Gwenhwyfar_ The White Spirit - Mercedes Lackey [148]
She assessed all this in no time at all, dropped her bucket, picked her target, and leaped to Lancelin’s aid, ax held in both hands as she raced in for a killing stroke before they realized she was there. She aimed not for the body, which might be protected by riveted metal plates inside the jerkin, but for the back of the man’s neck, where the helm ended. She couldn’t see his neck beneath the hair, but she didn’t need to. She knew there was no protection there.
She hit that spot with all her momentum and all her strength.
The ax struck home against bone; the handle shivered in her hands as the axhead severed the spine and went halfway into his neck; it lodged in there, but she had already let go of it and was reaching for the sword his powerless hand had dropped. As if she had practiced the move a hundred thousand times, she snatched it out of midair, and throwing herself into a half spin, slammed the flat of the blade into the belly of the man next to him. She hadn’t enough time to hit him with the edge, but she didn’t need to; she just needed to buy time for a better attack.
As she had expected, there was metal under the leather, but she knocked the breath out of him and drove him back a little. And the shock and surprise of her appearance had given Lancelin the opening to drive his own sword into the third man’s throat. That man went down with a strangled gurgle.
Now the odds were two to two.
The two men left glanced at each other, shocked.
Lancelin and Gwen didn’t pause even for a heartbeat. As if they were linked together, they both acted and grabbed the moment of that glance to attack.
And in the time it took to draw a quick breath, the second pair were down—Lancelin’s from a thrust into his eye, Gwen’s from a deadly and accurate swing at his legs, where he wasn’t armored.
There were great advantages to being shorter than your enemy, sometimes; she spun again, this time able to aim, and took him across the back of his legs at the knee.
Her man went down, too shocked to scream, hamstrung. And in the next instant, Gwen stepped on his sword arm, keeping him pinned, while Lance put a foot on his chest and a sword point at his throat. She reached down and wrenched the sword out of his hand.
“Whose men are you?” the Companion panted. “What do you want?”
“Medraut’s!” the man gasped. “He sent us to hunt for her—”
Lancelin looked at Gwen, his mouth a thin, grim line. She nodded. They had no way to keep this man prisoner without risking themselves. And to let him go would be suicide. Granted, he was hamstrung, but it was possible he would be found.
And if he wasn’t found . . . they would be leaving him to die slowly and painfully. Lancelin thrust the sword home, removing the risk.
Then he collapsed back against the trunk of the tree, spent. Wordlessly, she went back for her precious bucket, emptied the contents out beside him, and went in search of water. He might as well eat the food that was in there; it wouldn’t keep much longer.
Water was never very far away here—wherever “here” was. She found a stream quite soon and filled the bucket. When she returned with it, he was no longer alone.
But his company was not human. The horse had a familiar look to it, and she was fairly certain it was of her father’s breeding, and it was clearly Lancelin’s, since it was nuzzling him as he fed it bits of her baked mallow root. She put the bucket down beside him; he didn’t bother with the dipper, just picked the whole thing up and poured the water down his throat. Only after he had drunk half the bucket and poured the rest over his head did he finally say something.
“You are the real Gwenhwyfar,” he said, in a tone of weary satisfaction. “You could only be the real one.”
“The false one can’t fight,” she said wryly, sitting on her heels beside him. “She prefers that unpleasant things are all taken