The mare had neither rider nor barding, but she was actually larger than either of the stallions, and mere men in armor held no terror for someone who’d trampled demons in defense of her herd when she was only a filly. More than that, coursers weren’t horses. Even the most superbly trained warhorse was far less lethal than a creature half again as large, as intelligent as any of the Races of Man, and as thoroughly trained as any mishuk in a combat technique the coursers had spent a millennium perfecting.
Her left forehoof-shod in steel and broader than a dinner plate-came down on the assassin Gayrhalan had toppled with the brutal efficiency of a water-driven Dwarvenhame drop hammer. Her target didn’t even scream, and even as he died, she was thundering forward with the stallions, taking her next victim. She trampled him underfoot, jaws reaching past him, closing on a fourth enemy, and not in Gayrhalan’s shoulder-crushing grip. No-her incisors closed on the mercenary’s head, and when she tossed her head, his went flying like a child’s ball.
In a bare handful of seconds, the two humans and three coursers turned the space between the stables and the wall into an abattoir where nothing lived. And then the blood-splashed coursers swept around the stables’ eastern edge after the fleet footed enemies who’d escaped their wrath.
At least ten men came scrambling towards the veranda.
No one would have accused them of being in any sort of formation-not surprisingly, given the chaos behind them and the knots of royal guardsmen and assassins coalescing in furious swirls of combat around the main lodge. But no one could have accused them of hesitation, either, and if their coordination wasn’t perfect, it was good enough to overwhelm Leeana.
The first mercenary beat all of his fellows up and over the edge of the veranda, and Leeana’s left-hand sword flashed in a crimson-streaming arc as she gave him the victor’s prize. Then she whirled in the same flowing motion to face a man coming at her from the right. She engaged his sword with her right-hand blade, parrying it high barely in time, crashing into him chest-to-chest, and her left hand came up. She switched her primary attack from right to left, as instantly as Dame Kaeritha herself might have, and the man who’d just tried to kill her collapsed as she thrust up under their locked blades and drove the sword in that hand home in his armpit.
He slithered off her steel, and she turned, swaying aside purely by trained instinct, as another sword whistled through the space her head had occupied an instant before. She backpedaled, knowing she had to give ground while she regained her balance, yet painfully aware of the wall behind her. She couldn’t back far, and so she set herself, taking a chance, bulling in on her new opponent before she was fully centered herself. A blade scored her ribs as she twisted her torso aside, and then he, too, went down, clutching at his face and screaming as her right-hand sword drove into his open-faced helmet. It wasn’t a fatal wound, but blood fountained between his fingers as he clutched at his butchered eyes, and she kicked him aside as three more mercenaries came at her.
Her finely focused, steely purpose never faltered, but despair welled up behind it. All three of them were armored, whereas she could already feel the blood flowing down her left side in proof that she was completely un armored, and they advanced on her with coordinated menace.
She backed slowly, unable now to pay attention to the larger fight, watching them, poised to take any opening, however tiny, however fleeting. But they gave her no opening, and she felt the edge of the veranda looming up behind her. She drew a deep breath, and then The mercenary at the left end of the short, advancing line, screamed. He rose on his toes, then stumbled forward, going to his knees, and Sir Jerhas Macebearer’s riding boot slammed between his shoulder blades, kicking him out of the way. The white-haired Prime Councilor slid through the gap he’d created, his back protected by the lodge’s front wall, slotting in at Leeana’s left, and she noticed that he’d left his cane behind.
Despite his age, he was past the mercenaries, covering her left side, before they even realized he was there, and the worn, wetly gleaming saber in his right hand was rocksteady.
Leeana noted all of that from the corner of her left eye, her attention locked on the men in front of her. They hesitated-only for an instant, barely noticeable to any observer-as their brains adjusted to the old warrior’s unexpected appearance, and in that instant, she attacked. She uncoiled in a full-extension lunge that drove her right-hand sword through the closer mercenary’s mouth and into his brain, and he dropped like a string-cut puppet. But her sword stuck briefly in the wound. It pulled her arm down, dragged her off balance, opened her to his remaining companion’s attack, and it was his turn to lunge forward.
He never completed that lunge. In the instant that he launched it, Macebearer’s bloody saber flicked into his helmet opening. There was no nasal, and the saber chopped through the bridge of the mercenary’s nose. It struck his forehead with stunning force, not quite cleanly enough to cut through the bone, and the would-be assassin went down on one knee. He retained his sword, but his left hand clutched at his mangled face. Leeana couldn’t tell if it was a simple reaction to the pain or if he was trying to clear his eyes of the sudden flow of blood, and it didn’t matter. In the instant he was blind, the Prime Councilor’s wrist turned, and the blade the mercenary never even saw drove through his unguarded throat from the side.
Tellian and Dathgar rounded the corner of the stable block first.
The courtyard was a chaos of bodies and blood. There were no more mercenaries coming over the wall, but at least sixty of them were already inside it, driving in on the main lodge…and the King. More than a dozen of Swordshank’s armsmen were down, lying amid the bodies of their enemies, and the survivors had been pushed back against the lodge, fighting furiously to hold the doors. At least two of the unarmored courtiers of the King’s party lay with those still, twisted armsmen, and others fought to hold the building’s windows.
And on the veranda, fighting before the front door itself, was his daughter, the left side of her white shirt soaked in blood, with the Kingdom’s white-haired Prime Councilor at her side.
Bodies sprawled in front of them, but even as he caught sight of them, another clutch of mercenaries separated itself from the confusion and charged towards them, seeking to rush the door.
Something screamed beside him like a wounded direcat, and then Gayrfressa went bounding forward like a chestnut demon.
There was no time to discuss it with Dathgar…nor was there any need. They were one, and as the mare charged, they thundered out into the courtyard behind her with Hathan and Gayrhalan at their side.
Leeana felt Gayrfressa coming, but she dared not look away from the fresh attackers swarming across the veranda towards her and Sir Jerhas.
“Take it to them, Milady!” a sharp, clear voice said from beside her. “I’ve got your back!”
She didn’t waste time nodding. She simply went to meet her foes, and Sir Jerhas Macebearer came behind her.
Their sudden advance took the mercenaries by surprise, and Leeana pressed that fleeting advantage ruthlessly. She feinted to her left, then drove forward with her right, and another assassin collapsed as she thrust eight inches of steel into his thigh and his leg folded beneath him. Her booted heel came down on his sword wrist with bone-shattering force as he hit the veranda’s bloodsoaked planks, and she pivoted left, taking the man she’d first feinted towards from his suddenly unprotected flank. He gave ground, interposing his own sword frantically, but her left foot came up. The toe of her boot slammed up between his legs, and he cried out, staggering in sudden anguish. She tore through his wavering guard, ripping out his throat with both blades at once, and he sprawled across the man she’d crippled.