Kushiel's Chosen - Jacqueline Carey [95]
"Mayhap not," Joscelin said grimly, and wheeled his horse. "Whatever trouble it is, we're best away from it." He nearly clapped heels to his mount's sides, before he saw me motionless in the saddle, head cocked to listen. "Phèdre, you brought me to keep you safe!" he snapped, jostling his mount next to mine and grabbing at my reins. "At least do me the kindness of heeding my advice!"
The chevaliers were milling, uncertain. I met Joscelin's eyes. "Listen."
Biting back a retort, he did; and he heard it too. Rising above the clash of arms and shouted orders, a faint cry, ragged and defiant. "Ye-shu-a! Ye-shu-a!"
Joscelin quivered like a bowstring, his face a study in anguish. With a sound that might have been a curse or a sob, he let go my reins and jerked his horse's head around and set heels to it, riding at a dead gallop toward the garrison.
"What are you waiting for?" I asked my staring chevaliers, turning my own mount after Joscelin. "Go!"
I daresay we made for a strange sight, bursting from the forest trail to fan out across the narrow plain; a D'Angelinenoblewoman, three men-at-arms and trailing packhorses chasing someone who looked very much like a Cassiline Brother riding hell-for-leather toward an entire garrison. If the Unforgiven corps had not been occupied, they might have laughed—but occupied they were. Thirty or more encircled a party of Yeshuites, who numbered in the dozens. There were two wagons at the center, and I could discern the figures of women and children on them, while the men grappled with the Unforgiven guardsmen, calling on Yeshua with fierce, exultant cries.
For all of that, they were outfought and losing.
Until Joscelin slammed into the garrison's perimeter.
Two of the Unforgiven he took down with main force, checking his mount into them. The soldiers went down, as did Joscelin's horse; and then he was on his feet, vambraced arms crossed, daggers in his hands.
I lashed my horse's rump with the ends of my reins, gasping a quick prayer of thanks that Joscelin hadn't drawn his sword instead. Cassiline Brothers do not draw their swords unless they mean to kill, and he was Cassiline enough for that. He was only trying to protect the Yeshuites.
Of course, that didn't matter to the Unforgiven, who knew only that the garrison was under attack.
"Blessed tears of the Magdelene!" I heard Remy's shocked voice close to me, his horse drawing briefly on a level with mine, before I urged it to even greater speed.
I had forgotten that none of Phèdre's Boys, Rousse's wild sailor-lads, had ever seen Joscelin Verreuil fight. No one but I had seen the terrible splendor of his battle in the midst of a Skaldic blizzard. At the battle of Bryn Gorrydum, he had stayed at my side; when the campsite was ambushed, he fought almost single-handed to defeat an entire party of Maelcon's Tarbh Cró. At Troyes-le-Mont, he crossed the battlefield at night to follow me, and challenge Waldemar Selig to the holmgang.
We are alike, Joscelin and I, in that what we do, we do very well.
And with the aid of a few dozen Yeshuites, I might havegiven him odds, against any other company; but these were the Unforgiven, scions of Camael, born to the blade, and survivors of the deadliest suicide charge in D'Angeline history. Plain steel and leather armor they wore, and carried unadorned black shields. By the time I reached the battle, seven or eight of the Unforgiven had him isolated, surrounding him with careful swordwork and waiting for an opening, steel blades darting past his guard to score minor wounds. In truth, despite his skill, Cassiline training is not meant for the open battlefield; it is designed for efficiency in tight quarters. The Yeshuites and the remaining Unforgiven battled in knots, the skill of the latter slowly prevailing, and from one of the wagons rose a child's scream, endless and unremitting.
Three Yeshuite dead already; it would be more, in a moment. It would be Joscelin.
"Stop!" I drew up my horse, shouting,