Sunrise Lands

"Uh oh," he said, looking slightly off to the right. "Look there, where the road turns east, north of the hills. Right on the way we have to go."

Everyone did. Ingolf's eyes were the next keenest. "Looks like horsemen. Say five or six."

"There's a well there, according to the old maps," Father Ignatius said.

"Getting right up their ass without their noticing was a long shot," Odard said in a resigned tone.

Rudi's lips thi

"Bet you they don't notice who we are for a while," Ingolf said.

"We certainly don't look much like Rovers!" Rudi said, with a toss of his helmet to indicate their armor-clad bodies and big steel-barded horses.

Ingolf gri

The Rovers were watering their horses; at first they just glanced up. It wasn't until they were within a hundred yards that the first of them pointed and yelled.

Then they leapt into the saddle, reining around and spattering every which way, shooting as they went. Arrows went by with nasty vvvvvwpt sounds; one ticked off the curved surface of Rudi's sallet, a painful whack even with steel and padding between it and his scalp. Several of the Rovers rode right back east towards the main gang; the others just headed anywhere that wasn't blocked off by hills. The quarter-horse mounts they all rode had acceleration like jackrabbits, and they left trails of dust with a speed the bigger western horses couldn't match. Rudi shifted his weight backward and Epona-after a moment's reluctance-slowed.

Ingolf had an arrow sticking out of his brigandine. He pulled it free and looked at the bent point with an expression of mild interest that Rudi had to admire.

"I think it popped a rivet," he said. "There's something to this sandwich armor you folks make. I don't think my old mail shirt would have stopped it nearly so well."

"It's a good thing it was long-range, even so," Rudi said.

Ingolf nodded, then called loudly, so that everyone could hear: "Keep it down to a canter. If your horse gets blown you're dead."

Rudi nodded in turn; he was relieved that nobody in their party had been hurt, or wounded beyond the bruise-and-scratch level. But even the best harness didn't always stop a hard-driven shaft. If the arrow that had banged off his helmet had been three inches to the right it would have punched on through his face and the brain behind it, and he'd have been riding with the Dread Lord on his way to the Summerlands.

Another mile and they could see the ruins of the old Whitehorse Ranch and the wagon laager there. Just north of it the Seffridge Ranch men were skirmishing with the Rovers; the distant twinkle of arrows went flicking through the clouds of dust, and then the longer flash of bared steel as saber and shete and ax swung. War cries came faint with distance, the catamount shrieks of the Rovers and the yipping, whoops and barking, "CORA! CORA!" of the rancher's men.

"Looks like the cowboys are retreating," Ingolf said. "Yeah, the Rovers're trying to work around their flanks."

Then the scene changed in an instant; most of the enemy pulled out and galloped southwest towards Ru di's party, warned by the dust plumes and the fugitives from the skirmish at the well. Their rush was led by a standard of two horsetails on a pole. It fluttered in the wind, streaming out with the speed of the sudden at tack. A few remained behind to hold the rear guard as Rancher Brown's retainers went forward in turn.

"Things certainly change fast in a fight out here," Rudi said, proud that his voice held nothing but interest.

"Yeah," Ingolf said, and his mouth quirked up at the corner. "I remember being surprised about that myself. Richland's like your home territory-lots of trees and ridges and such. But the Red River country is more like this-well, flatter and with grass instead of sagebrush, but the principle's the same, you know? There's usually room to run away… but not the way we've arranged it."

Rudi nodded. Right, he thought, taking in the field of battle. Between those people in the laager, the hill behind it, us, and Bob's men, we're three sides of a triangle and they can't get out, just like we pla

"Good," Ingolf said on his left. "Got 'em boxed."

"It spares our horses if they come to us, too," Mathilda agreed.

Only an experienced ear-and a young, keen one-could have picked their voices out of the rumble and clank, creak of leather and rustling chinking clatter of harness, and through the steel and liner of the helm and coif.

Of course, there is one thing… Rudi thought, and then spoke aloud:

"Of course, we've got people who outnumber us four to one boxed." He gri

Someone male wearing a coif with a flap covering the lower face-which meant Odard-answered: "Well, that's why you have a fight, isn't it? To find out what the hell can go wrong."

Rudi ignored that and went on, louder: "Canter until we're just out of bow range; then hit them hard."

Epona had a good smooth rocking-horse motion in a canter, not like some horses that could pound your guts loose with it. He tugged at the strap that held his round shield over his back, brought it around and slid his left forearm into the loops. Then he reached back with his right hand and lifted his lance out of the tubular leather socket, holding it loosely with the point well up; the tapering length of ashwood surged and dipped with the motion of the pace and the streamer fastened below the point began to thutter and snap. Epona tossed her head and snorted again; he could see the great red pits of her nostrils flare through the holes in the chamfron, and she mouthed in eagerness, a little foaming slobber ru

Closer, closer…

The Rovers in front rose in their stirrups and drew, those who still had arrows in their quivers. The rest waved their blades and screeched; it made a blinking ripple along their line as the whetted metal caught the sun. Dust smoked behind them in a cloud that hid every thing beyond. They came on fast, to ride over this little band of strangers they outnumbered so greatly, to cut them into hacked meat and return to the real fight with the enemy they knew.

"Morrigu! Morrigu! Charge! " Rudi shouted.

He'd inherited a baritone version of his mother's voice, and the belling shout carried through the noise of hooves and harness effortlessly as the band responded. In the next instant he used the edge of his shield to snap his visor down.

"Morrigu!"

Black wings vaster than worlds beat at the corners of vision for a moment, and he heard a song like the slow implacable strength of glaciers that grinds rock to dust. The sunlit plain with its sagebrush and patches of white alkali vanished into a world of gloom, lit only by the bright strip of vision through the slit.

His voice sounded like something in a bucket now, lost in the thundering rumble as the horses rocked forward into a gallop. He brought his shield around to cover his body between the rim of his visor and the metal shod arch of his saddlebow. Epona was the fastest here, even if she was carrying more weight than some; lance points came down on either side of him, pe

Arrows flickered by, half seen. One banged off the chamfron over Epona's face, startling a snort out of her. Another slammed into his shield, punching through the sheet-metal cover and standing humming in the double thickness of bullhide and plywood beneath. It rocked him back in the saddle for an instant, and felt like a sharp rap with a hammer. The evil quiver of it ran into his hand through the grip.