"Good," I said. "Inaudos, as the biggest man here, you shall pull the rope taut. When they pile up, we'll rush in on them and slay all that are not killed in the wreck. Vardanas, your bow is our fellest weapon. Sit your horse among the trees until they pass, then swing into the road behind them and start shooting as they strike the rope. The Scythian and I shall charge down from the sides."
"How about me?" said Inaudos. "If I have to untie horse and mount without help, the fight will be over before I come. I cannot vault on horse as you do."
"You'd best attack on foot. There'll be others dismounted, too, and in such a rough-and-tumble you may do more good that way."
"What shall I fight with? This little thing?" said Inaudos, showing his dagger.
"Take my sword," said Vardanas. "But treat it well; my grandsire wielded it at Kounaxa."
"What will you use besides your bow?" I said.
"The mace," said Vardanas. "It is good only for cracking skulls. Easier it is for a mounted man to crack the skull of a foeman afoot than the contrary."
"They still have the advantage," said Inaudos. "They have spears, while we have none, nor shields either."
"We shall have spears of a sort," I said. "As for shields, let each of us, ere he close with the foe, wrap his mantle around his left arm."
Nirouphar said: "Although I am no warrior, I burn to take part in this battle, too. Can I not hold horses or something?"
We all shouted her down and insisted that a woman's place was well to the rear, where she would not get in the way.
It was a little after noon on the second day of our watch when Inaudos trotted back to us from his lookout. "They come," he said.
"Are you sure they're the same lot?"
"Oh yes. Same number, same dress, same weapons."
"How long ere they reach us?"
He tried to tell me, but the Kordian was not used to dividing the day into hours. He finally said: "If you get ready right now, you have some time before they arrive."
He dismounted, and Nirouphar led his horse back to the hollow.
Vardanas, wearing his coat of iron scales and his Greek helmet, walked his horse up the road for twenty paces and then turned into the trees. The rope lay slack across the road, here three paces wide, with dust and leaves heaped upon it to hide it. Inaudos lay down behind a tree, holding the free end.
The Scythian and I mounted and pulled our horses up among the trees opposite Inaudos. Each of us grasped a crude wooden lance that I had whittled out of a pair of saplings. They were mere sharpened poles, with the points hardened by charring and scraping, like those the Assakenians used in Gandaria. Such a weapon is of little use against armor, but an unarmored man can be pushed off his horse with it, and a lucky thrust that pierces the torso will slay a man as dead as if he had been run through with tempered steel.
After a long wait, the sound of hooves came to us through the trees. Then my heart sank, for the sound was that of horses walking, not cantering. If they went past us at a walk, we could not trip them with the rope. As it had not occurred to me that they might do this, Inaudos had no orders to cover the case. I hoped he would have sense enough to let them go past without discovering us.
Nearer and nearer they came. Then came a command, and the hoofbeats quickened to a gallop, louder and louder.
A shadow fell on the road before us. I saw a flash of movement beyond as Inaudos tautened the rope. There was a mingled scream of horses and their riders. The air was full of hurtling bodies and flailing limbs.
"Come," I said to the Scythian, leveling my lance and spurring Thunderbolt. "Get up!"
But I spoke to empty air. At the first crash, the Scythian dropped his lance, wheeled his mount, and galloped off into the woods.
I heard the snap of Vardanas' bow and his cry of, "Verethragnas aid me!"
Though the Scythian's desertion reduced our odds to one to two, there was no time to chase the dastard and give him his deserts. I had to help my friends quickly or they would be beyond help.
With a prayer to Ares I charged into the road. Two horses with riders had tripped over the rope and fallen. The rider of one lay still; that of the other was rising groggily. A third horse had blundered into the tangle, half fallen, and recovered, but had thrown its rider. A fourth rider had swerved to one side and jumped his mount over the rope. The two others had pulled up in time, but one of these riders was now down with a Persian arrow through him. The other was fighting his horse, which reared and bucked with the pain of another of Vardanas' arrows.
A couple of the led horses had fallen but were scrambling up again, while the rest milled wildly about, kicking and biting at anything that moved within reach.
The most dangerous man I judged to be the one who had jumped the rope. He was just turning his mount to charge back. I spurred Thunderbolt until even that sluggish mass of fat bestirred himself to an honest gallop. I dodged past some of the led horses and clutched my mount's mane to affix myself firmly in my seat against the shock of collision.
The rider was still turning when my lance caught him in the side below the armpit. It was one of my best lance thrusts, for it drove deeply into the man's body and hurled him from his seat. His weight dragged down the point of the lance, whose shaft broke across his horse's back.
I wheeled. Something struck my helmet with a clang, but I heeded it not. Seeing the man on the wounded horse still mounted, I made for him, swinging the stump of my lance like a cudgel. Riderless horses got between me and my quarry, so that no matter how many I dodged or drove away with blows, there always seemed to be more.
I had at last forced Thunderbolt within reach of the mounted man and had swung back the staff for a mighty blow, when two of the dismounted men ran at me from opposite sides. Thunderbolt screamed as one slashed at his hock while the other thrust a spear into his shoulder.
Hamstrung, the horse fell back and then on its side, pinning my right leg. The beast kicked and thrashed, rolling back and forth on my tortured leg. The led horses milled about us, almost stepping on me, until at last most of them ran off down the road.
Hopelessly, I fumbled for my sword as my two attackers stepped forward to finish me. Then I saw one become locked in a grapple with Inaudos. The other poised his spear for a thrust at my heart. I raised my sword in a futile effort to parry the lunge.
The man above me suddenly dropped his spear and clawed at his head, which seemed to be enveloped in a yellow fur cap. When the cap sprang away with a screech, the man stood dazedly feeling his scratched and bleeding face. Vardanas rode past him, looking furlongs high, and brought his spiked club down with a crunch. A thrown spear glanced off Vardanas' armor ere he passed from my sight.
Presently Inaudos and Vardanas returned together. Inaudos looked at my horse and cut its throat. The two dragged the carcass off me and helped me up. My leg was unbroken, but so badly bruised that I could not stand on it.
All six pursuers lay dead. One of their horses was dead also; the rest had run away. Inaudos had a brace of flesh wounds. Vardanas, thanks to his coat of lizard mail, had come through without a scratch.
Nirouphar rushed up and covered me with kisses.
"What befell?" I asked, hobbling back towards the hollow with my arms about my comrades' necks. "The lout was about to skewer me—" Then I saw the empty cat basket at the edge of the forest. The cat had vanished. "Did you throw that cat at him?"
"Yes indeed, darling," said Nirouphar. "It was all I could think of, having neither sword nor spear to hand."
"A lucky cast, forsooth! I owe my life to it, though my mother must needs do without her Egyptian kitten. We shall have to rely on our dear old snake to keep the mice at bay." I sat down with a groan in the hollow.