The Protectors war

Aoife Barstow was three yards away. She gave an eerie wail as she saw her foster brother die, and leapt. Even then Juniper's eyes went a little wide as she landed crouching, grabbed the knight's stirrup leather, and let the savage jerk of the horse's speed add to her next jump. The young woman flowed upward, pivoting as she rose, the kilt falling back from her long slender legs as her booted heels drove into the side of the rider's head. The knight tried to club at her with the stump of the broken lance, but that and the shield and the sudden violent shying of his horse hampered him; all three went over sideways in a tangle of limbs and screams and the endless banshee shrieking of the Mackenzie woman.

Aoife landed uppermost, riding the tangle down as fourteen hundred pounds of horseflesh and gear crashed across the knight's leg and ground it into the dirt. He lost all interest in his assailant as bone and flesh pulped inside his armor and the horse thrashed in convulsions. The short sword flashed as she grabbed the nasal of his helmet and used it to lever his head back for a slash across the throat. Then she drove the blade down with short chopping strokes. As the three surviving knights reined in and around-you couldn't stop nearly a ton of armor and horseflesh quickly-she rose with the dripping head dangling by its hair in one hand and red sword gripped in the other. She waved both aloft, the red-and-white wolf mouth painted on her skin no more grisly than the contorted shrieking face beneath.

That checked even hardy fighting-men for an instant. Long enough to hide what poured out of the woods behind them:

"Down!" Juniper shouted, with all the power of her lungs.

Aoife Barstow ignored her, lost in an ecstasy of fury, the embrace of something beyond men and men's concerns. Her brother tackled her behind the knees, rolling away instantly to dodge the reflexive chop of her sword. Juniper saw it out of the corner of her eye. Most of her attention was on the twoscore Mackenzies dashing forward out of their hiding place in the brushwood at the forest's edge, Eilir and Astrid and the Clan's green-and-silver ba

Yikes! Juniper thought.

Any haven in a storm; she rolled and grabbed at the shield of the knight she'd killed, pulling it over her and curling herself into as tight a ball as she could. She squeezed her eyes shut as well; there was nobody she had to show brave for right here and now, and at least she wouldn't have to see death coming if someone overshot. Which was more than likely, with forty archers dropping shafts at an area target a hundred and fifty yards away from their position.

A rising whistle split the air, and another, and another. Someone did overshoot, and a long arrow fletched with gray-goose feathers went shhhunk! into the ground ten feet away. Underneath the hiss of cloven air came screams of men and horses, and a sound like a brief spate of hail on the shakes of a roof. Juniper threw aside the shield and rose; the knights were a kicking mass of flesh that bristled with shafts. The oncoming Mackenzies flowed over them; dirks flashed in mercy-strokes for man and beast.

Another shout brought her head around. The two riders who'd been behind the knights had drawn their swords and were charging themselves, their whoops oddly shrill. They were in man-at-arms' armor, but:

Those horses are lovely, but they're thirteen hands at most, hardly more than ponies for size. One's Arab, the other's an Appaloosa, and even so the riders look too small "Rowan!" she called, a prickle at the back of her mind prompting her. "Alive, if you can! I don't think those are fighting men at all! They're kids!"

He shrugged and nodded, thrusting his bow through the loops, drawing his battle-ax from the set on the other side of his quiver and flicking the leather guard off the edge with a quick snap of his wrists. The first rider had Baron Molalla's blazon, unquartered; he leaned forward with his sword point presented as his horse galloped. Rowan crouched slightly, then let one knee relax as the horse thundered down on him. That pushed him to the side with a swooping gracefulness; he turned it into a whirl like a hammer thrower at the Beltane games, with his long arms out and the four-foot shaft of his ax at the end of them. The slender horse screamed as the broad cutting edge flashed through its hamstring with no more effort than a kitchen knife jointing a chicken, and the beast went over and cast its rider free. The horse thrashed, ululating its pain; Rowan frowned and approached it carefully, murmuring an apology as he swung the ax twice-once with the hammer side, to stun, and then with the blade to kill.

The armored rider had managed to shed his shield and land well, but he had only begun to rise when Rowan kicked his arms out from under him and planted a boot between his shoulder blades.

"Naughty!" the big blacksmith said, leaning his ax down to pin the other's sword and watching with mild curiosity as his sister faced the other horseman.

She knelt, buckler in her left hand, the other holding her battle spear-but parallel to the ground, the butt braced under the instep of her right foot, the head only a few inches from the ground and hidden in the long grass. Even if the rider was a child, the mount was far too much weight in rapid motion to take lightly.

Horses were deeply stupid compared to anything except sheep, but they had a lively sense of self-preservation and save in a blind panic would not run onto a point. They swerved at the last moment instead, swerved slightly if well-trained, and then a mounted swordsman could strike from above, inside the longer weapon's reach; that was why it took a whole hedge of polearms to stop cavalry.

But a horse would not shy from a spearpoint it couldn't see coming. That was where the stupidity came in handy if you didn't have a few dozen friends on either side.

Cynthia jerked the ashwood spear haft up with savage precision, presenting the point at breast-height when the lovely little Appaloosa was only two strides away. The sharp foot-long blade knifed into its chest, the weight driving the butt deep into the dirt and slewing sideways as it made a frantic last-second attempt to dodge with the steel already in it. That left the strong wood braced between the immovable earth and the nearly irresistible weight that even a modestly sized horse galloping full-tilt represented.

It was two feet deep in the bone and gristle of the horse's brisket, and the strain was immense. The snap of its cracking was like nothing Juniper had heard since the Change, ear-hurting loud. The four-foot stub of the shaft blurred sideways and struck Cynthia in the side of her brigandine, knocking her half a dozen paces through the air to sprawl groaning. The horse hit the ground limp, its neck cracking as it tumbled head over heels. The slim rider landed rolling as well, lying stu

She moved over to him when a glance showed Cynthia conscious, and paused beside the wounded horse. The legs weren't moving but it still breathed, chest going like a bellows; frothy blood poured out of the nostrils and the great wound in its chest, and the big dark eyes swiveled to look at her, pleading with her to make it better.

Juniper drew her dirk. "Forgive me, beautiful sister," she said quietly, going down on one knee. "Forgive humankind for making you party to our quarrels. All I can give you is a swift end to pain. Dread Lord, take her home to the sweet meadows of the Summerlands. Epona, Lady of the Horses, let her run free with the living wind."

As she spoke she pulled a cloth free from her belt pouch and threw it over the mare's eyes so that she couldn't see the sharp steel, then pressed the point home and twisted expertly. The horse gave a long shuddering twitch, kicked and went limp.