A Time of Omens - Katharine Kerr [136]
When the three of them held their ground, the enemies rode round them, circling to strike from the rear. Yraen was forced to wheel his horse out of line or get stabbed in the back. Riding with his knees, he ducked and dodged and slashed back at the man attacking him, who suddenly wheeled his horse and rode back toward the main fight When Yraen followed, for a brief moment he could watch Rhodry fight, and even in the midst of danger the silver dagger’s skill was breathtaking as he twisted and ducked, slashing with a cold precision. Rhodry’s enemy lunged, missed, and pulled back clumsily as Rhodry got a strike across his shoulder. The Hawksman wanted to kill him—Yraen could see it—this was not the impersonal death-dealing of armies but sheer blazing hatred.
“Silver dagger!” he hissed. “Cursed bastard of a silver dagger!”
When he lunged again, Rhodry caught his blow with his sword. For a moment they struggled, locked together, but Yraen never saw how they broke free. All at once his back burned like fire as someone got a glancing strike on him from behind. Barely in time Yraen wheeled his horse away, swung his head round, and made him dance in a circle till they could face the Hawksman swinging at them. Yraen stabbed, and his greater speed won. Before the enemy could bring his shield around to parry, Yraen thrust the sword point into his right eye. With an animal shriek he reeled back in the saddle, dropped his sword, and clawed in vain at the blade as Yraen pulled it free. Yraen swung and hit him with the flat, knocking him off his horse. In a flail of arms, he rolled under the hooves of a horse just behind. When that horse reared and flung itself backward, the mob of enemies pressing for them fell back, cursing and screaming for vengeance.
Horns rang out over the battlefield. The mob ahead hesitated, turning toward the insistent shriek. Yraen started to edge his horse toward them, but Rhodry’s voice broke through his battle-fever.
“Let them go!” Rhodry yelled. “It’s the enemy calling for retreat this time.”
The field was clearing as Adry’s men and allies galloped for their lives. Yraen saw Lord Erddyr charging round the field and screaming at his men to hold their places and let them go. Panting, sweating, shoving back their mail hoods, Yraen, Rhodry, and Renydd brought their horses up close and stared at each other.
“Look at them run,” Yraen said. “Bid we fight as well as all that?”
“We didn’t” Renydd panted. “They’ve got naught left to fight for. Rhodry killed Lord Adry in that first charge.”
Rhodry bowed to him, his eyes bright and merry, as if he’d just told a good jest and was enjoying his listener’s amusement.
“I shamed myself before the battle,” Yraen said to him. “Will you forgive me?”
“What are you talking about, lad? You did naught of the sort.”
But no matter how much he wanted to, Yraen couldn’t believe him. He knew that the feel of tears on his face would haunt him his whole life long.
Picking their way through the dead and the wounded, what was left of the warband began to gather around them. No boasting, no battle-joy like in a bard song—they merely sat on their horses and waited till Erddyr rode up, his face red, his beard ratty with sweat.
“Get off those horses, you bastards,” Erddyr bellowed. “We’ve got wounded out there!” He waved his sword at the clot of men that included Yraen. “Go round up stock. They’re all over this cursed valley.”
Gladly Yraen turned his horse out of line and trotted off. Down by the stream the horses that had fled after losing their riders waited huddled together, blindly trusting in the human beings who had led them into this slaughter. When the men grabbed the reins of a few, the rest followed docilely along. Yraen rode farther downstream, ostensibly to see if any horses were in the stand of hazels near the