The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [174]
“Evil spirits? Truly?”
“So some say.” Aethel winked at her. “I have my doubts.”
They’d gone another mile, perhaps, when Berwynna noticed the raven. It came flying fast out of the north, a black mark on the clear warm sky at first.
“Dougie,” Berwynna said. “I think that bird’s heading straight for us.”
“So it is.” Dougie shaded his eyes with his hand. “And it’s a fair big bird for a raven, too.”
About the size of a pony, Berwynna suddenly realized, when the raven swooped down low. The caravan halted in sheer surprise at this impossible sight and turned into a milling confusion on the road as the enormous raven circled overhead. It was cawing in a loud shriek, over and over. Berwynna suddenly realized that it was trying to speak.
“Bandits, bandits! Danger, danger!” she called out. “Be that what you’re telling us?”
“Bandits, danger!” the raven called back. “True, true!”
With a last flap of wings it flew away, heading back north. Aethel raised his quarterstaff high and took charge.
“Bring the stock round in a circle! Hobble the mules! Get your staves ready, men! Berwynna, ride into the middle of the circle of mules and stay there!”
The mules picked up the mood of the men. They began braying and kicking as the muleteers pulled the leather hobbles out of packsaddles and various sacks. One muleteer had to grab a mule’s halter and steady it while another fought to get the hobbles on its forefeet. Berwynna’s own mount laid back its ears and tried to buck. Dougie grabbed its halter with both hands and pulled it down.
“Listen, lass!” Dougie said. “I can’t stay with you if we get attacked. If this blasted animal tries to buck again, you make a fist like this—” He held up a clenched fist. “And hit it hard between the ears.”
“I will.”
Aethel suddenly yelled, a wordless screech of alarm. Berwynna twisted round in the saddle and looked back at the forest verge just as mounted men trotted out of the trees. They yelled in return and kicked their mounts to a gallop.
“Horsekin!” Richt yelled. “Ah, shit!”
The muleteers left the stock to its panic and rushed to grab quarterstaves. Dougie drew his long sword and ran toward the forming battle line. Berwynna tried to urge her mule in among the others, but it ignored her yanks on the halter rope and swung around toward the danger as if it wanted to see what might happen. All around them the other mules brayed and jostled one another.
The galloping mob of Horsekin slowed to a trot and split in two. Each half swerved off the road, then trotted around, readying themselves to attack the band of mules and men from the sides like two halves of a pair of iron tongs. We’re doomed! she thought. They’re high up on horseback. Our men are on the ground. Even Aethel and Richt had dismounted to fight. The bandits paused, letting their horses blow and recover their breath, just long enough for her to get a good look at them—tall men, all of them, carrying curved swords, with huge manes of curly black hair and pale faces covered in bright-colored tattoos. At a yell from their leader they inched their horses forward and began to surround the circled muleteers.
Berwynna’s mule brayed, tried to rear, then kicked out. All around her, the other mules began to bray as well, to rear and buck as if they were trying to free themselves from their packsaddles and panniers. The hobbled mules swayed back and forth. One of them tried to kick out with its hind legs only to fall when it lost its balance. The fall, and its anguished brays as it struggled to get back to its feet, broke the last of the herd’s morale.
The mules panicked and ran. A few raced down the road, others across the meadow, a few back toward the forest. Most of them, however, charged straight into the gang of bandits on the left. Perhaps in their mulish minds they thought safety lay among the horses. Be that as it may, they disrupted the barely-begun charge from that side of the road.
Yelling curses, the bandits to the right charged.