It was just pure luck that everyone was out of the wagons at the time, lightening the load for the beasts straining up the slope. It was lucky, too, that no one had discarded their arms, even though they had felt a false safety so close to Far Cry.
Choking on the dust, listening to the bawl of frightened, injured animals, the screams of wounded people, and unintelligible shouted orders from both Crenden and Borgald, Jayge kicked Kesso past the milling runner and burden beasts he was herding. He reached the last wagon, one of the biggest, just as the raiders piled down the slopes, hollering and slashing at whatever was in their way.
Jayge saw an attacker leap to Armald’s back from the height of the bank. Roaring, the big man tried to dislodge the raider who was stabbing at his chest. Jayge, trying to come to his aid, was beset by a half dozen, trying to pull him from his runner. Kesso was a fighter, hooves and teeth, whirling on his hindquarters so that no one could get within sword’s length of his rider. But before Jayge could help, Armald had been overcome, a bloody lifeless lump on the ground.
Slicing at his attackers, Jayge broke loose just as he heard Temma and Nazer shouting for help. Individual fights were in progress up and down the wagonline. Jayge caught a glimpse of Crenden, Borgald, and two of the drivers trying to protect the animals. Some of the women and several of the older children had armed themselves with prod poles and were doing what damage they could.
There was no room to maneuver Kesso on the track, so Jayge spurred the excited beast up the steep hill, managing incredible leaps over the uncertain surface and then reversing, to skid down the slope to attack from behind the men opposing Temma and Nazer. Nine, Jayge counted. Wicked odds, and Nazer and Temma fighting brilliantly. Rising in his stirrups, he launched his belt daggers, each blade finding its mark in a back. Then, using his boot dagger, Jayge leaned over Kesso’s left side and sliced the nearest man from buttock to shoulder just as he saw a spear catch Temma in the shoulder, pinning her to the side of the wagon. Nazer shielded Temma with his body, his swordwork dazzling as he tried to defend them both, but he was too close set and wounded in arm and leg. Jayge hauled Kesso to his hindlegs, walking him forward to drop him and bringing two more down. Then he flung his knife at the man with sword raised to slice off Nazer’s head. As he dropped from the saddle, something came whizzing past his head, and he heard his sister Alda’s triumphant shriek as a heavy iron pan caught a toothless woman in the chest. More heavy pots rained down on the attackers as Tino yelled encouragement. Kesso continued to kick back, effectively clearing Temma’s right side.
“Knock them over! Knock them over!” The shout reverberated above the shouts and cries, the noise of fighting and bawling beasts. “Get as many over as possible!”
“No, leave off. Dragons in the sky! Leave off!” someone else bellowed. “Dragons!”
Abruptly the attackers fell back, scrambling up the bank. Jayge was of no mind to let a single one of them leave alive. He took Nazer’s sword from the wounded man and retrieved his own daggers before he leaped over the debris. He had as much trouble finding good footing on the sliding bank as the retreating raiders, but he slashed and prodded, hoping to strike flesh and bone.
“Dragons? Where? Sear your hide!” Despite the distortion of fury and volume, Jayge recognized the voice. Thella! The raiders were Thella’s! Temma would wish she had listened to him and been more wary. But they were so close to Far Cry Hold!
“In and out! A bronze!” was the answering shout, and Jayge, also recognizing the second voice, missed his next stroke. “Let’s get out of here!”
Jayge could not spare time to find either speaker as he clawed up the slope, his quarry just managing to keep out of reach. He had to catch the man before he could disappear into the forest. There was enough sense left to Jayge to realize that it would be foolhardy to attempt pursuit there, unless the dragonrider returned to sweep the forest. With a desperate surge, Jayge felt the sword slice deeply across the raider’s foot and heard the man’s scream. But the man was suddenly hauled up and out of Jayge’s reach. Jayge, overbalanced by his effort, rolled heavily down the bank, landing on a pile of rocks.
Dazed and winded, it took him a few moments to struggle to his feet. There were cries for assistance all along the train. Jayge saw her then, poised on a boulder that jutted out over the track, surveying the damage her ambush had caused. Then he saw her bring her arm back to throw. The dagger snicked across the tendon of one of Borgald’s beasts, casting it to its knees. Filled with rage at such viciousness, Jayge launched one of his own blades. But Thella did not wait to be someone else’s target. She whirled, leaping up the bank and disappearing quickly from view. And the last of her raiders had gained the heights and were quickly lost up the slope.
“No, don’t follow,” Crenden bellowed from the front of the train. “We’ve got people and beasts to help.”
Cursing at his bad luck, Jayge clambered over dead raiders on his way to the last wagon. Tino was already trying to help Nazer, while Alda was making her way down from the wagon top.
“I got two,” Alda was shrieking at the top of her lungs. “I got two with pans.”
“You better find those pots,” Tino told her firmly. “And fill them from the river. And bring out the brazier. We need hot water.”
“Get the fellis first, Alda, and the numbweed pot,” Jayge said, wondering how Temma could possibly be alive with that hole in her shoulder. Nazer was weak with blood loss from several deep wounds, but he insisted that they attend Temma first. Together Tino and Jayge stanched the flow as best they could until Alda brought them the medicines and proper bandages. Traders were accustomed to dealing with trail injuries, but more serious wounds would require a trained healer’s skill.
“I’ll get the hot water,” Alda said when they had done all they could for Temma and Nazer. Sniffling back her tears, she went off to retrieve the pots she had thrown.
Sorrowful bawling reminded Jayge and Tino that there were other considerations almost as important as Temma and Nazer. Of the two yokes hauling the big wagon, both off-siders were dead, their backbones hacked in several places. Their bodies had, fortunately, afforded some protection to their yoke mates; both were bleeding, but the cuts were superficial. Jayge and Tino could not shift the dead beasts, but they slapped numbweed salve liberally over the wounds of the survivors, poked some fellis into the beasts’ mouths, and hoped that would ease their torment.
It was only then that Jayge and Tino heard Borgald’s loud complaint.
“If the dragonrider saw this, he must help us,” Borgald was shouting, repeating the words like a chant as he bent over his prized burden beasts, patting them here and there, oblivious to the blood pouring from severed arteries onto the gravelly roadway. “Do you see them coming, Jayge?” Borgald raised a bloody hand to shield his eyes from the sun, peering forlornly at the sky.
Jayge and Tino exchanged pitying looks and walked on, carefully avoiding the hand and foot of a man buried under a rock slide. The little milch beasts had been caught by it, too. Jayge wondered if maybe he and Tino should try to round up the animals he had been herding along the track. They would be scattered all over, maybe even slaughtered, along with half the train’s folk and burden beasts.
“Jayge!” Crenden came striding toward him, bloody but relatively sound. “Did that runner of yours come through this? Can you ride on to Far Cry and get help?”
“Maybe this time a dragonrider will help,” Jayge cried.
“Dragonrider? What dragonrider?” Crenden mopped at the cut over his eye. Irritated by the blood dripping down his face, he tore a strip off his shirt and wound it around his forehead. “If you and the runner are sound, don’t waste time.” He paused, bending to examine a dead raider. “Dead. The ones they left are all dead. I saw that woman kill one herself, a man wounded in the leg.” He kicked at the dead man. “No one’s going to tell us anything useful. Ride, boy. What are you waiting for?”