Even in that noise, the deep-voiced shouts of Haro! were loud.
Then they struck.
There was no crash; instead a series of heavy hard thud sounds as lance-heads slammed into flesh with a ton-weight of armored horse and armored man behind them. Men were lifted out of the saddle, rising in the air like obscene kebabs until their weight cracked the tough ashwood of the lance-shafts. The destriers bowled the lighter Eastern horses over by main force as they struck breast to breast; she saw one pony pitch over backwards and land full on its screaming rider. Then the knights were through the loose mass of their enemies, throwing aside broken lances. The swords came out, bright and long, or men snatched up the war-hammers slung to the saddlebows, and the knights went raging among their lightly armored foes like steel-clad tigers.
BD sank back down, wincing a little. No need to watch. She'd grown used to what edged metal did to the godlike human form, but there was no point in looking at it if you didn't have to.
Hooves thudded up the slope, and Alleyne Loring and John Hordle stood to raise their blades in salute as Tiphaine d'Ath reined in. The Grand Constable had the stumps of three arrows in her shield, and another in the high cantle of her saddle; her sword glistened with a coat of liquid red so fresh it had not even begun to clot, and more spattered up her arm and across the articulated lames of her breastplate.
She used the edge of her shield to push up the visor, and her face showed framed in the mail coif, red and running with sweat as she drew in air through a wide-open mouth. Fighting in armor was brutal labor at best, worse than hauling a plow like an ox.
"We'd best get going," she said, timing the words to her breath. "They'll be here in strength soon; it's going to be a busy day. I've got ambulances."
The light well-sprung vehicles were bouncing up the slope behind her, two tall spoked wheels for each, and a pair of fast horses to draw them.
"We've got the Bossman," Hordle said, jerking his thumb at a man who lay bound hand and foot. "Wasn't 'alf a nuisance, dragging him through the tunnels."
"Then we got something out of this," Tiphaine said.
"Not as much as we thought," Alleyne said. "Thurston and the Prophet are both in Pendleton. And Estrellita Peters, too, for them to use as a puppet."
Alleyne turned and helped his wife to her feet. She blinked, squinted, and then raised one hand in acknowledgment.
"I commend the army to your care, Lady d'Ath," she said.
There was a lump the size of a robin's egg on her forehead just above her nose, and she squinted and blinked at the tall steel-clad figure.
"To both of you," she added owlishly, then swallowed and forced clarity on herself with a visible effort. "I've seen the new Dark Lord. This time he's the genuine article."
I'm a gardener, Chuck Barstow Mackenzie thought.
That had been his first love, growing things, though the Barstow family had already been two generations off the farm when he'd been born. One of his first memories was helping his father plant a Japanese cherry tree in the backyard, his small hands pressing the peat moss and potting soil down around the little sapling, and he'd checked it daily and laughed with delight at the first blossoms.
He'd been working in the city Parks Department in Eugene when the Change happened, and thirty years old.
How the hell did I end up a general? the First Armsman of Clan Mackenzie thought. OK, so I was in the Society…
"Halt!" he called, and his signaler-his younger son Rowan-unslung the cow-horn trumpet and sounded it: huuuuu-hu-hu!
The column braked to a stop, the dust of their trail-bikes falling ahead of them. He was on horseback, and a few others, but most Mackenzie crofts didn't run to a riding horse, and a bicycle didn't need to be fed or tended when you weren't using it. Their faces were glistening with sweat; it was no joke biking cross-country in thirty pounds of brigandine and helmet, with a quiver across your back and two more slung on either side of the rear wheel, but it beat marching for effort and speed both.
"The Grand Constable says you're to deploy there, my lord," the Portlander courier said, pointing to the low crest ahead of them. "The Bearkillers and the contingent from the Warm Springs tribes will be on your right."
"Very well," he said. "You may tell Lady d'Ath that we'll hold the position."
And I don't like taking Tiphaine d'Ath's orders, either, he thought.
She had killed his foster daughter Aoife in the War of the Eye-with her own hands during the abduction of Rudi, back when she'd been Sandra Arminger's personal black-body-stocking girl ninja.
OK, that was war and Aoife was armed and fighting back. And now we're all allies. It still sucks.
The rest of the Mackenzie contingent set their bicycles on the kickstands, lining them up with the front wheels pointing west. The carts and ambulances and the healers set up nearby; everyone else followed him a thousand yards eastward, loping along at a ground-eating trot. Chuck reined in and waited until they were all within range and then raised his voice to carry; there was a trick to doing it without screeching.
"Mackenzies," he said. "The Prophet's men came onto our land and killed our own folk in Sutterdown last Samhain, when we'd never harmed them. When our dead come visiting this Samhain night, what will we tell them?"
"Blood for blood!" someone shouted. "That we've taken the heads of them and nailed them up over the door!"
A long growl answered from the broad semicircle of snarling painted faces, fists or bows thrust into the air in a rippling wave.
OK, I like the old stories too, but let's not get ridiculous.
The problem was that you could never be quite sure what the younger generation would take from the ancient tales. Chuck continued:
"We came here because we thought the Prophet's men might come and use Pendleton as a base against us, and his friend the tyrant of Boise."
Which would have been a bit unfair to the old General, but fits his son Martin like a glove, he thought. And probably a lot of these kids volunteered because they were bored with working on their home-crofts and because Lady Juniper asked it. I'm glad I don't have Juney's job, by the Horned Lord!
He grinned at them and put his hands on the horn of his saddle.
"Well, it turns out they're both here-not just their men, but the leaders themselves, to be sure. Lady Juniper knew what she was talking about, eh? So there are more of the enemy than we hoped or expected, and that's war for you. Don't think of it as being outnumbered…"
"Think of it as having lots of targets!" someone finished the old joke, and there was a roar of laughter.
"That's not all we've learned," he went on. "We've had a letter from our tanist, Rudi Mackenzie-Artos himself himself, the very Sword of the Lady off on his quest to the sunrise lands."
That brought them all leaning forward, eyes intent.
"This prophet scabhteara attacked him, yes, and set evil magic against him and his friends, and took his anamchara Mathilda prisoner. They scorn all other men, and all gods save theirs. But Artos walked into their camp at night, and brought her out for all their sorcerers or swordsmen could do… and when he left there were a fair number of them making their accounting to the Guardians, for the Morrigu was with him, and his sword her scythe, reaping men."
He paused, and said with mock solemnity: "Earth must be fed."
That brought more laughter, some a little scandalized, and another long cheer, with shouts of Rudi! and Artos! all rising into the racking banshee shriek of the Mackenzie battle-yell, stunning-loud from a thousand throats at close quarters. Chuck raised a hand to quiet it.
"The Lord of the Long Spear is with us, and the Crow Goddess. We're fighting for our homes, our kin, our Clan, and the land your parents spent their blood and their sweat to win," he said, just quietly enough that they had to strain to hear him.