Dies the Fire (74 page)

The muffled thunder of hooves seemed to drum inside his head and chest, beating like his heart. Even forty or fifty horsemen gave you a surprising sense of power, of irresistible momentum, as if so many hooves and so many tons of muscle and bone could ride down anything.

This is why so many brave idiots were in the cavalry,
he thought.

He looked around carefully—the helmet and neck guard cut down on your peripheral vision—and waved a hand in summons. Woburn turned his horse until he was cantering knee-to-knee with the Bearkiller leader.

“Slick!” he said, grinning. “I dropped off a couple of men to look after the prisoners we got back—and all that stock.”

“Thanks,” Havel replied—by the terms of the contract, most of it went to his folk.

To himself:
Slick? We shot three hundred-odd arrows at them and knocked out three men and one horse!

He went on aloud: “What I'd like you to do, Sheriff, is push them, since most of your people are riding lighter than mine.”

Havel waved ahead towards the fleeing enemy. “Don't try to engage them, just get their horses lathered and blown, and stay on their right hands so they've got to keep heading south instead of right for St. Hilda's.”

Woburn settled the Bearkiller-style helmet he'd bought. “That we can do,” he said.

Whooping, he rode over to his men and shouted to them. They spurred their horses, pulling ahead of the double column of armored fighters, closing rapidly. The Devil Dogs flailed at their own mounts with their heels and the loose ends of their reins, pulling ahead again.

The whole clot of horses and men disappeared over one of the long low swellings; there wasn't much dust, but the rumble sounded loud through the warm air. A canter made enough wind to dry some of the sweat that runneled down his body, but not enough to get through most of the quilted padding under the armor.

Time crept by at a walk-trot-canter rhythm; he started to wonder whether he should step up the pace himself.

Over the next rise, and a black clump showed in the distance. Down another shallow dip in the prairie, through fields of clover that smelled candy-sweet when crushed underhoof—that required a little discipline, because the horses saw no pressing reason not to stop and eat—and through a shallow creek fringed by pines, and then up another swale. The tracks of the Bearkillers and Woburn's men showed clearly, black against the poplin-green of wheat and the crimson-starred clover. This time they could see both parties; the Devil Dogs had slowed to a jog-trot.

Closer still, and he could see the streaks of foam on the necks and flanks of their horses, hear the wheezing bellows panting. They were tiring quickly; not in as good condition as the Bearkiller mounts to begin with, and badly ridden. Havel slowed, dropping down the column.

“Be careful when we catch up,” he repeated over and over. “Remember, we don't want to let them close in too soon. Listen for the signals and keep alert.”

“Yes, Mother,” Eric muttered.

Havel rang the knuckles of his armored glove off the younger man's helmet.

“Hey!”

“Shut up!” Havel said. The white noise of the hooves would cover the words. “People are going to start dying right about now.”

That won't work,
he thought.
This kid's still eighteen. He's seen people die since the Change but he still doesn't really believe it could be
him,
not down in the gut.

Inspiration struck: “Luanne there could die.”

That got through; he saw Eric flush and then go pale.

“So let's all keep fucking focused, shall we?” he concluded grimly.

Havel tightened his thighs and shifted his balance, bringing Gustav up to a hand gallop. Woburn came alongside when he came back to the head of the line.

“What now?” he asked.

Havel cocked an eye at the sheriff's horse, and those of his posse. Not bad.
About as worn down as ours, much less than the bad guys' nags.
Woburn's men weren't wearing much armor, and they were a lot easier on their horses than the Devil Dogs.

“Hang back,” he said. “You can't help with the next part. Stay in range—get ready to pile in if you have to, or chase 'em for real if they scatter.”

“They're going to scatter?” Woburn asked.

“Well, if they don't there won't be any problem,” Havel said. “Because then they'll all be dead. It'll take a while, though.”

The sheriff peeled off to the loose array of his posse. Havel reached over his shoulder for a shaft and slid it through the arrow-shelf in his bow's riser, thinking hard.

The Devil Dogs weren't riding in any particular order; more like a loose mass that anything resembling his staggered column of twos. Havel waved his right arm and chopped it forward, brought the Bearkillers up level with their opponents and to their right, no more than forty yards away.

A few of the Devil Dogs had loaded their crossbows, and tried to shoot them one-handed like huge pistols; mostly they ended up sinking shafts into the ground at their horses' feet, or in wild arcs up into the air.

That bought a few derisive shouts from the Bearkillers, and elevated-finger salutes. Then they drew their bows. The sound that went up from the Devil Dogs as the first slashing volley of forty arrows arched out towards them was as much frustration as fear, but there was a lot of terror in it too. Two men went down when their horses were struck; the range was much closer this time, and more of the horse-archers were in the firing line.

Havel looked behind. One of the enemy fighters was down under his thrashing horse; the other was crawling on hands and knees, stunned, as Woburn's posse trotted towards him.

Hope he remembers we could use some prisoners,
Havel thought. Then he shouted aloud: “Aim at the horses! Dismounting one is as good as killing him!”

Though that had the disadvantage that the horses didn't deserve it and their masters most certainly did—but the world wasn't fair. The Change certainly proved that, if there was any doubt.

The Devil Dog leader in the horned helmet screamed out an order and turned his horse, waving his long sword overhead as he charged. Havel didn't bother to give Signe a verbal command, just jerked a hand in the opposite direction; she put the trumpet to her lips and sounded:
Parthian retreat
and
Form line abreast on the commander.

They all turned their horses right, a unified surge of motion at ninety degrees to their previous course; that gave him a fierce satisfaction. A lot of hard work was paying off. The Devil Dogs rode in a dense clump as they pursued the neatly spaced Bearkiller line; they were roaring again, gaining on their tormentors . . .

... and then the Bearkillers turned in the saddle and began to shoot again, back over the horses' rumps.

Forty bows snapped. This time the range was close. Close enough to see men shout, close enough to see blood fly in sun-bright drops when an arrow punched into flesh. Close enough to hear the high shrill screams of wounded horses, unbearably loud.

Half a dozen Devil Dog mounts went down as if they had run into an invisible wall, throwing riders or rolling over them. Even then, Havel winced inwardly. He hated having to hurt the horses, but there really wasn't any alternative.

And then the enemy broke; one moment attacking, the next spurring off in every direction, like spatters of butter dropping on a hot skillet. For once, panic was making people do the less-bad thing—stop being a big clumped-up target at point-blank range.

“Sound
Pursuit by squads,
and
Rally in one hour,
” Havel said, and Signe gave the call.

Woburn's men led, whooping with bloodthirsty glee; Havel's followed more sedately. He drew rein himself, turning his head to make sure all the Bearkillers were sticking to their four-fighter squads rather than hairing off individually. Unconsciously he made a slight shrug with his shoulders and a
hunff
sound as he looked back over the battlefield.

They were the same gestures his father had used back on the Havel home-place when he shifted a big rock from a field drain, or got a tree down just the way he wanted. Hard dangerous work, done right.

Eric was part of the headquarters squad, along with Luanne and Signe.

“Well, that was easier than I expected,” he said, flexing his right hand with a creak of leather and rustle of chain mail; pulling a bow to full draw over and over again was hard work.

“It's not over yet,” Havel replied. “But yeah, so far. We surprised them badly. That always makes things a lot easier. Get inside someone's decision loop, and he's always reacting to what you do—usually badly—instead of doing something himself and making
you
react.”

Luanne spoke: “
Was
there anything they could do?”

“Couple of things,” Havel said. “Scatter right away; a fair number of them would have escaped. Fort up on a rise until dark—maybe kill their horses for barricades. Once the sun went down, we couldn't find most of them, and it's only about six hours' walk to their base. Or . . . well, they didn't have the leisure to think about it, and they got spooked when we showed 'em we could hit them without their being able to hit back. Plus I suspect their honcho just wasn't very bright. Anyone stupid enough to put horns on their helmet, where they'd catch a blade . . .”

“Ooopsie, speak of the devil,” Signe said, pointing. “I think that's their command group, and they've stopped.”

“No rest for the wicked,” Havel said, turning Gustav forward.

They spread out into a loose line abreast. The wind was from Havel's right hand, hot and full of grassy smells.

That also made it possible for Signe to speak to him without the others hearing:

“
Are
we the wicked, Mike?” she said; he could hear a shiver in her voice below the steady beat of the hooves. “I'm . . . I couldn't have
imagined
doing . . . this . . . before the Change.”

He looked at her with a crooked smile. “Nah,
askling,
we're not the wicked. We're the people who keep guys like Duke Iron Rod—who really
is
wicked—away from people like . . . oh, Jane Waters and her kids.”

His smile grew to a grin: “Like Aragorn son of Arathorn, in those books of Astrid's. Or those two guys in the
Iliad.
”

“You read the
Iliad
?” she said, surprised.

“Some of it, a long while ago. And your Dad and I were talking about it just the other day. There's this bit, where two guys—soldiers—are talking, and one of them says something like . . .”

He paused to think:
“Why is it, my friend, that our people give us the best they have, the vineyard and the good land down by the river, and honor us next to the immortal Gods? Because we put our bodies between our homeland and the war's desolation.”

“Speaking of which,” he said in his ordinary voice.

Five of the enemy had halted—one because his horse had keeled over, with arrow-feathers showing against its side behind the girth; as they looked it gave a final kick, voided and died.

A horse took a surprising amount of time to bleed out, if you didn't hit something immediately vital.

The rider looked to have come off unexpectedly and hard. Two others were trying to get him up, and nearly succeeding. Another two were riding double, seemingly arguing with each other.

All of them were too busy to keep lookout. When they saw what was approaching, the man on the double-ridden horse struck backward with his head, throwing his partner half-off, then pushing and shoving and beating at him with one fist as the horse swung in circles, rolling its eyes and getting ready to buck.

It
did
buck once as the second man came loose, and then starfished and crow-hopped sideways across the knee-high wheat; that spooked the mounts of the two trying to lift their fallen commander. They let him drop for a second to snatch for their reins, while the Devil Dog who'd shed his friend hammered at his mount with his heels until it lumbered back into a weary gallop.

Havel snorted. “Hope to God I never have to depend on a buddy like
that,
” he said. “Eric, Luanne, take him. Be careful.”

“You said it,” Eric said grimly. “
Haakkaa paalle!
Let's go!”

He drew his backsword; Luanne reached behind and lifted the lance from its tubular scabbard at the right rear of her saddle, hefting it with a toss to grab it by the rawhide-wound grip section. Their horses rocked into a lope after the diminishing dot of the fleeing outlaw.

Havel squinted against the sun, shading his eyes with one hand and considering the three Devil Dogs grouped around the enemy commander.
He
was on his feet again, if a little shaky, and he'd kept one of the big kite-shaped shields his gang favored, decorated with the winged skull and twin runic thunderbolts. The other two had only their swords; one had lost his helmet.

“How are you doing for arrows?” Havel asked.

“Twelve left,” Signe said, reaching over her shoulder to check with her fingers; you couldn't see them, of course.

“I've got eight,” Havel said.

He looked around; nobody close—in fact, nobody in sight, except for the balloon. A cavalry battle in open country was a lot like one at sea; distances could open out
fast.

“Ummmm . . . Mike, shouldn't we offer them a chance to surrender?” Signe said, nodding towards the three men a hundred yards away.