The Protectors war

Go!

He sprang erect and raced for the low ridge, teeth showing in a mask of dark brown mud that coated him to eye level. Though what I'm supposed to do when I get there: maybe I can take half a dozen with me:

His rush broke through a screen of young willows, the flexible stems beating at him like whips; he held his bow at arm's-length over his head, which put it nine feet up, to keep the string safe. There were the two boats full of savages, not fifty yards away:

Ah. Yes. Bloody hell, that would be ruddy entertaining, wouldn't it, then?

The hippos were between him and the Netherfield Avengers, their backs out of the water where they'd backed up, but their attention firmly on the dangerous, noisy, a

Unless something hurt one of their precious calves. "I hate to do this to the little kiddie, I really do, Mabel. But it's him or me."

Snap.

The arrow flashed out in a long shallow curve and plunged into the right buttock of the nearest hippo calf with a wet smacking sound, like a soaked towel flicked onto a man's back. The little animal opened its broad mouth and screamed as only a three-hundred-pound baby could do when it called to its mother in distress.

Mother weighed four tons. Taken with her sisters she had about the same mass as a medium tank.

The hippos had been resting quietly, their big rounded feet touching lightly on the mud of the river bottom. The sound of the infant's pain, seconds later the scent and taste of its blood through air and water, sent them bellowing and shaking their heads, roaring out their challenge to the world. The savages probably hadn't much noticed the big beasts, with their mind on human prey. Now the shallow-draft boats rocked as they looked around, eyes going wide at the sight of the animals lashing the water into silt-choked foam less than half a bowshot away.

They responded as undisciplined men always would: keyed up for a fight and with weapons in their hands, presented with a fresh danger. At least half a dozen of them drew their bows and shot at the massive weight of enraged aquatic mammal.

"That's right, you dim Herbert, let Mum know who hurt her darling little babykins," Hordle chortled.

The hippos lunged forward, mouths gaping as they headed towards the threat in a torrent of spray and hoarse squealing. The screams of the savages added to the tumult; half of them tried to pole their craft away, while the quicker-witted jumped overboard and swam for it, and a few simply stood and shrieked out their terror.

Behind him the sentry's body pulled loose from the tree and dropped. Nobody noticed, or saw Hordle's tall troll-broad shape as he spun and ran crouching through the trees and brush to his canoe. A heave and two lunging steps brought him into it, paddle driving him towards the locks. He gave a whoop and waved as two smaller shapes darted out of the lockkeeper's house and launched their own. There was no need for words in the quick, hard, coordinated work of getting the canoes over the locks and into the broadening stream below. Half an hour later only an endlessness of reeds surrounded them, waving well above their heads.

"That was inspired, Hordle," Sir Nigel said as they paused in a broader open stretch, and leaned over to shake his hand.

"Just making use of opportunity, sir," Hordle said, gri

Alleyne chuckled. "Got us out of a very sticky spot," he said. "Speaking of which, I think my canoe is sinking. Those arrows, don't you see."

His father gave it a quick look. "We can patch the other two, but this isn't worth salvaging," he said. "I doubt we've seen the last of our friends from Netherfield, either; they seemed far too full of civic spirit to me. Alleyne, you take the bow position in my canoe. We'll redistribute the loads and discard most of the food-weapons and armor are the first priority."

Hordle gave a mock whimper, but joined in tossing the rations overside. Even working hard, fit men could go several days without eating before they lost much strength, and at a pinch they could forage. When the damaged canoe had been stripped, he took a moment to smash a hatchet through the bottom in several places; there was no sense in giving the Brushwood Men a free gift of it.

Sir Nigel looked ahead, to where the tall gray tower of Ely 's cathedral rose above the marshes. "We'll stop there to repair the canoes and take a look about," he said. "I'd like to keep to the levels beyond, but: "

"But probably the river's changed course." Alleyne nodded. "The canals are all above general ground level. Pity Hereward the Wake isn't about when you need him."

Fwwwpt.

The paddles flashed as the first arrow went by, throwing drops of spray in arcs to the sky as the two canoes drove desperately northward through King's Ly

"They're gaining on us!" Hordle said, as the snap of bowstrings came from behind them.

Fwwwpt. Fwwwpt. Fwwwpt. Fwwwpt. Fwwwpt. Fwwwpt.

Nigel bit back a desire to shout: Well, that's ruddy obvious, isn't it, man?

The flight of arrows hit the water of the Great Ouse only a few feet behind them, stuttering in like hail. About twenty of the savages were still on their track, but they had switched to another boat some time ago, one they'd had hidden somewhere. It was a pre-Change hull of some sort, cut down and rerigged for oars, and it was fast. Six long sweeps worked on either side, which let the Netherfield Avengers' chief steer and six of his band shoot. Which they were doing with dismaying frequency and accuracy; their only problem was range, and the rowers were about to solve that.

Nigel's head whipped back and forth as he looked for a spot they could land and make a stand, even as arms and shoulders and breath worked on automatically. Leftward was only flooded rubble with an occasional snag of wall standing, densely overgrown where it wasn't standing water covered in ten-foot reeds. Eastward the old medieval core of the little city still stood, as was often the case- most of it was on a natural levee, above the usual flood line. He could see the bulk of the old Hanseatic warehouse, and beyond it the barley-sugar columns and waterfront tower of Clifton House, which had been used as a lookout for ships in the old days, and the Purfleet Quay jutting out into the river beyond it. Ships sunken or canted at their moorings hid much of the shoreline, and others stood awash in the stream, their upperworks making obstacles the canoes had to dodge with loss of precious time.

Fwwwpt. Fwwwpt. Fwwwpt. Fwwwpt. Fwwwpt. Fwwwpt.

One of the shafts went into the bag of armor ahead of Nigel, a dull chunk sound as it hit a piece of his harness. It would be suitably ironic if one hit him-went through and then stopped against the protection he couldn't wear. The rest fell all about them, plunking into the turgid water of the river and floating away head-down with their draggled flight-feathers bobbing uppermost.

"There!" he called. "Head in for the quay. We'll make a stand in the customshouse tower."

In fact, we'll be shot down like dogs well short of there, but one has to try, he thought, as he bent to the paddling. What an end for the Lorings! Killed by swamp ca