The hoof punched into it with a crack like mountain ash breaking in the coldest part of winter, and the plainsman flew backwards, his feet off the ground for six feet or more. Then he rolled across the rough ground, shrieking as it battered his broken forearm amid the warped and shattered remnant of the shield's frame. The thump when he struck a wagon's wheels was enough to stop the sound.
Rudi ignored him; a man Epona kicked wasn't going to be a problem anytime soon, even if he was lucky enough to live. The mare spun beneath him, agile as a cow pony despite her size; sparks shot as her hooves scored rock.
There were men coming behind Nystrup's Deseret guerillas and Rudi's own companions. Men in the lacquered-leather armor and spiked helmets of the Sword of the Prophet, a score or more of them, their ranks disordered with the hard pursuit that had left them clumped in ones and twos and little bands. A swift glance told him their horses were spent, laboring, their necks and forequarters thick-streaked with lines of yellow-white foam, but the riders were ready with bow and lance.
"Too many!" he called. "Run!" Then: "Edain!"
The younger Mackenzie was shooting at the oncoming troopers of the Sword; one went down, another, another. But there were too many for any single archer to stop, even an Aylward; a Cutter was coming, his horse's gallop a wheezing shamble, but faster than a man could run and with his lance leveled. From the look of Edain's set face, gone milk-white and staring, he didn't intend to stop killing until he died. The Dark Mother had him, and the Devouring Shadow was a dangerous thing to evoke.
Epona moved, responding as if she were part of him. His desperate sword stroke knocked the lance out of the line that would have brought it into Edain's chest. But that meant it struck his, and Rudi wheezed in astonished agony as the blade scored across his flank and slammed him back against the cantle of the saddle. Armor snapped, and something within him. Half a second later the horses struck shoulder-to-shoulder, and the Cutter's lighter gelding went back on its haunches and then over backwards with a bugling scream of terror; the Cutter's scream was cut off as the weight landed square across him.
Edain shot again, and again. He reacted only to struggle blindly when Rudi threw his shete aside, snatched him by the back of his jacket and tossed him with a grunt of back-crackling effort across his pony's saddle. White fire washed across Rudi's eyes at the effort, and injured muscle tore.
"Go!" he shouted, and Epona nipped at the gelding's haunch.
It shot eastward with a squeal, and Rudi turned again. More Cutters were coming at him, more of the Sword of the Prophet-and they were close enough that he'd only be lanced or shot in the back if he ran. The first went by him at the gallop; he ducked in the saddle so that the lance went over nearly close enough to part his hair, then rose and smashed the hammer edge of his fist down on the man's neck. Something cracked, but the Mackenzie froze and grabbed at his side; it was as if he were coming apart, and only the strength of his arms kept everything inside from tumbling out.
A whirring thock, and a hammerblow that forced a grunt out of him and a feeling of intense cold. He stared for an instant at the arrowshaft in his right shoulder, punched through leather and mail and planted deep in bone. The arm wouldn't obey him, and Epona turned and bounded eastward on her own.
Whirr- thock. Another impact, in his back this time. Blackness.
"No," Jed Smith said, looking up from his back at the officer of the Sword standing over him.
"What did you say?" Major Graber barked.
Jed Smith hissed between his teeth and stiffened into quivering silence as one of his men set the bone that had snapped under the torque from the arm loop of his broken shield. Then he gasped as the splints were bound with coils of bandage. It was a simple greenstick fracture and ought to heal in a month or so…
"I said, no," he rasped tightly. "What part of that don't you understand, Major?" Then, to his own man: "Whiskey!"
The cowboy who'd set the arm handed him a flask. He drank, letting the cold fire burn down his gullet. It took away a little of the pain, and more of the heart sickness.
"I'm on the Prophet's business!" Graber said incredulously. "And I need those horses."
"And I've been fighting for the Prophet, the old Prophet, since before you got your first hard-on!" Smith snarled. "And I need them horses worse than you do."
He jerked his head at the chaos of the camp. "I lost more men this morning than I did in the whole Deseret War, and half my horses. I'm not giving you the rest, not when I have to get wounded men back to Rippling Waters… and these kids, somehow, and our plunder, what's left of it."
"We'll leave you our mounts," Graber said. "They're better stock than yours and there are more scattered back for ten miles."
"They were good stock," Smith said, taking another swallow of the raw grain liquor.
As if to make his point, one that had been standing with its head down slowly collapsed, going to its knees and then to its side in a clatter of gear. The trooper of the Sword knelt beside it, stroking its muzzle as it rolled its eyes in blind supplication.
"Now they're foundered and half of them are like to die and most of the others will be wind-broke until they do die. I'm not leaving my men stranded here with nothing but this dog fodder to ride and the passes due to close soon and that's that."
Graber's face was slick with sweat and the mud it had made of the dust on his face. He still glanced around at his men, and Smith knew exactly what he was thinking. There were at least twenty-five of the Rippling Waters men still fit to fight, and they were grouped around their Rancher and glowering at the regulars out of Corwin-whose arrogance nobody liked. Half the Sword troopers were scattered back along the way, walking and carrying the tack from their foundered mounts.
Graber thought he might-would-win any fight, but that would leave his command utterly wrecked and easy prey for any band of Mormon guerillas, or half a dozen other threats. And Corwin would be very reluctant to punish a powerful Rancher with a distinguished record of early support for the Church.
The Major of the Prophet's household troops slowly flushed, until his face was brick red, then stared at Smith with his lips moving-verses from the Dictations.
" The wise… man… is… known… he… commands. .. his… passions-"
The blood of rage slowly ebbed, and he spoke calmly:
"Four horses, then. Four fresh horses."
Smith pushed away the throbbing hot-and-cold sensation of his arm, and the growl of the whiskey in his empty belly. Corwin would not be happy if he denied all help… and he didn't want to, either. The Dictations and Book of Dzhur said a man had an obligation to repay, for good and ill. The false merchants who'd said that they came from Newcastle had built up quite a balance.
"Fine, Major. Pick 'em yourself," he said. "We're going home. Consider them a gift in the service of the Church."
Graber nodded curtly and turned, pointing his finger to one horse after another. His men ran to prepare them in silent obedience, and the officer said:
"Scout! High Seeker!"
A tall lanky man with his hair in braids ambled over; he looked tired, the way a horse did after pulling a hay cutter for a day, but strong as seasoned wood anyway. The Seeker… Smith blinked. He didn't look tired, or fresh, or like anything, somehow.
"It'll be days before we can move," Graber said. "I may have to find fresh horses, somewhere. Follow them. Mark the track. Don't lose them."
"I haven't yet," the Scout said.