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She reached behind her shoulder for another arrow. Her hand froze. Trumpets wailed behind the Protectorate line. The blocks of spearmen halted; then they began to walk backward; she could hear file-closers and sergeants counting cadence, their voices harsh and loud enough to carry through distance and racket, keeping the ranks solid and the shields up for their lives' sake. For the arrows did not stop, and the trail of bodies they'd left coming south was added to as they went north.
Juniper lowered her bow, panting; her shooting was more of a symbol than anything else, to show her clansfolk the Chief was with them. She was as accurate as most, and quick. But the heaviest weapon she could draw was barely within the minimum set for marching with the levy, a good deal lighter than Eilir's eighty-pound mankiller, and nothing like the smashing power of Sam Aylward's war bow, much less the monster stave John Hordle could pull to the ear. Instead she stepped back to turn her head either way, caught the eye of bow-captains, grabbed the signaler by the mail collar and shouted in his ear: "Sound the first halt!"
He put the horn to his mouth: "Huu-huu-huu-huuuuuuu!"
Every third archer stopped shooting. Some of them busied themselves helping the wounded to the rear; one passed her with another man's arm held around his shoulder, the hurt Mackenzie swearing luridly every time his right leg touched the ground and the plastic vanes of the bolt in his shin waggled. Others dashed forward recklessly to pull arrows from the ground, from abandoned shields, even from the bodies of the dead.
"Ooooh, look 'ow short we are," Aylward said- he was still shooting, choosing every target with a second's care. "Bloody sad, isn't it, how we're ru
The enemy crossbowmen were backing up too, but stopping to shoot as they went as long as they were in range, not ru
The Hunter comes for us all in our appointed hour, she reminded herself, letting sights, sounds, stenches flow over and through her without giving them purchase to linger and leave horror behind.
Ravens and crows of the flesh hovered overhead, riding the slow, chill, wet wind, and eagles, falcons: all waiting. They had learned quickly what such doings as this meant, after the Change.
Ground and center, she told herself. Then she raised her bow and waved it to either side again. The silver mouthpiece of the long ox-horn went to the signaler's lips, and he blew round-cheeked.
This time the arrowstorm slackened to nearly nothing; that was the signal for only the chosen marksmen, the ones with the best scores and the heaviest draw-weights, to shoot. More went out collecting shafts, rushing desperately from one to the next in a great show of haste.
See, Juniper thought, looking to where the Marchwarden's ba
Her hand moved in a gesture. See and believe, Emiliano Gutierrez. By the keen sight of Brigid and the long hand of Lugh, by the silver tongue of Ogma, by the power of the blood shed this day upon the Mother's earth, by every soul here sent untimely to the Lord of the Western
Gate, by the grief of children orphaned and the sorrow of lovers' tears, I bind your thought, your hand, your loins, your eyes, blinding the inward sight of your mind with the lust of your heart! So mote it be!
It would be easy enough for an outsider to believe that they'd run short of arrows. Few who hadn't been under a Mackenzie arrowstorm before could believe just how many shafts they could lay down. The Protector's men had crossed the three-hundred-yard mark only ten minutes ago; in that time nine hundred archers had sent a hundred and thirty thousand arrows onto the killing ground. And when near a thousand men came marching at you shoulder-to-shoulder, it was hard to miss:
Let them think we're spent, easy meat for the men-at-arms. We've fought the Protector's men often enough, but mostly in skirmish and raid and ambush rather than pitched battles. Sam is right – massed shooting like this is: different. And they won't know we brought bundles of arrows in plenty.
Hooves clattered behind her on the roadway. She looked around, walked back; it was John Brown, his helmet knocked awry, long dentsswordstrokes-in his breastplate, his left hand a blob of bandages where spots showed sopping-red. His face was red-brown now, drenched with sweat; a younger kinsman rode by his side, looking ready to catch him if he started to slide out of the saddle.
"We can't hold the knights," he said. "Sorry, Juney. Not any longer, not hand-to-hand. We'll hang on their flank, use our bows, try to keep 'em from getting around, that's all we can do. Lost better'n a hundred riders trying. They've got too much weight for us."
"The Mother-of-All bless you, John, you've done splendidly. Now it's with the Luck of the Clan."
Emiliano Gutierrez stood in the stirrups and focused his binoculars. The infantry were coming back faster than they'd gone forward, even walking in reverse, and a lot less of them than had started out. They were shot for now:
Si, shot up good, he thought with grim indifference, listening with half an ear to the screams as monk-surgeons and ordinary medics operated on the tables set up behind his position, cutting steel and cedarwood out of flesh-morphine took time to work, and seconds could mean the difference between life and death. Horse-drawn ambulances trotted westward, taking those who could endure it to the field hospital.
Lord Jabar rode up; he had his sword across his saddlebow, ru
"Got the cora-boys to pull back," he panted. A squire handed him a canvas waterskin; he gulped, and then squirted water on his face, washing a thin reddish film from the ebony skin as the blood spattered there sluiced off. "Couldn't make them stand long enough to finish them, they kept pulling away and shooting, but we hurt them bad. Lost about twenty men, twice that wounded too bad to fight; I think we killed three, four times that many of them-they couldn't get their wounded away from us, either. Should I try to swing in behind the kilties, my lord?"
Emiliano shook his head and handed over the glasses, indicating the Mackenzie line. "Take a look."
White teeth showed in the brutally handsome, full-lipped face. "Sheee-it! They lookin' raggedy-ass fo' sure."
"Si. I think they're short of ammunition."
Jabar grunted and nodded, returning the field glasses; Emiliano pulled a handkerchief out of a saddlebag and wiped the surface. It was hell getting blood out of the fine machining there if you let it dry and set. The black nobleman wiped his sword so he could sheathe it; getting blood inside the scabbard was an even worse pain.
"We better hit them fast, then, before they get more," he said. "I can't see any coming up behind them, though. Hard to miss that many arrows: sheee-it, they shot enough!"