A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [135]
After he stopped crying, Yraen knelt by the stream and washed his face, but the shame he felt for what he saw as womanish weakness couldn’t be so easily dealt with. For a moment he lingered there alone, wondering if he could face Rhodry again, realizing that he had no choice. He was walking back to his horse when he heard the enemy horns and saw the enemy army pouring over the hill like water. He ran, grabbed the reins just before the animal bolted, and swung himself up into the saddle. None of his fancy lessons in war mattered now; all that counted was getting to the safety of his own pack of men. As he galloped down the valley, he saw the enemy army spreading out, trying to encircle his own. Just barely in time Yraen dodged through their van.
An enemy rider, carrying a shield blazoned with a hawk’s head, swung past. Yraen wrenched his horse after and struck at his exposed side. Although he missed the rider, he did nick the horse, which bucked once and staggered. When the enemy wheeled to face him, Yraen caught a glimpse of pouchy eyes and a stubbled face. They swung, parried, circling, trading blow for blow while the enemy howled and Yraen found himself muttering a string of curses under his breath. The Hawksman was good, almost his match—almost. Yraen caught a swing on his shield, heard the wood crack, and slashed in through his enemy’s open guard to catch him solidly on the back of his right arm. Blood welled through his mail as the bone snapped. With one last shout, he turned his horse and fled, clinging to its neck to keep his seat.
Yraen let him go and rode on, weaving his way through the combats, looking desperately round for Rhodry. His fear had shrunk to a dryness in his mouth, a little ache around his heart, and nothing more. Under a pall of dust the battle swirled down the valley. Here and there he saw clots of fighting around one lord or another. Dead men lay on the ground and wounded horses struggled to rise. When at last he heard someone calling Erddyr’s name and someone laughing, a cold berserker’s laugh of desperation, he turned in the saddle to see Rhodry and Renydd, mobbed by six of the enemy. They were fighting nose to tail and parrying more than they dared strike as Adry’s men shrieked for vengeance and pressed round them. Yraen spurred his horse and charged straight for the clot.
Yraen slapped his horse with the flat of his blade and forced it to slam into the flank of an enemy horse. Before the enemy could turn, he stabbed him in the back and turned to slash at another. Dimly he was aware of men shouting Erddyr’s name riding to his side, but he kept swinging, slashing, hacking his way through the clot, closing briefly with one man who managed to turn his horse to face him. He parried and thrust, never getting a strike on him, until the enemy horse screamed and reared. Renydd had cut it hard from behind, and as it came down, Yraen killed the rider. He was through at last, wrenching his horse round to fight nose to tail with Renydd.
“I saw you coming into the mob,” Rhodry yelled out.
Rhodry pulled in beside him to guard his left side. Sweat ran down Yraen’s back in trickles, not drops, as he panted for breath in this precious moment of respite. It was only a moment. Five men were riding straight for them. Yraen heard them yelling at one another: there he is, get the cursed silver dagger.
Yraen suddenly remembered that he had javelins again, distributed the night before. Grabbing his sword in his left hand, he pulled one from the sheath, threw it straight for an enemy horse, and grabbed the second all in the same smooth motion. Caught in the chest, the enemy horse went down, dumping its rider under the