The Protectors war

"Ambulance wagon's about a quarter-mile back," Hut-ton said, and made a motion to his signaler. The young man put the trumpet to his lips and blew a complex pattern.

Havel went on: "Then throw out a screen and tell Arminger's men to get the hell out. If they come at you, skirmish and fall back. Eric, Lua

He turned to Nigel Loring. "My name's Mike Havel. Aka Lord Bear around here. Also no friend of the Protector, as you've probably heard. I knew there were some Australians or Englishmen in Portland, but: later! I was doing some bandit-ambushing when you showed up-" : and nearly got me killed by delaying Will:

"-but I'd rather not restart my war with the Protectorate just now. I do offer sanctuary; we don't extradite fugitives from that bunch. My men'll keep Arminger's busy, and sure you're still ru

Loring looked at him steadily for an instant, then nodded with a brisk decisive gesture.

"Sanctuary: will be very welcome. Lead on, Lord Bear."

He was evidently making a snap judgment on Havel 's character as well. His followers had all been waiting for that small gesture; the big longbowman grabbed the bridle of a horse whose bandit owner would never need it again and swung into the saddle. The knight and his son fell in behind Havel, and the Bearkiller leader waved.

"They went thataway," he said, pointing to the clump of woods a bowshot distant to the northeast. "Follow me!"

Will Hutton stood in his stirrups and chopped a hand forward. The Bearkiller troop rode northward, swinging out to make a single line across the road and the fields on either side. That kept their pace down to a canter, which was just as well; the Protectorate force ahead was coming on at a round trot, in column of fours, a massive rumble of hooves and rustling clatter of equipment and bristle of lances, with a few mounted crossbowmen out in front. Those turned back when they saw the Bearkiller, and the column of men-at-arms writhed for a moment and began to shake out into a two-deep line about two-thirds the width of his. There were more than thirty of them, all well mounted; he stood in the stirrups and used his binoculars. The big kite-shaped shields were matte-black with the Lid-less Eye, not quartered with a baron's blazon-the Protector's household troops, then. Beyond them the ground dipped a little, but he could see sunlight breaking on edged metal there, too; probably infantry coming up at the double, but quite a bit behind.

"Halt!" Hutton said, swinging his fist up. Then: "Wings forward! Extend to the west!"

The formation shifted, each end thrown north, the one to his left stretching further and a pair of the riders from the right trotting over to join it. The shorter wing to his right was anchored on Palmer Creek; a steep bare bank ru

The Protector's horsemen were coming towards him in a line centered on the road, but it was a line that rode deeper into an unequal-armed V every moment.

They're getting uneasy about it, too, he thought, gri

The enemy formation slowed an instant or two before their commander signaled a halt about two hundred and fifty yards away, the limit of practical archery. He rode forward a little with his trumpeter at his side; Hutton tightened his thighs to move his mount out from his own formation. At that signal of mutual intent to talk they both trotted forward to meet midway between the two war bands.

The Protector's man halted his mount without needing to use the reins; Hutton nodded slightly in acknowledgment, and glanced approvingly at the big glossy black animal. They both removed their helmets and propped them on their saddlebows, another bit of the etiquette that had grown up over such matters in the last few years. Arminger's commander was in his late twenties, around six feet tall and broad-shouldered, with the hard muscular look anyone got if they trained every day in armor. His face was harder still, high-cheeked and snub-nosed; his corn-colored hair was cropped closer than a crew cut over the area behind his ears, and a few inches longer forward of that. That was the fashion among the Protectorate's military elite; it looked deeply silly as far as Hutton was concerned, but it helped prompt his memory.

Alexi Stavarov's boy, he thought silently. Then: "Lord Piotr."

Alexi had been one of Arminger's original backers in Portland just after the Change, according to Signe's research; if he wasn't second-in-command it was because the Protector was careful to keep the power structure of his realm at the level just below himself full of bickering rivals competing for his favor, without any clear chain of command. What the arrangement lacked in efficiency, it more than made up for in security. At least from the Protector's point of view, and Hutton thoroughly approved from his own.

The odds are long enough, without them gettin' their shit together, he thought, waiting with raised brows. Take your time, Russkie-boy, take your time. Time is my friend.

"Lord William," Stavarov replied, equally polite. "Might I ask why you're blocking the road?"

"Might be I could ask what you're doing on this road, Piotr Alexandrovitch?" Hutton said. "Wouldn't be thinkin' of crossing our border, would you?"

Piotr Stavarov flushed; he was fair enough that it showed despite an outdoorsman's weathered tan. "This is Protectorate territory," he snapped. "It's a long walk to your border. We're patrolling. You are trespassing."

"Don't see any of your people on the ground hereabouts," Hutton pointed out. "And we're here because we're hunting bandits. So you don't patrol it, or not enough to keep road agents down. Seems to me your claim is sort of mostly talk."

"We're pursuing dangerous criminals ourselves," Stavarov replied. "Are you assisting them deliberately? Because standing in our way makes it more likely that they will escape."

Which was brass, if you liked, since his father had been a smuggler, drug ru

Hutton spread his gauntleted hands. "You folks and us, we've got different ideas of what a dangerous criminal amounts to," he pointed out. "That's why we don't have no extradition treaty with y'all."

Stavarov opened his mouth, then visibly realized that argument would be playing into Hutton's hands; with every second the fugitives he sought were that much farther away.

"Get out of our way or we'll kick you out of it,^: ' he snarled, and reined his horse around, spurring back to his own men at a gallop.

Hutton gri

Around two o'clock; say they think the people they're chasing are moving at ten miles an hour:

"Bows out and ready," he said to his own trumpeter. "One shaft, then Parthian retreat. And pass the word, aim at the horses when you can-but hit the men if you have to."

That took only a few seconds; Hutton gri