The Sword of the Lady

They split to either side and froze, kneeling and laying down their bows. The rider was coming at a trot; he had a short spear in his hand ready to throw, and he was standing in the stirrups and peering at the growing red glow to the west, blinding his own night vision. The two Mackenzies moved like the twin jaws of a spring-steel trap; Edain grabbed the man?s foot with both hands and flung it upward. Taken by surprise, the Knifer catapulted to his right as if jerked by elastic cords.

His startled yell broke off at its begi

Perhaps he wasn?t a bad man, by his own lights; and like as not a woman and her children would mourn him. Now let him live or die as the Powers and his own fate decree. ?Earth must be fed,? he murmured.

Edain gentled the horse. He?d been a competent rider when they set out, since the Aylwards had a pair of mounts-unusual affluence for Mackenzies, who usually kept their working stock for plows and wagons and walked or rode bicycles themselves. More than a year of constant travel on horseback and caring for a series of local remounts had made him an expert; he had his plaid wrapped around its head, and was stroking it with one hand and keeping a firm grip on the bridle with the other. Rudi took that over immediately-he wanted the best archer with his bow-hand free. He did take an instant to undo the girths and let the pad saddle and its blanket slide off, and he snorted in silent disgust at the sores and saddle galls beneath.

Sure, and I stand corrected. He was a bad man, and bad cess to him as he makes accounting to the Guardians of the horse-kind!

That was illogical; the Southsiders weren?t much better. These wild-man tribes didn?t really raise horses; they caught mustangs, broke them crudely, and used them until they died. Which wasn?t all that long given the general fragility of equines.

An animal that can die because it can?t puke needs humankind to look after it. But the Horse Goddess gives Her sons and daughters to be our helpers and our friends, not machinery.

It made him feel a bit better about clouting the Knifer and leaving him in the path of the fire, the more so since he?d given his Freedom Fighter hosts a few pointers on the care and feeding of the beasts.

The horse was getting upset again; the smell of fire was starting to grow. So was the light. He could see a little better now, with red flame licking up like a new sunset. Bits and pieces twisted into the air, drifting up and then followed by others moving faster even as he glanced. Then he could see the tips of flames, redder than his mother?s hair, as he first remembered it when she bent over him with the sun behind her turning it to floating copper. Tips of flame, and others skipping ahead where the wind blew it. A crackling roar began to build, not the deep sound wood made burning, but lighter-almost a hissing, like a serpent of fire. ?Like the snakes of Surtr,? he said.?Now, this calls for careful judgment; we want the fire to be on our very heels. A moment… and another… and let?s go!?

He tossed Edain?s plaid back to him and let the horse run-bolt, rather, neighing in panic, which was entirely understandable now that the fire was visible. With any luck at all the guards would just assume that it had thrown its rider. According to the Southsiders, nobody hereabouts used fire arrows-they?d had to have the concept explained to them.

Rudi whistled, two rising notes and one sustained. Epona trotted up like part of the darkness with Edain?s roan gelding following, its reins secured to a loop on the big mare?s war-saddle. She didn?t like coming closer to a fire-she was a horse, however unusual-but she did it. The roan followed perforce, despite the way its ears were laid back and its eyes rolling and its body covered in fear-sweat. The reins were strong solid leather, but Epona?s dominance over the other beast?s dim instinct-driven mind was stronger still.

She was the herd mare, and it would take a much closer brush with the fire to generate enough squealing panic to cancel that. His advisors on the gentle art of reaving horses had always used a mounted man to hold the raiders? mounts and bring them up at this point, but Epona could do the job just as well. ?Working just like Red Leaf said it would.? Edain gri

Neither man mounted; they turned the horses and loped beside them, holding on to a stirrup leather to smooth their pace. It made ru

This June past they?d spent some time in a hocoka of the Lakotas, as guests of Itancan-Chief John Red Leaf. It had been a brief period, if eventful-fights with pursuing troops of the Sword of the Prophet, hunts that included an unexpected little brush with some ex-Texan lions, buffalo stampedes, a sweat lodge ceremony, and another that ended with them being adopted as Strong Raven and Swift Arrow.

But they?d also gotten quite a few stories on the theory and practice of horse theft as the lords of the High Plains managed it these days, it being their pastime and delight. He?d adapted one technique of theirs for this night?s work, but a look over his shoulder made him hiss between his teeth. The fire was a lot higher than anything you could get up in the short-grass country, and a lot hotter, and it was coming along faster. Faster than they were moving. Unfortunately their Sioux friends had been quite clear that you didn?t mount up and silhouette yourself against the fire until you absolutely had to. ?That moment being at hand,? he muttered to himself, inaudible under the Epona?s hoof falls and panting, and the crackling white-noise roar of the flames.

Then shapes moved in the middle distance ahead, horses amid an area of grass trampled down where they?d fed and rolled. The herd was up now, awake and begi

They were utterly focused on their work; the seventy mounts here represented years of work, and to lose the herd would be a catastrophe for all their tribe.

The which they deserve, for not leaving the Southsiders in peace. It?s not as if they were so crowded here that they need to fight each other for land, like two wolf packs in the same valley. Still, I?m glad I?ll be free of them after this night. I have no wish to be the ogre their mothers frighten children with.

The last of the restraints came free as Rudi watched, and the three men who?d been removing them raced for their own horses, looking over their shoulders with their eyes wide in terror. One checked as he ran and opened his mouth to yell warning as he finally picked out the two Mackenzies beside their horses. ?Now!? Rudi said.

He grabbed for the bridle of Edain?s horse with his free hand. There was no possibility of sparing these men.

The other Mackenzie had four arrows out and gripped between his forefinger and the riser of his bow, and another between his teeth, with most of its length off to his left. He brought his bow up and shot that one first, almost spitting it onto the string, and then the others in a ripple of effort so swift and sure that the second had just struck when the last flew free. The flickering light behind them was tricky; only three of them hit. One slammed into the chest of the man who?d seen them; the other two punched the riders out of their saddles. Then Edain leapt and scrabbled aboard his mount, cursing as the beast crabbed sideways between his hand on the reins and its impulse to run free.