Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [60]
He clapped his heels to his horse’s sides and charged forward.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I N THE FACE OF THIS THUNDERING CONVICTION, THE EXHAUSTED Jokonans hesitated a moment too long. The attacking horseman passed between the first two before they had their own swords half drawn, and left them both reeling from bloody slashes even as he bore down on the man towing Ista. The man cried out and dodged, scrabbling for his weapon; with a deep hiss and hum, the horseman’s heavy blade parted the taut lead line. Ista’s freed horse shied back.
The gray horse reared beside her. The blade swung up, was somehow transferred to a left hand no less capable than the right, flashed around edge upward, and snaked between Ista’s hands and the saddle to which they were tied. She scarcely had time to clench her fingers back out of the way before the razor-honed blade yanked up again, parting her bindings, and whipped past her face. The horseman shot her a grin over his shoulder as sharp-edged as his blade, yelled, and spurred his steed onward.
With a fierce gasp of satisfaction, Ista untangled her wrists from the hated cords and began to lean forward and grab for her reins. Her captor in turn wheeled his horse around, barging into hers and nearly unseating her, and beat her to the snatch. He dragged the reins over her horse’s head. “Get away, get away!” she shrieked, beating at his clutching arm. With his own reins and his sword held awkwardly in his off hand, he was unbalanced, leaning far out; in a moment of terrified inspiration, she suddenly grabbed his sleeve instead, braced in her stirrups, and yanked as hard as she could. The startled Jokonan officer toppled out of his saddle and down to smack onto the stones of the rivulet.
She hoped her horse stepped on him as it danced aside, but she couldn’t be sure. The smooth wet stones were coated with green algae, slippery underfoot; her mount heaved and jerked as it stumbled. Her reins now trailed, in danger of being trampled under her horse’s front hooves. She leaned past her pommel, grabbed, missed, grabbed, caught them, let the dirty leather slide through her dirty fingers, and came upright and in control of her own movement for the first time in days. Swords were clanging and scraping. She looked around wildly.
One of the trailing soldiers was trying to beat their attacker back toward the others, while the second rider maneuvered for position to strike at the swordless side. The commander urged his horse closer to the melee, but his left hand, clumsily clutching his sword, was clapped over his right arm. Blood welled between his fingers and ran down his sleeve, making his reins slippery in his grasp. Another Jokonan soldier, who had been riding on the far side of the forward trio and so escaped the first onslaught, had managed to get his crossbow unshipped from his saddle ties and was frantically winding it while his horse sidled and snorted. A quarrel was clutched in his teeth. He spat the lethal bolt into his hand, slapped it into position, and began to raise his bow for aim. The target was moving, but the range was very short.
Ista bore no weapon . . . she aimed her horse, beating its sides with her spurless heels, and drove it into an unwilling trot across the rivulet. It bounded over the water and landed in a canter of sorts; she yanked its head around and forced it to carom into the crossbowman’s steed. He cursed as the string twanged and his shot flew wide. He swung the heavy crossbow backhanded at her head, but missed as she ducked away.
The commander screamed in Roknari over his shoulder at the crossbowman, ~Take the woman! Get her to Prince Sordso!~ The gray horseman, leaving both rear guardsmen unhorsed and bleeding, pounded forward, guiding his horse with his knees, rising in his stirrups, readying a powerful two-handed swing. The luckless commander’s last order was cut off abruptly, together with his head. Ista had a flashing view of falling body, spurting blood, shying horse, the glaring fire of an anguished soul ripped from its anchorage, and