He’s dead, she thought suddenly. I killed him. Then her father’s voice: Don’t hesitate.
Her hand pulled the war hammer loose from the straps at her saddlebow, a yard of steel shaft with a serrated head on one side and a thick curved spike on the other. A Haida warrior with an orca painted on his round shield tried to come in stooping low and hack at the horse’s legs. Dancer came up in a perfect running levade and lashed out with both forehooves. Her body flexed again, and her teeth went click as the horse stamped on over the prostrate body.
She blocked a spearhead with the point of her shield and lashed down with the war hammer on the top of the man’s helmet: metal dented and bone cracked beneath, the feeling vibrating up the shaft and into her hand.
“Morrigú!” her father’s voice shouted.
“Scathatch!” her own replied in a keening shriek as she hacked down to the right with the spike.
And that was most strange, some distant part of her mind noted. He had named the Crow Goddess, the aspect of Her that watched over warriors; for She was all things, the gentle Mother-of-All who gave life and the Red Hag who reaped men on a bloody field as well.
Órlaith had called instead on the Dark Mother in Her most terrible form: Scathatch.
The Devouring Shadow Beneath.
She Who Brings Fear.
For a moment there was nothing but chaos, the knights ramping through the mass like steel-clad tigers, sword and hammer and lashing hooves, the Archers running up and firing point-blank before throwing down their bows and wading in with buckler and short sword. A man leveled a crossbow at her, but an already-bloodied lancepoint tore into his throat with savage force and a deadly precision.
“Alale alala!” Heuradys screamed, tossing the lance aside and drawing her sword. “Alale alala!”
Then the beleaguered foreigners who’d been facing certain death before the Montivallans arrived rose from among the ruins and charged into the disordered mass. There were only thirty on their feet, many wounded, but they came in a disciplined armored mass of points and swords, a red-and-white banner fluttering in their midst and a harsh baying throat-tearing chorus sounding in time to the pounding of their boots:
“Tennoheika banzai! Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!”
The newcomers fell upon their foemen with terrifying intensity and skilled fury, like a blizzard of dancing butcher knives. The enemy broke then, south and west, screaming in terror and throwing away their weapons to run the faster. Hellman’s light cavalry looped effortlessly around them and deployed, though there seemed to be two less of them. The ten drawn up in a semicircle with their stiff bows pulled to the ear were enough, though. The foemen stopped and milled about; one or two drove daggers into their own throats, or each other’s. Those were the surviving Haida-they seldom let themselves be taken alive, which saved the Montivallans the trouble of hanging them for piracy.
Órlaith turned Dancer and followed her father without conscious thought. For an instant her attention went to what clotted and dripped on the head of her war hammer; she gulped a little and dragged it through a bush as she passed.
“Odd,” her father said. “That war cry the enemy were using-it meant self-reliance, more or less. An admirable quality, but not what you’d expect on a battlefield.”
“What were the. . well, the other lot of foreigners saying?”
“Mmmm. . more or less literally. . To the Heavenly Sovereign Majesty, ten thousand years! Or Long Live the Emperor for short; it’s a polished and compact phrase.”
He halted and spoke to the captives, in a language Órlaith didn’t even recognize. That was another gift of the Sword of the Lady; the bearer could speak the tongues that were needful to the High King’s work. The foreigners cast their weapons and helms away and knelt, their hands on their heads.
The Montivallan party were around them now, and she could see the first of Dun Barstow’s levy coming up, jumping off their bicycles and trotting forward with arrows on the string. One fresh-faced Archer of the guard younger than she spoke sotto voce to a veteran who had a scar like a thin white mustache crumpling the dark skin of his upper lip:
“Is it always that easy, so?” the youngster said, trying to be nonchalant and not quite suppressing a quaver; the freckles stood out against a face gone pale.
“It’s easy enough when you catch them with their kilts up and Little Jack in hand, laddie,” the older man said, a little indistinctly and making an illustrative pumping motion with his right. “And when the Morrigú doesn’t get up to any of Her little tricks. When they’re waiting for you, and things do go wrong. . then it gets very hard. Enjoy this while you can, for you’ll not see the like often. The Ard Rí and our Old Wolf did a nice neat job o’ work, I’ll say that for any to hear.”
It hadn’t been easy for everyone; two of Hellman’s troopers were laying out a third. It was the one who’d brought the message, Noemi Hierro, lying still with an arrow sunk fletching-deep under her right armpit and an expression of surprise on her face beneath the blood and her twenty-first year never to be completed. Órlaith felt a little winded at the sight; that had been someone she knew, fairly well after weeks of travel together, and liked.
So sudden, she thought, a little dazed; the young man who’d closed her eyes looked even more stunned-not in an anguish of grief yet, just. . disbelieving.
The healers were busy with several others, including some from both lots of foreigners-that was part of their oath to Brigit, to care for all Her children first and put everything else second when they saw the need. Though sometimes all that could be done was a massive dose of morphine.
The hale prisoners were all men, mostly youngish and stocky-muscular though not large. With their helmets off she could see that they were all of very much the same physical type, which itself was slightly odd to Montivallan eyes. Their skins were of a pale umber a little darker than hers when she had a summer tan, and they had sharply slanted dark eyes-shaped like Sir Aleaume’s, but more so-and short snub noses and close-cropped raven hair, faces high-cheeked and rather flat and sparse of beard where they had any. That combination of features was known in Montival though not common in pure form these days, and she knew that they stemmed originally from the other side of the Pacific.
Her father spoke again, then dropped back into English for her: “I’ve promised them their lives if they behave,” he said, pitching his voice to carry to his followers. “We’ll need to question them, of course.”
To her, more quietly: “But now let’s see to our friends. . or at least, the enemies of our enemies.”
Heuradys wiped and sheathed her sword and passed a canteen to Órlaith; she sucked greedily at it, suddenly conscious of how her mouth was dusty-dry and gummy at once. The water was cut one-fifth with harsh red wine, and it tasted better than anything she’d ever drunk. The High King took two long swallows when she offered to him, and sighed.
“You forget what thirsty work this is, you do.”
The other group of strangers had halted when the Montivallans indicated they should-though there weren’t any living foemen behind them. She recognized the armor they wore now that they were close. It was more complex than that of the men they’d been fighting, built up from many enameled steel plates held together with silk cord, and helmets with broad flares and sometimes contorted masks over the face like visors. Several had banners flying from small poles fixed in holders on their backs.