A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [130]
Steel flashed in the moonlight as the squad drew their swords. Yraen settled his own and felt his heart pounding in his throat again, but he was beginning to wonder if he’d ever see a real battle, the sort he’d heard bards sing about, with proper armies and strategies and all that sort of thing. They walked their horses over the crest of the hill, paused for a moment like a wave about to break, then started down with the jingle of tack and the clank of armor. In the camp, the guards looked up and screamed the alarm.
“Now!” Erddyr yelled.
In a welter of war cries and curses, the squad spurred their horses and galloped full-tilt downhill. When they reached the valley, they spread out in a ragged line and swept toward the horse herd. Although the guards raced over to make a futile stand against them, the line ignored them and charged past. As he galloped past a guard, Yraen swung wildly at him, but he missed by yards. When the squad screamed and plunged into the herd, the horses panicked, rearing up and stretching their tether ropes so tight that it was easy to snap them with one swing of a blade. Yraen cursed and shrieked and made every ungodly noise he could think of as he sliced ropes and set horse after horse racing away from the attack. At last his wild ride brought him to the edge of the valley. As he turned his horse, he saw men pouring toward the raiders with their swords and shields at the ready. It was time to run.
Yraen kicked his horse and galloped back across the valley with the rest of the squad. Here and there, a panicked horse still at tether bucked and kicked. Yraen cut one last rope, then turned his attention to the men racing to stop them. All at once, one of the panicked horses slammed into the rider ahead of him. That horse reared; the rider went down, with the flash of a gold-trimmed shield that said Lord Erddyr. Yraen pulled his horse up just in time to avoid running right over him. The armed and furious enemy was charging straight for them. Yraen swung down and grabbed Erddyr’s arm.
“Take my horse, my lord,” he yelled. “I’ll guard your mount.”
“By the hells, we ride together or die together! Here they come, lad.”
Yraen set his back to Erddyr’s and dropped to a fighting crouch as the first enemies reached them. Four of them, and in the gauzy moonlight, it was hard to see their swings, impossible to detect all those subtle movements that reveal an enemy’s next thrust. Yraen could only hack and swing blindly as he desperately parried their equally blind strikes. His shield cracked and groaned; Erddyr was screaming his war cry at the top of his lungs; but Yraen fought silently, coldly, dodging forward to make a slash across an enemy’s arm, then dodging back, slamming into Erddyr’s back as the melee thickened. Screaming Erddyr’s name, the mounted squad was cutting and trampling through the mob on the ground.
In front of him an enemy feinted in close. Yraen lunged fast and got him, almost without realizing it in the bad light. He felt rather than saw his sword bite deep into something soft and stick. When he yanked it free, a man fell forward at his feet. He flung up his shield to parry a blow from the side, slashed at another man, missed, and saw him fall, cut down by a thrust from a mounted man. Erddyr was laughing aloud as riders swirled round them in a kicking, bucking confusion.
“Mount behind me, lad!” a man yelled.
Yraen sheathed his sword still bloody and swung up behind him, scrambling awkwardly onto his bedroll. The rider turned his horse and spurred it on, slashing down at an enemy in their way. Yraen leaned forward and got a cut on the same man as the horse carried them past at a clumsy gallop.
“Ride!” Erddyr screamed. “Retreat!”
Shouting, swinging, the mounted squad cut its way across the valley and headed for the hills. Yraen saw a couple of Erddyr’s men driving what was left of the enemy horses straight for the camp. Howling in rage, half the enemy line peeled out of the battle