Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [43]
“What do you think this means?” Dagwyn said.
“Trouble. What else? By the asses of the gods, I didn’t want our lady to see a scrap this soon.”
“Ah, horseshit, Ricco! She’s the safest one among us. The Goddess has Her hands upon her night and day.”
He spoke with such quiet conviction that Ricyn was reassured. After half an hour or so the scouts rode back. From one man to the next, the news passed down the line: Tieryn Cavydd’s dun was besieged by a hundred Eldidd men, and it lay just two miles away. Without waiting for orders, the men armed, pulling their shields into position on their left arms, loosening swords in scabbards, drawing up the hood of their mail, and reaching for javelins. Ricyn saw Gweniver arguing furiously with Dannyn until, with an oath, she pulled her horse out of line and trotted back to her warband.
“The arrogant bastard!” she snarled.
“What’s he done, my lady?” Ricyn said. “Ordered you to keep us in the rear as a reserve?”
“Just that. How did you know?”
“Makes sense, my lady. Our band has never ridden together before. It makes somewhat of a difference.”
“Oh, that’s all very well, but he mocked me, curse him! ‘If my lady would be so kind,’ says he, ‘to stay out of the way?’ ‘If my three hundred can’t slaughter a third as many Eldidd dogs,’ says he, ‘then we’ll need your Goddess’s help very badly.’”
“He’s a dog himself!”
“Just so. It’s the insult to the Goddess more than to me. If the king didn’t honor him so blasted much, I’d kill him here and now.”
When the army moved out, Gweniver’s warband rode in the rear. They trotted across new-burnt fields, the black stubble mute witness to the raids, then forded a stream and climbed up a low hill. From the top Ricyn could see the gray broch tower within its earthworks, and the siege camp spreading out across a meadow. Screaming a war cry, Dannyn drew his sword and led his army down at a breakneck gallop as the enemy camp suddenly came alive with shouting. The reserve trotted decorously after.
Below, the camp turned into a swirl of dust and clamor, men shouting, running for horses, fighting desperately on foot as Dannyn’s charge swept over them. Even if Gweniver broke orders, Ricyn reflected, there wasn’t much of a way they could join in the unequal fight, because Dannyn’s men covered the field like a breaking wave. Just then the dun gates opened and Cavydd’s men slammed into the besiegers from the rear. The shouting rang out as the mob plunged back and forth, horses rearing, swords flashing. Gweniver smiled so brightly as she watched that Ricyn was suddenly frightened of her.
With war cries that were closer to screams of terror, one little clot of Eldidd men broke free from the melee and in their panic fled straight toward the reserve. Ricyn had just time to draw his sword before Gweniver howled out a challenge and spurred her horse straight for them. With a shout he went after her. Although he heard the men following him, he kept his eyes on her as she plunged into the middle of the desperate mob.
“Ah, shit!” He spurred his horse hard.
He saw her blade flash up bloody, and a man fall from his saddle, but there were three others round her. Howling a war cry, he charged the mob from the rear. He swung hard, slashing back and forth as if he were beating hounds off a deer with a whip. Off to his right, Ricyn saw Dagwyn make a kill; then an Eldidd man pulled his horse round to face him. Ricyn stabbed in, getting him so hard that he shattered the fellow’s mail and killed him clean. When he pulled the sword free, the dead man rolled off his horse and under the hooves of Ricyn’s mount, which reared. As it came down, he heard Gweniver laughing, howling, shrieking like a fiend, and he saw that she’d made another kill. At that moment the Wolf riders appeared all round them. The