David Weber - War Maid's choice

Yet that was precisely what they’d done…and it worked.

Less than half the horses who went down were actually hit by arrows. The others crashed into their dead or wounded fellows, falling, spilling their riders, in all too many cases rolling over those riders and crushing them in their own collapse. Here and there, a handful made it through without being hit or falling over another horse-only to encounter the obstacles strewn in their path. Some of them reared, throwing their riders, squealing in panic as they found flames directly in their path. Others broke legs on wheelbarrows or heaps of firewood, invisible to them in the smoke until far too late.

Cassan swore viciously, watching as the attack slithered to a halt. It stalled in a drift of dead or screaming horses, and the column behind them packed itself solid, unable to advance, losing its momentum and wavering in confusion.

“ Your Majesty! ”

Leeana spun as Sir Jerhas Macebearer shouted. The Prime Councilor had claimed a fallen armsman’s bow to thicken the defensive fire, as had most of the surviving courtiers and servants, and positioned himself on one flank of their perilously short line. He stood to Leeana’s left and rear…in the last line before the King.

And too far away to intervene when Sir Benshair Broadaxe, Lord Warden of Golden Hill, dropped his own bow, drew his dagger, and turned on the King.

Macebearer’s shout warned Markhos, but Golden Hill was already inside the reach of the King’s saber. Markhos dropped the sword, reaching for the dagger, then gasped as Golden Hill got past his grappling hand. It wasn’t a clean strike-the King had managed to partially block it, divert it so that it drove into the meaty part of his shoulder instead of his heart-but Golden Hill recovered the blade with a snarl, and no one else could reach him in time. He bored in again, desperate to finish the King and make his escape in the confusion of combat, and A short sword drove into his spine. He twisted, mouth open in a silent scream, dropping the dagger, and Leeana Hanathafressa kicked his body off her blade and turned to face Cassan’s armsmen.

“ Now! ”

Not even choking smoke and crackling flame could overwhelm instincts trained on half a hundred battlefields. Tellian Bowmaster and Dathgar could read the tempo of a battle the way a bard read an epic poem. Neither of them could have explained how, but they knew the exact instant when Cassan’s charge spent itself. When it recoiled, its strength compressing upon itself like a bow stave bent to the very edge of breaking.

And in that moment, they charged.

It was ludicrous, of course. There were only two coursers and a single wind rider, and there were almost a hundred mounted armsmen packed into that courtyard. Huge coursers might be, and powerful, but not even they could face those odds. It was obvious.

But no one had told them that, and even if someone had, they wouldn’t have cared. Not with the deaths of two brothers burning in their hearts and souls. Not with their daughter and wind sister fighting for her own life. Not with their King’s life hanging in the balance.

They slammed into the stalled warhorses like thunderbolts. Tellian’s saber stayed sheathed. Instead, he’d chosen a battle ax, standing in his stirrups, swinging with both hands and all the power of his back and shoulders, trusting his armor to turn any blows someone landed in return while he cropped heads and hands and arms. Blood sprayed as he sheared through flesh and bone, and Dathgar was a battering ram. He ripped into the warhorses with a high, whistling scream of rage, like a dray horse running over children’s ponies.

“ Markhos! Markhos! For the King! ”

The horses squealed, trying frantically to get out of Dathgar’s way, but there was no room to dodge, and Tellian bellowed his warcry as he and his courser literally rode down Cassan’s mounted armsmen. They clove a chasm of crushed and broken bodies-horses and men alike-through the heart of their enemies’ charge, and Gayrfressa charged beside them. Bigger and stronger even than Dathgar, the blue star of her missing eye glaring with blinding fury, hooves like hammers, jaws like axes, and filled with a rage that was terrifying to behold. She rampaged across the courtyard like a chestnut hurricane, and then she and Dathgar burst through the far side of the column, turned hard to their left, and braked to a halt on one flank of that short line of armsmen.

It was too much.

Cassan’s armsmen might have been willing to continue that charge, to continue to attack, but their horses were not. They recoiled, turned and fought their way back out of the hunting lodge’s confining walls and the smoke and the fire and the blood which had consumed so many of their fellows, and they took Cassan and his armsmen with them.

Cassan wrestled his stampeding mount to a halt.

The warhorse trembled under him, snorting, shaking its head, still fighting the bit, but the baron dragged it under control with an iron hand. He turned it, forcing it back, and saw Stoneblade pulling his own mount to a stop beside the lead troop of the company he’d held in reserve. The captain’s breastplate was splashed with blood-someone else’s, obviously-and Cassan’s jaw tightened as he drew rein beside the armsman and saw Stoneblade’s expression…and no sign of Horsemaster.

“You were right,” he said quickly, before Stoneblade could speak. “We should have gone in on foot.”

The admission seemed to defuse at least some of the captain’s anger and Stoneblade drew a deep breath.

“Done is done, Milord.” His grim voice was harsh. “But I think we’d best organize a bit better for the next attack.”

“Agreed,” Cassan said curtly.

The captain seemed to hover on the brink of saying something more, and tension crackled between them for a moment. Then that moment passed and Stoneblade looked away.

“I’ll see to it, then.”

He gave his baron a brusque nod and began barking orders, and Cassan watched him. Then he glanced at Tarmahk Dirkson, and his personal armsman looked back…and nodded slowly.

“Oh, stop fussing, Jerhas!” King Markhos said testily.

“But, Your Majesty-”

“Stop fussing, I said.” The King shook his head. “It hurts, all right? I admit it. But I’m not exactly in danger of bleeding to death, and we have other things to worry about.”

The Prime Councilor looked as if he wanted to argue, but he clamped his jaw, and Markhos grunted in satisfaction. The bandage over the deep wound in his shoulder made an ungainly lump under his bloodstained tunic and he looked just a little pale, but his blue eyes were clear and snapping with anger.

“We won’t be that lucky a second time,” he told Tellian flatly, and the baron was forced to nod.

“Probably not, Your Majesty. Even Cassan’s going to be bright enough not to pack cavalry like that again. They’ll either push an infantry column through the gate or come at us over the wall, the way that first lot did.”

“Why in Phrobus’ name didn’t they do that the first time?” someone demanded, and Tellian shrugged.

“Because he thought his way would work,” he said. “And because all this smoke”-he gestured at the thick columns rising from the fires-“is going to attract someone’s attention. And when it does, the people who see it are going to remember the King’s visiting here. He needs to finish this before any unfortunate witnesses happen along.”

“I think there may be another reason, Milord,” Leeana said, carefully not calling him father. He looked at her, and she grimaced. “The confusion,” she said.

“To create an opportunity for Golden Hill, you mean?” Macebearer said, glaring at the elegantly dressed corpse one of Swordshank’s armsmen had dragged away and heaved onto the pile of bodies heaped into a grisly breastwork for their position.