The heavy bit of knight′s gear turned it, though he felt like he′d been hit with a diffuse hammer. Another shot of his own arched up into the pale gray haze above at forty-five degrees, and an enemy horseman ducked as it went just over his spiked helmet. The companions were rocking along at a slow canter, instinctively focusing their arrows on any of the Cutters who came out of the pack, slowing when the enemy did to keep in touch with the dun mass of Bekwa on foot who swarmed along to their northwards.

Victoria sped a shaft to the east over her horse′s rump and whooped: ″Yippie-kye-ey! Hoo′ay! We got the sweet spot, you motherfuckers!″

Fred shot next, with that grim businesslike air his father′s realm of Boise taught, then Odard and Ignatius, then the twins and Rudi together. They were all shooting as fast as they could get a good target, but at nearly two hundred yards from a moving horse against moving targets that was guess and luck as much as skill. One more hit . . . no, two. Excellent practice at this range and with the snow and white background making it hard to judge distance, and the pursuer′s shafts were all over the map. Sooner or later they′d make damaging hits by sheer volume and chance, though.

And I had a perfectly good excuse for keeping Matti out of this one. Even
she
thought so. Sweet Brigid, but that makes me worry less! Except about winning, the which we need for any of us to survive
.

It was almost a surprise when Epona snorted, and he noticed they were about back where they′d started. They crested the low dune they′d built and pulled up. A Southsider dashed over with bundles of arrows for their quivers, and then they were waiting with only their heads and shoulders showing over the crest. A few last enemy arrows dropped near them, and then the Sword troopers reined in to a barked command—some of them with considerable difficulty; those must have been the ones with the most recently stolen horses.

Rudi pulled back another arrow; closer this time, say eighty yards, just raise the point
so
.

The shaft flew out in a sweet shallow curve that had a
rightness
to it. A man threw up his hands to claw at his face and slid backward over the crupper of his saddle. The horse bolted towards shore at a hammering gallop. Halfway there it went through the ice in a billowing gout of water and sheets of broken crystal levering up in angular patterns. A terrible shrill scream rose as it went under the surface and came up again to paw at the edge with its forehooves. That broke off more; it floundered again, and the current swept it below the surface for good and all.

″Bad for the poor beast, but good for us,″ Rudi said. ″Let them watch us
carefully
for the safest routes! And abandon all thought of swinging around our flank.″

A trumpet sounded, and the Sword men drew out of easy range. He didn′t envy their commander even the obvious chance he had of charging straight into the teeth of seven good bows whose wielders had cover.

″Now he′ll try sending in his footmen,″ he judged, and looked over to his left, northward.

Pierre Walks Quiet and Edain were there, with Jake and most of the Southsiders; call it twenty-eight bows. He waited, enduring the growing cold that seeped in under his armor and gambeson, working his fingers now and then to keep them from stiffening in his gloves. The Cutters′ savage allies grew from a dun mass to something larger, until he could see their standards of skull and horns and rayed sun, see them leap and brandish their weapons, hear the yelping nasal war cries:

Whatever that meant; and raw shrieks of hatred and menace. They walked forward, gradually building up speed, snow misting up around their feet, looming larger and larger through the gray-white landscape.

″They′ll hit a full run just at maximum bow range,″ Ingolf said meditatively. ″That′s smarter than any Eaters
I
ever ran into. They′re going to eat their losses and charge home. Glad I never came this far north.″

″Three hundred fifty yards,″ Fred muttered.

He didn′t have to estimate it, though he was good at that; they′d marked the range inconspicuously. The Cutters began to move again too,
walking
their horses so they could shoot more effectively.

″Three hundred. Two seventy-five. Two fifty . . .″

The savages were moving at full pelt now, a mass six or seven deep and broad enough to overlap the archers on both sides.

″Now!″ Rudi muttered to himself.

He wasn′t giving the order; Edain could do that just as well. In the same instant Rudi heard him shout:

″Let the gray geese fly—wholly together—
shoot
!″

The arrows rose in a cloud; then again, and again. The heads didn′t sparkle on this sunless day, but the honed metal had a cold glitter. And from the island—

″Pump! Pump!″ Mathilda Arminger shouted.

The vast wreck′s bow loomed over them, looking tattered by decay and men′s tools, a stretch of letters just visible:—
mund Fitz
—

The two Southsiders worked their cranks, grinning through their frizzy beards, dark faces running with sweat even in the hard chill. This Richlander-made engine was worked with mechanical cocking devices through high-aspect geared winches and bicycle-chain sprocket drives, rather than the hydraulic bottle jacks the Association armies used for their murder-machines. There wasn′t much difference in the speed with which it compressed the sets of heavy truck coil springs that powered the throwing arms; whoever had made the design had known their business.

Click,
a heavy soft sound as the trigger mechanism engaged.

Mathilda slapped the bundle of darts down in the throwing trough. They were eight inches from base to point, heavy elongated steel pyramids drawn out into fins at the rear, all bound together with a wicker band carefully weakened to last just long enough. She craned her neck to see over the line of bowmen a hundred yards away, spun the elevating wheel to the next spot, and shouted:

″Clear!″

The two crewmen jumped aside, and she jerked the lanyard.

Tunnnggg
the second time, ten seconds after the first.

″Pump! Pump!″

Twenty-four darts arched out eastwards and up, towards the massed enemy, spreading as they reached the top of their trajectory and plunged downward. The savages looked up and screamed. The results of the first round, and the continuous rain of arrows, were all about them.

″Clear!″

She spun the traversing wheel and turned the trough towards the block of troopers from the Sword of the Prophet; they were better disciplined, and hence more tightly bunched . . . and their horses were bigger targets. A firm jerk on the lanyard . . .

″By God, I think we could break them!″ Odard shouted. ″With that scorpion.
Face Gervais, face death!
″

″No. We might be able to knock them back a bit, but they′d just go around. Shoot!″

Rudi drew and loosed; he was sweating again now. Drawing a hundred-and-twenty-pound saddle bow was as much heavy labor as throwing sacks of grain onto a wagon, with all the muscles of your torso and gut working. The savages were wavering—the scorpion could throw six times a minute, and that meant a hundred and forty-four of those deadly little darts, and as many arrows again from Edain and his band. A volley of the darts slashed into the Sword troopers as he watched, and horses exploded outward in pain and panic, bugling shrilly.