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"Back to the doors!" Astrid called, in a voice like a trumpet. "Quickly!"
The Dunedain bows began to snap; the archers were backing up themselves, shooting as fast as they could draw shafts from their quivers and loose. A guardsman went down with an arrow through his face; there was a tunk! as another punched through a breastplate. The glaive clattered on the floor as its wielder went down on all fours, coughing out blood and bits of lung. The green-uniformed Boise men had closed in around their President in a flicker of blades; then he shouldered his way through with his saber out and led them to the attack, a reckless white smile splitting his brown face.
BD ducked behind one of the Rangers. The man fell an instant later when Thurston's curved sword bit through the mail beneath his jerkin, cutting the great muscle of the shoulder and breaking the bone with a greenstick snap that made her feel as if someone had run a copper pick along all the surfaces of her teeth painfully hard. Alleyne Loring stepped into the gap, and they were at each other in a rage of steel.
BD fell as well, then set her teeth and reached out to grab the fallen man and drag him backwards. Pain shot through her back; Estrellita Peters had kicked her just above the base of the spine and leapt over her, and her sons followed her, lost in the not-so-miniature riot.
Turnabout's fair play, BD thought, and set herself to crawl and pull the wounded man again.
That gave her a view through a momentary gap. The red robes and blue uniforms of the Church Universal and Triumphant had closed around their leader too, though they hadn't been allowed weapons. She could see him behind them; he was standing with arms raised and spread wide, on wide-planted feet, and his mouth was stretched in what might be a smile-it bared his teeth, at least, and there was a joy in it that made her want to close her eyes and beat her face against the hard tile of the floor in an effort to scrub the memory out of her head.
His eyes were an ordinary brown, but she could see something surfacing there, like a dead body floating up towards the surface.. . an absence, an un-meaning…
His hands swept closed on the head of the cowboy she'd heard called George. As they did the young man's expression became a mirror of that on the face of the Cutter prophet leering over his shoulder.
"Kill," Sethaz said again, and it was no louder than an ordinary speaking voice, but it seemed to echo back and forth within her skull.
The young man gri
"Look out!" BD shouted, trying to move away on the blood-slippery tile and pull the man with her.
The sound was lost in the uproar, but a Dunedain arrow struck the young man in the shoulder. The arrow sank deeply; it was a powerful bow, and close. His lean body recoiled with the impact, flexing loosely; then he reached up and pulled the arrow out and threw it away, advancing with that same fixed grin. John Hordle stepped forward. The great blade of his sword spun up and around and down in a hissing loop, lost in the guttural roar that split his face beneath the thatch of bristling dyed hair.
George moved aside, just enough, and the greatsword sliced empty air and smashed into tile with a crackle and a shower of sparks as it pierced to the lime-rich concrete beneath. His fist lashed out and caught Hordle beneath the short ribs, and the big man's breath came out in an agonized huff!
Then he was past, and Astrid came at him in a lunge, fluid and smooth and so fast she seemed to stretch rather than move, with the round shield she carried hugged impeccably against her.
The young man's hands slapped together, and the blade of the longsword was imprisoned between them. Astrid Larsson froze, her silver-veined eyes going wide, and the hands jerked forward, punching the hilt of her sword out of her hands and into her forehead.
The thock resounded even through the white noise of riot. The sword clattered on the tile floor near BD's nose, the shimmering water-patterned steel flexing as it jumped and whined and fell back again. One of George's hands flashed out and caught Astrid by the throat as she began to crumple. The other clamped down on the top of the woman's head, ready to twist… and BD recognized the gesture. She'd killed hundreds of chickens that way herself, these past twenty years and more, and before then in Mexico when she was a girl.
The balisong was in her hand again. She reared up on one elbow and sliced at the back of the young man's knee. The finger-length blade was honed to a wire edge; it slid through denim and flesh and with only a little tick of extra effort when it cut the tendon. George howled, a sound of bestial frustration rather than pain, and lurched before his other leg could adjust to carry his weight. Hordle was turning even as he did, and the blade spun-horizontally this time, from left to right across the other man's shoulders. The head came free, and fell beside her.
BD looked into the dead man's eyes. And they looked back at her; his mouth was still gri
I'm going to faint dead away, for the first time in my life, she thought with a curious detachment, and did.
"No," Sethaz said. "Do not waste more men down that tu
Thurston of Boise gave him an odd look, a single nod, and then turned to stride away, issuing orders to the men around him even as he did.
Estrellita Peters stood before him, flanked by guardsmen and with her hand resting on the shoulder of her eldest son. Behind them servants were clearing away the ruins of the Bossman's feast. She swallowed and met the Prophet's gaze for a moment before she shifted her eyes to look over his head. Her voice was still calm as she spoke:
"The thanks of my family and Pendleton to you, my lord Prophet. My husband has been abducted by these vicious bandits, but at least you saved me and my sons from captivity. In the future, you and yours may carry weapons here as you please."
Sethaz smiled, a wryly charming expression. "For the present, Dona Peters, we'll be wielding our weapons outside the walls, against your enemies."
She nodded. Her son spoke, eagerness on his seventeen-year-old face.
"Your man was so brave, and so quick and strong! He defeated the head of the Rangers, and knocked down John Hordle! The truth you teach must have much in it, if you can inspire men so!"
The Bossman's wife gave her son a warning squeeze, and he cleared his throat and extended his hand. Sethaz took it in both of his, a firm shake:
"Thank you for rescuing me and my mother."
"Your mother did a good deal to rescue herself," Sethaz said, looking into the dark young eyes. "We will speak more of such matters later, Mr. Peters."
And a whisper, felt along the edges of his mind: I-see-you.
TheScourgeofGod