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The animals were disturbed; the scent of blood and their pack-mate's pain would do that, and cover the trail a bit. Their belling sounded louder through the afternoon air, arrooo, arrooo, calling for their master's help. She slipped another quarrel into the groove, and brought the crosshairs on a white-furred throat.
Tung. Her fingers were reloading as the dog collapsed; quickly this time, simply falling down. If only there was time for one more The third dog turned, yelping. Riders came around the big tractor just as it would have fled; it stopped in glad surprise, and her bolt went home between its shoulder blades. The hindquarters collapsed, but before the dog died four of the riders were sliding out of the saddle, bringing up their bows and reaching over their shoulders for arrows even as they swung down. She kicked her feet clear of the climbing irons and abandoned them, sliding down the sloping trunk of the alder in a flurry of papery bark and taking a nasty whack on one elbow from an iron even as she did. She'd seen Mackenzie archers in action before.
"That leaves just one dog," she said to herself with satisfaction.
And before she'd slid ten feet, three thirty-inch arrows went w heet-wheet-wheet through the air on either side of the branch she'd used to rest her elbow. The fourth went crack into the base of the branch itself, and punched through it with brutal force. After an instant the limb ripped free as its weight levered against the strip of bark still holding it, hitting her on the head as her boots struck the ground. It was only a slight, muffled impact through the mail-lined hood she was wearing, but enough to make her blood race uncomfortably even so. If she'd stayed and tried for one more shot:
"Christ!" she said. Then: "Go, go, go!" to Joris, turning and racing back for the horses.
He paused for an instant to aim, and the heavier tu
"Got one, or at least a horse," he said as they all vaulted into the saddles and spurred their mounts up in Ivo's tracks.
"Let the spares with the drag go free," Tiphaine said curtly, and the leading-reins were dropped. Dickhead. We didn't have time for a fight
One of the spare horses had a ball of cloth dangling from its harness on a line; that was Rudi Mackenzie's bundled kilt and plaid. As long as the horse dragged it, it would lay a scent trail for the last hound to follow. The horse curved away to the east across the open country, panicked by her slash at its rump with the loose end of her reins. Two more followed it, with the natural impulse of horses; their saddles bore crude child-sized dummies of grass and twigs stuffed inside spare clothing they'd brought along for the princess. They wouldn't fool anyone for long, but they might at a distance, for a little while.
"Boot it!" Tiphaine cried.
They spurred their mounts in the children's wake, and overtook them faster than she'd expected. Ruffin's haggard face turned towards her, gri
"The little chief there managed to get away-tangled his lead-rein on a stump and made the horse snap it. I had to chase him down."
Tiphaine looked at the small jewel-cut face; it had dark smudges under the eyes now, and lack of sleep had stripped away the jaunty humor. What was left was pure determination. She bowed her head in respect, and then spurred her horse back into a gallop.
The three knights matched it, but Joris looked a little worried as he glanced over his shoulder. "We could founder the beasts in a couple of miles at this pace," he said. "We don't have remounts any more and the kilties probably still do."
"All we need is a couple of miles," she said. "You wanted to know? We're heading for Miller Butte. There's a conroi of men-at-arms there and a company of mounted crossbowmen, hiding and waiting for us."
Joris' heavy-lidded eyes narrowed. And I'm not going to let you behind me until we get there, she thought grimly. I'm collecting the reward jor this, and I'll see Ivo and Ruffin right. Lady Sandra will give you something, but as for me, you can piss up a rope jor it.
Then his head jerked back. The belling of the last hound had faded; now it was louder again. The Mackenzies must have found the decoy, backtracked and gotten onto the real trace. Tiphaine hunched in the saddle and headed her horse straight for the river ahead; it was the North Santiam, and she recognized the old transmission line to their left from maps and their trip south.
"Wait a minute!" Joris said. "We'll have better cover if we veer past those old poles. There's woodland there, they can't shoot at us."
Tiphaine jerked her head up, fighting the hypnotic rhythm of the hand gallop; the horse was begi
"They'd shoot at us, Joris," she said. "They might even shoot at the princess. But sure as Christ died for your sins, they're not going to shoot when they might hit their Chief's son." She looked ahead. "Four more miles. Go for it!"
Chapter Fourteen
Near West Salem, Willamette Valley, Oregon
March 5th, 2008/Change Year 9
T he thunder of the knights filled the world as they charged, four hundred strong; Mike Havel could feel it through the soles of his boots, a shaking that quivered through soil and leather into his skin. The great hooves of the destriers pounded the soft turf into a chopped surface like a rough-plowed field, flinging clods and tufts of grass higher than the riders' helmets. Their eyes rolled behind the spiked steel chamfrons that covered their faces, and their nostrils were great red pits above the square yellow teeth that mouthed the bits and dripped foam. The lanceheads caught the noon sun with a quivering glitter, and the pe
He spat to clear his mouth of gummy saliva and the trace of blood still leaking from the inside of his cheek; the salt-iron taste of it was still on his lips. Facing a single lancer was one thing. Facing this avalanche of steel and flesh was entirely another. Around him the militia were still shrieking the war cry, or in some cases just plain shrieking. He knew some would be pissing or shitting themselves: and that some of those would fight no worse for it. This was the moment when pride and fear of shame before your neighbors and fear for your home warred with the elemental terror of torn flesh and cracked bone and ultimate, unendurable pain and the final blackness.
Closer. Closer. The pikepoints waited, wavering only as much as the tension of the muscles that held the long shafts could account for. Closer, and the enemy were up to a full, all-out gallop, which meant they were about to enter the killing ground. Watch for that piece of cracked asphalt that marked the three-hundred-yard mark "Shoot!" Mike Havel shouted.
Trumpets relayed the order-one low blat and a sustained high note. The great tu
Men pitched back off their horses; horses fell, screaming and thrashing or sometimes limply silent, or ran out of control, bucking and lashing out at whatever had hurt them. The men-at-arms weren't tightly packed enough to pile into a mass of collisions, or there weren't enough horses down to produce one; a few mounts jumped over the fallen ahead of them, and more swerved skillfully under their riders' guidance, but that made the whole charging mass falter. More fell, and more; the bolts were a steady drumroll flicker, fast and hard: