Five gods, let the attack be swift. Ferda and his men were in the greatest immediate peril, as the Jokonans might be inspired to slay their most dangerous prisoners at once before turning on the new enemy. Another death, and another, slashed across her inner senses like white fire even as her outer senses were thrown into a whirl of motion. She jerked her sore wrists back and forth in frustration against her bindings, but the knots had been tied tight and had failed to work loose even through the long night ride. Kicking her feet free of the stirrups and heaving off to one side in some mad effort to dismount would break her wrists before it broke their lashings; then she would merely be dragged.
A thundering of hooves, shouts, and screams rose from the front of the column; some bellowing cavalry charge down the river valley met the Jokonan van in a shock and clash of metal. Horses squealed and grunted and fell. More shouts came from the rear. The officer towing her yanked his reins up so sharply his horse reared. He stared around in panic.
The commander galloped toward him out of the melee, sword out, shouting in Roknari, motioning some others to follow. They swept up Ista and her captor and broke to the side, scrambling over the low bank there. The leading swordsmen cut their way through some crossbow-men in unfamiliar gray tabards who were running toward the fight. The half-dozen Jokonans and Ista burst past more riders and galloped wildly into the scrublands bordering the river's trees.
Ista's head was pounding, her vision blurred, alternately darkened and whited out with the stunning impacts of the deaths, so many souls in one place and moment violently uprooted from their bodies. She dared not pass out and fall—at this speed, her hands might well be torn off. All she could think was how unfair it had been to that poor soldier who'd been whipped last night, when his very commanders didn't hesitate to desert him...
She could see nothing but her horse's neck stretched before her, its ears laid back, and the hard ground whipping by below. Her foolish frightened horse didn't even have to be pulled, but raced the animal beside it until it threatened to become the leader, and her captor the follower. Their course bent away to the right in a wide curve. They slowed at last as they passed into a more rugged area, low hillocks clad in scattered woods at last hiding them from the view of any pursuit. Was there any pursuit?
The commander finally took time to sheathe his sword. He had not blooded it, Ista noted. He led the way into the wilderness, dodging and turning among the rocks and trees. Ista suspected he had no thought of choosing a route beyond confusing trackers, and would shortly be confused himself, again. Well, he could probably find north, and with so few followers to hide, perhaps that was all he needed to know. The woodlands thickened. They climbed a rise, descended a ravine. Ista tried to estimate how many miles they'd come from the point of attack. Five or six, at least.
She considered her own danger, as the horses picked their way slowly among the stones of the rivulet, and she caught her breath again. It was scarcely worse than before. She did not fear rape, or malicious torture, though she would doubtless share whatever hardships the Jokonans did in their hasty flight. These officers had lost everything—their men, their equipment, their booty, their honor, even their way. But if only they could present Ista to him, the prince of Jokona would forgive their every disaster. She was their hope of redemption. They would not let her go for money or threat, nor surrender her for life itself. So death by design did not await her at their hands, no; but death by misadventure or overwrought bad judgment, oh, yes, very possible. It hardly seemed an improvement.
They wound down the ravine for over a mile. It deepened and the sides grew steeper, wooded and overhung, but in the distance she could see a hazy paleness. They rounded a turn to discover the ravine opening suddenly out onto a flat, bright little river.
Framed by the sides, blocking the outlet, stood a lone horseman. Ista's breath caught in a chill, or was that a thrill? The horse's charcoal-gray sides were heaving and wet, its nostrils round and red, but it pawed the ground and shifted nervously, its muscles bunching in readiness. The man did not seem out of breath at all.
His dark reddish hair was unbraided, cut short in the Chalionese style, and curled around his ears in tangled strands. A short-trimmed beard covered his jaw. He wore chain mail, heavy leather vambraces, a gray tabard worked with gold over all. The tabard was splashed with blood. His eyes flicked as he counted up the odds: narrowed, glittered.
He swung his sword wide in salute. The hand that tightened on the hilt was filthy and blood-crusted. For just a moment, the most thoroughly fey smile Ista had ever seen on a man's face glinted more brightly than the steel.
He clapped his heels to his horse's sides and charged forward.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IN THE FACE OF THIS THUNDERING CONVICTION, THE EXHAUSTED Jokonans hesitated a moment too long. The attacking horseman passed between the first two before they had their own swords half drawn, and left them both reeling from bloody slashes even as he bore down on the man towing Ista. The man cried out and dodged, scrabbling for his weapon; with a deep hiss and hum, the horseman's heavy blade parted the taut lead line. Ista's freed horse shied back.
The gray horse reared beside her. The blade swung up, was somehow transferred to a left hand no less capable than the right, flashed around edge upward, and snaked between Ista's hands and the saddle to which they were tied. She scarcely had time to clench her fingers back out of the way before the razor-honed blade yanked up again, parting her bindings, and whipped past her face. The horseman shot her a grin over his shoulder as sharp edged as his blade, yelled, and spurred his steed onward.
With a fierce gasp of satisfaction, Ista untangled her wrists from the hated cords and began to lean forward and grab for her reins. Her captor in turn wheeled his horse around, barging into hers and nearly unseating her, and beat her to the snatch. He dragged the reins over her horse's head. "Get away, get away!" she shrieked, beating at his clutching arm. With his own reins and his sword held awkwardly in his off hand, he was unbalanced, leaning far out; in a moment of terrified inspiration, she suddenly grabbed his sleeve instead, braced in her stirrups, and yanked as hard as she could. The startled Jokonan officer toppled out of his saddle and down to smack onto the stones of the rivulet.
She hoped her horse stepped on him as it danced aside, but she couldn't be sure. The smooth wet stones were coated with green algae, slippery underfoot; her mount heaved and jerked as it stumbled. Her reins now trailed, in danger of being trampled under her horse's front hooves. She leaned past her pommel, grabbed, missed, grabbed, caught them, let the dirty leather slide through her dirty fingers, and came upright and in control of her own movement for the first time in days. Swords were clanging and scraping. She looked around wildly.
One of the trailing soldiers was trying to beat their attacker back toward the others, while the second rider maneuvered for position to strike at the swordless side. The commander urged his horse closer to the melee, but his left hand, clumsily clutching his sword, was clapped over his right arm. Blood welled between his fingers and ran down his sleeve, making his reins slippery in his grasp. Another Jokonan soldier, who had been riding on the far side of the forward trio and so escaped the first onslaught, had managed to get his crossbow unshipped from his saddle ties and was frantically winding it while his horse sidled and snorted. A quarrel was clutched in his teeth. He spat the lethal bolt into his hand, slapped it into position, and began to raise his bow for aim. The target was moving, but the range was very short.
Ista bore no weapon... she aimed her horse, beating its sides with her spurless heels, and drove it into an unwilling trot across the rivulet. It bounded over the water and landed in a canter of sorts; she yanked its head around and forced it to carom into the crossbowman's steed. He cursed as the string twanged and his shot flew wide. He swung the heavy crossbow backhanded at her head, but missed as she ducked away.