"Bar melindo," she said: My beloved. "Better I do this."
"Why?" he said.
"Because: " She frowned, not quite certain of what her intuition told her. "I think it may be useful. These men aren't lieges of Portland. They're fighting for money and plunder. And I think that all they respect is success in battle. If they respect us more than the Association: something might come of that."
His mouth quirked. "And it'll be more spectacular if you do it. You've got a damnable habit of making sense, darling. By all means-he's yours."
She suppressed an impulse to kiss him-that would not go over-well with the target audience just now-and leaned down for an instant, running her left arm through the loops of the shield hanging over the bow-case at her knee. The young easterner brought his horse surging up the shallow bank of the creek and charged her, shrieking; Asfaloth turned beneath her in response to leg and balance, going from a standing start to a gallop in seconds. The distance closed with dreamlike speed, and she let him turn his horse to come in on her unshielded right side. Ten yards away he twisted back and uncoiled in the saddle, throwing the javelin hard and fast.
It seemed to float towards her. Javelins weren't much used here in the Valley: but there was a game she'd played for years:
Her backsword came free of the sheath and flicked from left to right in a long curve, the arc of its flight perfect as a song in the mind of the gods. With a hard crack the metal-tipped wooden rod flew by in two pieces, just as the dragonflies she usually practiced on did. A cheer went up from the Dunedain still watching and another from the mercenaries on the other bank of the creek. The young man's astonishment made his voice break in midshriek; he was goggling at her as they passed in a blur of speed, and she could have killed him with a single sweep of the steel. Instead she wheeled Asfaloth and waited while he drew the heavy blade at his saddlebow.
"'chete! Give her the 'chete!" voices called from across the river, among other things, including advice on where to put it.
The man was a wild chopper; he almost killed her in the first exchange because her swordswoman's reflexes couldn't believe someone would just barrel in like that. He also nicked Asfaloth on the neck, and she felt her lips go tight in genuine anger.
Their blades struck, slid down until guard locked with guard in a skirl of steel on steel; the horses shocked shoulder-to-shoulder in the same instant. The easterner rose in the stirrups, throwing the weight of his heavier shoulders against her arm. Astrid smiled sweetly as she twisted her foot, got her toe under his stirrup-iron and heaved her knee upward sharply. The young mercenary's eyes went wide in panic; he yelled as he pitched up and to one side. Then he did something sensible, kicking his feet free of the stirrups and rolling over the crupper of his horse, dropping to the earth on the other side in a back-somersault. He landed stumbling, and Asfaloth was on him before he could set himself; the Arab mare was trained to ride men down. He dodged enough that the impact wasn't bone-crushing, but that sent him tumbling over the ground. He was sensible again, letting the sword go; you could get a nasty cut that way, particularly if only your torso was protected.
When he rose again he was weeping with rage and mortification, tears cutting streaks through the dirt and paint on his face, and losing themselves in the blood that poured from his bruised nose. He drew a bowie knife and waited.
Astrid laughed, and held up her sword, looking from the yard-long blade to the knife. "Do you want to die of stupidity?" she said, and flourished the weapon towards the stream.
The youth screamed a curse at her and hurled the knife, turning and running for the water. Astrid shifted her balance and Asfaloth gave one of her astonishing leaps, landing nearly at the edge of the creek. That let her deliver a ringing slap with the flat to the seat of his buckskin pants as he dove into the water and struck out for the other side; when he rose above the surface his face was as red as his buttocks probably were.
"Here's your wife's cousin, Sheriff," she called as she sheathed her unblooded sword and caught the reins of the mercenary's mount when it looked like following him. "Tell him thank you for the horse. It's a fine one."
The scar-faced man was laughing as she turned; some of his companions toppled from the saddle, wheezing and holding their sides and drumming their heels on the ground in mirth. My-wife's-cousin would probably never live this down.
"He won't thank you for it, Lady," the mercenary leader said, confirming her guess, and then touched the hilt of his blade. "See you another time, without a creek in between."
"We'll let you get out of bowshot," Astrid replied.
The mercenary looked at the riverbank on her side; better than thirty archers lined it, and they could swamp his men even discounting the three who had swatches of burning oil-soaked tow tied to their arrows. He shrugged and neck-reined his horse about, calling to his men to take the Protector's crossbowmen up pillion. Then he shouted and leaned forward, and his horse leapt into a gallop southward. The others followed him around the curve in the road in a hooting, whooping mass, bent on only the Gods knew what deadly mischief.
Eilir raised her longbow-she was one of the few who could shoot the unwieldy weapon from horseback. Her shaft made a long curve in the air, trailing black smoke, and went thunk into a balk of timber on one of the wagons; more followed it, until the air over the river looked as if vanished fireworks had spanned it. The Dunedain cheered and waved their weapons in the air as those wagons began to burn as well, adding their bitter plumes to the smoke that was making the air hot and tight in her chest.
Alleyne reined in next to her. "They're happy," he said.
"Good," Astrid replied. "We've stung the yrch, at least."
"A bit more than that," the young Englishman said judiciously. "Still, there's no denying they can shrug off a loss like this more easily than we."
Astrid flung him a smile; the way he took everything so equably was one of the wonderful things about him. She knew her own nature was more changeable.
"Not much more. Even if Lady Juniper brings off what she's planning, that would only be a start. It is like trying to shoot an elephant!"
Aha, Eilir signed, after she'd pushed her bow back through the loops on her quiver. You should remember that my most magical Mom's plans usually have a couple of little hidden wheels within the big obvious one.
Chapter Ten
Waldo Hills, Willamette Valley, Oregon
March 5th, 2008/Change Year 9
T he Grand Constable of the Portland Protective Association looked back at the tumbled wreckage of the bridge, and coughed slightly at the wafts of bitter smoke from the wagons that had borne the framework of his portable castle. The bodies lay about it; he gritted his teeth at the tumbled, naked corpses of his men-at-arms. Their commander still looked comically surprised as he sprawled on his side in a pool of congealed blood swarming with flies. The stump of the arrow that had killed him had broken off short when someone pulled the hauberk and gambeson off over his head; that someone now had a fine suit of mail, with only one small hole in it.
Conrad Renfrew repressed an urge to dismount and kick him in the face. It wouldn't do any good; it wasn't as if the idiot was still alive and able to feel it. Besides, right now his boots were full of water from fording the stream. The engineers were getting a temporary wooden bridge ready, but that would take at least eighteen hours, short as they were of grunt labor.
And I'm short a dozen men-at-arms and a knight, he thought sourly. The infantry weren't that much of a much, but losing skilled lancers hurt. Men-at-arms had scarcity value, and knights also had relatives and comrades who mattered at court.