The terrain changed abruptly on the far side of the gentle crest. We came thundering to the top to find the surface falling in a chute away from us between thick banks of tall, thin evergreens. The narrow aisle we had been following was blocked a short way beneath us by a rearing crag of stone around which men were clustered, with long, sharpened spikes, cut from those same straight evergreens, stretching to meet us, their butts pressed against the base of the crag. I saw the entire entrapment at a glance, as did Dedalus, who was already turning towards me, waving me away to his right as he pulled his horse's head hard to the left. We split apart, and as we did, I saw that Tress had understood and was already veering outwards to my right. Behind us, the others followed at the full gallop, wrenching their mounts away from the certain death ahead of them, to follow right or left depending on their position in the wedge. And then I was among the densely packed, tall, narrow trees, my full attention concentrated upon staying in the saddle and preventing my mount from killing himself or me by colliding with some obstacle.
In mere moments, we were reduced almost to a standstill, faced with the impossibility of moving quickly through such dense growth. The ground underfoot sloped steeply downward and was littered with dead and fallen trees, many of them caught between the boles of their living neighbours. All of these fallen obstacles were small, but any of them was capable of piercing a horse's gut. I heard much crashing and cursing behind me, and the occasional clang of iron, but I had no time or opportunity to look back. Tressa was safe, that I knew, for I could see her just ahead of me. And then the trees began to thin slightly, and I kicked my horse forward faster. Soon we were able to gain momentum, and I broke free again to find myself in the treeless central aisle we had followed to the crest above. I swung my horse around then to look behind me, and the pathway above me was thick with men, leaping down towards me. More of my own men were beginning to emerge from the trees on the hillside now, but the enemy was closing quickly. I saw little point in approaching them up the steep path, so I decided to stand my ground and fight where I was.
The long sword felt almost weightless in my hand, and I used it efficiently, killing the first three men who came within my range before any of them had a chance to aim his weapon at me. The fourth thrust upward at me with a long, heavy spear, but my arcing blade cut it as though it were a hollow reed, and my next swing, backhanded, caught my attacker clean across the eyes with the blade's tip. An arrow clanged against my cuirass and knocked me backward, reeling, and while I was unbalanced someone grasped my leg and tried to pull me down. I clutched my saddle horn with my left hand and stabbed downward, but my assailant had already released me, staggering back and scrabbling to reach between his shoulder blades where Tressa's spear had pierced him. Another fell beside him, transfixed by a thrown spear, and a third man fell on top of him, spewing blood from his throat. I felt a hand tugging at my bridle and heard Ded's voice shouting in my ear, yelling at me to fall back. I did, swinging my mount around, and moments later we were descending again, our horses' hooves slithering on the steep, rain slick surface.
We were close to the bottom by then, and soon there was level earth beneath our hooves. I looked back yet again, attempting to count our numbers, and was surprised to see that almost all of us had survived the trap. Shelagh was close beside me, Donuil at her side. Benedict was bleeding from a shallow cut across his nose but seemed strong otherwise. Our pursuers had fallen behind, outdistanced by our horses' longer gait. I lost count of our people at nigh on a score, confused by the moving bodies, but I felt my heart lighten within me. I would not have been surprised to discover we had lost half our number. I heard someone ask how many men had attacked us, and another answer that it must have been more than a hundred, since he had seen at least two score of them on our right before the left attacked.
I heard Dedalus yell again and looked ahead to see a group of mounted men in the distance, watching us. They were making no attempt to come towards us, it appeared, merely waiting for us to arrive. I estimated the distance separating us at somewhere near two hundred paces.
"Eight, " Donuil shouted, and Ded answered, "Aye, eight that we can see... The good Christ only knows how many more there are in hiding. But we've little else to do and nowhere else to do it! We can't go back, so let's keep moving forward. To me!" He stood upright in his stirrups, brandishing his sword, and then sat back and spurred his animal forward.
We had neither the time nor the space to form a wedge for this attack, so we had to rely on individual speed and impetus, and we were clawing for both when disaster struck. Dedalus was ahead of all of us, closely followed by three troopers riding hard on his heels and four others more widely spread. Then came Tressa, Shelagh and Donuil in a row, barely ahead of where I rode half a length behind them. I checked over my shoulder, and seeing that all our men were still with us, I set myself to catching up with the others, crouching forward over Germanicus's ears and slapping him with the flat of my blade. And then I saw Dedalus hurled backward from the saddle as though he had hit a. wall. His feet flew up, high above his head and completely over, so that he spun in a backward somersault and crashed to the earth face first. Immediately, the three men riding close behind him were hurled from their horses in the same manner, snapping backwards from their saddles and crashing to the ground. So violently were they unseated that I thought they had been hit by Pendragon longbow fire, and I was looking for the arrows in their chests when two more men went down. It was then I saw the rope that killed them, stretched taut between two trees, at the shoulder height of a mounted man. One more man threw himself sideways in his saddle, vainly trying to avoid the deadly tiling, but it caught the crest of his helmet and I heard the snap of his spine clearly, above the thumping of our horses' hooves.
Donuil and Shelagh and Tressa were almost upon it, headed for certain death and completely unaware. I screamed, I believe, and spurred my big black savagely, sending him leaping forward with a scream of his own, trying to overtake my companions as I stood in the stirrups and swung my sword high above my head. I leaned far out over my horse's ears and brought the long blade whistling down, afraid I had misjudged the distance and my stroke would miss, yet knowing that I might already be too late to save my friends.
I barely felt the contact as the tip of the sword's razor sharp edge cut through the rigid rope, but I heard the thrumming twang as the strands parted and the ends flicked away. Then I heard another, double scream. The rope's end, recoiling with the sudden release of tension, had struck Tressa's horse full in the muzzle, and the animal had thrown itself violently backward, rearing erect, forelegs flailing. I had a glimpse of Tress herself, her feet free of the stirrups, pushing away from the animal, and then I was beyond her, my chest filling up with murderous rage as I saw the eight observers, the architects of this slaughter, preparing to scatter.
They were much too slow. I was among them before they could recover from their shock at seeing me cut through their rope. Two of them died on my first charge, one on my left, the other to my right as I swung my blade with the strength of dementia. I pulled my horse around hard, veering to my left, and swung directly back to attack again, cleaving one fleeing craven from behind so that his right arm fell away, severed cleanly by the blow. Then another, more brave than his fellows, came charging towards me, his arm bent backwards to hurl a short, heavy spear from a close distance. He threw, and I swung and caught the heavy missile just behind the head with the centre of my blade, smashing it from the air. The sudden, jarring weight of the spear caught my sword's edge and pulled me sharply and uncontrollably to my left, out of balance. My right foot slipped out of my stirrup and I felt myself falling.