The Scourge of God

The young Sioux tried to leap clear, and almost made it. At the last instant his foot caught a little in the stirrup, just enough to slam him down beside his mount and send him rolling. The lioness landed on the pony, her paws gripping its head as her jaws closed on its throat by reflex in the throttling bite that the big cats always used on their larger prey.

Epona wore no bit; and even now, she responded to Rudi's urgent hands on the hackamore and reins, rearing to a halt. Rudi leapt to the ground; it thudded up through his boot-heels, but he kept his footing in a bounding lope that slowed to a halt just by the bruised, bleeding form of Rick Three Bears. A snatch, and the Indian was over his shoulder.

He turned. The lioness had both forefeet on the dead pony not fifteen feet away. And it was snarling at Epona, showing teeth like yellow-ivory daggers, its face wrinkled into a bloodied mask of ferocity. Rudi whistled, and the great black horse turned and trotted towards him. That apparent flight triggered the big cat's reflex, and it sprang.

Epona's head was over her shoulder, and her hind feet lashed out with precisely calculated force. The cat's spring turned into a tumble as it saw the paired horseshoes moving, but even its speed could only turn it sideways in time to receive the massive thump of impact. The big predator flew squalling, landed with another thump, and began to limp away with one foreleg held up against her breast, and no further interest in the fracas except to get as far away from it as she could.

Rudi fought down an almost hysterical laugh as Epona floated towards him, head and tail high, feet tapping out puffs of dust as they touched down, and pride glowing from every line of her. He heaved the younger man's limp form over the saddle and ran on, holding on to the stirrup leather to steady himself-even for someone of his size and long legs, ru

Red Leaf was waiting for him; his wild-eyed horse made a final circle against the ruthless pressure of the reins and then submitted.

"Look! Look!" he shouted after one swift glance at his son, pointing eastward. "The cavalry!"

Rudi looked. Seventy Lakota were pouring down into the hollow. Foam from the mounts' dripping jaws coated their forequarters and the legs of the riders, but shetes and spears and bows waved in the warriors' hands. The cowboys and the lions seemed to pause for an instant, then fled in all directions, like a spatter of water on waxed leather. The rescue party was in no condition to pursue; as Rudi watched and panted like a bellows against the constriction of his armor one of their horses went down by the hindquarters in a limp collapse.

Sure, and I feel like doing the same, Rudi thought, leaning against Epona and panting like a dog.

"The cavalry to the rescue!" Red Leaf said, as he lifted his son down from the saddle, pulled the stopper from his water bottle with his teeth and held it to the young man's mouth.

Then: "Well, sorta."

Rudi nodded, wheezing. My own folk? he asked himself.

A quick survey showed them all-except Edain, but the mule cart was small in the distance by now, and it would keep going until the mules recovered their nerves or dropped dead. He closed his eyes for a long moment, then pulled his canteen from Epona's saddlebow; he took off his helmet, filled it, held it for the mare's slobbering muzzle and then rinsed out his mouth with the last swallows. There was blood in his mouth from a place where he'd cut the inside on his teeth, an injury he hadn't noticed until now.

Now it stung like fire under the salt-iron taste, and he probed gingerly at it with his tongue. Luckily the teeth all seemed in order; he doubted there were any first-rate dentists within reach.

As he looked up Virginia Kane came to them; Fred Thurston was by her side, looking at her a little oddly. He saw why when she held up a dripping scalp of her own; it was one shade lighter than her sun-streaked auburn-brown locks.

"Vince Rickover," she said with satisfaction. "Guess he's goin' to be along to protect me after all."

She looked at the bloody lock of hair. "Leastways, part of him will be."

Rudi blinked. Remind me never to press an unwelcome suit with this one! he thought.

Just then Mathilda came up. Their eyes met, and they both smiled. He would have laughed, but his mouth hurt too much.

Then: "What's that?" he blurted, looking down at the squirming bundle in Mathilda's arms.

Epona looked at it too, and bared her eyeteeth, rolling a great dark eye and sidling a little, snorting through wide red nostrils.

"Stop that, you big baby," Mathilda said to her. "It's just a kitten."

Then she held up the cub, all head and eyes and huge paws absurdly disproportioned to its gangly little body. "Isn't it adorable?"

The three-week infant turned and tried to sink its needle fangs into her hand, then recoiled when they met armor.

"Good thing you've got a first-rate pair of mail-gloves, moi breagha," Rudi said.

Suddenly he needed to sit, but… he looked around.

Is there a spot nearby without bodies on it, or at least blood?

TheScourgeofGod

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Dead cities cry laments

For children grown strange

For a world that died in birthing

Children it could never know;

Beneath the winter's grass

New blossoms wild and fair From: The Song of Bear and Raven

Attributed to Fiorbhi

"Wake up, people! Get up and wash your bodies, drink a lot of water, make your blood thin and healthy!"

The crier was shouting at the top of his lungs and beating on an iron triangle as he walked; now and then someone would stick their head out of a tent and shout back at him, usually something unfriendly and sometimes involving invitations to do things with horses, sheep or his mother. Rudi Mackenzie woke, yawned and stretched beneath the comforting buffalo-robe. Most of the aches and scrapes from yesterday's ru

The welcome was nearly as strenuous as the fight! he thought.

It flickered through his memory in bright shards; the great ring of fires, the excited crowds pushing forward to hear Red Leaf's impassioned description of the action, the discordant wailing from the womenfolk of the fallen in the background. Louder chanting and nasal song from the throng, drums throbbing, cheers around him as the victors showed their captured horses and weapons and the grisly personal trophies and boasted of their deeds.

And then Red Leaf had gotten to the part where Rudi beat the Cutter officer and saved Three Bears from the lion: hands lifting him out of the saddle, pounding him on the back, pulling him into the whooping, whirling, stamping, screeching, leaping delirium of the scalp-and-victory dance, until he could scarcely stagger to his bed.

He sat up and ran his hands through his hair as the crier outside called his message again, winced as he hit a tangle, then searched for his comb. The tent where he and the other men of the party had been put up was something new; he'd expected tipis, and there had been a few in the encampment, some of them huge. But most of the dwellings were like this one, a round barrel shape twenty feet across on a wheeled platform, the walls five feet tall and topped by a conical roof rising a little higher than Rudi's head in the center. The structure was an interlaced pattern of thin withes crossing one another in a diamond pattern and lashed together with thongs; the outside was covered in neatly sewn hides treated with some sort of glaze to make them waterproof, and from the look of it the interior could take a quilted lining as well in cold weather. The floor was plywood covered in rugs.