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Ignatius filled his chest and shouted, "Jesu-Maria!" from the bottom of his lungs.
He swung the lance-point forward as he did, bracing his feet in the long stirrups. The curved top of the shield came up under his eyes, the blunt point at the other end reaching down to his foot in the stirrup. The light Eastern quarter horses on either side picked up speed faster than his charger, and they were carrying a lot less weight anyway. But the destrier was seventeen hands tall, and a great deal of that was leg; it caught up quickly and then gained a little with each stride. Riding at this speed over unknown ground in the dark was asking for your horse to break a leg and roll over you when it fell…
But I'm riding towards men who want to kill me anyway, he thought. The Lord God has a sense of humor, eh?
The Boiseans were shouting, USA! USA! as they rode. Figures loomed up out of the night, on foot and horseback, scattering or turning to fight, and the sabers slashed. The long point of the knight's lance took a mounted man in the belly; Ignatius could feel the double crunch-crunch up the ashwood as it speared through the front and back plates of the Cutter's armor.
Impact slammed him back against the high cantle of his war-saddle. Black under starlight, blood shot out of the Cutter's mouth in a spray that wet the cleric's shield and face. The lance broke across in a hard crack; he clubbed the stub of the shaft on a footman's head and then let it drop, sweeping out his cross-hilted sword.
"Jesu-Maria!" he yelled again. Then: "A rescue! A rescue!"
Mathilda Arminger could see the Cutter leader-not the officer in charge of the fighting men, but the one-eyed man named Kuttner-start erect and put a hand on the hilt of his shete. She tensed silently; the troopers hadn't been gratuitously cruel, but they hit the captives if they tried to speak. Beside her Odard turned his head, blinking his eyes… or at least the one that wasn't swollen nearly shut. He'd kept trying to talk longer than she had. Her rage had been a slow-burning fire; now it swelled up, and hunger and thirst and aches dropped away, and even the maddening consciousness of her own filthy itchiness. She was suddenly very glad the enemy hadn't bothered to take her armor, instead of being driven nearly mad by the heat and constriction.
That's arrows! she thought exultantly as she hear the distinctive whssst. Then: Careful. It might be rovers or deserters or bandits.
The Cutters knew her hostage value. Ordinary desert scum wouldn't.
Kuttner's mouth was open to shout when the noise came out of the west; horses in shocked fear, and then men.
"See to it!" he snapped.
The Cutter officer was already moving, whistling sharply for his horse. The superbly trained animal trotted over to its master; he grabbed the horn of the saddle and swung up with a skipping vault as it went by, his feet finding the stirrups. A part of her grudgingly admired the horsemanship; the man's leather-and-mail armor was lighter than a Western knight's panoply, but it was still a formidable display.
Kuttner stayed on his feet, the heavy slightly curved sword that Easterners called a shete-derived from the tool, but lengthened in blade and hilt-in his hand. His one blue eye probed the darkness. From it came the officer's bark:
"There can't be more than five or six of them! Ai! " That was pain, and the voice was tight when it went on: " Get them, you gutless sons of apostate whores! No, don't bother shooting, you idiot-you can't see them! Blades out, swing wide to either side and charge!"
Kuttner's head whipped to the east; there was sound from that direction too, the rumble of hooves building to a gallop, and then a mingled crash and clatter of weapons and a cry of "Jesu-Maria!" and "USA!" And then, even better: "A rescue! A rescue!"
"Kill the prisoners!" the Cutter leader barked, and ran towards the sound.
Mathilda felt ice crawl up her spine and pool like water in her gut. She'd been lying with her legs curled up; now she lashed out with both her feet. They were bound at the ankle, but she had her boots on. They just barely touched the overlapping plates of leather armor that covered the guard's legs like chaps. He hissed in anger and drew his shete, raising it for a chop. Beside him his comrade did likewise.
That was a mistake. Odard had managed to writhe around and get his feet beneath him. The young Baron of Gervais bounced forward like a jack-in-the-box, his mailed shoulder hitting the second man in the side like a football tackle and sending him lurching into the first. That delayed them an instant as they staggered and found their footing again, but they both turned to chop at the young nobleman as he sprawled before them with an involuntary grunt of pain as he crashed to the ground.
That was a mistake, too. A patch of the night seemed to rise behind them, and something flashed through the starlight-a black hardwood dowel, linked to the one in Ritva Havel's right hand by a short length of chain. It whipped around one Cutter's neck with blurring speed; the free handle slapped into her other palm, and she wrenched her crossed wrists apart with explosive force.
The Cutter spasmed as the huge leverage crushed his larynx and snapped his spine like a pecan in a pair of nutcrackers. The shete that flew out of his hand struck Mathilda in the stomach, edge-on, hard enough to hurt even through the titanium mail of her hauberk and the padded gambeson beneath. She grabbed it with both bound hands and cut the rawhide thongs around her boots with one quick upward jerk; it was good steel, and knife-sharp. Then she jammed the flat of the blade between her knees and slipped her wrists over to saw at those bonds.
All that took seconds. That was time enough for the other guard to cut backhanded at Ritva. The broad point of the shete slashed sagebrush from her war cloak, but she was throwing herself backwards in a full summersault as the blow spent itself on air, hitting the toggle of the cloak, and drawing her slender longsword as she did.
"Lacho Calad! Drego Morn!"
The Dunedain war cry split the night: Flame light! Flee night! But half a dozen Cutters were closing in, on horse and on foot.
Mathilda paused just long enough to slash through Odard's bonds; he was wheezing from the awkward impact of his fall, but doggedly trying to get back on his feet. Then she picked up one of the Cutter shields and stepped to put herself back-to-back with Ritva.
"Haro, Portland!" she shouted. "Holy Mary for Portland!"
And Mary help me, I'm as stiff as an arthritic old lady! she thought desperately.
She raised the clumsy, point-heavy shete and tried to ignore the pins and needles in her arms; this one was far too heavy for her wrists, anyway. It wobbled a little despite her best effort, and she whipped it through a figure eight to loosen her cramped arm and shoulder.
"Mary's over trying to save Ingolf's fool neck," Ritva said, and laughed.
"Morrigu!" Rudi shouted, and thrust his bow through the carrying loops on the bandolier that held his quiver. "At them, Mackenzies!"
All two of us, he thought. Three if you count the dog!
He swept out his longsword in the same motion and snatched the buckler with his left hand, making a fist on the grip inside the hollow of the little soup-plate-sized steel shield.
"I've got your back, Chief!" Edain called, and followed as he ran forward, Garbh at his heels growling like millstones.
The Cutters were all looking back over their shoulders at the sound of a second attack from who-knew-where when Rudi ran out of the night, and he thought they were probably wondering whether to shit or go blind. The crucial thing was not to let them get their balance back and their wits about them…
Then he was in among them, and time slowed. Vision flashed and blurred, expanding and shrinking at the same time-threats, blades and bows, and targets, joints and faces, everything else not really seen at all. It was the gift of the Crow Goddess, only to be called upon in extremity.