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Epona had already started moving. Rudi bent his knees between one stride and the next and vaulted as he ran, dropping into the saddle in a way that would have been painful if his thighs hadn?t caught the weight of his body before his crutch slammed into the leather. His sword came out, but shadowy figures were already in among the horses; the last of the Knifer herd guards were down or had fled. Jake?s gap-toothed grin shone a little in the light of the fire. ?Got?em, Rudi-man!? ?And let?s go!?
The half dozen best riders of the Southsiders were on either side of the three-score-and-ten horses, whooping and swinging lengths of braided cord. The snapping and the noise kept the panicked horses bunched; Garbh ran at their heels, snapping now and then to keep them focused. They were letting them run southward-exactly what the Knifers? own herdsmen would have done, with a grassfire coming. After a few moments they angled westward as much as they dared; the main camp of their foemen was to the east. And probably dissolving in chaos right now, as everyone scrambled to get out of the fire?s way, though they were by a slough with open water even in late summer.
Probably they?d all wade out into it, carrying what they could. The flames were twenty feet high now, dreadfully bright. They raced forward in a flickering wave, a dancing front of red and gold that towered farther yet into the air in a wall of sparks. The roar was like all the hearth fires on the ridge of the world added together, with the forges of the smiths thrown in; he eyed the end of the line of fire to his right, judging just where it would pass.
He also thought he heard screams of rage from the savages behind; it was possible that they?d seen their horses disappearing, not in a scattered spray but in a solid mass of plunging heads and tossing manes. Or they might have heard the whoops of the Southsiders, who were calling pleasantries of their choice; they all had their new bows slung over their backs, worn through loops beside the equally new quivers in the Mackenzie fashion. Rudi gri
And just to be polite to the folk who?d taken him in and taught him this plainsman?s trick?Kye-eee-kye!? he screamed.?Hoo?hay, hoo?hay! The sun shines on the hawk and on the quarry!? ?Hand and hand seven!? Jake called to Rudy, pumping a clenched fist with one finger extended towards the Knifer camp. ?Seventy,? Rudi replied, and the Big Man of Southside repeated the word several times to lock it in his memory.
He?ll know each one of his new herd by its looks and maybe by a name within a few days, the Mackenzie thought. But he couldn?t say the number until I told him. They have forgotten a good deal, his folk!
The horses ran reckless through the dark until they were out of the fire?s path, and some miles to the west of it. Then they slowed, freed to fear for their legs once more. The whole horizon behind them was turning ruddy where the fire spread out into a front miles long, as if the dawn was coming hours early, and the hot dry smell of it was slow to fade. Then the animals began to slow, down from a gallop to a canter and then to a walk as the night drew its cloak about them once more. The riders touched them up again, half a mile at a trot and half at a walk; that was harder as the horses grew calmer and started to resent this interference with their rest, or to notice that there were strange individuals of their own kind among them without a recognized place in their hierarchy.
Prairie fires were dreadful, and they could travel faster than a horse and scorch your lungs out when the flame front passed you, but they were also routine-from what the Southsiders told him they happened every year as soon as the tall grass went dry, started deliberately to spur fresh growth, or by friction or lightning strikes. Beasts and humans both were used to them.
Which is one reason why there?s so little mark of man left in this land, he thought. With fires like that every year, all that could burn has, of that you may be sure.
As if to illustrate the point a silo loomed out of the darkness ahead; tall as many a castle tower, and as broad, but canted to one side, and the lower part was cracked open where years of fires past had buckled the sheet metal plates away from the frames. Someday soon a strong wind would catch it and send it to the ground; in the end it would be a stain on the soil.
It?s a pity we have no metalworker?s tools, and no great fund of time, he thought. We could teach the Southsiders to make proper brigandines. Or at least scale shirts…
Then he snorted quietly to himself. He?d never thought he would catch the teacher?s passion-learning had always been his pleasure-but the situation made it tempting. Rudi Mackenzie had known such people all his life; his mother sitting endlessly patient, coaxing out the music within a novice bard?s fumbling eagerness; Sam Aylward?s callused hand giving him a genial ear-ringing slap on the back of the head when he let his attention wander at the archery butts; Aunt Judy listing the uses of a plant?s roots and leaves in a way that made it more a game than a lesson and then holding the blossom up as she said:
And this… this the Mother gives us this for pretty, so She can laugh when She sees us smile.
Or even Mathilda passing on her mother?s ideas of what it meant to be a King to Fred Thurston, as they rode east. ?But I?m not the best of teachers, even for blade and bow,? he murmured to himself.?Too hasty, I?d have said. Well, to travel is to learn, eh??
The rest of their party was waiting for them there by the ruin. There were younger men-the Southside Freedom Fighters seemed to account a male ready to fight at about fifteen-and a few bold women, and the youngster with the limp and the strong voice who was the closest thing they had to a bard. ?I?ll make this a telling word for you, Jake,? he said.?All these horses! Even Old Jake the sailor man never got so many. Jake su
Jake made a gesture of dismissal, but Rudi could see he was pleased at the thought of the praise song. The rest mounted up silently and kept the stolen horses moving; Epona snorted a little. She wasn?t as young as she had been, but she could keep this pace a lot longer than these scrubby beasts. ?There!? Jake said.
It was nearly dawn now; the hour between dog and wolf, as the saying went, when you could first tell the difference between a black thread and a white. The air wasn?t exactly cold, but there was a hint of cool in it as it dried the sweat on Rudi?s face and arms, a token that autumn wasn?t impossibly far off. The road was a long stretch of open ground in the ocean of the grass; there were trees along it, short scrubby fire-scarred oaks and cot tonwoods and sycamores, growing up through cracks in the pale faded asphalt that protected them. The rest of the Southsiders ran shrieking and dancing with glee to meet the warriors, until Jake cursed them imaginatively for nearly spooking the new horses. That made them a little quieter, except for the children and-until thumped-the dogs.
Rudi confined his attention to the wagons. A long breath of relief at the lack of serious damage escaped him as they walked about; only the last one had been thoroughly looted, and that was the one that had carried the expedition?s stores. They were all big, even for road vehicles carrying five or six tons each, the rubber-tired steel wheels nearly as tall as Edain, and the hoops of the blackened canvas-covered tilts were nearly twice his height above the roadway. The outsides showed scorch marks-from that fire Ingolf had described, when the Cutters ambushed his men here, and from later ones, but the pavement acted as a firebreak until the swift flame front passed. Someone had cut slits in the canvas on each and pulled out a few of the rectangular steel boxes. The locks had been sledged off; he opened one of them. ?Ah,? Edain said behind him, as he pulled out the picture within and propped it against one wheel.?Now that?s… something, by Brigid of the Bright Mind and Lugh of the Many Skills.?