"Lacho calad! Drego morn!"
That was Eilir's party, dashing in at the gallop from northward along the road. Eilir herself was silent of course, but she was the first to throw her Molotov cocktail on a load of massive timbers; it was a quart glass bottle with its neck wrapped in oily cloth that gave off a long, thin line of black smoke as it smoldered. Glass shattered, and the sticky fluid within spurted out, caught fire and burned as it dripped and spattered over the dry Douglas fir wood. The flames were a fierce red-orange; the stuff was made of gasoline and laundry soap and rubber dissolved in alcohol and turpentine, until it had the consistency and stickiness of thin honey. More arched out as her team of six dashed down the line of wagons. By the time they'd pulled up near the wrecked bridge, pillars of smoke and fire were beginning to rise from the wagons. Better still, burning the heavy loads of timber would turn the steel members and fasteners into twisted, useless scrap, and those were a whole lot harder to replace than the shaped wood.
All that came out of the corner of her eye in an instant. If there was one thing in all the world she was certain of, it was that she didn't need to check on Eilir doing her part.
Astrid's eyes flicked over the action nearer her as Asfaloth's forehooves touched down again. Alleyne's man was down with a stub of broken lance-shaft sticking from his chest. Two of her Dunedain riders were down likewise, dead or crippled, with their horses running free. The rest were in a melee with the Protectorate men-at-arms, horses circling and snapping as blades swung in bright, glittering arcs. As she turned she saw the tall figure in the green plate armor use the stump of his lance to break a swordsman's arm, and then cast it aside and sweep out his own long blade, bringing up the shield with its blazon of five roses. Astrid set another arrow on her string, rode close and ended a duel with a shaft between the shoulderblades, neatly cutting the shield strap that ran diagonally across the back. At that range the bodkin came out the front of the man's hauberk and went thunk into the inside of his shield.
She'd learned combat from Sam Aylward and Mike Havel. The rest of the Dunedain running up had graduated from those same hard schools. Or something similar for John Hordle; he ran straight into the mass of enraged horses and bright steel with a wicked grin on his red ham of a face and the bastard sword in both hands. His first stroke took a man's leg off at the knee, just in the gap between the mail of his hauberk and the steel-splint shin protector:
The fighting was over in moments, with only a whimpering left that ended as steel was carefully driven home. A dozen or so of the laborers ran up to her, brandishing their bloodied tools or weapons snatched from the fallen Protectorate troopers. She stood in the saddle and held a hand up; beside her Alleyne raised his visor with a red-splashed steel gauntlet.
"Silence!" he shouted. Quiet fell. "Listen to the Lady of the Dunedain."
"Or listen to this," John Hordle said, hefting his great sword.
The workers were rebels, but they'd lived in the Protectorate for a long time-half their lives for most of them, from their looks. They were used to obeying armored men.
Astrid went on quickly, with the growing crackle and roar of the burning timbers in the background: "There will be soldiers here soon. We have to get you to safety. Cut the oxen loose from the harness, take as much food as you can carry, and weapons, and nothing else and follow."
They scrambled to obey, pulling sacks of hardtack and beans and flitches of bacon and strings of dried sausage and blocks of cheese off the supply wagons, loading them onto their own backs or the bicycles of dead crossbowmen; the more alert stripped the weapons and gear from the enemy fallen, and drove the oxen into wild, stampeding flight with shouts and spear-prods. Dunedain guides divided the labor gangs into parties of twenty or thirty and led them away quickly, up into the trackless hills. Her riders went after the enemy horses with their lariats.
And we must give the mercy stroke to any of the workers who are badly wounded, she thought; there were enough horses to get the hurt Dunedain out, but that was all. It would be no kindness to let them fall into the hands of the yrch again.
Astrid herself rode down to the edge of Puddle Creek, reining in beside Eilir.
They didn't seem inclined to shoot at us, Eilir signed, resting her bow across the saddle in front of her and nodding across the creek and the wrecked bridge. So I didn't see much point in provoking them.
"Right," Astrid said.
The Pendleton mercenaries were back, but the swift water was too deep on this spring day to cross easily, and the bridge was a tangle of twisted metal like some monstrous dish of ferrous pasta littered with whole dead oxen. They might try to get the two wagons on the far side away, but Eilir's group had carefully shot a couple of draught-beasts in each team. John Hordle came up with a dozen arrows clutched in his great right hand; each of them had a wad of napalm-soaked cloth just behind the head, the scent sharp and mineral under the fug of blood and smoke.
"Thought you'd want to do the honors, luv," he said, offering one to Eilir.
The mercenaries' scar-faced leader reined in on the other side of the river, within easy bowshot, but with a white rag tied to a light spear.
"Neat job," he called, laughing. "You're that Astrid they told us about, aren't you? Or are you the deaf one? I'm Hank Bauer, Sheriff of Lonerock."
"I am Astrid, Hiril Dunedain," she called coldly. "Lady of the Rangers. This is Lady Eilir."
Sheriff was equivalent to baron, in the country east of the mountains. And Rancher usually meant lord or knight, pretty well, with cowboy filling in for man-at-arms.
He chuckled. "You are one mean pair of killin' bitches, I've got to give you that. The big fellah there's no slouch either, I'd guess, or the guy in the fancy armor. Pleasure to meet y'all."
"Leave this country, Sheriff Bauer, you and all your men, or you will leave your bones here. Go home to your own land and your families."
"Shit, it's better grazin' land than anything to home, just like the man said," he replied; the scar made his smile gruesome. "And we left to get away from our families, anyhow. If you're such a great fighter, girlie, why don't you come over here and make me leave? I'll give you a kiss if you do."
The men around him laughed and hee-hawed at her, calling comments they doubtless thought very funny.
"If you're such a great warrior, why don't you come over here and make me fight you?" she called sweetly. "Or send your sister, if you're scared."
"Watch out!" Alleyne said, snapping his visor down and drawing his sword again.
One of the mercenaries had pulled a light, yard-long javelin out of the hide bucket slung over his back in place of a quiver. It was a long throw:
But the horseman didn't cast the weapon he brandished over his head. Instead he gave a high, warbling shriek like an Indian war cry and put his horse at the water, shrugging off the surprised snatch his leader made for the bridle. The horse hesitated for only an instant and then slid in; the gray-blue surge came to its chest, and then it was picking its way across just upstream and west of the fallen bridge.
Alleyne shouted furiously: "This violates the flag of truce!"
Hank Bauer shrugged, looked up at the white rag, then pulled it free and tossed it aside. He laughed and called through cupped hands: "Hell, you can kill the little fuck for all I care. The dumb bastard's always pulling shit like this! I'd have killed him myself weeks ago except he's my wife's cousin."
The man charging across the creekbed was young, younger than her, with only a fuzz of yellow beard on a face that also bore a set of black painted chevrons; long blond braids swung from under his steel cap as he howled and brandished the javelin. Alleyne began to wheel his destrier, but Astrid smiled and put out a hand.