"Yes!" Red Leaf said, as the crumpled form suddenly lashed out with a knife. Then: "Damn, it didn't work! But you tried, Black Elk!"
The cowboy skipped backwards, then stabbed with his shete. He left it standing in the body as he bent; there was a flash of knife blade, and then the man stood again, dripping scalp in one hand and knife in the other, shaking them aloft and screaming his triumph.
Mathilda swore and reined out, sliding the knight's shield from her back.
Red Leaf spurred ahead of her. "No!" he said. "If you interfere, they'll do a massed charge. We want to spin this out!"
Rudi nodded grimly. The whole thing made a certain sense; battle customs often did. Not every fight was to the last man man standing. This was something halfway between a tournament and an all-out fight to the death. The winner stripped Black Elk's body of weapons and grabbed the reins of his horse, riding back with his trophies and his loot.
Both war-bands had slowed down to a trot, halting altogether during the duels; the horns of the Cutters' crescent were level with the forward part of the Sioux formation. By tacit agreement they went no farther, as long as the Indians didn't refuse the challenge.
"It's our turn," Red Leaf said, looking down the line of his men. Every one of them raised his voice, asking for the honor…
He waved to one. "Go for it, Jimmy."
Jimmy was slender, dark, and looked young, probably younger than he was, and he was naked to the waist except for the kit-fox pelt that marked his membership in that warrior society.
Hmmm, Rudi thought. He also looks quick as a weasel.
The young warrior nodded soberly at the chief's call, sliding his round shield onto his left arm and taking a two-foot stick from his belt, one with a feather at the end.
"He's toast, itancan," he replied, and rode back along the Sioux column with a whoop.
"Challenger gets choice of weapons," Red Leaf said. "Sorta."
A cowboy spurred out to meet Jimmy. He had a metal-strapped leather breastplate, and a helmet like a steel bowl topped with a horsetail that bobbed and fluttered with the motion of his gallop; there was a letter Q with a diagonal slash through it in white on the dark brown bullhide of his shield. He cased his bow and drew his shete, which showed what Red Leaf had meant by sorta; evidently no bows were used if the challenger started with an impact weapon.
The two horsemen met in the field between the war-bands. Rudi didn't think the life and death of brave men should be just a show.. . but he was a warrior by trade, and it was frustrating not to be able to see the details. The men came together with the combined speeds of their horses, screaming their war cries, and there was a tangle as the Cutter's blade chopped down. Rudi's breath caught for an instant as the shete flashed… and then Jimmy was past, shaking his stick in the air and whooping, and the Powder River man was reeling backwards in the heavy Western saddle, pawing at his face with both hands.
A groan that was half growl went up from the ranch-hands and their patron; the Sioux gave a high shrill cheer-one that contained the banshee Mackenzie shriek, and shouts of Haro!, Richland!, Lacho Calad, Drego Morn! and USA! as well as Father Ignatius' more restrained Good!
Red Leaf grinned like a wolf. "They're about to find out Jimmy's other name."
"Which is?" Rudi said, his eyes still glued to the two small figures.
" Many Coups. In the old days sometimes they'd just whack someone with a coup stick and leave them to swallow the humiliation, but we're more practical now."
Jimmy Many Coups brought his pony around in a tight circle, dust spurting up from under its hooves. He ducked under a wild swing of the cowboy's weapon-Rudi guessed that the first stroke had been a blinding slash across the eyes-and struck again. The shete pinwheeled away from a broken hand, and the stick jabbed. The cowboy fell. This time it was the Sioux who screamed triumph and led his enemy's horse back with the captured weapons across its saddle, waving the fresh scalp to an admiring chorus from the other Sioux:
"Ohitike!"
"You rock, Jim!"
"Ohan, Many Coups!"
"Dude! That so does not suck!"
The deadly game continued as the sun crept past noon. Father Ignatius punched his opponent neatly out of the saddle with his heavy lance, then dismounted to offer the dying man absolution. Which, to the visible fury of the Sword of the Prophet, he accepted. Rudi nodded to himself; not all the folk the CUT had overrun really accepted its teachings. The Sword troopers kept to their solid disciplined block, but an hour later the Sioux had lost five men and their opponents seven.
Then:
"I'll take this one," Rudi said. Because honor demands it, he thought. We can't let our hosts do all the fighting for us.
Epona turned beneath him, so responsive that he didn't need to conciously think of directing her.
"So, so, my fine lady," he whispered, smoothing a hand down her sleek neck.
Sweat ran on it, and she wasn't as young as she'd been… but she wasn't too tired, either. Rudi guided her past the little two-wheeled cart; it had kept up so far, and Edain was driving it, being the worst horseman in the group.
"Show them how a Mackenzie fights, Chief!" he said.
"I'll show them how the Morrigu wards her own," Rudi replied grimly.
He reached for his sallet helm and settled it on his head. The steel dome had a flare of raven feathers in holders at either side; the helm and the smooth semicircular visor were graven with feather patterns inlaid in niello, and the curve of the visor was drawn down in a point over his mouth like a beak. He'd switched his sword to his right hip, but he used that hand to pick up one of the lances in the wagon bed.
It'll do, he thought, hefting it. Better than trying to use my left; I haven't had enough time to get the memory into the muscle there.
He snapped the visor down with the edge of his shield, and the world shrank to a narrow horizontal slit. Then he tensed his thighs and Epona came up to a canter; he halted in the space between the two bands, tossing the lance up and shrieking the Clan's battle-yell. There was a hesitation; the cowboys had already seen that these twelve-foot lances were something entirely again from the light spears some of them used. Even if they didn't recognize the brigandine that armored Rudi's torso, they could see that he had a knight's four-foot shield, plate shin guards and vambraces, and mail-sleeves and mail covering on the outer sides of the leather breeches he'd pulled on beneath his kilt. Fighting a steel tower on a tall horse was simply outside their experience…
After a few moments one pulled out of the slow-moving crescent mass, coming forward at a hard gallop. The Rancher's man left his round shield over his back and his shete at his belt, but he didn't use his bow either-evidently he was going to stick to the rules that far. Instead he unlimbered the coiled lariat from his saddlebow and held it out to one side, spinning the lasso vertically as his horse rocked up to a gallop.
"Well, friend, at least you're being different!" Rudi called.
Epona drifted forward, her long legs moving in an easy canter. Rudi kept the lance sloped up as long as he could; it protected his head from a cast of the rope. Only in the last fifty yards did he bring it down and clamp his thighs tight against the saddle and brace his feet. Both war-parties roared as the horses headed towards each other at full tilt, their combined speed closing at seventy miles an hour. Rudi could see the taut grin on the cowboy's red-bearded face, and the flexing of his greasy leather coat as his right arm moved in wider and wider circles. The foot-long lance-head pointed at his chest didn't seem to bother him at all.
An instant later Rudi found out why. The plainsman threw himself sideways-for a moment the Mackenzie thought he'd jumped out of the saddle altogether, and then he saw that he was crouched down with one knee around the horn.
The spectators roared again, this time in admiration at the feat of horsemanship; the lance-head punched through the space where he'd been, and the cowboy brought himself back into the saddle with a snapping flex of leg and body. Rudi turned Epona wit
h desperate speed as she felt the appeal of his body and pirouetted with a speed astonishing in a horse her size. The noose settled over his head nonetheless, and over his left arm, pinning that and his shield to his shoulder.
The lance was already falling as he released it. He grabbed the lariat instead, the braided three-quarter-inch rawhide rope clamped tight in the soft chamois of his gauntlet's palm. Then he set his feet in the stirrups and hauled; Epona reared, adding her weight to the grip. Pain flexed deep in his shoulder despite all the healing, but the cowboy hadn't quite had time to snub the end of the lariat to his saddlehorn.
It ripped through his hands instead, and his horse staggered sideways as the force of the tug was transmitted through the rider's body and the grip of his legs. The man lurched to one side, the easy centaur grace of his seat on the quarter horse destroyed for a moment at the shocking force of it. Then he drew his shete, setting himself. Rudi's shield was on his left arm, the one he used for the sword now; he didn't attempt to juggle the weapons. Instead he pushed in close.
There was a thud as Epona's shoulder struck the cow pony. There wasn't enough momentum to pitch the lighter horse over, but even so the big black mare's more than half ton of weight made it stagger again, sinking back on its haunches. That spoiled the overarm slash aimed at Rudi's head; he smashed his shield up and the curved steel-rimmed upper edge caught the blade near the guard. That tore it from the cowboy's grasp. And in that instant, Rudi made his right hand into a fist and punched the metal-shod mass into his face. Bone and teeth snapped and the man's eyes rolled up, but even three-quarters unconscious his superb horseman's reflexes kept him in the saddle.
The cow pony whirled again, turning on its hind legs and coming down moving; Epona sped the gelding on its way with a hearty snap in the buttock and bugled a challenge at the plainsmens' mounts, dancing lightly sideways with an unmistakable air of satisfaction. The Sioux gave a collective groan of disappointment, but Rudi wasn't too displeased that his opponent had survived. The Powder River men halted, several of them easing their comrade out of the saddle. However unwilling, the troop of the Sword had to do likewise until their allies were ready to move on.
Mr. Lariat won't be fighting anytime soon, not with his face rearranged so thoroughly. And he was a brave man, and clever. That trick nearly worked.
The Mackenzie did take a moment then to dismount and recover the lance-it was a product of Isherman's Weapons Shop in Bend, a thousand miles west as the crow flew, considerably more as humankind had to travel, and replacing it would be difficult. It was a combination of Epona's tossed head and the drumming of hooves and the shout of outrage from the Sioux that warned him.
It was a Cutter who charged, grimly silent as he drew his bow to his ear. At that range, armor probably wouldn't stop a hard-driven shaft, and the Corwinite's bow was thick with sinew and horn; his upper body hardly seemed to move at all, despite the plunging gallop of his horse, and the narrow point of the arrowhead grew until it was like the head of a spear. He was taking no chances.
Anticipation, some corner of Rudi's mind thought.
Nobody could dodge an arrow at this range, but his body was already moving. The snap of string on bracer and the bang! as the curved steel of his helm shed the point were so close together that they blended into one sound. The impact on the steel covering his head felt like a blow from a club and white light flashed through his brain, but his hands brought the lance-point up then-too quickly for the horse to be able to follow its natural instinct against running into an obstacle at speed. The sharp steel bit, and Rudi was thrown backwards by the impact. The butt of the lance struck the hard ground as he landed flat on his back, pinned for an instant by his gear. Momentum drove it deep into the horse's chest, and then the ashwood snapped across two-thirds of the way from the point.
He rolled frantically to avoid the falling, thrashing body of the wounded horse; its huge astonished scream seemed to propel him like a giant's hand. He used the movement to flick himself erect, his sword coming out. The Cutter had been thrown clear as his mount went down; the lacquered-leather armor and padding protected him a little, and his horseman's instincts for a fall even more, and he managed to stagger erect and draw his blade as Rudi charged with sword in hand.
Ting.
The blades met, sparking as flat met edge, then slid down and locked. Rudi's right hand clamped down on the Cutter's left as it reached for his dagger and they strained against each other, motionless for a long moment except for the shifting of their feet as they shoved like rutting elk locking horns in the fall. His enemy's face filled the vision slit in the clansman's visor, dark gray eyes, flared nose crossed by a white scar, tuft of brown beard. There was no fear in those eyes even as his arms bent back under Rudi's inexorable strength, simply a cold intentness.
The shete slipped backwards and the Cutter released it and clawed for Rudi's face beneath the visor. The pommel of Rudi's sword clubbed down on his upper arm, and the limb went strengthless despite the tough leather armor. The smaller man staggered back and went to one knee, freezing as the point of the Western longsword flashed to rest just below his chin. The world grew brighter as Rudi used his free hand to push up his visor, but the sword stayed precisely where it was, delicate as a surgeon's scalpel, a tiny trickle of blood sliding down from where it dimpled the weathered, stubbled skin of the other man's throat. The rank-smelling sweat of agony beaded the Cutter's face.
"What's your name?" Rudi said.
The other man showed a little expression; surprise, and then an iron pride.
"Major Peter Graber, third battalion, Sword of the Prophet of the Church Universal and Triumphant, tasked with your destruction."
"Well, it seems to be working out the other way round, I'm thinking," Rudi said dryly. "Despite your sticking to my arse like an importunate tick this last long while."
"Kill me, then," he said. "My lifestream will join the Ascended Masters, and yours will be dispersed in the Outer Dark."
Rudi's wrist moved, and the blade flicked off the man's helmet.
"It's easy to kill," he said. "As easy as smashing glass. Any fool can do either. And dying is even simpler. Living well… now that, my friend, is a more difficult matter. Think on that when you wake up."
"Kill me!" the man said, lunging up against the point, before the sheer agony of his broken arm stopped him.
Rudi smiled. "No," he said, and flicked the flat of his sword sideways.
Bonk.
The stroke was precisely judged, though you could never tell exactly what a head injury would do; at the least, Major Graber would have a set of bad headaches. The man slumped down bonelessly. Rudi sheathed his blade, whistled, caught Epona's bridle as she was about to step on the man's face accidentally-on-purpose-that would rather spoil the lesson-and swung into the saddle. As he trotted back to join his comrades he worked the right shoulder.
Just a little twinge, he thought. Not bad since I was using it to ten-tenths, as old Sam Aylward puts it. But Master Hao was right; too much is worse than too little. I'd just as soon rest it now.
He looked back. The Sword troopers were grouped around their officer. Probably splinting his arm, at a guess, and it was a mercy to him that he'd be unconscious during the process of getting the armor off, though he wouldn't thank Rudi for the head he'd have when he woke up.
"But somehow I don't think they're going to give up," he said as he drew in beside Red Leaf.
Mathilda leaned over in her saddle to give him a hug and a kiss-always awkward beneath a raised visor, and Epona shouldered her horse rudely. The beast was a big rawboned grey destrier, but it was thoroughly in awe of the alpha-mare, and shied. Mathilda was still laughing as she lurched and took a moment to regain her seat.
"Is that beast your horse, or your wife?" she said.
"I think she has her moments of doubt," Rudi replied.
Red Leaf looked back, and Rudi did as well. The cowboys had left the Sword men to tend to their commander. Even as he watc
hed they legged their horses up from a trot to a canter, and then a gallop. The Sioux did likewise.
"You counted coup there pretty good. But I don't think they're in a mood for playing now," Red Leaf said grimly.
The Sioux fanned out at Red Leaf's command, unlimbering their bows and ready to shoot over their horses' rumps when the pursuit came in range. The cowboys brought their shields up, and most of them drew their shetes; they intended to cross the killing ground and come to handstrokes. A dead Virginia Kane was of no use to their leader at all, and evidently their discipline was good enough to take the risk. A little rise ahead hurtled towards them…
Suddenly Red Leaf whooped. "The land's fighting for us, Kit Foxes!" he said. " Pispizah! Prairie dogs! Keep going! Hokahe! Hokahe !"
They topped the rise. The land fell away before them, a slope as gentle as the other side… and it was dotted with the neat round mounds of a prairie-dog town. The little ground squirrels were mostly gone underground at the noise of the hooves; a few lingered, standing erect with their paws dangling and noses up, but they whistled shrilly and vanished with a flicker of black-tipped tails as the whooping mass of riders bore down on them.
"Epona, protect Your daughter!" Rudi shouted, invoking the Horse Goddess for his mount.
Only blind luck-and for some of the Sioux, superlative horsemanship-would decide who got through, and whose horse would step in one of those hills as it galloped. He heard a cannon bone snap with a crack like a breaking lance-shaft, and a cut-off scream of equine pain. A glance over his shoulder showed Virginia Kane down, lying stunned just beyond a horse with a broken neck. A Sioux was down too, the tall red-haired young man. Both managed to get to their feet, and then Fred Thurston and Mathilda had both turned back.
"Shit!"
Rudi began to do likewise, then reached for an arrow instead; it would take too long for him to do them any good directly. Thurston leaned far over with his right arm extended and crooked; whoever his father had kept to teach his sons horsemanship must have been a rodeo star of former times. The Powder River Rancher's daughter turned and ran five steps in the same direction, then grabbed the young man's arm and bounced upwards, landing neatly astride the horse behind him. Rudi's eyes went wide; he'd have tried the same thing, and counted his chance of bringing it off no more than even.
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