The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [175]
What she saw sickened her. Men bleeding, screaming, striking out with staves while the bandits and their swords cut and swung relentlessly—as she watched, Aethel staggered back, his throat pouring blood, and fell under the hooves of a horse. Dougie— where was Dougie? She saw a blade flash up, and his red hair. A bandit screamed and fell from the saddle as the horse buckled to its knees.
More hoofbeats, this from behind her—she turned to see another pack of men, too many, too fast for her to count, racing across the grassland. At the head, someone familiar—Laz! Of all men to be there, Laz! He was yelling orders in some language she couldn’t understand as part of the Horsekin mob swung around to face this new threat. Swords flashed up, blood on the blades. A horse screamed with an ugly half-human sound, then fell dying into the road.
At the sight, Berwynna’s mule panicked again. When it reared, she hit it between the ears as hard as she could and brought it down. With a bray it broke into a dead run and raced across the meadowlands. She yanked, screamed, could do nothing to stop it. All at once it reared, came down with a jolt, and bucked before she could set herself. She tumbled over its head and fell hard into the tall grass. It leaped over her and raced off.
Berwynna clambered to her feet. Her back ached like fire, but she could see three Horsekin riding straight for her, and from somewhere she found the strength to run. Tripping and stumbling she sprinted through the grass. Trees, she was thinking, if I could only get to the trees. But the forest verge stood far away, and the three riders gained steadily. Long before she reached it, they caught her.
She heard one yell a single word as they pulled up their foaming horses and surrounded her. One of them, more human looking than the others, dismounted and made a grab at her. She dodged, ran straight into the flanks of a horse, and twisted away, but he grabbed her by the arm with one huge hand. She kicked him in the shins and screamed, kept kicking and screaming as he struggled to grab her with both hands.
The other men began yelling at him, perhaps to hurry, perhaps to just let the lass go, because she could hear other horses galloping toward them. Her captor held on grimly with one hand, yanked her hard and slammed her up against his body. He slapped his other hand over her mouth—his mistake, because she got a good hunk of flesh between her teeth and bit down as hard as she could. Blood filled her mouth and made her gag. He yelped and pulled his hand free. His grip loosened just enough for her to squirm away. She stumbled backward, but as she fell, she kicked up and got him sharply between the legs with the toe of her riding boot. He yelped again and doubled over.
His two companions began yelling at him as the hoofbeats pounded closer. Berwynna just managed to get to her feet before horses surrounded her. One horse rammed into her, but she managed to keep her feet by throwing her arms around its neck and clinging as its head swung down toward her. She could hear men yelling in a mix of languages and see the flash of metal above her. All she could allow herself to think of was getting free of that melee before it killed her by accident. She let go the horse, ducked, dodged, saw a brief opening as a bleeding horse fell to its knees. She raced through it just before another horse closed the gap. She reached open ground and began running toward the road.
“Wynni!” Dougie’s voice, a blessed, blessed sound, reached her over the screams