Страница 106 из 120
A man rode down to meet them, though he stopped well within bowshot of his own position.
"Hau kola," Graber said, raising his right hand in the peace gesture as he drew rein.
The Indian was a dark middle-aged man, muscular and heavy-featured, with a little gray in his braids; a full-blood from his looks. He wore a steel helmet with bison horns and fur, and a fox pelt over his colorful war-shirt. There were scalp-locks down the seams of the arms, more than was comfortable to contemplate; he'd have fought in the long indecisive struggle between the Church and his nation.
He didn't return the gesture, or speak at all.
Bad, Graber knew. But, then, I expected that.
"We're here after some fugitives, itancan Red Leaf," Graber said, guessing at his rank and remembering the briefing files. "Under the Treaty of Newcastle, the Lakota tunwan agreed not to harbor refugees from our territory or to hinder our recapture of such criminals."
The black eyes were chill as they rested on him. "Under the Treaty of Newcastle, the Church Universal and Triumphant agreed to recognize our sovereignty. Last time I looked, sovereign nations didn't have to let other countries send troops onto their soil uninvited. You invade us, the war starts up again-and from what I hear, you folks are busy out West."
Damn those rebels to the Void! Graber thought.
"These criminals are under the personal ban of the Prophet," Graber said softly.
"Remind me why I should care what the Crackpot of Corwin thinks."
Graber felt himself flush at the blasphemy; rage came off the Seeker like heat from a closed stove in winter.
"You deny that there were fugitives here?" Graber said, his voice still flatly unemotional.
"Nobody here but my relatives," the Indian said, baring his teeth.
"He speaks truth, but with intent to deceive," Seeker Dalan said. Then: "There! There!"
He pointed north and east. The impassive face of the Sioux didn't move… but Graber was experienced at reading men's eyes. Their lips lied, speaking or smiling, but the pupils never.
"We will pursue," he said. To Red Leaf: "Don't get in our way, and none of your people need be hurt."
The Sioux leader raised his hand, and his folk began to draw their bows. Graber smiled thinly, and raised his own left hand-despite the savage twinge of pain that shot into the joint. The long formation broke into motion again, advancing and reaching over their shoulders for arrows in a sinuous unison like a tiger uncoiling from sleep.
"I have two hundred men, itancan," he said. "We outnumber you four to one, and my men are in full armor. If you fight me at close quarters like this, I will lose perhaps twenty dead, including any too seriously wounded to ride. We will kill you all, and it will take less than ten minutes. Then we kill all the women and children in this hunting camp. Then we will proceed on our mission."
"None of you would leave Lakota territory alive!"
"Words ca
A boast would have rung false; the Indian was no fool. Graber's eyes never left his. After a moment, the Sword commander nodded curtly and reined his horse around.
It will take them some time to assemble a war-party that outnumbers us sufficiently. We have that long.
He remembered blue-gray eyes looking into his, and a pleasant lilting voice speaking:
It is easy to kill. Any fool can do it.
"Shite," Rudi said in exasperation.
Maybe it wasn't a good idea to stop long enough to put the gear on pack-saddles, he thought. But if we'd kept the cart, they'd be a lot closer. And we're going to need that equipment, later.
The sun was well up now; his binoculars showed the wink of its light on lance-heads southeastward. Far too many of them and far too regular to be Sioux; and besides, the Lakota didn't use nine-foot lances or russet-colored armor, as far as he knew.
But the Sword of the Prophet do, the creatures.
Ritva rode towards them and reined in, pointing eastward in the direction she'd come. "The buffalo are there, Rudi. You would not believe how many. But…"
"But?"
"They're moving north, and picking up speed. It looks like something spooked them. We'd better hurry if we want to get across the front of them-if we don't, we'll have to wait on this side. It is definitely impossible to get through that herd while they're moving."
"Shite," Rudi swore again, this time with more feeling.
He couldn't see them yet, but he thought there was a haze of dust in that direction. And even when the ground looked as tabletop flat as it did here, he'd learned that distances were deceptive-the slightest roll or fall of the ground could hide anything shorter than a hill even if it was only a few miles off.
"No," Three Bears said. "It's good. If we can get across the herd before the Cutters catch up, I mean. It'll take hours-maybe a whole day-for them to pass. If we're on the other side, we might as well have mountains in between."
Ritva nodded vigorously.
"Then go," Rudi said. "Ingolf, you and Mary take lead. Three Bears and I will bring up the rear; we're the best mounted archers. Now."
The Easterner nodded grimly and legged his horse up to a hand gallop.
Rudi wished briefly that he had time to switch to Epona, but he'd been riding one of the remounts to spare her. It was a good beast, but not quite fifteen hands-and even riding in kilt and shirt, he was a little heavy for it. It was sweating already, the musky scent strong under the dust and crushed grass of their passage. Usually being six-two and built like a cougar was an advantage, but sometimes…
Three Bears cut out two more for them as the remount herd went by, with Edain and Virginia and Fred driving them forward. The pack-saddles some of them carried had only about half a rider's weight and wouldn't slow them much.
Ahead, Ingolf signaled and the travelers turned sharply east of north, moving in a compact mass with the remuda of remounts in the middle. Rudi shifted his balance forward, and the well-trained animal stretched its legs, head beating up and down as if to set the pace. He looked over his shoulder, and the enemy were visible to the naked eye; as he watched the ant-tiny dots seemed to swarm, and then some of them were pulling out ahead of the others.
"How many do you make it?" Rudi called over the rising rumble of the hoofbeats, as a covey of quail burst from the grass ahead of him; he gentled the horse instinctively as it started.
"Ten or fifteen pulling away from the others," Three Bears said, nodding at Rudi with his brown braids flying in the wind of their passage.
They'd both had the same thought: the Cutters knew they couldn't catch the smaller, better-mounted group all at once. Two hundred mounted men could only proceed at the speed of the slowest mounts, and in a group that size there would always be some slugs, especially if they'd been taking horses where they could get them. So they'd sent their best riders and beasts on ahead, to push their quarry into tiring their horses.
"It's going to be close!" Rudi shouted back.
The Indian gri
"Kye-eee-kye!" he screamed. "Hoo'hay, hoo'hay! The sun shines on the hawk and on the quarry!"
Rudi bared his teeth too; he wasn't an oldster yet, either, and the Clan wasn't shy of a fight, and it was a bright summer's day with a good horse beneath him. His spirits lifted, seeming to fly with the long stride of the valiant mount between his legs. He added the saw-edged wailing ululation that Mackenzies took into battle.
Then he settled down to coaxing as much speed as he could out of the horse, short of the all-out dash that would set its lungs foaming out. The Cutters were pushing theirs to the uttermost; they could fall back and let others take up the sprint if they had to. And the buffalo herd was just coming into sight eastward.